Incidentally, Jon made the point that one does not necessarily need to sign up for these sorts of classes. And Reid has made the claim that these people are emphatically not "taking over" other departments.

But actually, I didn't ever sign up for "postmodernist ecological marxism 101", but "global religious perspectives". It was only two thirds into the course that they laid down the bull****. When I had originally enrolled, I never imagined that a course that was nominally about the Abrahamic religions was going to be a soap box for a bunch of feminist ideology.

I’m kind of surprised that my saying “maybe conservatives have a point” has received this much scrutiny, but all I meant by it was something like “maybe their arguments shouldn’t be reflexively dismissed”.

Oh, but that would require actually thinking critically about their tiresome arguments, rather than making a knee-jerk reaction that they are all fascists. It's better to assume that universities are perfect bastions of objective thinking that are in no way vulnerable to outside critique of any kind, let alone concerns that arise in the course of some right wing nutcase's screed. Of course the far left feminist reality is the only objective one, duh

tl;dr: universities skew far left politically; conservatives skew to the right; left and right disagree on things in life

To use your example, many conservatives would say that acculturization at universities is more like NASCAR than like church, and that it has to do with a lack of conservatives represented amongst university faculty than active organized efforts at indoctrination (leaving aside whatever Jordan Peterson has to say about the topic).

"Oh, but the leftist perspective is objective reality, so those nasty conservatives are just wrong and evil"

Well, yeah, sure, I bet they are. That doesn't mean the left and right can't have legitimate disagreements.

Yeah, the patriarchy is a fact, and if you don’t agree, you’re morally suspect. It’s objective! Sorry!! By the way, when I say that, I’m saying it as a man of science who lacks any self-awareness of how entirely unscientific it sounds.

The funny thing is that, even even though Reid's stubbornness is making his side of this debate look rather shallow, Jon`C wrote something here earlier that really rings true to my ears:



Don't forget that even a broken clock is right twice a day, Reid.

And actually, the fact that some of these broken clocks happen to be fascists is about as strong an argument I've ever seen for the importance of demanding stellar scholarship across the board. Feminists, however admirable their intentions, ought not get a pass on scrutiny of their theories precisely because of situations like these. It's when you banish people on your own side from critiquing your ideas that you leave open gaping holes to be penetrated by far less sympathetic forces.

Or, to understand this issue in terms of genetic adaptivity: letting a monoculture take over can be a deadly mistake to a population. The academy, the church, and other similarly insular hierarchies have all been prone to perpetuating a stagnant monoculture at various times in history.

When did Ted Cruz get fat?

[citation needed]

You know I did quite a bit of research on this and discussed it before in this very thread, right? The plurality of research suggests there is no significant bias against conservatives in academia.



Again, you know, I get emails from the university, the ones sent by the administration. And they always seem keen on the "please nobody act out" angle and are trying to moderate student behavior. You really think faculty is encouraging students en masse - being specific, as a widespread phenomenon - to protest campus events?

On the anniversary of the Charlottesville debacle last year, the administration sent us an email begging nobody to act out and created events for peaceful protest against white supremacist ideology (I hope we can agree that the event here really was an unabashed white supremacist group, and the university is in the right to condemn it). Every professor here was more cringing about what happened and didn't want it here ever again.



I just find it genuinely surprising that such a class exists, given that it doesn't pass the smell test.

I have yet to find any evidence that there's a significant culture denying conservatives tenure or other academic roles, that couldn't also be reasonable explained by them being an ******* or having other serious faults in their conduct (read: Jordan Peterson).

I'm just going to assume that universities are perfect and concede the argument.

You know you need to get citations to advance your academic career, right? Whose going to cite your paper if you go against the prevailing trends of the day?

Right. Because in your own limited experience, universities smell very flowery and fresh. Surely it's not possible for professors at other universities to go off the script and insert their own opinions. Oh no, I've never seen that before!

To be clear: I said the basic fact is pretty much indisputable if you have a brain, that western society is primarily run by men. Don't mistake this simple fact for the layers of baggage people pile onto it. Anything else people say about patriarchy is able to be scrutinized, but I don't think anyone could reject the premise and be of sound mind.

Also, why is it surprising that a class that is nominally about the Abrahamic religions would talk about its patriarchal aspects, which you yourself acknowledged to be well established? Is it so far a stretch of the imagination that a professor with feminist inclinations would use this as a springboard to take the fact that the Abrahamic religions are in fact patriarchal to pepper the lectures with feminist ideology about the patriarchy as universal boogeyman?

OK, so you are talking about my professor.

Have you never in your life encountered a professor who had an axe to grind? Lol

You do realize that for some people, this is the reason they probably decided to become professors.

Also, you're kidding yourself if you don't think that academia is:

1. subject to fads (just look at what's fashionable in mathematics for starters)
2. comprised of human beings, with all their biases and subjectivity
3. in a position to profoundly influence and shape the next generation of impressionble students

About the only thing stopping this from running amok is to subject academic work to objective criticism. I won't pretend to know what really goes on in the particular departments we've discussed here, but from what small amount I've read it doesn't look pretty, and it strikes me as rather silly to reflexively defend them as automatically squeaky clean just because they are part of academia and have good intentions or something like that.

No, it's a stretch to imply they'd fail you or censor your publications simply on the grounds of you having a conservative counter-opinion. This is where I take issue, you claimed you had to read this stuff: okay, but then implied you could only reply in one way and still pass the course, and I think you're not correct.

There are explicit examples of conservatives expressing countervailing opinions to this kind of stuff. They're accepted and treated seriously in academia.

Seriously, where is the bias? Other than most people being coincidentally liberal, there's just no evidence that conservatives are treated harshly by academia, and until you can provide substantial proof, I don't take these claims seriously.

tl;dr: academia ≠ science

Once, in a community college course, and she was collectively despised by the rest of the faculty.

If the course is about how patriarchy is the source of problems in the Abrahamic religions, do you think I can pass a multiple choice exam by filling in the exact opposite of what we were told in class about this?

You're one person. You've attended three universities. There are thousands more out there, do the math.

*nasally voice* hey hold on, how can you subject academic work to objective criticism? All people have biases, maybe it's just that the criticisms conservatives level are also tainted by strong levels of bias? *end nasally voice*

What do you read? Incel boards on 4chan?

What you linked looks to me like a very substantive paper. I'd be curious to know what the distribution of accepted papers to various journals looks for the less substantive, fluffy papers.

Individual cases versus trends. I also had a conservative professor once say in class how much he hated Obama's taxes. Yes, some professors do violate standards. Some people will get a cold this season, some people will break a bone. It doesn't seem to me to raise to the level of a culture of political pressure and censorship.

I don't get why you think anything I've been saying has the slightest to do with what conservatives think. Saying that academics are more credible than the conservatives that deride them is a shockingly poor defense of the quality of their ideas.

And you really think that certain university departments don't skew toward hiring professors that are apt to sound off in class with leftist ideology when they get the chance? Come on. I mean it's been well established that academia itself skews left. Add in a slippery and subjective subject like Women's Studies, and you get something very interesting.

It didn’t ring quite as true to my ears. The left also claims to act on a universal principle when in fact theyre acting on a much more parochial interest. The right and the left both claim they want more diversity on university faculty. But does the left give an inch to conservative demands for more intellectual diversity? Or do many on the left instead respond with ridicule, and assert that the right is acting based on sinister motives?

To Reid: Actually, what is most confusing of all to me about this discussion is why this is so contentious. It seems like a pretty common sense realization to me that professors are just human beings like the rest of us, and that when put in a room with a bunch of like-minded people, they are going to have some blind spots.

And all this just to get Reid to admit that "university culture" can possible exist in some sense.

Actually, maybe it would be a good time for us to define what Reid even means by "university culture". Because I'm not so sure.

Yes, and I think that because people have researched it and concluded as such.

Unless you have substantive evidence, I don't think there's anything else to speak about. You have strong beliefs, which is clear, ones that contradict a bunch of sound scientific evidence, and aren't willing to take two seconds to provide any insight or data into why you believe what you believe.

Wait, what? It's news to me if it's been shown that university professors don't happen to skew left. Note that I am not saying that the decision to hire them is because of their political views, simply that the correlation clearly exists.

This is a fine assertion, but it's definitely far different from implying women's studies departments are hotbeds of people trying to indoctrinate students. What I'm saying is you can't use common human faults as a blanket reason to assume there is a systemic issue in departments. This conclusion is a non sequitur.



What I said was:



It's clear from the context I'm speaking about the specific ways conservatives speak about a "culture of indoctrination", not that there isn't a university culture in general.

Yes, and I've been agreeing with you on that the whole time. Your chain of reasoning seems to be that "universities have more left-wing professors, so there are departments convincing students to become leftist political advocates". I agree with the former but disagree with the latter.

*well, clearly the latter happens sometimes, but I disagree that the latter is occurring at some kind of rate higher than you would expect just from humans being humans.

The idea that either of us can prove this one way or another "using science" or something like that is beyond ridiculous. "My strong opinions are contradicted by science." <- what?

Look, you're not going to go into women's studies as an academic if your goal in life is to uphold the patriarchy. Is it hard to understand that these departments are going to have a certain culture, which, I dare say, is inclined toward the left? Note that I am not validating the views of their conservative critics by pointing this out, but only letting you know how ridiculous is sounds to say that "university culture", trends of beliefs among faculty and students, etc., don't exist. I don't have to claim that there is some kind of deliberate indoctrination going on to make my point, like you seem to be assuming.

When did I ever say that the faculty necessarily had to convince students to become activists in the first place? An obvious guess as to what's going on is that the two groups are reinforcing one another: I sign up for a class in a department packed with radical leftists, and I listen to their views because they are telling me what I want to hear. Is that so hard to understand? And acknowledging this, how can you possibly say that you don't understand why people think that "university culture" even exists?