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

The terms 'college' and 'university' suggest centers of rational thought, debate, and education, with an emotional detachment from the subject matter. That would be nice, wouldn't it?

For a more accurate label, let's try 'Liberal Thought Indoctrination Camps.' It won't look as good on a sweater, though... too much print obscuring those pert young breasts.

With the mandatory classes on "White Males Are Evil" I guess that I agree with you there.

White males *aren't* evil?

Pattern-chaser (a white male)

"Who cares, wins"

OK, I'm gonna take this one on.



They do? I think you're getting so specific you're defining details that are important to you, Col... er, Mugwump, that (maybe) not everyone shares. The terms 'college' and 'university' suggest to me places of learning. Learning may (should?) include "rational thought, debate, and education", but need it be limited to that? I think not. [And what about the sex and drug-taking that has long been a critical part of further education? ]

As for "an emotional detachment from the subject matter", it is surely relevant to *some* aspects of learning, but not all. There are many human-oriented areas of learning for which a lack of emotional engagement would render study pointless.

"I am *not* a number...!"

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

But are we a representative democracy, or do we just let the professors dictate policy?

Private universities, of course, are free to engage in whatever sorts of indoctrinations they wish. But publicly funded schools have a responsibility to the full body of taxpayers who support them. The content of some college "courses" is not representative of the people who support them. Any such body should be *required* to maintain journalistic integrity when delving into politics.

Here's a rather extreme example of a publicly funded school getting it all wrong: http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/6

I once failed an essay I wrote for a Religious Studies course because I forgot to use gender-neutral pronouns in certain places and the prof was a rabid 'kill the patriarchal oppressors' feminist. Educated doesn't necessarily have anything to do with reasonable.

Now I tend to be of the strong opinion that anyone who has a really strong opinion about anything probably doesn't know that much about it, and I say as much to anyone who tries to convince me to join their cult/party/bandwagon/IQ95buttonclub.

-Back in school since January

Agreed, with the observation that 'reasonable' isn't always the appropriate attitude....





Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I.e. do the ignorant majority dictate policy, or do we leave it to the experts?

Yes, that's a highly biased question, posed in response to one of equivalent prejudice. In areas of human studies and activism, such as religion and politics, policy is usually set or heavily influenced by those individuals willing to spend the time doing it.

In practice, they earn the right to set policy by being there and doing the mundane stuff that no-one else wants to do. Door to door canvassing or evangelising, attending interminable meetings, and the like. The majority, who don't do these things, have not earned the right to a voice, in the real world, if not in theory.

So no, the majority shouldn't necessarily dictate policy. That is not to say that they should have no influence; that would be a folly, and wrong. In practice, perhaps the majority does as it should, wielding a veto which it brings into effect when things drift too far away from the middle line.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Wow... that came out of left field. How did you get from that (are we a representative democracy, or do we just let the professors dictate policy?) to this (do the ignorant majority dictate policy, or do we leave it to the experts?)?

The "ignorant majority" do not dictate policy in a representative democracy... their elected representatives do. Those are the guys who spend the time doing all that mundane stuff like canvassing and taking time to understand stuff.

And they are NOT professors, feeding eager young minds with their warped perceptions of How The World Is. The professors have a completely different task, and one aspect of it is to teach kids how to think for themselves... not to think like the professor.

In the case of the UCB situation I posted earlier, the professor clearly is no expert on the Palestinian situation. Anyone who can lay full blame on one side or the other has a very limited understanding of the history of the region.

Easily enough. Actually, it now occurs to me that you meant "Should university professors dictate *political* policy?", whereas I read it as "Should university professors dictate *educational* policy?" In the latter case, the professors could be seen as experts. Which is how I got there.



I could disagree, as the representatives are elected, and the majority vote according to the policies on offer, but I see your point. The "ignorant" merely injects a little prejudice, and has no meaning.

<...professors, feeding eager young minds with their warped perceptions of How The World Is>

Everyone who has significant interaction with people, particularly the young, teaches them, whether or not they intend to. And they can hardly help passing on their own sincerely held beliefs (i.e. prejudices). We are all "warped"!! [Of course, many people are immune, as they are incapable of (further?) learning. ]



Aren't *you* the demanding one! Aren't you jumping to the conclusion that the kids, and the professors, are capable of thinking for themselves?



Pre-1948, the Palestinians lived in Palestine, It was their land. Then the US/UK, in the guise of the UN, took a load of it off them and gave it to the Jews as their Promised Land. There are many, many details, but this is the essential history. And it seems very one-sided to me. But then my understanding is very limited....

And I'm drifting away from your nominated topic. Sorry.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

"Everyone who has significant interaction with people, particularly the young, teaches them, whether or not they intend to. And they can hardly help passing on their own sincerely held beliefs (i.e. prejudices). We are all "warped"!!" - Agreed. However, there's a difference between prejudices coming out and influencing people during the course of a somewhat related discussion, and the deliberate indoctrination of people into a specific creed. And it must be said that viewpoints alternative to extreme liberalism are grossly underrepresented in our professorial population.

Palestine side note: Palestine was not autonomous before the Jews came... it was already a British colony. Then there were some efforts to live in harmony with their neighbors, until some stupid arguments about the Temple on the Mount came about... and sparked the whole cycle of violence with both sides so indescribably wrong that I can't understand anyone taking any side with a clear conscience.

Well a politician wants to 'convert' everyone to her way of thinking, so does your typical evangelical Christian. Isn't it to be expectd that a teacher will also wish to impart their own truth(s)? Surely the secret is to maintain a wide variety of opinions among teachers?

<...viewpoints alternative to extreme liberalism are grossly underrepresented in our professorial population.>

If you say so ... I have no experience of professors for 25 years. Except the current incumbent of the Chair of Linguistics at Cambridge, who is an old friend. He's not especially liberal. Nor is he a statistically significant sample.



So was most of the rest of the world. It's *your* turn these days!

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Funny you should mention Cambridge... it is an Ivy League school, if I'm not mistaken: http://www.academia.org/campus_reports/2002/february_2002_2.html

And you'd think, as the cradle of overindulged brats destined to huge embezzling careers, the Ivy League schools would lean to the right.

Cambridge, England?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Doh! Cambridge, Cornell, Columbia... they all sound the same to me, and they might as well be in Siberia for all that I could afford to go to them.

Still, if I can't be an idiot in my own journal, where can I be?

So the point of this journal entry is to express your exasperation at the oddity of some teachers' ideas, which they pass on to their pupils, yes?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

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. That appears to be contrary to the common pretense that colleges exist to teach people to think for themselves.

I appreciate what you're saying, and can't disagree with the sentiment. However, I wonder where you got this innocent idea that ?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I don't think you can teach people to think for themselves... though it seems you can discourage it, which tends to be standard practice for post-secondary educational endeavours in my experience. Academic consensus, like any organized system of thought, has its own self-authenticating form of orthodoxy that becomes more comfortable to academics the more familiar they get with various pet ideologies, and the further removed they get from their methods of selecting which data to admit as meaningful in the formation of whatever particular orthodoxy they chose to devote themselves to in the first place. Rigid thinking is a very easy trap for even very smart, educated people to fall into.

Alfred North Whitehead said 'it takes a very peculiar sort of mind to undertake an analysis of the obvious'. I think this is the essence of creative thinking... the ability to question everything. We're monkeys with brains soaked in hormones living at the bottom of a gravity well on a big ball of dirt whizzing through the void at high velocity, and small wonder most of us arrive at a skewed view of normality when we finally are able to stop humping and killing each other long enough to spend some time trying to figure things out. So I don't find rigid thinking all that useful in anything to do with a search for (relative) 'truth'.

Of course I'm preaching to the choir here. I figure educational institutions are mostly in place to prime malleable young minds to not worry too much about the issues and just get ready to participate in the factory-timeclock economic model that is currently driving the global market. It's sad, but it's been that way for a while now. If you want to be educated, read books blacklisted by said academic institutions. You'll at least learn how not to think like them.

How did we get by without you, TG?

BTW, who's Alfred North Whitehead? Sounds like a hoopy sort of frood...?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"