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2004-11-28 Home Front: Culture Wars

US Academia Suffers From a "False Consensus Effect"

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Posted by Mike Sylwester 2004-11-28 12:32:37 PM|| || Front Page|| [11127 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 It should also be noted that arguments in academe are especially bitter precisely because they are so unimportant. For though they always insist that they "shape the minds of the youth", statistically, they don't. Children tend to vote just like their parents. Academics also insist that they "shape the public policy debate"; but that is put to the lie by anyone outside of their coffee klatsch, who are oblivious to their entreties. Another of their illusions is of the "inevitability of socialism", which was rattled down to its bone marrow by the collapse of the Soviet Union--and yet still survives. This has resulted in their still advocating issues as dead as whether the President should be limited to two terms. Nobody cares, and look at them oddly as they still act like socialism is relevant. Fortunately, today, many trees are spared being turned into asinine theses because of the Internet, which has spare electrons to burn for all the neglected university department web pages.

Posted by Anonymoose 2004-11-28 1:23:13 PM|| 2004-11-28 1:23:13 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 AM - W00t! Excellent rant! Apparently, irrelevance is a painful burden for the "sheltered", lol!

Posted by .com 2004-11-28 1:30:51 PM|| 2004-11-28 1:30:51 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 Why are academic disputes so very bitter?
Because the stakes are so small!

Posted by Sgt. Mom 2004-11-28 2:03:37 PM|| [http://www.sgtstryker.com] 2004-11-28 2:03:37 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 Brilliant strategy followed by the perfessers, eh?

New Left academics pushed right-leaning academics and PhDs out of the field begining in the early 1970s. Right-of-center academics skip academe and head en masse to Washington instead.

Results? New Left academics thoroughly dominate academe from coast to coast. Right-leaning republican Party dominates executive, legislative and judicial branches of federal government as well as most governorships across the country.

"That man must be an intellectual. No one else could be so stupid." --Orwell

Posted by lex 2004-11-28 4:28:24 PM|| 2004-11-28 4:28:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 Since they could not have a nanny state, they at least have a nanny academe. It is becoming a microcosmos of the modus operandi/vivendi I so /sarc-on/ nostalgically /sarc-off/ remember from my old country. LibertÃ© is only for Ã¼ber-libs; fraternitÃ© too, comrade; egalitÃ© -- well we know that some animals are more equal than others.

So, if I want a life-like reminder of what I left behind, all I have to do is to immerse myself in some campus and it feels like home. LOL

Posted by CornÃ®liÃ«s 2004-11-28 4:53:35 PM|| 2004-11-28 4:53:35 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 May have posted this once before: my son is a freshman at a mid-West college. First day of class, his Ethic's prof says that anything a Republican says is "bull***t"! As my son is quite conservative, this rankled. The prof has, however, been more than fair in his grading.

Posted by OldeForce 2004-11-28 8:52:03 PM|| 2004-11-28 8:52:03 PM|| Front Page Top

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