Daily Gut: Tenured Tools
by Greg GutfeldSo in the Monday New York Times, there’s a thoughtful piece trying to explain, quote, “the overwhelmingly liberal tilt of university professors.” Their shocker of a conclusion: It’s not about an obvious discrimination against conservatives – rather it’s just a silly, wrongheaded case of type-casting!
Yeah, it turns out that conservatives don’t want to be professors, the same way that men don’t want to become nurses. Righties abhor tweed and pipes the way dudes reject Dansko scuff proof clogs. One researcher calls this political typecasting – and includes journalism, art, fashion and therapy as other areas where conservatives refuse to draw a paycheck. Instead, conservatives head toward medicine, law enforcement, dentistry, the military and late night tv shows about unicorns.
Now think about that for a moment. The left gravitates toward fashion and therapy; the right toward medicine and might. What does this tell you? Well, in the former list of jobs, it’s almost impossible to create guidelines for success. Look at modern artists, and you’ll see there’s no way to predict who will make it and who won’t. But in the jobs favored by the right – standards are clearly drawn. You can gauge the difference between a good doctor and a bad one by the number of sponges left behind in your lower intestine (three by my last count).
But let’s cut to the chase. The real reason why professors are libs boils down to one word: tenure. I mean, imagine if you had a guaranteed job for the rest of your life. That means none of your ideas will ever be tested in the real world. Instead, you can blather all you want about how Bush orchestrated 9/11, how America is responsible for all that’s wrong with the world, and what a tremendous dude Che Guevara was.
The fact is, if we actually kept score on the success of liberal ideas throughout history – it just wouldn’t be fair to liberals.
And if you disagree with me, you’re probably a racist homophobe.
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112 Comments
Everytime liberals try to explain the difference between themselves and conservatives, a part of me dies inside.
I always hope it's a part of me I really don't need.
The old saying, "Those who can . . . do. Those who can't . . . teach."
Conservatives typically do stuff. Liberals talk about doing stuff. Teaching is a way of getting paid for talking about doing stuff.
I am a born again Conservative thanks to a lifetime of liberal indoctrination.
Once while writing an assigned thesis on what a scum bag Bush was I made a mistake which still haunts me…I researched the subject.
Since then I've loved my country, believed people can handle their businesses fine without governmental intrusion, and that moral right should guide policies and our country's actions; not popular opinion and sure as hell not convenience.
Naturally I'm one of the least liked people on the internet and in my home town…
Don't worry. You get rid of it every morning.
Worked for a professor from Berkeley in grad school. If he wasn't tenured, then he was paid by the (meaningless) word. Ugh…
One one hand, thousands of gomer libs. On the other hand, John Yoo. I dunno. Even with those odds, I think conservatives can hold their own. ;0)
If you can't do, teach. If you can't teach, write grants.
Or, maybe its because when a professor has conservative views they are made to feel like they belong to the Klan or worse?
While Mr. Gutfeld's Gregalogues are usually spot on, when he goes off the rails it's a spectacular mess. Why the hell would tenure make you liberal? I could see where it would make the professoriate attractive to liberals, but I could see where it would make the professoriate attractive to anyone.
I'm a conservative and I was teaching one and two year gigs until this academic year, when I wasn't able to find anything. I would LOVE to have a job where I wouldn't have to go through either the annual ritual of worrying (usually until April or May, but once until July) if I was going to be employed next August or the annual joy of packing and moving. In fact, as a conservative, i.e., someone who distrusts change, I should be more favorably disposed toward tenure than liberals, who are all about Change.
Oh, and for the record, I like tweed.
Liberals have to be manufactured. What they do goes against the infinite nature of lifes' perpetuation. All of their agendas run along those lines: condition, condition, condition, we can't have people who think for themselves. Because if we did, America would be the greatest superpower on earth. & there would be no universal welfare (health care). Any liberal trained to bark on command has surrendered his or her own soul to the collective. & what ever field they choose, they will always be a danger to us all.
"you can blather all you want about how Bush orchestrated 9/11" most of those people are Ron Paul supporters. ass.
I think there is a fundamental difference between liberal/conservative thinking that does explain why liberals are more likely to be drawn to profession like teaching and tenure does play into it. Conservatives are more independent thinking and more likely to gravitate toward professions that offer growth based on the amount of effort you're willing to put into it. I'd be willing to bet most entrepreneurs are conservative in nature and have a firm belief in the American dream and the idea of self-determination.
I got my teaching credential before I had kids and had the idea that I'd be entering a noble profession but was soon disabused of that notion after I got a good dose of tenured- tyrants and the teacher's union. There are good teachers but the system often drives them from the profession. I'm all for teacher accountability and tenure flies directly in the face of that notion.
Thomas
AMEN! You beat me to it.
Those who can DO! So go out thee and DO it!
Greg hit the nail on the head. it is all about tenured job protection so they can't be held accountable for their lame assed crap!
Hell, I'm a conservative and working on my masters in computer animation. Funniest thing though, I had a fellow student ask me once "How can you be a conservative and still be able to do art?"
Yeah, apparently if you have a brain that you use for independent thinking you aren't supposed to be able to make art. This is what I deal with in class every time.
9 out of 10 Paulites I know DO try to beat you down with the "Bush was behind 9/11" junk, and don't consider the rest of us conservatives. But then, most of them aren't college professors. Most college professors are libs who just happen to agree with the Paulites on this single issue.
I don't generally cross-pollinate discussions, but Mr. Sowell's recent discussion on what intellectuals actually contribute, seems fitting here:
http://biggovernment.com/2010/01/13/uncommon-know...
There aren't very many conservative intellectuals because there simply aren't a whole lot of unproductive conservatives.
What's interesting, one does come across a larger population of conservatives among educators in the schools of business and engineering. As a businessman or an engineer, one's thoughts will play out unforgivingly in the results of one's work. The business succeeds or it fails, the building stands or it falls – and in each case there will be a long line of investors to whom one will have to answer.
It is group mind think. That is all the Acedemics really have going for them. In the real old days Proffesors were by and large conservative. Liberals were the young. What we have today is an extended state of adolescence. It is more than an extended state it is celebrated. Our popular culture is full of adolescent ideas about justice and so forth. Some where about 40 years ago maturity became so uncool. I look around and I see just a whole bunch of shallow slogan shouters passing thier diatribes off as wisdom.
I used to be a Democrat……then I grew up. I think that happens with a lot of Conservatives. The Liberals just never grow up. They don't face the real world. Believe me, I remember those days…..
And Obama is totally out of reality…..scarrrryyyyyyy.
So the left owns the academy? Not much of a surprise. The marxist radical left of the 60s are now the department heads, and you don't go giving back the institution you spent years capturing by hiring wingnut professors. Since the entire department will have been chosen by the radicals, it's going to be a long time before you get some balance.
I'm not sure that doing away with tenure is such a good idea. In some places, it's all that's keeping the lonely conservative on the faculty employed.
Wwhen I was a high school, I used to dream about being an academic. I wanted to be J.R.R. Tolkien, Jr. – an old, tweedy don who knew Latin and Greek and Old English and spent his days thinking and writing about the Middle Ages.
Then I went to college and met some actual academics, saw who they were and how they had to live – and suddenly a career as a scholar didn't seem all that attractive anymore. They weren't all liberal fruitcakes, at least as far as I know. But I also encounter any tweed or pipe-smoke. Mostly just old hippies who lived like paupers. It was an awakening…
liberals are only about emotion, zero logic. has there ever been a successful business model based on emotion? survey says XXX. and as far as tenure goes, it doesn't give them the confidence to step out on the edge but removes the edge and adds a rail to make them confident. as far as the list of professions goes: dead on!!! one only needs to think of the two as ice hockey vs figure skating.
Republicans yearly earn 65% more college degrees than democrats and the gap has existed since 1955 when first tracked. 90% of academics, journalists, hollywooders, and inmates are democrats.
The gap is so large that if democrats would stay in school and out of jail there would be no national debt and social problems would be a thing of the past.
Are the Democrats the major cause of social problems? Absolutely. First by causing them and then by insisting they be the ones to fix them.
.
My University has a majority of conservative professors. It is also a private religious institution. Goes by the name of Brigham Young University. I could be wrong but I don't believe the school gives anyone tenure either. The salaries aren't high compared with other universities but some love teaching there.
BYU also goes out of its way not to accept Federal money so it doesn't have to follow any Federal rules or "guidelines" the politicians might try to force on the school.
I think I might enjoy teaching at a college. I am not sure I agree with the idea that most professors are liberal because of tenure. Maybe part of the reason there is a majority of liberal professors, at least at state schools, is because there is a bias in the hiring processes of these schools? Because if the federal government is providing the school with money they have an interest in what is taught at the schools. And it isn't too long of a stretch to imagine that they can put a little pressure on the people at these schools hiring the professors with the "right" viewpoints on hot button issues of the time. Just a possible idea.
And the Paulites are proof that if the far right backs far enough away, they'll eventually bump into the far left.
Scary thought.
I'm a conservative and I've spent time in both worlds. I was in the military and then law enforcement for 25 years. Then I retired and became a university professor. While it's true that most of my colleagues are liberals…..some of them outrageously so….there are a few of us conservatives on campus to provide students "the rest of the story."
I swiped this from the school I went to: "Although term appointments are frequently made with the clear possibility of reappointment or promotion, there is no entitlement to such action at the end of the term and it is by no means automatic. Instead, decisions on reappointment and promotion, like decisions on initial appointment, are subject to the exercise of professional and scholarly judgment and discretion by the University’s departmental faculty and academic leadership."
I think better universities have stopped making tenure easy or a life time gift. Maybe other schools are different.
I do know this. They make it harder for women and those who take time out to do pure research. The clock ticks on while they are out of the classroom.
Also the vast majority of professors in the science and math realm are… wait for it… conservatives.
Being a bed-wetting, booger-eating, lazy, monkey-faced liberal professor is not a job description, it's a requirement for tenure at most of the universities today. Talent and hard work are not usually enough and being outspoken with deviant conservative beliefs will count against you.
I have to thank you. I never noticed the distinction between jobs and political ideology; particularly as it seems fitting to note that liberals favor jobs where it is difficult to define success.
But loved by your friends at BH!
You both beat me to it. Right on!
Exactly! As I've always said, Conservatives are self made while Liberals are always products of indoctrination.
That's right Dan, you'll fit in quite nicely around here, welcome aboard, friend
…….. Hanzo
Don't worry. When you're drawing decent pay for your productivity your Liberal counterpart will still be holding their hands out for a subsidy…or teaching (gasp!)
Conservative political cartoons, right?
…… Hanzo
When one achieves(?) tenure it becomes painfully aware that the bar is lowered dramatically……… Hanzo
as long as you care so will your students
This reminds me of the hot mess that was "Obama's America: 2010 and Beyond" on MSNBC Monday night. I didn't watch the whole thing, but Matthews delivered a totally pointless debate on race or something. I caught an exchange between John McWhorter, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Associate Professor of Politics and African American Studies at Princeton University. Harris-Lacewell was trying to argue some inane point and tried to bring McWhorter to her point of view by beginning, "John, you're an academic…" to which he quipped, " That's why I left." It was priceless! And so true!
I'm lucky, I get rid of it a few times per day(lots of salad!).
……… Hanzo
The reason that academics are liberal, especially those in the liberal arts, is because the liberal teachers in charge promote candidates based on how much they align with the dominant liberal ideology. The liberal professors in charge of the hiring process will continue to promote liberal candidates. The liberal/conservative academic disparity is NOT due to this inner drive towards self-determination: I am a conservative, and I am working on a liberal arts Ph.D. with the firm belief that I will be awarded for my effort. Of course, I would not be caught DEAD saying that I am a conservative. I prefer to let my work speak for itself, and while I have to keep my head down politically, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that my hard work will be rewarded.
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Tenure doesn't make you liberal, except insofar as you simply don't get tenure if you don't fall in line.
I hope you're right. I had the same thought process when I finished college. I graduated with a degree in Journalism prior to going into education and worked in Hollywood as an associate producer for a little while and I naively thought that if I did a good job, the politics wouldn't be an issue. Boy, was I wrong. Office politics dominated everything and quality had little to do with success or failure. It was a valuable lesson. You sound like you're going into it with your eyes open, but remember, hard work won't necessarily matter to everyone.
Here in warm Australia, the problem with leftist profs isn't tweed. It's polyester. Eeew!
Oh, and the other prob with leftist profs is authoritarianism…but you already knew that.
No, he's saying that professors are liberals because of tenure. I'm saying that he's full of wild blueberry muffins.
How is he wrong? Everything in academia is politicized now. Professors risk not getting tenure unless they fall into political lockstep with the people who make those decisions.
The steps are not 1. Get tenure; 2. Become liberal — it's more like 1. Become liberal, or learn to tell convincing lies about what you believe; 2. Earn the approval of the administrators; 3. Get tenure.
"The real reason why professors are libs boils down to one word: tenure."
Exactly…in today's world nothing is a guarantee anymore…..but if you have tenure, your job is. Think how crazy the world is….women are becoming men, men are becoming women, boys like boys, girls like girls, Tiger Woods has a sex addiction, Danny Glover cuddles with Hugo Chavez, and a woman named Mo'Nique has won a Golden Globe Award………..nobody would have said they were a guarantee (except for Glover and Hugo…they are just so cute together).
America is a lovely place…once you get tenure you can teach young minds that George Bush is an idiot (either one), Reagan was a C-List actor, America is evil, FDR was the Savior of the nation, 9-11 was a result of radio-controlled airplanes that were being flown by Dick Cheney, and the list goes on and on….but if you have tenure you aren't fired for lying, rather, you are applauded and cheered as being that "wise and experienced mind", who will be a fantastic adviser to any Socialist, Communist or Progressive Club that gets founded.
Who says America hasn't made progress?
I'm going to become a teacher, and I'd like to teach art. And I'm an conservative. LOL.
I don't think teaching in and of itself is bad. It's just that somehow, it just got all messed up, thanks to the '60s.
I do wonder to myself, though, if I would be able to make a difference if I just taught art. How would I be able to tell the young hobbits that liberalism is very bad for your digestive system?
*gasp* I know! I could teach them to draw political cartoons!
This is off topic, but has Unga confirmed he's staying next year, or is it still just rumors?
Greg asks about the libs record of success? In sports terms, it's nicknamed "ofer".
My Moms a Professor of Philosophy and my Dads a professional novelist…I guess we are part of the small breed: Conservative academics?
engineering (electrical, mechanical, chemical) and the physical sciences (chemistry, physics) don't skew left. mathematics and computer science probably skew a bit left. everything else happening at universities is white noise anyway.
Welcome home, Dan…
The old adage, 'Those that can, do; those that can't, teach.' While it can't be said for all who teach, it's no surprise the profession is overwhelmed by liberals.
Greg you are the best, now work on getting Red Eye episodes on either dvd or online, because us conservatives with jobs can't be awake at 3am to watch tv.
"Liberals talk about doing stuff."
which would be harmless enough if they then didn't try to force their BS on the rest of us. in fact, about the only time they actually DO anything is when they're in the process of forcing their BS on the rest of us.
let's look at it a slightly different way. conservatives don't mind slugging it out in the real world every day and don't want a guaranteed job for themselves or anybody else. while we might concede it would be nice to have that security, we recognize there's no way it can happen without also providing that same security to a bunch of undeserving feminine hygiene solution dispensers. (the very raison d'etre of unions.)
what i believe Gutfeld is saying is that liberals naturally gravitate to careers that have minimal accountability in the real world, and that the higher education system is designed to make sure anyone who isn't initially drawn by the concept of tenure will be fully on board with the idea in short order.
Liberals! Doing the jobs Conservatives won't do! Where have I heard that before?
as i've said for years, we should take heart at the righteousness of our cause because even though the left controls education, the major media, entertainment, and most government, they've barely managed to fight us to an ideological draw. after years of indoctrination, most people eventually grow up and realize they've been fed a steady diet of crap and start voting more conservatively.
bottom line, the entire concept of liberalism is so badly flawed that in spite of their virtual stranglehold on the nation's youth throughout their formative years, they're largely unable to make it stick. when BS runs up against the real world, over the long haul the real world wins every time.
I have to correct myself and say that BYU does have tenure, but because of the honor code and the religious nature of the institution the school attracts more conservative professors and the school has more control over who they fire and hire than some federally funded schools.
i've made my living off and on for 30 yrs as an artist and i've caught some that, too. i just laugh at the idiots who hold such narrow, stupid ideas. just smile and assure them it's not against the law to use both hemispheres of the brain. some of the most creative people i've ever met are guys who wear pocket protectors and polyester- nary a tattoo, mohawk, or nose ring in sight- but would sooner display any of those superficial affectations than vote for a democrat.
"has there ever been a successful business model based on emotion?"
yeah, lots of 'em. but only to the extent they exploit the emotions of their customers, without falling prey to that idiocy themselves.
LOL… Try being a Conservative Historian in academia. I get looks from fellow academics like I am from another planet. Especially when it comes to Historic military and political questions, my specialties, my progressive/socialist peers completely lose it. Usually it boils down them just saying that I do not know what I am talking about, because a long list of Progressive/socialist historians from hippy era or progressive era have shown how it is all about American racism, greed, and avarice have propelled the American experience. Of course when you use the Founder's words and actions, they are dismissed as being slave holders. When you try to point out the economic factors, and the fact that not all the Founders were slaveowners (Benjamin Franklin was one of the founders of the abolitionist movement), you get called a racist who does not understand the nuances of the era. Same with the Civil War, only about slavery. FDR saved America. On and on and on. The historical peer reviewed journals dismiss conservative historians routinely. This discourages and silences conservative historians, and many do not participate in Academia because we feel frustrated and belittled.
Those establishments are called strip clubs.
CORRECTION………..Those who can , do…..those who can do more, teach.
Excuse me , but are you talking about your first grade teacher that taught you to read, and probably wiped your ass for you on occasion, or could you be talking about your middle school teacher that put up with your disrespect and insolence, to try to teach you something about the world ,or could it possibly be one of your high school teachers that………,oh, wait …………you knew everything, and didn't need no stinkin' education. But…..just possibly, it was one of your community college teachers….I'll wager that's it…..
Make that 8 out of ten.
It's too bad the GOP chooses to alienate what could be a significant boost to the fiscally conservative wing of their base.
It might make them feel better, but it won't get them any votes.
Actually my community college teachers were the best ones I had.
"The fact is, if we actually kept score on the success of liberal ideas throughout history – it just wouldn’t be fair to liberals.
And if you disagree with me, you’re probably a racist homophobe."
Amazing line … wish i had thought of it
I am a conservative on the tenure track in the life sciences (but untenured, hence no identifying data!) Most of my colleagues are liberal, and to many of them I am horribly perplexing. The logic goes: I am smart, and I am a liberal. I know you are smart, so you are a liberal too. What?? How can you be smart and not agree with me? You must either 1. not actually be smart or 2. actually agree with me, but not realize it yet. Then I get a short quiz to determine which option is correct. Most academics/liberals only talk with people who agree with them, so they have no way of dealing with someone who honestly holds a different viewpoint.
Obviously you have worked in academia. OK, perhaps "worked" is too strong a word, considering what passes for work in academia. I have several relatives who are university professors, and when they tell me what their latest grants are for, I want to scream. I do point out that MY taxpayer money is funding much of this nonsense. I honestly have a professor relative who received a $50K grant from the US government to study what happens when you put male and female rats in a cage with each other. Guess what? They have sex. Same thing with rabbits. This guy has been studying this for over 10 years, courtesy of YOUR tax dollars. I told him that I would personally be ashamed to admit that this is my life's work… He told me that OBVIOUSLY I did not understand the finer nuances of his work. As in, "You're too stupid to understand why someone has to scientifically PROVE that male and female rats will mate."
Fair enough
Jaci Greggs
http://jaciscully.blogspot.com
/>http://davidandjacigreggs.blogspot.com
/>Politics and morality are inseparable. And as morality's foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect, and our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive. ~ Ronald Reagan
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I think there are exceptions to the "rule" on liberal profs and that is in the (hard) science/math/engineering departments. These departments are very conservative, as the professors 1) know that they have financial worth outside the college, many having worked in industry before teaching. 2) The research they do is usually funded by and must provide results for industry and has real financial impact. Their work must be verifiable and can't be just opinionated gobbledy-gook. Profs in these deapartments know that they are part of the lager capitalist system and in my experience have a tendency to be very conservative.
Two comments:
1) Error in photo. Photo shows "2*2=5" . Every lib knows it should read "2+2=5"
2) Why hasn't anyone come up with this Che t-shirt? Front: Standard Che picture with the words
"Che was right…" on the back the words "…kill all the artists." (Note: if you like that idea, use it.)
Oh, the guy that invented strip clubs was a capitalist genius. Who was he – the first one to figure out that people wearing clothes will pay money to look at other people who are not wearing clothes? And that if alcohol is provided, the people not wearing clothes don't even have to be actually pleasant to look at?
A capitalist genuis ineed.. heheh even worked in one myself (bouncer/bodyguard) at one time.
Here here! I absolutely agree with that as an overall statement (had a few good ones here & there on the way through grad school, but it was spotty). I loved community college, what a terrific opportunity that was.
Uhm, aren't you then an example of what he's saying? Maybe the reason you're not tenured yet is that you're not indoctrinated yet? You're still a Mustang & only geldings are wanted.
My favorite radio host, Jason Lewis, often cites that saying but adds a bit of his own… "Those who can't teach, teach college. Those who can't teach college teach teachers college."
Teaching, these days, has to be THE most over rated profession. At least when I was in school in the late 70s early 80s, ideology and indoctrination were not prominent. In fact, my grade 9 social studies teacher is now in the head office of the provincial socialist party, but during my days in his classroom there was not the slightest hint of his politics in his teachings. We were taught about the early voyages of the Hudson Bay fur traders, etc, without any editorializing about whether or not the white man was wrecking the indians traditional way of life.
How things have changed!! I am presently trying to get climate change out of the school curriculum, but today's teachers seem a bit more reluctant to stick to the facts, ma'am.
While I had lovely teachers when I was in school, my parents taught me most of what I needed to know. Now that I have four children of my own, I can tell you that most of their teachers are phoning it in. It is interesting that you implicitly disparage community college teachers. Are you an elitist?
Show me a young conservative, and I'll show you a man without a heart. Show me an old liberal and I'll show you a man without brain. Winston Churchill
Growing up i was inspired by artists of all kinds and my teachers. I respect doctors and policemen but can't say I was inspired by them. Some people are but I just preferred the artists and the role models i actually had around me, my teachers. From kindergarten through the end of college i was taught by many passionate, hardworking individuals whose idea of success was not necessarily money but was based more upon the success of the students they worked for. What the fuck is so wrong with that?
Of course there are some duds…there are good bankers and crappy bankers, good gardeners and crappy gardeners, good teachers and bad teachers,. That's life…not a testimony for one profession. This article seems to have taken a political coincidence (founded or not) and turned it into some kind of professor witch hunt. What a disservice to the men and women who taught you your abc's and handed you your degree.
Growing up i was inspired by artists of all kinds and my teachers. I respect doctors and policemen but can't say I was inspired by them. Some people are but I just preferred the artists and the role models i actually had around me, my teachers. From kindergarten through the end of college i was taught by many passionate, hardworking individuals whose idea of success was not necessarily money but was based more upon the success of the students they worked for. What the fuck is so wrong with that?
"2 + 2 = 5" is a reference to Orwell's 1984 in which such a fundamental error passes for truth under authoritarianism.
A similar quote from the book is, "Freedom is slavery."
Look at the words "liberal", "libertarian", and "liberty". Don't they look similar? They are from the Latin "libertas": of freedom.
Google "liberalism", and you will find that it means a belief in the importance of individual liberty.
This definition is often called classical liberalism to distinguish it from the Orwellian definition of liberalism used in Greg Gutfeld’s article and many of the comments.
If you can believe that liberalism means something other than a belief in the importance of individual liberty then your mind can accept that freedom is slavery.
Conservatism comes from “conservare”: to preserve, and the meaning of conservatism depends on your geographic location, the times you live in, and even your other beliefs.
A possible meaning of conservatism for contemporary Americans would embody preserving the Declaration of Independence that created the United States:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
This meaning of conservatism also recognizes the importance of liberty, so perhaps the political spectrum should be from authoritarianism-to-libertarianism rather than liberalism-to-conservatism or left-to-right.
Yup. As a conservative who spent her entire career in higher education, I can tell you that "no conservatives need apply" is the order of the day. Unless you are a masochist, why seek employment where you are blatantly not wanted. I was "lucky": the people who hired me initially were desperate for someone, anyone to teach composition to a roomful of students. But now? Forget it.
The "overwhelmingly liberal tilt of university professors” was explained 20 years ago in a book called Tenured Radicals by Roger Kimball. No wonder the NYT is confused.
Juanito, you are exactly right about Dems constantly causing the problems the solutions to whch they later demand that are uniquely qualified to fix. These are the scammingest asses God put on this earth. Ive been alive for 57 years and I can't think of a thing they have actually fixed. I've seen them constantly play us off one another with their incessant divide-and-conquer politics. I've often wondered what they would do if the time ever came when there were no discernible differences among us to exploit. I'm sure they would be even crazier than they are now, if that's possible.
Many of the best-educated people I've known came from BYU. Unfortunately, Americans are still too impressed with candidates who come from what I like to call the "president factories" (Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, etc.). The most prestigious isn't necessarily the best.
The party that has the most people at the head of the classrooms is the one that determines the path the future takes.
Actually, I have a friend who thinks that my career path has been rocky because I'm a white guy (were I a woman or a minority–but not Asian because they're not considered minorities (I got that from a professor who was trying to get a job for protege of his of Chinese origin)–he's convinced I'd have a tenure track job).
Now, I've actually sat in on faculty hiring meetings where they were discussing the fact that they would have to have women and minority candidates on the short list to make the dean happy, so I won't dismiss that outright, but since at the end of the day I AM a conservative, I'm not inclined to blame others for my troubles, and I suspect that my lack of a lengthy publication record (I only have one article to my name) is probably the main reason for my not securing long term employment. For reasons I have never quite fathomed, there is an obsession with publication in academia–I know of a department where they've bragged about the higher than average rate of paper production by their faculty, citing that as proof of the quality of education they're providing (the fact that time spent on research is time NOT spent on teaching didn't seem to occur to them). And I was once passed over for a temp job in favor of a guy with a lot less teaching experience on the basis of his publications– and this for a job that was exclusively teaching.
And that's why tenure's appealing to me: once tenured, I wouldn't have to worry about that idiot crap.
The way Gutfeld wrote it, it certainly sounds like he thinks it's 1. Get tenure; 2. Become liberal.
I'm more inclined to think it's the second option, though I have to say, most of the places I've worked, the faculty I've worked with have been pretty good about tolerating different views. In fact, in a few places they went out of their way to highlight that (when I interviewed at one place, they actually went ouf their way to note that they had several Republicans in the department).
That is scary! I'm majoring in history of Middle East and have some conservative beliefs, live in Canada, do you know if the same situation in the academia exists here? After receiving the masters degree, is it possible to work as a history researcher in some research institutes when you're not a professor but just a grad student? I love history but I don't want to become a tortured professor. If you can answer this, thank you in advance.
I had a professor in college who introduced himself as "I'm Dr ___, and I'm a Marxist." Turned out to be a terrifically engaging instructor who eschewed ideology while teaching. I took an opportunity to talk to him on lots of stuff and enjoyed the verbal jousts. 3 years later I get commissioned in the Infantry and go off to the basic course. Three years after commissioning I go back to visit with family and show off new baby and go visit him at Alma Mater. He has returned from a teaching assignment at Berzerkely which he described as Alice in Wonderland by the Bay. He admitted that as a lefty he was appalled at the outright stupidity of the History profs he met there, and couldn't wait to get back to the Inter-Mountain West.
next you will be trying to get into the schools that the Earth is flat and that the sun revolves around it. Only in America…
I'm not going to throw my beliefs overboard for a sinecure, but I'm honest enough to admit that if someone offers me one without those sorts of strings attached, I wouldn't look askance at it.
Liberalism has nothing to do with laziness; it's about thinking you're better than everyone else and looking down at them. Admittedly, that creates a sense of entitlement that the concept of tenure can certainly complement, but it's not a necessary combination.
Judging by what I've heard, you lucked out.
[...] Theories for why conservatives tend not to become college professors abound. Theories such as a left-wing bias, or higher IQs on the left, or the fact that college professors aren’t allowed to bring their [...]
Judging by what I've heard, you lucked out.
This whole thread is a bunch of conservatives looking down at liberals, making broad-brush, clichéd judgements about a whole group of people (two groups of a people, actually – professors and some stereotype of a "liberal) – and now this – the claim that liberalism is about thinking you're better than everyone else. Yawn.
Or could it be that you don't understand how your field works? If you think research has nothing to do with teaching or that research is simply producing stacks of paper, then you've missed … everything.
If this is what conservatives think academia is, no wonder they have these ridiculous, jaded ideas about education and scientific inquiry.
This whole thread is a bunch of people gathered together to pat each other on the back about "our cause" and how right we are – typical groupthink. You are manufacturing yourselves. It isn't enough when your pundits, popes and presidents feed you talking points and thought regulating vocabulary (like this whole derogatory idea of "liberal" or the newer slogans like, "they hate us for our freedom") – but you have the audacity to project that mind control onto a community that thrives on disagreement.
Conservatives don't become professors because maybe they can't deal with uncertainty and ambiguity about what is true. Science is ambiguity, uncertainty, inquiry – nothing like the assured, self-reinforcing, ideological stereotyping and "I already know everything" certainty exhibited in all its glory in the comments to this blog.
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