Diversity of Everything but Thought

god you crack me up . . . nice blanket ad hom, there . . .

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I have noticed a recent pervading habit of saying...liberals are...liberals think...

Will have to meditate.

Well, I DID say "most". Not so blankety...

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oh well.......who needs logic when one can simply declare themselves to be right........logic be damned.

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By the way, can i assume from your righteous adherence to republican virtue that you intend to make damned certain that no conservative instructor ever discounts someone's work on a partisan basis?

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You're damn right.

It's the same thing.

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Well good for you Lash. You are the first and only person to sort of address my question whether a good education can be had on a campus dominated by conservatives and conservative thought with little or no liberal viewpoint offered. Of course if that would not be acceptable, the implication for the converse is hard to miss.

I think my own argument in this entire thread has been consistent. Only when both conservative and liberal viewpoints provide a broad diversity of thought can students have any chance to learn to think critically and draw conclusions from a wide range of criteria. I don't think a complete education can happen without that.

What studies are we waiting on again?

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Quote:

I think my own argument in this entire thread has been consistent. Only when both conservative and liberal viewpoints provide a broad diversity of thought can students have any chance to learn to think critically and draw conclusions from a wide range of criteria. I don't think a complete education can happen without that.

Well, this is a no brainer. Of course a good education requires a diversity of thought. That's what education is........although there are plenty of "Christian" colleges and universities (and high schools and home schools) that don't seem to get it.

Quote:

What studies are we waiting on again?

Have you not been paying attention, Foxy? My god, girl! You and George Will have made the accusation (on page one of this thread) that because many universities employ more Democrats than Republicans (registered, that is) that this proves they do not encourage diversity of thought. And it is this that is the assumption in question.

In the first place, there is the assumption that all Democrats are "left of center." And secondly, because of the assumed truth of the first, you assume they receive preferencial treatment in the hiring process.

But these are not all the assumptions in your claim. You (and this assumption goes beyond George Will's article) assume that because there are more Democrats working as faculty, that these Democrats (liberal or not, hired preferencially or not) do not encourage students to think, considering a diversity of thought on a given subject.

I can think of lots of other possibilities other than your apparently unconscious assumptions provide. For instance, it may be that Republicans or, let's say conservatives are less interested in subjects requiring analytic or abstract thought. Many conservatives, in my experience which is obviously and admittedly subjective, think in terms of black and white, they take matters at their face value, they think concretely and are made uncomfortable by the awareness of the possibility that there is more than one way to look at a thing. For instance, you and sometimes Lash seem unwilling to consider the possibility that your assumptions are not absolutely correct......that there may be another perspective to consider. All I hear from you is the party line, no matter how many contortions into which you have to twist yourself.

Set, Bernie, I and other liberals on this thread, on the other hand are suggesting that we don't know if the phenomenon you suggest is in fact true without scientific research.

You apparently don't even know what studies we've been talking about, indicating, it seems to me to reveal a failure to understand the need for them before such charges are made.

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Don't indict Lash. She saw the logic on page 153.

I still think that if there were legions of Profs who couldnt' get jobs b/c of their political bent, we'd be hearing about that aspect of it. But we aren't.

I suspect this is because Conservatives generally don't apply themselves as profs in near as great numbers.

This, I believe, is a major factor in the 'bias' of profs on campus.

An open question: Which subjects do people think should be taught with both Liberal and Conservative viewpoints? In which ways, exactly? If a prof is a Liberal, should they be forced to teach Conservative views? The opposite? Should we be messing around with what they say at all?

Cycloptichorn

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Cyclop writes

Quote:

An open question: Which subjects do people think should be taught with both Liberal and Conservative viewpoints? In which ways, exactly? If a prof is a Liberal, should they be forced to teach Conservative views? The opposite? Should we be messing around with what they say at all?

When I was in college (the first time), most of my professors presented at least two sides to any subject that had any wiggle room for subjectivity. I can still remember my favorite economics professor thundering away on a particular point until he had the class nodding in agreement and writing down the logical conclusion. Then he would switch to another theory and thunder away at that until we again were nodding in agreement. So then we were faced with two well reasoned, well expressed, seemingly completely logical propositions that were in direct conflict with each other, and from that point we were forced to think critically instead of by rote.

I also had a few professors who obviously leaned Marxist socialists in their ideology, and some who were just a hair short of Birchers, but each provided unique perspectives that I would never have received from one alone.

This is what I want for my kids and grandkids, and I don't think it is unreasonable to expect it of public institutions of higher learning.

I'm with Lash as to be willing for further analysis on this whole issue. But again based on my personal experience with the educators I know, the climate on campus can be very toxic for any faculty who lean conservative and make that known. That has to be at least considered in the theories of why there are so few conservative educators on major college campuses.

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Quote:

Don't indict Lash. She saw the logic on page 153.

Thanks Cyclo, I skipped several pages because I had gotten so far behind. But I have learned from my experience with Lash that she is (with the help of a nudge or two) willing and able to consider the possibility of another perspective long enough to be able to let logic intervene. That's why I said, "sometimes Lash."

Your other questions are I think excellent and deserve a lot of discussion.

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Lash wrote:

Soz--

I don't disagree with anything you put forward in your hypothesis.

Here is mine:

1.) That there are a lot of liberals in academe. Just as there are a lot of conservatives in the military, as another example of a field that tends to attract one or the other.

2.) That there are students who are unhappy with their professors. For many reasons mind you.

3.) That there are terrible, somewhat bad, and merely OK professors mixed in with a lot of just fine, very good, and absolutely amazing professors. Who are terrible, somewhat bad, and merely OK for many reasons, mind you.

3a) One of the reasons is that they do not self-police their behavior, and this lack of self-restraint or ignorance leads them to inflict their personal political views on students.

3aI) Some of them do this purposefully, and some do it not realizing it.

3aII) It has an unfair and damaging effect on some students.

3aIII) And, even if it doesn't, this is wrong.

But, yes. To get to 3aIII, one needs full evidence.

Kicking this forward.

[size=7](is the corollary that more liberal principles must be taught in the military?) <<< do not discuss! [/size]

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I'm giving Lola the 'no sense of humor' award for the day.

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An even better question, and one more pressing and relevant to this discussion is the motivation for it in the first place. Why are we talking about this now? And why has it been presented to the public in ways such as George Will's piece at the beginning of this thread and David Horowitz's militant activities? I think it's part of a propaganda campaign in which the case is purposefully presented, full of suggestions which are not identified as assumptions for the very purpose of misleading the voters.

Exactly who are these people that are so intolerant of diversity of thought?

Let's discuss that too.

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Foxfyre wrote:

I'm giving Lola the 'no sense of humor' award for the day.

Thank you Foxy. And I accept the award and the honor it represents.
You're right. I don't think this is very funny.

However, I am guilty and admit it. I haven't been being very nice.

But you've also given us an example of exactly what your professor friends and students of your acquaintance can do when faced with a professor who is pushing or confronting them with a point they do not seem to want to hear. Thank you also for that.

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Well I don't see the correlation, but I'll fight to the death your right to make it. You might or might not see how off base you are if you had read the thread though. Smile

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<wincing>

I didn't see the light on page 153, I finally saw a way to explain my position on 153, piggybacking soz' hypothesis.

I just think, because of news accounts, complaints I've read, and my knowledge of the fact that:

college professors are overwhelmingly liberal (proven)

and

they are also human (under investigation)

and

humans tend to be more imperfect than perfect (!)

added to my strong opinion that

when people of like minds accumilate, they forge a groupthink environment (actually, I think this HAS been proven, but I'll have to see)

and

in a groupthink environment, the center moves to the extreme (again, I think this has been proven...?)

and

in the groupthink environment at most college campuses, professors who have moved to the extreme left leak their views in the classroom, and it colors how they treat, grade and interact with students. (This is the biggy. Fox, this is the study I'M waiting for.)
-----------------

I shall be poking around occasionally, looking for evidence of my thesis.

But, until I have satisfied myself in that endeavor, I am content with soz' hypothesis, which was mine, too, without my further additions.

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Quote:

in the groupthink environment at most college campuses, professors who have moved to the extreme left leak their views in the classroom, and it colors how they treat, grade and interact with students. (This is the biggy. Fox, this is the study I'M waiting for.)

Yes! Me too. This is the critical piece of info that is missing from Fox's argument.

Cycloptichorn

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Lash wrote:

in a groupthink environment, the center moves to the extreme (again, I think this has been proven...?)

Isn't this what most non-U.S. posters here have been saying for a couple of years? The Democrats have moved noticeably right of centre over the past several decades, forcing the Republicans further right of centre - til they've nudged the extreme edge of right of the global political spectrum.

Doesn't seem like any kind of newsflash to me. <shrug>

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Lola wrote:

An even better question, and one more pressing and relevant to this discussion is the motivation for it in the first place. Why are we talking about this now? And why has it been presented to the public in ways such as George Will's piece at the beginning of this thread and David Horowitz's militant activities? I think it's part of a propaganda campaign in which the case is purposefully presented, full of suggestions which are not identified as assumptions for the very purpose of misleading the voters.

Exactly who are these people that are so intolerant of diversity of thought?

Let's discuss that too.

Part of the ongoing process of the far right selling "The Protocols of the Elders of Liberalism".

With any luck, soon there will be book burnings, trials by water, and Vermont will be a concentration camp for anyone to the left of Colin Powell's right thumb.

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ehBeth wrote:

Lash wrote:
in a groupthink environment, the center moves to the extreme (again, I think this has been proven...?)

Isn't this what most non-U.S. posters here have been saying for a couple of years? The Democrats have moved noticeably right of centre over the past several decades, forcing the Republicans further right of centre - til they've nudged the extreme edge of right of the global political spectrum.

Doesn't seem like any kind of newsflash to me. <shrug>

Couple of years? Last couple of decades, I would say.

Our Labor Party is now occupying a lot of the ground our conservatives occupied previously - our conservatives have moved much farther right.

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Diversity of Everything but Thought

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