Campuses getting less political as '60s professors retire
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Re: Campuses getting less political as '60s professors retire
#2Balance is a good thing. Challenging beliefs is a good thing. Variety in political, social, economic, religious, and personal beliefs is a great thing.
Re: Campuses getting less political as '60s professors retire
#3Agree with Mystalic. I'm probably more conservative than liberal, but I want people to HAVE choices and be able to think critically, even if they make different choices than I do. This is saddening news.
Re: Campuses getting less political as '60s professors retire
#4Human beings are political creatures. So politics suffuses everything. Unfortunately, I've met many people who seem to believe that politics is the foundation to everything. If it weren't widely known and ridiculed, I sometimes wonder if these people think that the Indiana state legislature attempt to make Pi = 3 would've worked!
I think the atmosphere of political contention on campuses sometimes exacerbates this.
Re: Campuses getting less political as '60s professors retire
#5"A seminar on great books at Princeton jointly taught by two philosophers, the left-wing Cornel West and the right-wing Robert P. George."
I'd like to hear that.
Re: Campuses getting less political as '60s professors retire
#6Agree with Mystalic. I'm probably more conservative than liberal, but I want people to HAVE choices and be able to think critically, even if they make different choices than I do. This is saddening news.
I don't understand. The article seems to be about faculty becoming more diverse in outlook as older professors retire, unless I am misunderstanding something?
Re: Campuses getting less political as '60s professors retire
#7Agree with Mystalic. I'm probably more conservative than liberal, but I want people to HAVE choices and be able to think critically, even if they make different choices than I do. This is saddening news.
I don't understand. The article seems to be about faculty becoming more diverse in outlook as older professors retire, unless I am misunderstanding something?
From the article: "The authors are not talking about a political realignment. Democrats continue to overwhelmingly outnumber Republicans among faculty, young and old."
I think they are just describing the younger faculty being less activist about their political views. Take a look at the second graph they provide. There is a small increase in conservatives in the social sciences (probably due to increases in the percentage of economists), but little else to support the claim that faculties are becoming more diverse.
Even that, I'll be very skeptical of. At every university I've been to, self identified "liberals" are socialist and self identified "moderates" are merely left wing democrats.
Re: Campuses getting less political as '60s professors retire
#8I think the problem is you have liberals but not actual conservatives. The conservatives we currently have, care more about gay marriage than keeping the government small and having a balanced budget.
Re: Campuses getting less political as '60s professors retire
#9As a non-leftist who moves in academic circles, I have to say it's still very difficult. Even in the hard sciences, I find that every social gathering I go to winds up turning into a classic left-wing whine-about-everything, and I have to bite my tongue. More than once I've wanted to get out of academia, just because the lack of intellectual diversity was getting too much for me. And that's leaving aside the direct hostility which I have encountered when I've actually made my views known (which I've avoided doing at the couple of places I've worked most recently).
Of course, it's a vicious circle. If I'm thinking of leaving due to the hostile environment, then surely other non-leftist academics are actually leaving, keeping the environment hostile.
As is usually the case in a New York Times "let's collect a couple of anecdotes and extrapolate a huge trend" articles, the data doesn't back up the conclusions.
Re: Campuses getting less political as '60s professors retire
#10"A seminar on great books at Princeton jointly taught by two philosophers, the left-wing Cornel West and the right-wing Robert P. George." I'd like to hear that.
Perhaps, but I'd prefer a seminar on great books taught my one really good professor who knew how to keep his own political views from tainting his views on literature.