Academic Bill of Rights??!!
Every now and again you run across something on the net and just can't resist opening a can of worms. Today seems like a good day for worm-can opening, however, so here goes .....
On a friend's blog I ran across a rather negative review of the so-called Academic Bill of Rights, which is actually taking the form of legislation in a number of states. In a nutshell, this is an attempt by disgruntled conservatives (and especially religionists) to strong-arm universities into what they call "balance" -- i.e. giving the conservative/religionist viewpoint equal time and equal exposure. Since, according to the sponsors, the lefties absolutely control US academic institutions, this legislation is needed to restore an open and free exchange of ideas at American colleges and universities.
If you ever needed yet more proof that the right and left in this country are two sides of the same coin, here it is. For decades the lefties used the law to force their agenda upon the citizenry, and now the righties are ripping the same page out of the playbook. If the politically correct "language police" were a violation of notions like "freedom of speech" and "freedom of expression", then what the hell are "balance police" going to be like?? Regardless of the intentions of the sponsors and supporters of this idea, it sounds to me like just another excuse to turn loose lots of lawyers.
On the other hand, I'd like to see a little more honesty on the part of the lefties. If they can claim with a straight face that academia is NOT a sanctuary for their ideology and a haven for their supporters, they're either a.) woefully ignorant of reality or b.) deliberately lying through their teeth.
As someone who's been in and around American universities since 1981, I can attest to the following generalities about academia, regardless of where my sympathies lie on individual issues:
* If you're conservative, you don't have a different opinion, you're morally deficient or just plain stupid.
* If you're religious, you're often dismissed out of hand as hopeless/brainless. (This may indeed be true - but there are better ways of dealing with the issue -- like rational confrontation).
* The overwhelming majority of my colleagues are well left of center, and many of them are old hippies (or young hippie wannabes).
* Political correctness is the unquestioned standard by which everything is judged (yet another example of lawyers run amok).
* Being a white male makes you inherently bad, and always suspect.
* "Progressive" and "enlightened" are practically synonyms - and both mean "socialist"
* The individual is always secondary to the collective, and capitalism is seen - at best - as a necessary evil that must be severely limited. Curiously, no one feels this way about government.
* It is very rare to find a conservative, libertarian, or individualistic speaker booked for speaking engagements.
* Most disturbingly --- and very reminiscent of conservatives in other areas --- it's all about the power to push an agenda with as little opposition as possible, and steamroll whatever opposition exists.
Where the conservatives go terribly wrong is to assume that this is some kind of orchestrated conspiracy. I think there's a much simpler explanation. If you're conservative (and/or religious), 4 years of college will probably leave you with a bad taste in your mouth - for the reasons listed above. Plus, by virtue of your political outlook, you're probably more concerned about earning a good living and getting ahead than you are about wrestling with ideas and philosophy. This almost automatically cedes academia to people concerned about ideas and philosophy, who are more interested in how they live than how much they earn (although there's plenty of griping about pay, but that's another issue). Hence, socialists, greens, libertarians, and other dreamers naturally congregate in academic settings. That's one of the main reasons so much of what goes on at universities is so alien to anyone with a real job in the real world. The inmates are indeed running the asylum.
And they do often get rather pushy and intolerant of opposition. When the radicals of the 60's and 70's moved into academia, they may have gotten rid of the policies of their arch-conservative predecessors, but they saw the power of the old system, and maintained it to use it for their own purposes.
Ultimately, a university is supposed to be an open marketplace of ideas. That means that no point of view, however repugnant should ever be silenced or repressed. Confronted? Yes. Dissected? Absolutely. Refuted? Go for it. Censored? No.
And therein lies the real problem. The politically correct, hypersensitive lefties who believe they have some magical, mystical dispensation from ever being offended (see 24 August entry) have created this problem by declaring so many issues taboo that they've finally managed to motivate the conservatives/religionists and their political hacks. Moreover, by being dogmatic in an almost Orwellian sense about what people are allowed to think and say, they've lost sight of what constitutes a "marketplace of ideas" and instead substituted a "marketplace of acceptable ideas".
The real tragedy of all this is that government, which cannot do something relatively simple like build a levy that doesn't crumble, certainly can't insure "balance" in university discourse. The only way for that to happen is for administrators, faculty and students to remember that freedom of speech applies equally to all citizens, not only those who practice "goodthink". Like so many other aspects of life, it's about individual responsibility and a respect for liberty.
But that's so hard to remember when you're fighting for the chance to force others to think and act "properly".
On a friend's blog I ran across a rather negative review of the so-called Academic Bill of Rights, which is actually taking the form of legislation in a number of states. In a nutshell, this is an attempt by disgruntled conservatives (and especially religionists) to strong-arm universities into what they call "balance" -- i.e. giving the conservative/religionist viewpoint equal time and equal exposure. Since, according to the sponsors, the lefties absolutely control US academic institutions, this legislation is needed to restore an open and free exchange of ideas at American colleges and universities.
If you ever needed yet more proof that the right and left in this country are two sides of the same coin, here it is. For decades the lefties used the law to force their agenda upon the citizenry, and now the righties are ripping the same page out of the playbook. If the politically correct "language police" were a violation of notions like "freedom of speech" and "freedom of expression", then what the hell are "balance police" going to be like?? Regardless of the intentions of the sponsors and supporters of this idea, it sounds to me like just another excuse to turn loose lots of lawyers.
On the other hand, I'd like to see a little more honesty on the part of the lefties. If they can claim with a straight face that academia is NOT a sanctuary for their ideology and a haven for their supporters, they're either a.) woefully ignorant of reality or b.) deliberately lying through their teeth.
As someone who's been in and around American universities since 1981, I can attest to the following generalities about academia, regardless of where my sympathies lie on individual issues:
* If you're conservative, you don't have a different opinion, you're morally deficient or just plain stupid.
* If you're religious, you're often dismissed out of hand as hopeless/brainless. (This may indeed be true - but there are better ways of dealing with the issue -- like rational confrontation).
* The overwhelming majority of my colleagues are well left of center, and many of them are old hippies (or young hippie wannabes).
* Political correctness is the unquestioned standard by which everything is judged (yet another example of lawyers run amok).
* Being a white male makes you inherently bad, and always suspect.
* "Progressive" and "enlightened" are practically synonyms - and both mean "socialist"
* The individual is always secondary to the collective, and capitalism is seen - at best - as a necessary evil that must be severely limited. Curiously, no one feels this way about government.
* It is very rare to find a conservative, libertarian, or individualistic speaker booked for speaking engagements.
* Most disturbingly --- and very reminiscent of conservatives in other areas --- it's all about the power to push an agenda with as little opposition as possible, and steamroll whatever opposition exists.
Where the conservatives go terribly wrong is to assume that this is some kind of orchestrated conspiracy. I think there's a much simpler explanation. If you're conservative (and/or religious), 4 years of college will probably leave you with a bad taste in your mouth - for the reasons listed above. Plus, by virtue of your political outlook, you're probably more concerned about earning a good living and getting ahead than you are about wrestling with ideas and philosophy. This almost automatically cedes academia to people concerned about ideas and philosophy, who are more interested in how they live than how much they earn (although there's plenty of griping about pay, but that's another issue). Hence, socialists, greens, libertarians, and other dreamers naturally congregate in academic settings. That's one of the main reasons so much of what goes on at universities is so alien to anyone with a real job in the real world. The inmates are indeed running the asylum.
And they do often get rather pushy and intolerant of opposition. When the radicals of the 60's and 70's moved into academia, they may have gotten rid of the policies of their arch-conservative predecessors, but they saw the power of the old system, and maintained it to use it for their own purposes.
Ultimately, a university is supposed to be an open marketplace of ideas. That means that no point of view, however repugnant should ever be silenced or repressed. Confronted? Yes. Dissected? Absolutely. Refuted? Go for it. Censored? No.
And therein lies the real problem. The politically correct, hypersensitive lefties who believe they have some magical, mystical dispensation from ever being offended (see 24 August entry) have created this problem by declaring so many issues taboo that they've finally managed to motivate the conservatives/religionists and their political hacks. Moreover, by being dogmatic in an almost Orwellian sense about what people are allowed to think and say, they've lost sight of what constitutes a "marketplace of ideas" and instead substituted a "marketplace of acceptable ideas".
The real tragedy of all this is that government, which cannot do something relatively simple like build a levy that doesn't crumble, certainly can't insure "balance" in university discourse. The only way for that to happen is for administrators, faculty and students to remember that freedom of speech applies equally to all citizens, not only those who practice "goodthink". Like so many other aspects of life, it's about individual responsibility and a respect for liberty.
But that's so hard to remember when you're fighting for the chance to force others to think and act "properly".
posted by DrJDG @ 16:10
2 Comments:
At 27/9/05 23:13,
Anonymous said…
I agree with most of what you said (that was the DW who wrote the post you're referring to, by the way).
Thing is, I went to a conservative institution for my undergrad studies, and saw plenty of right-leaning speakers invited to campus (in fact, I stopped donating to them when they invited George W. to speak at commencement. No amount of football victories is worth that.) I think firm believers in the capitalist system can probably find the funds to attend an institution that respects their opinion. ;-)
Of course we're talking, by and large, about the UW-Madisons of the world, and not the Bob Jones U's or Notre Dames. And admittedly, yes, the lefties have done plenty to turn their viewpoints into dogma at most state schools. Thing is, I can't imagine an intellectually honest professor who would grade someone down for having a well-argued conservative (or libertarian) opinion -- the real issue here is that intellectually dishonest professors have no place in a university. Anyone so fixated on an opinion that they would try to punish someone else for having an opposite viewpoint is beyond the pale.
Ultimately, I find it difficult to object to leftist viewpoints being taught at universities, because quite frankly, it's one of the only places they're heard. (And don't start with me on the "liberal media" bullshit.) If I were back in academia, if you could show me a student who can convicingly argue any point of view, I'd find it tough to knock him for it, even if I totally disagreed. Those folks are depressingly few and far between, and both political correctness and the "academic bill of rights" seem to me to be vehicles for protecting the moronic, knee-jerk opinions of both sides.
At 28/9/05 09:48,
DrJDG said…
Don't forget that I too attented a conservative undergraduate institution - and without meaning to sound like I'm engaging in one-upmanship, Jesuits are less insane than Southern Baptists ...
And yet, despite the almost militant christo-fascist outlook of Stetson University as an institution, the only places I ever encountered conservative professors were in the school of business (surprise, surprise), the theology department (and it was only the older ones), and in the hard sciences. In fact, they were so few and far between that I can still remember their names. But the overwhelming majority of the faculty in the liberal arts were well left of center, including a few out-and-out self-identified communists. But at least they were ethical lefties. As loud and brash as I was in those days about politics and my distaste for religion, I never encountered anyone who graded me down for my opinions, as long as they were presented well.
But then again these faculty members were old-school lefties. They were civil rights movement veterans, but many of them were also WWII / Korean War / Vietnam War veterans. They were motivated and ideological, but for the most part they weren't angry -- even though they all shared a deep dislike of Reagan. I guess I'd say that they had a sense of dignity about them. Moreover, you could disagree with them and not simply be shouted down. No doubt today's moveon.org / Howie Dean people would consider them to be treasonous.
Ultimately, I'm not sure universities should really be teaching "views". Ideally, we should be teaching how to think, not what to think -- and then letting the chips fall where they may. The best way I've found to do this is by encouraging the most diametrically opposed speakers and viewpoints one can find ... even if Shrub is one of them.
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