3 ms·

Does that invalidate his current opinions? People can change their minds.

by pjscott 16y ago

_delirium 16y ago
I suppose it boils down to not really believing that he's changed his mind. His expressed views on academia are quite consistent over the past 25 years. He wrote frequently against academia while he was getting degrees, but continued to stay there and finish two degrees anyway. Take a look at late-80s and early-90s issues of the Stanford Review, the right-wing newspaper he co-founded. His main beef with academia is that he feels it's one major impediment to libertarian politics, so he wants as few people as possible to be exposed to it. Perhaps he also now genuinely believes that finishing his two degrees was a mistake, and it's actually in kids' own best interests to drop out of school. But I'm skeptical that that, rather than politics, is the real reason, as I usually am when someone's professed beliefs: 1) don't match their own actions; yet 2) conveniently match their politics.
- hristov 16y ago
  I agree. I think this is really a libertarian attack on academia. If you read the atlantic and the economist you will notice that an attack on academia had been going on for a while now from libertarian circles. Which is kind of ironic because universities overloaded themselves with libertarian professors (some with very flimsy scholarly credentials) in the last ten years in order to suck up to the Bush administration and the right wing donors that are getting more and more important. But of course libertarians are not happy to have some professors in universities. After all universities offer tenure and independence of thought, etc. They much prefer to have no universities and have all scholarship done in "think tanks" where "scholars" follow orders and get fired at the first sign of disobedience.
  - daeken 16y ago
    > Which is kind of ironic because universities overloaded themselves with libertarian professors (some w scholarly credentials) in the last ten years in order to suck up to the Bush administration and the right wing donors that are getting more and more important. Holy random statement, batman. Do you have a citation for this? The idea of libertarian professors being a plus to the Bush administration makes effectively no sense whatsoever.
    - _delirium 16y ago
      I'm guessing he's referring to the conservative/libertarian donors who've established Ayn-Rand-studies endowed chairs at a few universities. It's a pretty small number, though (I think three), not really a tidal wave.

Does that invalidate his current opinions? People can change their minds.

by pjscott 16y ago

Does that invalidate his current opinions? People can change their minds.

I suppose it boils down to not really believing that he's changed his mind. His expressed views on academia are quite consistent over the past 25 years. He wrote frequently against academia while he was getting degrees, but continued to stay there and finish two degrees anyway. Take a look at late-80s and early-90s issues of the Stanford Review, the right-wing newspaper he co-founded. His main beef with academia is that he feels it's one major impediment to libertarian politics, so he wants as few people as possible to be exposed to it. Perhaps he also now genuinely believes that finishing his two degrees was a mistake, and it's actually in kids' own best interests to drop out of school. But I'm skeptical that that, rather than politics, is the real reason, as I usually am when someone's professed beliefs: 1) don't match their own actions; yet 2) conveniently match their politics.

hristov 16y ago
I agree. I think this is really a libertarian attack on academia. If you read the atlantic and the economist you will notice that an attack on academia had been going on for a while now from libertarian circles. Which is kind of ironic because universities overloaded themselves with libertarian professors (some with very flimsy scholarly credentials) in the last ten years in order to suck up to the Bush administration and the right wing donors that are getting more and more important. But of course libertarians are not happy to have some professors in universities. After all universities offer tenure and independence of thought, etc. They much prefer to have no universities and have all scholarship done in "think tanks" where "scholars" follow orders and get fired at the first sign of disobedience.
- daeken 16y ago
  > Which is kind of ironic because universities overloaded themselves with libertarian professors (some w scholarly credentials) in the last ten years in order to suck up to the Bush administration and the right wing donors that are getting more and more important. Holy random statement, batman. Do you have a citation for this? The idea of libertarian professors being a plus to the Bush administration makes effectively no sense whatsoever.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    I'm guessing he's referring to the conservative/libertarian donors who've established Ayn-Rand-studies endowed chairs at a few universities. It's a pretty small number, though (I think three), not really a tidal wave.