h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

'The point is to express my exasperation that our colleges appear to offer only a single wiewpoint of the world, and that expression of alternate viewpoints is discouraged.'

To claim that is a liberal veiwpoint, as you did earlier, is unfair. A truly liberal stance allows all points of views, and gives them equal time to allow the student (or indeed viewer or listener) to make an informed opinion by themselves. The key word is 'informed'. The Berkeley Palenstine class you linked to, Blatherskite, is an example of indoctrination just as bad as your common-or-garden extreme right-wing talk-show host. It isn't, by definition, a liberal stance.

I also think that this kind of thing is not commonplace within Colleges. The right-wing elements of the media certainly love highlighting the more silly elements of the left to try and give their dodgy opinions some credence.

Ste

You're talking about two different definitions of the word 'liberal,' dude. The liberal parties have very concrete positions on various political issues, which usually aren't any better informed or more flexible than their conservative opponents. Those liberal positions are what are being forced upon our students, as the Palestine issue illustrates.

The Palestine thing is an extreme example. More often the indoctrination takes the subtler form that Twophlag's anecdone illustrates.

You're not a member of the right-wing media, are you, TG?

I think this is perhaps a transatlantic thing. I don't think there are two definitions of 'liberal', there might be a misused one but that's a different thing. I always saw liberal as being the centre ground, where all opinions have a chance. What you're talking about, to me, is left-wing thinking. I find it strange that in the US the word 'liberal' often replaces 'left'. A syptom of the countries anti-communist past perhaps?

So, you think leftist thinking is being forced upon college students. Well, educational institutes have traditionally been left-leaning, intellectuals tend to like socialism. I don't think it's particularly harmful though, you could even see it as an antidote to the rampant individualism in US society.

Ste

"antidote to the rampant individualism"??? Begone, commie scum!

Actually, in its previous definition (which by your description I will assume it still carries across the pond), liberal was synonymous with individualism and individual freedom. After all, why would liberals want to allow people to draw their own conclusions if that conclusion might be contrary to the collective good?

Libertarian in the US today means what liberal meant back then. And it's the most individualistic political philosophy we have, short of anarchy.

<...liberals ... the collective good>

Yeah, in my terms that's left-wing thinking, which I would perceive as being quite different to liberalism. Not that the two don't often hold the same view on any particular topic, but they're not the same. To me.

And personally, I get tired of those who don't have any time for the 'collective good'. It's just as bad to accept the benefits of a society while trying to avoid the associated duties as it is to try to force individuals into a collective mould. As ever, the middle path is the only sane way to proceed.

End of sermon.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

"As ever, the middle path is the only sane way to proceed." Agreed... which is why any accurate characterization of my political views preceeds the word "libertarian" with the word "moderate."

All things in moderation... including moderation.

You're a moderate left-winger (using British terminology)?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

death to all fanatics!

TG:

BM:

I suspect not. From here, (more or less) all US politics and politicians appear to be extreme right-wing ... to me. (YMMV ) Our right-wing is concerned with the individual, and our left-wing with the community ("the collective good"? ). Our liberals (not 'libertarians') sit somewhere in the middle, and (at their best) stand for common sense and 'decency'.

As our 'socialist' premier has proved to be unconcerned by the will of the people, I shall be throwing my support behind the liberals from now on. ... That's the death knell for liberalism in this counry, then.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Being a student in the left-leaning Ivy League, I'd have to say that I must have met an statistically unfeasibly large number of moderate conservative professors during my coursework thus far. Which isn't to say that there aren't raving lefties - there are, but there are raving righties as well, clearly typified in the ready audience for National Review type rabid maniacs who see any form of criticism against Israel as a crime against humanity.

And, of course, as a private institution I can't see how it could possibly be left-leaning - it's a company based on making profit first, and an educational institution second. After all, what does it matter what the professors say so long as the tuition costs remain as high as ever?

Sorry to butt into this conversation.

Colleges and Universities certainly seem to be left-leaning places as far as the students and most of the lecturers are concerned. It's only in American Uni's, though, that I've heard of all these narrow-minded extremists. Unfortunately, America seems to breed these people on both sides of the divide.

I also think the American definition of "liberal" is interesting. Over here, liberal used to mean those who were concerned with personal freedom whilst being concerned with the state of society and wanting to provide help to those who were in need. Unfortunately, we seem to have taken up the American thinking and it's now applied to things such as political correctness (which is a deeply illiberal philosophy).

My views are generally liberal, but I can't call myself that because I am associated with people who want to fine people for smoking in the street and make the word "blackboard" illegal. I've tried "Libertarian Leftist" but that confuses the Americans who associate "left wing" with "statist", rather than an outlook on life. Nowadays I just give my opinion and wait for someone to pidgeonhole me. That or use "Libertarian Humanist", which seems to work so far

Re: Israel and Palestine and all the rest. Just when did the far-right change their opinion on the Jewish people? Once they couldn't stand them and accused them of "money grubbing" and being "liberal intellectuals", now they seem to want to defend them against all comers. Is it a real about-turn or just a stick to beat the Left with?

Pigeonholing is really funny here in America since we only seem to have two choices. You can't say you're a democratic socialist, because they'll ask, "but who do you vote for?" or "What is that; is it Communist? Communism is evil, you know." That and Liberal seems to be typified by anything resembling Communism (bureaucratic jumble of a federal government that works in generous social programs that only serve to make people lazy and work the system), while Conservative encompasses all things American and apple pie - localized government with family values and the entrepreneurial spirit in mind, when we're not sending people off to war with rehashed WWII rhetoric.

Come to think of it, we're probably the largest - and only - developed country that never really had a socialist movement.

Firstly, let me point out that there is a vast difference between learning something and obtaining an education. At best, universities provide a theoretical education. To obtain a thorough education, you need to get out into the world.

Secondly, you'll notice that the leaders of industry, who are these days labeled as opponents of socialistic ideals (profit instead of people and that sort of thing) are university graduates. Your average union leader, these days labeled as supporters of socialistic ideals, are not.

Actually, we had quite a spirited socialist movement. Substitute "labor" for "slave" in any of Lincoln's speeches and you'll find the message of a socialist... not surprising, as Lincoln had read Marx and found him fascinating. Theodore Roosevelt imposed regulations on the meat packing industry after reading about practices in Upton Sinclair's socialist indoctrination novel "The Jungle"... TR was reading it at the breakfast table, and threw his sausages out the window. The labor movement was entirely inspired by socialism. So were FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society reform packages.

In fact, the Red Scare and Senator Joe McCarthy's pogrom over Hollywood was totally unreasonable, but the fears that inspired them were not totally unfounded. There actually was a minority of people, and some of them in Hollywood, who hoped to bring about the rise of the proletariat and a communist revolution... with support from the USSR.

So what happened? First, Americans are wedded to the principles of the free market, so there was never as much support for socialism here... certainly not a majority support, at any time. Second, the resistance to the USSR post-WWII made support for socialism a social/political stigma. But the final death blow to the socialist movement in the US was delivered by Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev. He was the one who, in the late 1950's, publicized the policies and offenses to humanity of Josef Stalin, which had been closely guarded state secrets before then. Once that reached American ears, the reds here became deeply disenchanted. McCarthy, HUAC, and all that other nonsense just disappeared.


I've never met a union leader who was not a college graduate. These days labor unions are nothing more than a pack of lawyers. That's probably why they've lost all touch with the wants and needs of the people they purport to represent.

I never said there wasn't the influence. After all, my family's been affected a great deal by New Deal programs not yet destroyed. But, there was never really a popular socialist movement, nor a viable socialist party. The labor unions, in their peak, never reached the percentage of unionized workers as other countries had managed, and said unions were easily taken over by people as ruthlessly entrepreneurial as the businesses they were "against."

I contend that the red scares WERE totally unreasonable and proof in and of themselves that there never was a considerable populist movement here in America.

It depends on what you mean by "considerable." As I said before, the red scare wasn't entirely unfounded. Even if it was only a handful of nutters (which it wasn't) who were plotting the overthrow of the government in coordination with KGB operatives in the States, the strong reaction against it was considerable.

As far as populist movements go, I can't think of a single third-party that ever had as much influence on the government.