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The author tries to pidgin hole an institution into left-right and it doesn't work. Mental gymnastics ensue. The sentiment of most professors and new grads is

The author tries to pidgin hole an institution into left-right and it doesn't work. Mental gymnastics ensue. The sentiment of most professors and new grads is left leaning. It's been that way for decades, maybe forever. Numerous polls show this to be the case. Anyone who's been on the internet or on a college campus knows this is true. Higher education is funded by public dollars, which means taking them away from taxpayers (socialism, a leftist idea). In order to offer something of value to the students, the professors have to be legitimate. They need to know what they are talking about. It wouldn't work as well for everyone in town to take turns being a professor, or to vote who is a professor, or some other egalitarian leftist method. And so by absolute necessity, a market is allowed to function, in which the school chooses the best professors, so it can attract paying students. Apparently that single point justifies the title.

clipsy 1y ago
> It wouldn't work as well for everyone in town to take turns being a professor, or to vote who is a professor, or some other egalitarian leftist method. It's fascinating to claim that "egalitarian leftist[s]" are the ones who believe everyone is equally qualified to be an academic authority; in my experience, it's the right wing that has consistently believed that professors, scientists, and other academic authorities should be taken no more seriously than Joe Sixpack.
mullingitover 1y ago
> Higher education is funded by public dollars, which means taking them away from taxpayers (socialism, a leftist idea). Seems like a stretch to say funding things with taxes is socialism. The practice of funding public-benefitting projects with taxes has existed for a couple thousand years before socialism was ever conceived. Call me when we're talking seriously about nationalizing all land and giving the government an ownership stake in every corporation.
collingreen 1y ago
Calling all taxation a socialist idea is pretty wild, lol.

clipsy 1y ago

> It wouldn't work as well for everyone in town to take turns being a professor, or to vote who is a professor, or some other egalitarian leftist method. It's fascinating to claim that "egalitarian leftist[s]" are the ones who believe everyone is equally qualified to be an academic authority; in my experience, it's the right wing that has consistently believed that professors, scientists, and other academic authorities should be taken no more seriously than Joe Sixpack.

mullingitover 1y ago

> Higher education is funded by public dollars, which means taking them away from taxpayers (socialism, a leftist idea). Seems like a stretch to say funding things with taxes is socialism. The practice of funding public-benefitting projects with taxes has existed for a couple thousand years before socialism was ever conceived. Call me when we're talking seriously about nationalizing all land and giving the government an ownership stake in every corporation.

collingreen 1y ago

Calling all taxation a socialist idea is pretty wild, lol.