Diversity of Everything but Thought

The thesis of this thread is based on the proposition that the "left' promotes 'diversity of everything but thought'; however, I would expect any similar phenomenon from the 'right' to be more than fair game for the discussion. The article used to start the thread was a George Will essay citing studies of the sociopolitical ideology of university faculty along with examples of how that presents a problem for students with a different ideology.

Is it possible to focus on that instead of attacks on each other at this point?. Is it possible to consider the advantages of tolerance for diversity of thought? Or do some here really think those who do not think as they do are ignorant, uneducated, subversive, or evil?

I have previously posted the following information. I apologize for its length, but as the discussion seems to focus on Horowitz's ideology at this point, rather than on his ideas, I think an informed discussion should at least use his own words in context.

What I would enjoy at this point is comments on Horowitz's rebuttal to his critics posted here. I want to know specifically how he is wrong or off base in his views. Or how he is right if you read that into what he says.
(I have prefaced the piece with a short biography.)

Quote:

Biography
DAVID HOROWITZ is a nationally known author and lifelong civil rights activist. He was one of the founders of the New Left in the 1960s and editor of its largest magazine, Ramparts. In the 1970s he created the Oakland Community Learning Center, an inner city school for disadvantaged children that was run by the Black Panther Party. In the 1990s he created the Individual Rights Foundation, which led the battle against speech codes on college campuses, and compelled the entire ""president''s cabinet"" of the University of Minnesota to undergo five hours of sensitivity training in the First Amendment for violating the free speech rights of its students. In 1996 he was a spokesman for the California Civil Rights Initiative, which barred government from discriminating against ""or granting preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin."" This year he has joined Ward Connerly''s campaign to pass a Racial Privacy Initiative. This is an anti-racial profiling initiative that would prevent government agencies from asking citizens about their race. David Horowitz is an outspoken opponent of censorship and racial preferences, and a defender of the rights of minorities and other groups under attack -- including the rights of blacks, gays, women, Jews, Muslims, Christians and white males.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/AboutHorowitz/index.asp

The Strange Dishonest Campaign Against Academic Freedom

By David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 29, 2005

Ever since I launched the campaign for an Academic Bill of Rights some eighteen months ago in October 2003, the most salient feature of the battle against it has been the dishonesty of its academic opponents. The opposition has gone so far as to compare my campaign for intellectual diversity on college campuses to Mao Zedong''s purge of the Communist Party elite, during the ""cultural revolution,"" surely an unintended reflection on the critics themselves. And this is only the beginning of the attacks. William E. Scheuerman, chair of the AFT''s higher education division, called the legislation ""crazy,"" ""Orwellian,"" and McCarthyite. Scheurman, president of United University Professions, which represents faculty members at the State University of New York, said that the legislation''s provisions requiring equal representation of views on controversial issues would require courses on the Holocaust to change so that ""on Monday we would hear that the Holocaust was bad, on Wednesday that it was good, and on Friday that it never happened.""

There is no such provision in the Academic Bill of Rights.

The fact is that I planned this campaign to repair a broken academic process as a non-partisan effort, and specifically to be viewpoint neutral. The very first principle of the Academic Bill of Rights, for example, forbids the firing of professors on the basis of their political views. In launching the campaign I hoped to restore the educational guidelines that had been in place when I was an undergraduate at Columbia University in the 1950s.

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"Separate his ideas from his ideology"!? What do those two words mean?

Quote:

April 25

David Horowitz's War on Rational Discourse
By Graham Larkin
(see HERE

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http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=David_Horowitz_(ex-Marxist)

http://www.aaup-ca.org/Larkin_abor.html
http://aaup-ca.org/larkin_horowitz.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Horowitz

http://mediamatters.org/items/200503180001

http://www.couterpunchorg/nimmo1031.html

http://reason.com/links/links091703.shtml

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You respond to a request to discuss Horowitz's rebuttal to his critics by posting another piece from his critics.

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Foxfyre wrote:

The thesis of this thread is based on the proposition that the "left' promotes 'diversity of everything but thought'

When I went to university over the decades, propositions had to be backed up with evidence. That means numbers - statistics - proof.

I've been reading and reading and reading and reading and reading this thread, and there has been no statistical proof to back up the "proposition".

Perhaps people who support the proposition could bring in some statistical evidence at some point.

Anecdotal evidence is often entertaining, sometimes amusing - but it does not prove anything.

Where is the hard evidence to support the proposition that "the left promotes diversity of everything but thought"?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the months since this thread has started, someone should have found some proof of the proposition - if it is out there.

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How about after everything gets read, discussion can continue.

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Foxfyre wrote:

You respond to a request to discuss Horowitz's rebuttal to his critics by posting another piece from his critics.

For goodness sakes, fox. In seeking objectivity and balance, one doesn't simply listen to Person A's version of what his critics are saying.

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Where is your hard evidence that it does not ehBeth? The data presented in this thread may not satisfy you or anybody, but there is a hell of lot more of it supporting the thesis than anything the opponents of the thesis have come up with.

And we are moving on from that point I hope.

Blatham posts more of Horowitz's critics--and I have read every one of the links that work and found only his critics there along with a Wikipedia piece*--but Blatham did not refer to Horowitz's own words in context as posted to damn him.

That has been the problem thus far. Can we please use Horowitz's own statements in context and see if he is as evil.....or is as credible.....as any might assume? I can accept many posting on this thread do not like him. I do not ask or require that anyone like him. I do always believe those who are hanged should be hanged for the right crime, however.

I will state again, as I have stated before, I do not at this time support a legislative initiative for Horowitz's Academic Bill of Rights. I am not willing to damn him because he proposes that.

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Foxfyre wrote:

Where is your hard evidence that it does not ehBeth? The data presented in this thread may not satisfy you or anybody,

As you pointed out at the top of this page, FF, you started the thread with a proposition.

It is your proposition to PROVE.

~~~~~

I don't post in the thread often, but continue to read - wondering if you will ever find statistical evidence for your proposition. There have been statistical studies in this area (I've done a tiny bit of side research on the topic - but it's not my proposition to defend) - but the results must not indicate what your proposition is - or you would have posted the results.

~~~~~

and back to reading and wondering I go

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Davit Horowitz is a born troublemaker. He has a fondness for agitation and struggle, and he frequently seeks to compel people to act as he wishes through the force of law and government. He should be tolerated and his ideas are worthy of serious consideration, but we all should recognize that his chosen methods to rectify the world are as bad now as they were when, in an earlier era and phase of his life he was destroying the schools system in Oakland California.

I do agree that the academic world, which is as addicted to the human failings of fashion and conformity as any other assembly, is today in the grip of a doctrinaire liberal ideology that tends to pervade most of what it does. However, I don't believe that government action and legal intervention is either the best or indeed an appropriate remedy for the problem. We need less government direction in our lives, not more. It might be useful to strike down the remaining affirmative action laws which the universities apply so mindlessly, and enable the restoration of a system based as much on merit as possible. Beyond that the right remedy for current academic excesses is ridicule and persuasion.

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Quote:

Where is your hard evidence that it does not ehBeth? The data presented in this thread may not satisfy you or anybody, but there is a hell of lot more of it supporting the thesis than anything the opponents of the thesis have come up with.

And we are moving on from that point I hope.

No. We are not. Once again, what is in hand are:

1) survey showing preponderance of Democrat voters in the university teaching staffs

2) anecdotal reports of bias such as Horowitz claims

The first is only that. It is not evidence of bias in teaching. Nor can one infer that bias will be a consequence.

The second, anecdotal reports, represent a gathering of charges, often incomplete in detail, often contradicted by other information (see the media matters link), but gathered (other than where a2k folks have contributed) by Horowitz's organization who have as their task the gathering of incidents showing (hopefully) bias OF ONE SORT. His organization makes NO effort to gather or report instances of bias in the other direction.

Further, the anecdotal evidence provided by the set of people here on A2K does NOT support the thesis of noticeable bias, not to mention the
'endemic' bias suggested by Horowitiz and others here. The majority of members here who have attended university have stated that bias was minimal if present at all for them. And that the biases noted were not usually of a political nature. Where bias incidents have been noted by a2k members, we have had no access to the full information surrounding these reports.

Yet further, even where someone here has mentioned a bias incident, if we are to give them the benefit of the doubt, those incidents comprise an insignificant percentage of their interactions with professors. In other words, in one of three cases of interaction they evidenced bias but they leave unmentioned the hundreds of interactions where no bias was present.

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georgeob1 wrote:

Beyond that the right remedy for current academic excesses is ridicule and persuasion.

A fitting remedy in more areas than simply academics.

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Foxfyre wrote:

Have you read the book KW?

Foxfyre:

I have not read the book, nor have I claimed to. Nor do I plan to.

Ican appears to be one passing himself off as one who has read the book.

However, the issue that developed was one of alleged dirty tricks and deceit as a matter of normal policy by the left, according to Horowitz.

Blatham quoted a couple of sentences by Horowitz in other works where Horowitz seems to advocate lying and deceit by the right.

Ican says that Horowitz was describing a process of deceit by the left, not advocating the right undertake such a process.

When asked by Blatham to produce a sentence or two to back up his contention, (that Horowitz was describing deceit by the left, not advocating it for the right), all that Ican could produce was:

A) A three page excerpt from Amazon which basically says that Clinton survived impeachment by forcing the Democratic party to accept certain popular policies Horowitz labels as Republican in nature-nothing whatsoever to do with campaign of deceit,

B) A series of reviews which say Horwitz outlines a policy of deceit by Democrats in his book-but which were written by other people.

Ican further repeatedly referred to the "excerpts", (plural) he gave Blatham and the board, when in fact he produced but a single irrelevant excerpt from Horowitz. In short, Ican is trying mightlily to deceive us into lumping words by Publisher's Weekly about what Horwitz said, and what Horowitz wrote himself.

Now, if I had the Horowitz book that Ican claims to have, and anyone challenged me to produce these sentences, I would just quote a couple of relevant passages-or even sentences-and give the page numbers. That's what I would do. Wouldn't you?

Instead, we seem to run into a mighty effort by Ican to get us to confuse reviews of what Horwitz said with Horowitz' actual words. Because the single excerpt from Horowitz doesn't have a single thing to do with any supposed campaigns of deceit by the left or anyone else.

The thought presents itself that perhaps the reason Ican keeps trying to substitute reviews of what Horowitz said instead of producing actual quotes of Horowitz saying what Ican claims he did, is that Ican simply does not have those passages available-in other words, he does not have the book.

Now, I don't know Ican, I have never been to his house, so I cannot say that he does not have this book. But I can point out that he certainly is acting in this thread like he does not have this book, that the only Horowitz passages he can point to do not mention the topic in question and that he is mightlily trying to camouflage that fact by throwing in a bunch of blurbs which claim Horowitz showed this-which is not the same as producing qutoes from Horowitz himself.

And if Ican is doing this, in a discussion of alleged deceit by the left, would you not agree this would be a deceiver alleging deceit by others?

Watch, now Ican will go out and actually buy the book. Of course, he will still have to explain why he didn't give us the quotes days ago, when asked. Not trusting the transcription won't work as an excuse-with you yourself buying the book, Foxfyre, you would be in perfect position to back Ican up eventually.

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george

By gum, you almost have it. In fact, you do have it but for the following:

Quote:

I do agree that the academic world, which is as addicted to the human failings of fashion and conformity as any other assembly, is today in the grip of a doctrinaire liberal ideology that tends to pervade most of what it does.

How would one go about establishing the truth of this? I know you consider it so, and I can testify myself to incidents where a prof or even a faculty will subscribe to some temporarily fashionable set of notions...eg, educational theory that considered content not terribly relevant and considered process far more so; a philosophy department library which carried no Thomas Nagel out of philsophical disagreement; an advisor who insisted that Shakespeare was clearly a believing Christian; etc.

But why shove all this diversity of bias or fashion into the "doctrinaire liberal ideology"? And what might be the opposite of that? "Doctrinaire Conservative Ideology"? I don't even know what that would look like, other than Horowitz. "Doctrinaire Catholic Ideology"? "Doctrinaire Americanism"?

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Damn ! Notes of (qualified) approval from both Setanta and Blatham. It must have been the oatmeal I had for breakfast.

I note that Blatham said "I almost have it". Screw you: I got it.

Well Gonzaga High School was certainly in the grip of a form of Catholic ideology; the Naval Academy in the grip of a form of nationalist and maritime ideology (but I did take a course in "Modern Existential Literature" there) and Cal Tech in the grip of a scientific/engineering one. There many ideologies out there that, at one time or place or another, have gripped this or that institution. I believe though that, particularly in the 'soft' academic disciplines, there is, across the country, a marked tendency for what is contemporaneously called liberal thought and doctrine in the policies public expressions and selection/promotion actions of most universities. The recent furor over Larry Sommers remarks at Harvard tells the tale quite adequately, as does the academic prominence of charlatans like Cornel West. Though academics pose as intellectuals well above the sectarian fray they are, in their collective behavior, quite herd oriented and supremely intolerant. (I do believe there is a statistical concentration of sissy nerds there that works afterwards to take revenge on the more active types who roughed them up as adolescents. I don't suggest this is a dominant factor, but one that does exist.)

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I started this thread with this statement:

Quote:

We've looked at how the U.S. media is 75% - 80% left of center with 8 out of 10 media figures being registered Democrats. The following illustrates an even more intense imbalance in academia when compared with the politics, values, and beliefs of average Americans.

What makes this remarkable is that there remains such wide diversity of thought among those average Americans.

The thesis re diversity of thought in academia was not mine. It was George Will's. The only thesis I stated at the beginning was my opinion that diversity exists elsewhere despite the imbalance cited.

The thread was intended as an invitation to reasonable people to discuss the thesis. Again and again the thread has disintegrated into personal attacks, politics of personal destruction, and blatant demonstrations of intolerance of diversity of thought.

Again I ask that we set aside our personal opinions of Horowitz and each other and look at his own words, in context, and see what there is there that we either agree with or find objectionable. I think it only fair to him and it might yield a decent discussion. His rebuttal of his critics should be sufficient material to work with re the thesis of the thread.
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1350313#1350313

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OMG, i'm rollin' with laughter . . . not only does the Fox offer her slanted opinions as statements from authority, now she's quoting her own statements from authority . . .

heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee . . .

i think its a plot to murder me . . . death by uncontrollable laughter . . .

i'm outta here . . .

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Foxfire, If your point of discussion is that there might be more "diversity of thought" among the American Public than exists among the media and academic elites that despise them so much, I quite agree. I also agree that Horowitz has been a largely effective critic of them. (However little I support the remedies he proposes.)

An important part of the contemporary distemper of the conventional (and declining) media establishment is frustration over the stupidity they perceive in the American people. "How can they not understand the absolute correctness of our views, and the necessity of the political actions we recommend? It must be a vast conspiracy of the Religious Right". The truth is that most people in their private reflections are not intimidated or directed by the media and academic elites. They actually think for themselves. Consider all the (mostly mindless in my view) narrow debates over the justification for our intervention in Iraq that have consumed so much space on these threads. Critics focus on narrow interpretations of WMD issues and legalisms based on the false presumption that the UN is some sort of world government. The public has understood the far more complex argument involving the broad cultural confrontation before us quite well, and has supported the policy.

So I guess I agree with George Will.

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Fox, can't you see that even though George is on your side, he can't support your proofless argument?

You say you need us to provide evidence and proof for our side? Fine. Prove to me that there are no aliens on this planet, and that there are no black geese, and I'll provide you the proof you need for your satisfaction.

An earlier poster said

Quote:

Foxfyre wrote:
"When I went to university over the decades, propositions had to be backed up with evidence. That means numbers - statistics - proof."

I've been reading and reading and reading and reading and reading this thread, and there has been no statistical proof to back up the "proposition".

Perhaps people who support the proposition could bring in some statistical evidence at some point.

Anecdotal evidence is often entertaining, sometimes amusing - but it does not prove anything.

Where is the hard evidence to support the proposition that "the left promotes diversity of everything but thought"?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the months since this thread has started, someone should have found some proof of the proposition - if it is out there.

And this is all true. I even outlined several different ways in which Fox could fix her broken argument, none of which she has chosen to do. In fact, if I remember correctly, she has quit the thread voiciferously in disgust several times...but keeps coming back for more every time b/c she just can't stay away from the central premise of her ideology, and the fact she has NO PROOF at all of it just doesn't matter when it comes to making claims as facts.

George

Quote:

The public has understood the far more complex argument involving the broad cultural confrontation before us quite well, and has supported the policy.

You have it completely backwards. The public 'understands' a far simpler argument, one that is bereft of consequences or considerations of merit, bereft of evidence, with no understanding of the historical effects of such actions or any understanding of the careful balance of power in the region at all, and is primarily based upon fear and a sense of self-preservation. Who can blame them? They are far too busy getting on with their and their families' lives to do the neccessary research to see why this war has problems, problems that even you as a supporter can see.

Cycloptichorn

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I provided the link to the piece that I would like to discuss which escaped the one eager to ridicule me. But that is not unusual nor unexpected.

George, I have no reason not to agree with George Will or with others who agree with him though my initial college experience, decades ago, was exactly how Horowitz describes his college experience. However, my more recent experience on a college campus and with college academics was closer to George Will's assessment.

And I long ago (on this thread) conceded that the college environment is not significantly swaying the beliefs of those who come to it with different perspectives.

My professors gave us both sides of all issues that had two sides and required that we consider both sides critically. We were told what happened, with no ideological coloring, and were required to determine and report the causes and effects. Was there diversity of opinion in the conclusions we came up with? Absolutely. And it was in no way discouraged. The best professors did not presume to tell us how to think or what to think but taught us how to think by pointing out factual errors in our conclusions and reasoning processes.

That's what I want for my children and grandchildren. I think that is what Horowitz is proposing with his Academic Bill of Rights, though I think he is wrong in seeking a legislative remedy to accomplish it.

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