3 ms·

As a brazilian, I personally have the impression that the teachings in humanities in the USA is very biased towards neo-liberalism, pro-market and right-wing id

As a brazilian, I personally have the impression that the teachings in humanities in the USA is very biased towards neo-liberalism, pro-market and right-wing ideologies when I compare what's produced in brazilian and north american universities. This is probably because in the USA the universities are private, there's no free, autonomous and statal universities. And probably it's consequence of the cold war years, when left wing ideologies were seen as suspect. If I could choose a place to study computer science, engineering or science in general, I would choose some north-american university like MIT. But if I could choose a place to study humanities, specially economy or social science, I wouldn't choose a north-american university. Just my (perhaps equivocated) opinion. But it's an opinion shared by many people in humanities here.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
saturdaysaint 13y ago
Totally off. As someone that was a humanities major at a private American college, I have to say that %99 of the faculty could fairly be described as very left-leaning, and this is basically the case in every university I've heard of. It's almost comical how left leaning academia is - to be publicly Republican professor would probably be something of a career liability outside of a select few Christian schools. At my school, College Republicans struggled to find a faculty sponsor, while the famous socialist Howard Zinn spoke to a rousing crowd full of professors. Any subject from Shakespeare to the Civil War could and would be analyzed through the lenses of class, race, gender, colonialism. The exception, relevant to this thread, would probably be economics departments, but even then, I have the impression that there'd at least be a healthy majority of Keynsians that would strongly object to austerity and support a lot of government interventions. So even there, I think "pro-market and right-wing" would be a stretch.
- jljljl 13y ago
  >> healthy majority of Keynesians I don't disagree with the general text of your post, but this is really, really school dependent. I would actually bet it's easier to find non-Keynesian professors. Kenynesian theory is also a pretty "pro-market" approach when compared to some theories that exist outside the US. Government intervention is generally supposed to be limited to periods of recession.
Mvandenbergh 13y ago
>As a brazilian, I personally have the impression that the teachings in humanities in the USA is very biased towards neo-liberalism, pro-market and right-wing ideologies when I compare what's produced in brazilian and north american universities. A puzzling statement. Except if you were to include business and economics among the humanities which Americans do not. >This is probably because in the USA the universities are private, there's no free, autonomous and statal universities. All American universities worth considering are either non-profits or state funded, so I do not understand where this idea comes from. >But if I could choose a place to study humanities, specially economy or social science, I wouldn't choose a north-american university. American sociologists are notably to the left of the American public.
joonix 13y ago
Humanities academics accused of being right-wingers... I've now seen it all.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

saturdaysaint 13y ago

Totally off. As someone that was a humanities major at a private American college, I have to say that %99 of the faculty could fairly be described as very left-leaning, and this is basically the case in every university I've heard of. It's almost comical how left leaning academia is - to be publicly Republican professor would probably be something of a career liability outside of a select few Christian schools. At my school, College Republicans struggled to find a faculty sponsor, while the famous socialist Howard Zinn spoke to a rousing crowd full of professors. Any subject from Shakespeare to the Civil War could and would be analyzed through the lenses of class, race, gender, colonialism. The exception, relevant to this thread, would probably be economics departments, but even then, I have the impression that there'd at least be a healthy majority of Keynsians that would strongly object to austerity and support a lot of government interventions. So even there, I think "pro-market and right-wing" would be a stretch.

jljljl 13y ago
>> healthy majority of Keynesians I don't disagree with the general text of your post, but this is really, really school dependent. I would actually bet it's easier to find non-Keynesian professors. Kenynesian theory is also a pretty "pro-market" approach when compared to some theories that exist outside the US. Government intervention is generally supposed to be limited to periods of recession.

Mvandenbergh 13y ago

>As a brazilian, I personally have the impression that the teachings in humanities in the USA is very biased towards neo-liberalism, pro-market and right-wing ideologies when I compare what's produced in brazilian and north american universities. A puzzling statement. Except if you were to include business and economics among the humanities which Americans do not. >This is probably because in the USA the universities are private, there's no free, autonomous and statal universities. All American universities worth considering are either non-profits or state funded, so I do not understand where this idea comes from. >But if I could choose a place to study humanities, specially economy or social science, I wouldn't choose a north-american university. American sociologists are notably to the left of the American public.

joonix 13y ago

Humanities academics accused of being right-wingers... I've now seen it all.