Two decades in higher education has taught me this: what most academics say is that they wish to challenge the prejudices of their students. When they really mean to say is that they intend to replace the prejudices of the students with the prejudices of academics.I would not go so far as to say "most," but I will say that I had more than a few professors who saw their function as replacing the narrow-minded Christianity of their students (although few actually held those views at the college I attended) with their own, vastly more enlightened views about religion, politics, and economics. The only consolation is that many of this set were either such mean and nasty people, or so clumsy in their indoctrination efforts, that they were not terribly successful.
The university that I completed my BA and MA at was Sonoma State University. One of their specialties was something called Critical Thinking. My wife had the misfortune to take one of the Critical Thinking classes as part of her general education requirements. The assigned textbook was actually pretty good. Yes, the leftist orientation of the authors showed through, but it at least did give examples from both sides of the political spectrum where applying critical thinking skills was useful. Unfortunately, her professor made almost no use of the textbook. Instead, he would show up for class and just about every class session, read articles out of one of the daily newspapers in order to bash the elder President Bush. No, really. She tells me it was grossly and obviously very one-sided, with no attempt to apply critical thinking skills to the left-wing political foolishness of the time. The professor was apparently incapable of or uninterested in applying these skills he was trying to teach.
The university also had a summer program intended to teach Critical Thinking to secondary school teachers. I was walking through the campus one afternoon, and they were apparently doing some close of the program, outside session with all the secondary teachers. One particular phrase, delivered with enormous certainty and passion, still sticks in my mind: "When you take the Truth back to your schools...." And yes, you could hear the capital on Truth as the professor spoke. Fanaticism doesn't need a religion to make it fanatical or dangerous.
I do my best when I teach history to not follow in the footsteps of these fanatics. I emphasize the role of ideology in molding (and not in a good way) historical analysis. I tell my students that a good historian gathers data first, and if you find data that does not fit your assumptions, you need to keep looking to see if there is more of this data that doesn't fit. If you find enough of this data that doesn't fit, you need to modify your conclusions to fit the data--don't throw it away. Heaven forbid that they end up like some of the professors that I had at Sonoma State University.
Clayton, my most frustrating college class (circa 1982) was an early morning political science section taught by a flaming liberal grad student who knew everything but had no experience and viewed us as her subjects while openly condemning President Reagan for everything from imperialism and Iran to the price of bananas. We had a few choice discussions along the way, normally started when one if us asked a question that required her to publicly think about why it was evil for Reagan to stand up for freedom and democracy around the world but healthy for her comrades to burn and destroy while demanding freedom for something deviant. I felt considerably justified in my feelings about her, but less so about the university, when she and her girlfriend stumbled into the Wal-Mart where I worked absolutely hammered. I got to escort them off the property, which led to the pinball shouting match oscillating between "you fascist" and "you guys wanna come party?". Yep, she had all of the answers but had no idea what the questions were...
ReplyDeleteKevin
There is a more fundamental issue at stake here, too: why can't we be free to negotiate the insurance we want?
ReplyDeleteMy wife and I just spent about three or four weeks trying to find insurance that would cover us. When we finally found something, we had to have special deductibles for my wife's kidney stones and c-sections. Technically, they are "covered" as required by Utah law, but the deductibles are so high, in practice we aren't covered.
Which may sound bad, but it's better than being denied coverage altogether, and it's cheaper than the Approved Utah Solution: to have family coverage for all but my wife (with no difference in the cost of the family plan), and then to use "HIP Utah" to cover my wife.
When I say "cheaper", I mean $350 vs $550 cheaper.
For crying out loud, governments! Insurance would be cheaper if you just kept your nose out of my living room, phone line, and insurance office!
If I recall correctly, the Science Fiction author L. Sprague De Kamp said that the truth was what was left after you stop believing.
ReplyDeleteAs for my experiences in University, I recall a very resentful professor in 1980 make the calculation from population to those who could vote to those who did to the 50% + who voted for Ronald Reagan and saying that wasn't much of a mandate. Somehow I am sure that he thought the 50% plus for Clinton and Obama were genuine mandates, though.
Another thing he said was in regards to the cold war, "Give the Russians credit for being scared,", which implied that there was something for them to be scared of. I said nothing at the time, because I consider these professorial reveals to be set-piece battles against unprepared and unarmed opponents (the students). I somehow doubt that he gave any credit at all for the Americans being scared in the first year of WW2.