Republicans Outnumbered in Academia, Studies Find (NYT)

I agree completely.

 

Max, we have had this same discussion for what is going on years. I guess since we are both lawyers and more germane we are both on this bbs we love to argue.

I have poked fun at your frequent claim to be a "moderate" for about two reasons. First and most important imho you try to win arguments or enhance your crediblity on specific issues often times not by marshalling argument or facts on the particular issue , but saying essentially I'm a "moderate" therefore I'm right. Even though I am very proud to be a liberal I I dont say I'm a liberal therefore I'm right on issue X. y or z.

Second imho on some issues where you proclaim your position as "moderate" it is really pretty "conservative. Now for some context. On a number of political issues like the type we discuss on this bbs a moderate positon among whites in Texas is pretty conservative in a larger , say national or world wide context. You would call a statement like this a "stereotype", therefore I guess you conclude it is false. Not necessarily. BTW this is not to say all whites in TX have the same positions. For instance we are both I believe wm living in TX,

I think in your above posts you have confused things. You try to use anecodotal evidence by claiming you know liberal lawyers whose main goal is to make money and conservatives who practice of the law is not aimed largely at making money. While your personal statement is undoubtedly true, it is not good proof of the general assertion of whether liberal lawyers or more or less oriented primarily toward making money than conservatives.

When I claim that your anecdotal report doesn't convince me that this is true as a rule. (Anecdotes are not accepted as proof in social sciences, for example) you respond in a couple of ways. First, name calling-- I'm unreasonable, immune from facts. Second the usual-- calling me a "down the line" liberal or somesuch, (you're moderate or not "down the line")so therefore I guess you conclude that I'm wrong on the issue at hand.. Third , you then throw in an irrelevant truism to switch the argument . Noone is purely conservative or liberal on all issues. This was after you yourself said you knew liberal lawyesr who went for the money and a conservatives who didn't.

BTW your truism is correct. For instance I'm pretty conservative in my personal life. Married once for about 25 years. Seldom missed a little league soccer game etc. I don't play around etc. Pretty conservative with my personal finances. I think Chomsky is pretty conservative in his pesonal life and as we know rush Limbaugh, O'reilly.Bennet, Newt Gingrich etc. are not exactly conservative in their private lives.

For all I know claiming the middle ground or claiming to be open minded is effective in winning an argument on a particular issue, if believed by the audience, but I still don' t think it is exactly responsive when discussing a particular issue.

 

glynch --

first...are you a lawyer???? i didn't know that!! geez, no wonder we dont' get along very well!!!

honestly...i don't think you're wrong. but i do think you're liberal...and i think you adopt that willingly, right?

i'm conservative. let there be no doubt of that. i just am. my views tend to trend that way. i've never once claimed to be a moderate. in fact, in the last post, i specifically told you i don't consider myself to be such. in truth, i don't know what it means to be a conservative or moderate. but if you ask me which label feels right for me at the gut level...i'll say conservative. maybe that's because i've been told i'm conservative for as long as i can remember. am i the only conservative who voted for bill clinton?

i don't like the team sports nature of politics, glynch. i don't like when republicans sacrifice their own integrity at the altar of their own power. i don't like when democrats do that, either.

the problem i see is your demonization with those who disagree with you...and you do that by the lumping together thing we see. it's your modus operandi. it just is.

i don't know on what issue i play the middle ground, frankly. i guess there are some issues i'm not as passionate about where i seek compromise. but what issues in particular do you associate with me being moderate?? you're probably the only person i've ever met who has called me moderate.

but again...i can't seem to find identity with either political party for the reasons i mentioned earlier...specifically, for me are two issues:

1. abortion -- agree with the traditional republican view on this; disagree with the traditional democrat view on this;

2. health care -- lean much more liberal on this than the traditional republican view...much more. much more in line with dems on this one.

ok...so if these are two issues that i rank among the most important for my vote, than instantly i can't seem to identify myself in the neat groupings you try to throw people in. and i take some exception to it, frankly, because the implication is that we all just adopt a party line without thinking things through. i think that might be true for some people...in fact, i'm sure it is true for some people...but i don't think it's fair to most americans. i thnk most americans are freaking sick and tired of what the parties have to offer.

finally...you seek an entryway to people's minds that i think is impossible. you're trying to gauge people's motivations, and you tend to make huge assumptions about that by playing along the generalizations you like to make. so if conservative and lawyer then you're a greedy scum-sucker. if liberal and lawyer then you're serving the public good. these are too formulaic for human beings, glynch. people don't operate that way. and it makes me wonder how many conservative friends you have out in the real world that you would draw those conclusions from.

i'm not a statistician. i'm not spending my days collecting public opinion data. all i have in life is my own experience, which is not coincidentally, antecdotal evidence. my experience with human beings must be vastly different than yours is, given the conclusions you reach about people. i see an entirely different world than you do. i'm not assuming mine is the correct view or yours is somehow wrong.....but definitely different.

 

Good response, Max. I'm surprised as my post was a bit of overkill. Slow day I guess.

To be continued. Maybe next year.

 

If it makes you feel better, glynch has called me a Republican.

I think you, Max, might be viewed as a moderate conservative (or I guess moderate) because you seem more willing to openly think about non-conservative issues. Also, you are more of an "old-school" Republican in that you think faith creates a moral obligation to help out those less fortunate (in other words, liberals don't want /understand conservatives to be nice guys with big hearts). But you are definitely conservative. Since this is D&D I will add that you are also stupid. So there.

 

wait!!! are you a lawyer???? i didn't know that!!! how did i not know that??

 

where's the debate on that, rim???

 

Politics exist in every aspect but they govern behavior in varying degrees. There are still fields, notably sports, where there is something of a meritocracy.

I understand what the article says but you were making something of a blanket statement in regard to academic hiring that it was just about papers, faculty research and etc. when from my own experience personal and intellectual politics play the biggest role.

 

If it makes you feel better, glynch has called me a Republican.

That is wrong. I had questioned the times he claimed to be so much of a leftist, as there was no clear evidence of that from his posts of his political orientatio. . He, of course, would just claim as part of his posing of having a staggeringly high IQ, that someone unwashed like me just could not follow his posts.

After questioning he seems like a reasonably liberal guy to me. I suspect he would vote Democratic or most likely Green if he deigns to join the masses by voting at all. Most likely he prides himself on being too leftist and sophisticated to vote at all.

Ps it is interesting to note that Rimbaud is capable of writing in a non- cryptic style regarding general political orientation -- at least when talking of Max.

 

I have no idea what you are talking about. I was only talking governmental "politics" because that was what the article was talking about. I already conceded that work/personal/academic "politics" is impossible to avoid in anything so it would have been silly for me to say that does not factor. I don't know why you are challenging me when I have already agreed with you.

glynch,

Why are you so angry?

I specifically remember you once posting something along the lines of "perhaps you are a moderate Republican..." whether you believed it or were only speaking hypothetically, I found it funny and thought it would be a light-hearted response to Max's "nobody has ever called me moderate" dealie.

I like the personal insults, though. Truth of the matter is that I have a very low IQ (much much lower than fatty fat fat's) and I didn't vote only because my registration was expunged. The government must have thought I am black...or maybe French due to this nick.

That cryptic bit follows me around almost as much as the IQ thing. Weee!

 

If you can't see rimmy is a liberal than you might want to question your own philosophical beliefs. Maybe you are moderate with your philosophy and only rabidly left when it comes to matters concerning earth, welfare, healthcare, etc.?

 

rimbaud: why don't you change your moniker to "riddler" and perhaps the discrimination would cease! I find it more apt anyway.

 

Disagree with you on a few points here.

First, you seem to be mixing subjects - students typically read the Greek classics in their literature classes while they read about Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth in history class. So if students aren't reading the Greek classics, its hardly the fault of these two.

Second, I think students are reading the classics, though admittedly excerpts of them instead of the entire works. That's unfortunate, but the Greek classics are not the only works that suffer from this.

Third, I think its important to give all students the full range of literature. Having freshman read nothing but the classics leaves them with the sense that nothing important has happened in modern times. And that's simply not true - there is a whole host of works and perspectives that they need to learn about. But unfortunately time and shorter attention spans mean that professors can't teach everything. That may mean that one Greek classic is cut from the curriculum in order to make room for another, more recent work, but I think that's justified.

 

Maybe I should replace Classics with the Great Books of Western Civilization, which are often regarded as the thoughts of dead white guys at many major universities. Replace Harriet Tubman with Zora Neal Hurston if you want. The bottom line is, students are not getting a well rounded education in the Western Tradition. Schools are now either technical job producing entities or deconstructionist hotbeds. Not saying there needs to be no technical schools. Just saying there needs to be more educational schools.

 

Well this is the D & D so aren't we supposed to be challenging each other?

 

If I recall from long ago college days, studies indicate that as education level increases, political affiliation moves leftward. As wealth increases, political affiliation moves rightward.

 

Have you ever heard the saying: "There are a lot of highly educated nitwits?"

 

Giddy, I did not make a judgement either way. Just stating what I recall, and what intuitively manifests itself based upon anecdotal evidence.

Why, are you highly educated?

 

No. Got me a rock-solid Double BS in Psychology and Religious Studies. 3.68/4 GPA.

Are you?

What do you mean by highly educated?