tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post9139609062654356367..comments2024-01-06T10:36:04.084-05:00Comments on A Commonplace Blog: Conservatives and the universityD. G. Myershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10659136455045567825noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-23203028883401813532009-12-17T16:53:29.371-05:002009-12-17T16:53:29.371-05:00I've been drawn back to this post by the above...I've been drawn back to this post by the above comments. And I was intrigued by the 'Only Permitted Kind' post you linked to. You say that '[a]ll that is needed is for scholars to reconceive their role in culture and society', although this sounds like no simple task...<br /><br />Don't culture, society, and even technology pressure scholars, individually or as a group with a particular culture, into certain conceptions of themselves and their role within that culture or society?<br /><br />As ever, I can only draw on my own experience in the UK as I still know comparatively very little of the U.S. education system — here we have something called the Research Assessment Exercise which has, it's <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/real-research-cant-be-graded-702740.html" rel="nofollow">claimed</a>, adversely affected the culture within universities because of its focus on targets, specifically regarding numbers of publications.<br /><br />I think there's much to admire in the idea of an institution based on dissent, on disagreement, and on civility in its fullest sense — but I'd like to know, if it's not too dangerous a question, how that's to be encouraged. (The passive voice is used at the end of this last sentence so as to avoid accusations of Leftism.)Guy Purseyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03389223432095066078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-91093263937866717622009-12-17T14:11:42.448-05:002009-12-17T14:11:42.448-05:00Well, I am a self-declared Leftist, after all.
On...Well, I <a href="http://dgmyers.blogspot.com/2009/10/turning-left.html" rel="nofollow"><i>am</i></a> a self-declared Leftist, after all.<br /><br />On the contrary, however. I do not wish to negate the existing system, but merely to restore it to its original <a href="http://dgmyers.blogspot.com/2009/01/only-permitted-kind.html" rel="nofollow">idea</a>.<br /><br />Since the university is founded upon this idea, it is readily attainable. No practical or bureaucratic changes would be necessary. All that is needed is for scholars to reconceive their role in culture and society.D. G. Myershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10659136455045567825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-9577206985661554952009-12-17T14:03:42.020-05:002009-12-17T14:03:42.020-05:00It sounds as though you'd like to negate the e...It sounds as though you'd like to negate the existing system, but your ultimate goal is unattainable for the time being. You filthy commie.patricknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-48763844509847462782009-12-05T20:04:25.526-05:002009-12-05T20:04:25.526-05:00So what?
In as far as a university receives feder...<i>So what?</i><br /><br />In as far as a university receives federal funding—and except for Grove City College and Hillsdale College, every university in the country receives federal funding—“the refusal to hire dissenters among the ranks” is illegal discrimination in employment.<br /><br />Universities differ from think-tanks in several ways, one being that it is expressly <i>not</i> founded to promote “unitary thinking,” but is founded—as is all intellectual pursuit—upon dissent.<br /><br /><i>Sour grapes</i>? Hardly. If the university were a representational institution then control of it could be won or lost, like the U.S. House of Representatives, and the minority’s complaints about its minority status would indeed be sour grapes.<br /><br />But the university, as Stanley Fish correctly said, is <i>not</i> a representational institution. Arguments for a more adequate representation of conservatives on university faculties are as broken-backed as arguments that conservatives should just accept their exclusion because “We won, you lost.”<br /><br />The purpose of a university is to promote human learning, not the power of one party.D. G. Myershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10659136455045567825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-47723008500795846132009-12-05T18:36:02.001-05:002009-12-05T18:36:02.001-05:00I have been trying to put my finger on just what b...I have been trying to put my finger on just what bothers me about academia for some time now, but hadn't considered this angle before; it clears up a few things for me. Personally, I don't sit too far to the right--probably just right of center--but I can remember as a university student being frustrated by the way I was often expected to interpret Bronte, Milton, Shakespeare from a perspective I had no interest in and doubted the value of. I had thought that it was mostly what I saw as the politicizing of the English departments that drove me to the UK for my master's degree and (so far) has given me pause in considering whether to continue for a PhD, but I wonder if I sensed some of what you're talking about, and if that was another factor. I wonder if there are more students who have disagreed with the leftist bent of their professors and have been discouraged from pursuing further degrees for that reason.Stefanie C Petershttp://www.stefaniepeters.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-56112775726715309622009-12-05T12:20:49.653-05:002009-12-05T12:20:49.653-05:00Yet how is this not sour grapes?
Does one see sim...Yet how is this not sour grapes?<br /><br />Does one see similar commentaries about how leftists (whatever one means by that) denied entry to conservative think-tanks? Not hardly. Think-tanks desire to be of unitary consciousness, as they have an agenda and often they have political goals.<br /><br />One of the few conservative thinkers that I'm aware of, who over the past few decades has actually sought discussion and would have been happy to engage with diverse viewpoints, was Michael Novak, a genuine intellectual if every there was one. I'm sure other examples could be found.<br /><br />The key problem, which you identify correctly, I believe, is unitary thinking within an institution: the refusal to hire dissenters among the ranks. My response to the accusation that this is rife in academia is to say, So what? How is that different from any other institution? It's rife everywhere, in these ideologically polarized times. What's the saying? Oh yeah: "Do not criticize the more in your brother's eye until you have removed the log from your own."Art Durkeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463180236975988432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-17525934405024049832009-12-03T17:34:26.168-05:002009-12-03T17:34:26.168-05:00Ha! I'm sure such stories would be worth telli...Ha! I'm sure such stories would be worth telling anyway, if told in the style with which you blog.<br /><br />Many thanks for the clarification, re: "Leftism". I shall read over old posts and comments with renewed interest. I had never heard of Kolakowski but a quick Google search shows up some interesting things.Guy Purseyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03389223432095066078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-44140832123880137342009-12-03T17:12:28.931-05:002009-12-03T17:12:28.931-05:00P.S. It is so. Oh, could I tell you stories! But t...<i>P.S.</i> It is so. Oh, could I tell you stories! But they would be dismissed as mere anecdotal evidence.D. G. Myershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10659136455045567825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-28412697851172338932009-12-03T17:10:30.023-05:002009-12-03T17:10:30.023-05:00Guy,
My concept of the Left derives from the late...Guy,<br /><br />My concept of the Left derives from the late Leszek Kolakowski, who argued that the Left is distinguished by two characteristics:<br /><br />(1.) It is a “movement of negation” toward the existing social system.<br /><br />(2.) It is utopian; that is, it enunciates ultimate goals—goals that are unattainable for the time being, but that “impart meaning to social changes.”<br /><br />In Kolakowski’s words, “It is a total negation of the existing system and, therefore, also a total program [for the reconstruction of social reality].”D. G. Myershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10659136455045567825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-75783569317829995732009-12-03T06:55:52.251-05:002009-12-03T06:55:52.251-05:00I'm still not entirely sure what you mean by &...I'm still not entirely sure what you mean by "leftists" - are the majority of American academics genuinely in favour of socialism, communism, plain old social democracy? Or do you mean to say they side with the Democrats? Perhaps this a transatlantic language issue and such terms need no elaboration in the U.S. But it's also not clear whether you're talking about social or economic "leftism". Or perhaps the two neatly coincide, even among American intellectuals.<br /><br />In any case, the picture you paint of academia seems bleak. I had been intending to do some postgraduate study in the U.S. when I can afford it (or find time to apply for funding). If, however, the American university is so hostile to different ideas and to people of different persuasions, perhaps it's not the place for me!<br /><br />(In other words, say it isn't so!)Guy Purseyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03389223432095066078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-5925134544558188632009-12-02T21:00:47.056-05:002009-12-02T21:00:47.056-05:00Your hiring experience goes a long way to explain ...Your hiring experience goes a long way to explain the phenomenon of leftists in academia. Let me use a simple-minded saying to make a not so simple-minded point based on my observations: "Birds of a feather flock together." Now, expand on that metaphorical observation and concede that a cohesive (xenophobic) flock does not warmly welcome outsiders (birds of a different feather) because of territorial imperatives--i.e., the nest must be protected from alien species so that similarly feathered progeny can be produced from within that nest. So, you see, it is all rather simple when you get right down to it. It is basic animal behavior. By the way, the similarly feathered birds (leftists) at my university are quite comfortable with birds of the same feather; however, I am not included as a part of the nest but rest tenuously (for now) on an adjacent but brittle branch that is grudgingly tolerated by the flock.R/Thttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07791522136032565027noreply@blogger.com