3 ms·

The Unmaking of the American University

50 points by rbanffy 8mo ago

littlekey 8mo ago
http://archive.is/X5OLh http://archive.is/X5OLh
godsinhisheaven 8mo ago
I liked the article, but I feel like this article, and many artices like, only hint or brush at truly one of the largest issues for conservatives: the numbers game. Strong majorities of professors, in pretty much every college in the United States, range from liberal to marxist. There just aren't enough conservative professors to go around! How many conservative professors even exist in the United States? 500? Maybe? Seems high honestly. (And of those, perhaps a dozen are actually honest to goodness God-fearing Conservatives, and not just libertarians.) So to me, it's no wonder that universities are such a target, pretty much everyone who staffs them, everyone who teaches at them, and everyone who attends them, is liberal.
- add-sub-mul-div 8mo ago
  It's not the fault of universities that education is incongruous with certain values like fear of change and progress.
  - paulddraper 8mo ago
    > incongruous with certain values like fear of change and progress I essentially agree. Though “progress” connotes improvement. Brave New World was extremely “progressive.”
  - pfannkuchen 8mo ago
    It’s not the fault of the church that faith is incongruous with certain values like sin and blasphemy.
    - Terretta 8mo ago
      Certainly it is, as the church defines the terms.
      - pfannkuchen 8mo ago
        Just like “progress”! (Seems I was missing a /s)
        pfannkuchen 8mo ago
        Just in case: I am saying that the progress being referred to is progress in a particular direction, and that direction is a chosen one, and the choice is made by humans without any actual scientific basis. Just like blasphemy etc in religion have no actual basis aside from being in a direction other than the direction of the religion. To one group progress looks a lot different from what it looks like to another group, we can’t just say “progress” any more than we can say “blasphemy”.
    - TimorousBestie 8mo ago
      Historically, the Protestant and Catholic churches invested very heavily in liberal arts education in America; initially, more than the state did. The university (and even the liberal arts college) as an institution isn’t fundamentally incompatible with Christianity.
      - graemep 8mo ago
        Even more so in the case of early European universities.
      - rbanffy 8mo ago
        Most of the time it’s the political right that is at odds with Christianity.
    - add-sub-mul-div 8mo ago
      If that was true I wouldn't be reluctant to leave my son alone with a priest.
- TimorousBestie 8mo ago
  https://www.univstats.com/staffs/ https://www.univstats.com/staffs/ There’s roughly 1.5 million post-secondary instructors in the United States, roughly half full-time. Estimates of conservative faculty range between 7-15%. (FIRE, where the 15% figure comes from, probably overestimates due to their conservative bias.) So approximately 50,000 to 110,000 conservative faculty. You’re off by a couple orders of magnitude. There’s over 500 faculty working at Liberty University alone, never mind the other, larger Evangelical Christian schools.
  - fakedang 8mo ago
    Bro forgot that Christian universities exist in the deep south. Heck, BYU and TAMU are feeder schools for the CIA.
  - godsinhisheaven 8mo ago
    Should've added to my comment, aside from the explicitly conservative colleges/unis, and seminaries. Filter those out, and how many do you have left? Still probably more than I was expecting, but still not many in the grand scheme of things.
- mindslight 8mo ago
  Right and left are two modes of political thought. If you want to get to the real truths of matters, it is necessary to hop between both rather than following either one off into the weeds. Of course institutions tasked with coming up with new lofty ideas and fleshing out large all-encompassing paradigms are going to be full of people who are biased towards leftist thought! Just as how police officers, who deal with a never ending stream of shitheads every day, are biased towards rightist thought. The real core problem here is this framing of "liberals" as an outright enemy, rather than as fellow citizens to have a dialog with, as advanced by the right wing media machine over the past several decades. The appropriate framing is rather how we create checks on these institutions to keep them from running off into the weeds. Both for wider society, and also for the effectiveness of the institutions themselves. And that's certainly not with just outright destruction as the overly simplistic populism has settled into.
epsteingpt 8mo ago
The core fiction that enables the university to work is a dedication to 'truth' and progress through discussion. Safety and freedom is part of that bargain. Universities have failed on those accounts. That breaks down when there isn't open discussion on campus. Communists were jeered but essentially allowed on campus in the 60s and 70s, even at the height of the cold war. The left now holds a place of orthodoxy in the universities and power structures. Whether the 'right' can break it back into an enforced balance is yet to be seen. Until then, the central tie of an otherwise diverse institution will break down and break into fragments. Which would be a shame. The opposition needs to "live" somewhere!
- whattheheckheck 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - TimorousBestie 8mo ago
    To play devil’s advocate since I’ve been a little energetic in this thread already, I’ll go ahead and agree that they’re probably correct about single-income, two-parent homes having better outcomes for children. I disagree that it should always be the woman staying home (or always the same parent through the children’s adolescence, or that both parents should have different genders, or) but I think the premise is sound. They’re also objectively correct that women should, on average, be having children earlier (but wrong when they want it to be before the age of majority, or when they want to lower that age, or permit child marriage, or want to deny that couple sound sex education and medical care.)
    - jarjoura 8mo ago
      Who is "they" here? Having a single-income parent in a two-parent home was the norm for most of US history. It's also still the norm outside of the US. Where is the evidence that children are worse off because both parents work? Kids (5+) barely spend any time at home during a typical work day, so I'm not sure what "they" are correct about. How is it objectively correct that women should, on average, have children earlier? Sorry, but this is purely a subjective statement and women are free to agree or disagree with that statement. Having been raised by my grandparents, I personally believe the only secret for success is to show up for children, and love them and provide them a stable environment to thrive in. Everything else is just window dressing.
jarjoura 8mo ago
This whole article is nonsense. Yes, the Trump administration fucked over a decade of university research with his weird DEI campaign. That same fuckery also blew up all kinds of research grants not tied to universities. I'm sure some of us here know someone directly impacted by that decision. It was cruel and ruthless. Otherwise, everything else that article talks about is a nothing-burger. I can't tell you my professors' political beliefs, nor did I care. I went to school to learn about the world and topics that interested me. If there was a professor who tried to radicalize me or speak about things I didn't agree with, I would have dropped the class. Some students are like me, and are there loving the process of learning. Other students couldn't care less, and are happy just to get the grade and get out of there. Either way, if a teacher is going to make a course an extension of their personal beliefs, I highly doubt any student will suddenly assimilate if they didn't already agree. They'll just bitch to their friends that the professor is some wacko, and roll their eyes. No no, some conservatives are just trying to do what they love doing and that's get academics worked up and divided for empty rhetoric.
- superxpro12 8mo ago
  The whole point is censorship of ideals right wing deems unfavorable. Throughout my entire education, not once did I have to deal with a professor who was some ideological firebrand. The right has invented a narrative to falsely justify their efforts to censor all education and shape nationwide discourse in their favor. Because they can't win any other way.
- rbanffy 8mo ago
  > speak about things I didn't agree with, I would have dropped the class This attitude bothers me a bit. It robs you of being proven wrong. You might be right, but you might also be wrong. If you consistently avoid listening to why you might be wrong, you rob yourself from the chance to learn, which is why we all go to school.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]

50 points by rbanffy 8mo ago

http://archive.is/X5OLh http://archive.is/X5OLh

I liked the article, but I feel like this article, and many artices like, only hint or brush at truly one of the largest issues for conservatives: the numbers game. Strong majorities of professors, in pretty much every college in the United States, range from liberal to marxist. There just aren't enough conservative professors to go around! How many conservative professors even exist in the United States? 500? Maybe? Seems high honestly. (And of those, perhaps a dozen are actually honest to goodness God-fearing Conservatives, and not just libertarians.) So to me, it's no wonder that universities are such a target, pretty much everyone who staffs them, everyone who teaches at them, and everyone who attends them, is liberal.

add-sub-mul-div 8mo ago
It's not the fault of universities that education is incongruous with certain values like fear of change and progress.
- paulddraper 8mo ago
  > incongruous with certain values like fear of change and progress I essentially agree. Though “progress” connotes improvement. Brave New World was extremely “progressive.”
- pfannkuchen 8mo ago
  It’s not the fault of the church that faith is incongruous with certain values like sin and blasphemy.
  - Terretta 8mo ago
    Certainly it is, as the church defines the terms.
    - pfannkuchen 8mo ago
      Just like “progress”! (Seems I was missing a /s)
      - pfannkuchen 8mo ago
        Just in case: I am saying that the progress being referred to is progress in a particular direction, and that direction is a chosen one, and the choice is made by humans without any actual scientific basis. Just like blasphemy etc in religion have no actual basis aside from being in a direction other than the direction of the religion. To one group progress looks a lot different from what it looks like to another group, we can’t just say “progress” any more than we can say “blasphemy”.
  - TimorousBestie 8mo ago
    Historically, the Protestant and Catholic churches invested very heavily in liberal arts education in America; initially, more than the state did. The university (and even the liberal arts college) as an institution isn’t fundamentally incompatible with Christianity.
    - graemep 8mo ago
      Even more so in the case of early European universities.
    - rbanffy 8mo ago
      Most of the time it’s the political right that is at odds with Christianity.
  - add-sub-mul-div 8mo ago
    If that was true I wouldn't be reluctant to leave my son alone with a priest.
TimorousBestie 8mo ago
https://www.univstats.com/staffs/ https://www.univstats.com/staffs/ There’s roughly 1.5 million post-secondary instructors in the United States, roughly half full-time. Estimates of conservative faculty range between 7-15%. (FIRE, where the 15% figure comes from, probably overestimates due to their conservative bias.) So approximately 50,000 to 110,000 conservative faculty. You’re off by a couple orders of magnitude. There’s over 500 faculty working at Liberty University alone, never mind the other, larger Evangelical Christian schools.
- fakedang 8mo ago
  Bro forgot that Christian universities exist in the deep south. Heck, BYU and TAMU are feeder schools for the CIA.
- godsinhisheaven 8mo ago
  Should've added to my comment, aside from the explicitly conservative colleges/unis, and seminaries. Filter those out, and how many do you have left? Still probably more than I was expecting, but still not many in the grand scheme of things.
mindslight 8mo ago
Right and left are two modes of political thought. If you want to get to the real truths of matters, it is necessary to hop between both rather than following either one off into the weeds. Of course institutions tasked with coming up with new lofty ideas and fleshing out large all-encompassing paradigms are going to be full of people who are biased towards leftist thought! Just as how police officers, who deal with a never ending stream of shitheads every day, are biased towards rightist thought. The real core problem here is this framing of "liberals" as an outright enemy, rather than as fellow citizens to have a dialog with, as advanced by the right wing media machine over the past several decades. The appropriate framing is rather how we create checks on these institutions to keep them from running off into the weeds. Both for wider society, and also for the effectiveness of the institutions themselves. And that's certainly not with just outright destruction as the overly simplistic populism has settled into.

epsteingpt 8mo ago

The core fiction that enables the university to work is a dedication to 'truth' and progress through discussion. Safety and freedom is part of that bargain. Universities have failed on those accounts. That breaks down when there isn't open discussion on campus. Communists were jeered but essentially allowed on campus in the 60s and 70s, even at the height of the cold war. The left now holds a place of orthodoxy in the universities and power structures. Whether the 'right' can break it back into an enforced balance is yet to be seen. Until then, the central tie of an otherwise diverse institution will break down and break into fragments. Which would be a shame. The opposition needs to "live" somewhere!

whattheheckheck 8mo ago
[flagged]
- TimorousBestie 8mo ago
  To play devil’s advocate since I’ve been a little energetic in this thread already, I’ll go ahead and agree that they’re probably correct about single-income, two-parent homes having better outcomes for children. I disagree that it should always be the woman staying home (or always the same parent through the children’s adolescence, or that both parents should have different genders, or) but I think the premise is sound. They’re also objectively correct that women should, on average, be having children earlier (but wrong when they want it to be before the age of majority, or when they want to lower that age, or permit child marriage, or want to deny that couple sound sex education and medical care.)
  - jarjoura 8mo ago
    Who is "they" here? Having a single-income parent in a two-parent home was the norm for most of US history. It's also still the norm outside of the US. Where is the evidence that children are worse off because both parents work? Kids (5+) barely spend any time at home during a typical work day, so I'm not sure what "they" are correct about. How is it objectively correct that women should, on average, have children earlier? Sorry, but this is purely a subjective statement and women are free to agree or disagree with that statement. Having been raised by my grandparents, I personally believe the only secret for success is to show up for children, and love them and provide them a stable environment to thrive in. Everything else is just window dressing.

jarjoura 8mo ago

This whole article is nonsense. Yes, the Trump administration fucked over a decade of university research with his weird DEI campaign. That same fuckery also blew up all kinds of research grants not tied to universities. I'm sure some of us here know someone directly impacted by that decision. It was cruel and ruthless. Otherwise, everything else that article talks about is a nothing-burger. I can't tell you my professors' political beliefs, nor did I care. I went to school to learn about the world and topics that interested me. If there was a professor who tried to radicalize me or speak about things I didn't agree with, I would have dropped the class. Some students are like me, and are there loving the process of learning. Other students couldn't care less, and are happy just to get the grade and get out of there. Either way, if a teacher is going to make a course an extension of their personal beliefs, I highly doubt any student will suddenly assimilate if they didn't already agree. They'll just bitch to their friends that the professor is some wacko, and roll their eyes. No no, some conservatives are just trying to do what they love doing and that's get academics worked up and divided for empty rhetoric.

superxpro12 8mo ago
The whole point is censorship of ideals right wing deems unfavorable. Throughout my entire education, not once did I have to deal with a professor who was some ideological firebrand. The right has invented a narrative to falsely justify their efforts to censor all education and shape nationwide discourse in their favor. Because they can't win any other way.
rbanffy 8mo ago
> speak about things I didn't agree with, I would have dropped the class This attitude bothers me a bit. It robs you of being proven wrong. You might be right, but you might also be wrong. If you consistently avoid listening to why you might be wrong, you rob yourself from the chance to learn, which is why we all go to school.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]