Discuss
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Discuss, Education, The War On Terrorism
This entry was posted on Monday, May 22nd, 2006 and is filed under Discuss, Education, The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 22nd, 2006 at 3:23 pm
Call me old-fashioned, but isn’t it inappropriate to turn a graduation ceremony into a protest rally (even a silent one)? Shouldn’t these professors (I assume they are profs) have more respect for the dignity of the occasion and leave their personal dislikes for the speaker at the door?
It just seems so fundamentally uncivil to try to turn a graduation ceremony into a political statement.
May 22nd, 2006 at 3:43 pm
Uh, how about a bigger picture to get context. As far as we know, they could be the only ones doing it in a sea of others who don’t care for their self-serving crap.
May 22nd, 2006 at 3:51 pm
ASC – you aren’t taking into consideration the self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing, self-important arrogance of leftist egg-headed intelligencia people. Let me ask you this: IF ANY OF THESE PEOPLE HAD VIEWS WHICH WERE OPPOSED BY THE VAST MAJORITY OF THEIR PEERS WOULD THEY HAVE THE MORAL COURAGE TO PROTEST? The answer is of course, no. This way protests these days aren’t really protests, they are parties and often rude parties.
May 22nd, 2006 at 5:16 pm
What, no “War Criminal” signs?
May 22nd, 2006 at 6:18 pm
It just seems so fundamentally uncivil to try to turn a graduation ceremony into a political statement.
Yes, what is Madame Secretary doing there? (Though I tend to agree, it’s not about you professor types, it’s about the kids…if they want to protest, more power to them.)
May 22nd, 2006 at 7:13 pm
Their protest was in addition to students protesting Rice’s visit. How many, I can’t quite say.
Don’t know. Maybe. Again, not in the picture.
May 22nd, 2006 at 8:40 pm
Wonder what they’d be holding up if Castro’s foreign minister, or Ahmadinejad’s, or Fatah’s, or the Taliban’s, was speaking?
May 22nd, 2006 at 9:29 pm
You’d think the teachers, who have the important job to educate young people, would demand their students listen closely to Dr. Rice. After all, imagine the wisdom they could gain from such an intelligent and accomplished person. She’s someone who has been in the real world and making the big decisions that affect all of us.
This is quite unlike the teachers, who have spent their entire career in the Ivory Tower, isolated from the real world, completely protected by tenure and worshipped as all-knowing gods by many young students. I’d bet not one of those profs could last 10 minutes with the pressure and responsibility that Dr. Rice bears every day.
May 22nd, 2006 at 9:58 pm
Lewis,
One of Rice’s problems is that she herself was a cooped up academic for most of her career. She has been (rightly) criticized for being slow to recognize major trends in foreign affairs. While she is undoubtedly an accomplished person, I’m not sure that she should automatically be admired because she’s “making the big decisions that affect all of us.” She may be making the big decisions but she’s not making good ones.
I have no problems with protests at graduations as long as they are not disruptive. I also would have no problems with what happened at New School if that girl had had something remotely interesting to say. As it was, she was an absolute flake, as her articles at the HuffPost made abundantly clear.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:37 pm
Wonder what they’d be holding up if Castro’s foreign minister, or Ahmadinejad’s, or Fatah’s, or the Taliban’s, was speaking?
Cal, what is your point? I see you making this argument a lot – we are not in the worst possible situation, but it doesn’t follow that there is therefore nothing to complain about.
They held up signs! Civil liberties are completely safe!
May 22nd, 2006 at 11:17 pm
Pooh, I think you missed the point.
It’s not that they wouldn’t be allowed to complain in Cuba, Iran, etc. It’s: Would they, from here, be protesting the misdeeds of those people? Or would they assume that anyone whom the United States government opposes must necessarily be on the side of the angels — and therefore that there was nothing in Cuba or Iran that was worthy of protesting?
May 22nd, 2006 at 11:33 pm
Heh. Yeah, maybe you should acknowledge that it’s a completely different scenario and completely different setting.
Come on Cal, you can do better than that.
Yes, that’s probably the point Cal’s making, but it’s certainly not one of the best points Cal has made.
May 23rd, 2006 at 1:46 am
Wj,
Well, there’s plenty worth protesting, but not so much that their protests are likely to affect. Yes China is terribly repressive, so my plan of action is
1. March in protest in downtown [American City]
2. ???????
3. Freedom, Democracy and a Pony for all China’s citizens
May 23rd, 2006 at 8:30 am
Pooh just nailed the answer to a question that often often gets rhetorically asked on the right: People who protest democracies and not despotisms do so because they recognize that protesting will have zero influence on a despot (especially not a foreign one), but it at least has a chance to influence a free democratic society. In other words, they sense that democracies are easier marks.
As for Condi’s protestors, at least they didn’t trot out the old… well, whatever is the female version of the “Uncle Tom” smear that she and Colin Powell have also had to put up with.
May 23rd, 2006 at 9:05 am
They woud be cheering of course for Fidel Castro, a mass murdering theiving tyrant without the slightest respect for dissent in his own country.
Yes, the scenario and the setting is completely different and that, I believe, was Cals point. The difference to the different scenerio hightlights the stupidity of their rude behavior. It is a comparison. So I posit once again, the very good question asked by Cal, which was completely side-stepped by Justin — WHAT IF IT HAD BEEN FIDEL CASTRO, WHAT WOULD THE REACTION HAVE BEEN?
If the the “protestors” would have stood silently and listened to Fidel in respect and admiration, as opposed to show blatant disruptive disrespect for Rice — yes, this shows something about the ideology and boardline personality disorder of this group of people.
May 23rd, 2006 at 10:40 am
At my law school graduation, a very conservative judge from another state was brought in to speak. Many of my friends and I heard through the grapevine that he was extremely conservative, to the point that he had spent a lot of his career trying to criminalize abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, etc. We researched it, and found his long resume to be chalk full of activities that were offensive to us. We considered some sort of protest, including something silent, like wearing a ribbon or something on our robes, but in the end we decided not to do anything. His speech was not inspiring, but at least he didn’t say anything too offensive.
My point is, I can understand why people would be angry enough to protest at a graduation. I worked my butt off in law school and graduation day was really a big deal to me, so I was really pissed to have a speaker there, who had spent his legal career doing things that I find offensive, and who wasn’t a graduate of our school, or even from out state. We didn’t want a “liberal” there either, just someone more neutral, maybe who had done something great or was a prominant legal mind from our city or something. Instead our school actively recruited this extreme right judge from another state.
I’m certainly glad those faculty members and students protested. It might be “rude,” but it’s their right to do so. I didn’t give a crap at my graduation whether people would consider us “rude.” That’s not the point.
May 23rd, 2006 at 11:47 am
Gosh, it is a complete mystery to me why the left seems unable to convert the silent majority of Americans to their ideas. First of Meredith, the fact that you find other peoples ideas “offensive” is, not be harsh, but telling. I find other people’s ideas “wrong”, “inaccurate”, “stupid”, “illogical” — generally, unless the idea is so far out of the realm of human decency and reason (genocide, exc) – I don’t find the idea “offensive”. I don’t find the idea that a women has a right to abort her child in third trimester “offensive” — I find it wrong, illogical, stupid and immoral.
I was never “offended” by the left wing ideologues that I was surrounded by in law school or undergraduate.
If you are offended by not having a monopoly in the market place of ideas — I would suggest that you should not be on a college campus, but rather live in some cloistered commune of similar thinking drones.
I wasn’t offended when Hilliary Clinton, a woman who I disagree with on almost every, came to my old highschool and slammed Ronald Reagan. I thought she was dumb, cruel, bitter, and generally, but I wasn’t offended by her presence or the fact that the school let her speak.
May 23rd, 2006 at 11:52 am
Heh. Yeah, maybe you should acknowledge that it’s a completely different scenario and completely different setting.
Aw, c’mon, let the guy DREAM, fer chrissakes!
May 23rd, 2006 at 1:14 pm
Dos,
I didn’t choose the word “offensive” on purpose, but maybe it is telling. I guess now that I think about it, I’m not sure what it means to be offended, but upon reflection I would guess it has to be personal, which many political positions are not, for me.
Having said that, I will amend and say that I just didn’t like the stuff that man had done instead of saying that what he did “offended” me. What IS offensive is having such a partisan and potentially inflammatory keynote speaker at your graduation.
My main point, however, continues to be that protest is never going to be polite, and to just call it out in this context as “rude” is a big so what.
May 23rd, 2006 at 1:21 pm
It IS very much rude to protest at a graduation and people SHOULD care. It’s not like they invited some third-world dictator to speak. Rice is Secretary of State! In this setting, she deserves some respect. Ignoring common decency isn’t some bold act of free speech–it’s childish. Plain and simple.
We need less of that kind of behavoir and more mature debate–from all sides. Why does there seem to be so few grown-ups these days?
May 23rd, 2006 at 1:23 pm
Joshua:
People who protest democracies and not despotisms do so because they recognize that protesting will have zero influence on a despot (especially not a foreign one), but it at least has a chance to influence a free democratic society.
wj:
Somehow, I seem to remember protests against a despotic government in South Africa. And somehow, they seem to have made a difference, too. And there are other possible examples from the past half century. So I think the theory that mere pragmatism is the reason for the distinction is really a stretch.
Admittedly, democracies are easier to influence, especially if you happen to be (or at least appear to be) a citizen. But to be so isolated that you can totally ignore the rest of the world is damn difficult — just ask North Korea or Burma. If they weren’t influenced, at least to some degree, by the outside world, they wouldn’t get so testy at what is said about them in the outside world.
Also, if you claim a moral basis for your protests, do you not have an obligation to protest immorality regardless of where it has occurred and regardless of the prospects that your protest will be heeded?
May 23rd, 2006 at 2:42 pm
ASC – I agree. Civil disobedience and protests are not synonimous with vitriolic disrespect. I believe the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. makes this evident. The historical anthesis of MLK is “protestors” spitting in the face of Vietnam veterans. Well, protesting is just protesting and that means spitting in the face of you nemesis. Bullshit. Part of the problem with this country is that we turned uncivilized. If you can’t win a debate through intelligence, you can always turn to easily triggered emotions of your followers. It is a disgrace. Meredith, I would just pose this question to you, while I understand you have great angst against the person who spoke at our commencement, I don’t know why besides — you don’t agree with him and his policies. I would have been more than happy to read a pamphlet or leaflet or webpage made to intelligently pose your ideas. This never happened. Why?
It is much easier to act like a fool at a graduation, than it is to take the time and mental energy to construct a argument/refutation/analysis of your opponents position and then to impart that in a meaningful way. The American Revolution, was not started by the burning of King George’s effify, that came later when it was necessary to inflame the passions of the masses in preparation for war. The real revolutionary protest came with the brilliant communication skills of our Founders. Just think how much more effective this protest would have been if the protesters had organized a parrellel speech by, oh, I don’t know, Representative Murtha. Rudeness in politics equals laziness and convenience.
May 23rd, 2006 at 3:03 pm
Wonder what they’d be holding up if Castro’s foreign minister, or Ahmadinejad’s, or Fatah’s, or the Taliban’s, was speaking?
Cal, can you think of an instance where such a person has spoken at a commencement ceremony? Even at a knee-jerk lefty school?
May 23rd, 2006 at 4:06 pm
ASC,
The Horror! They held up signs! You are right, there is no decency.
Less snarkily, let’s not overreact here. I agree that Madame Secretary is due respect – of the office, if not the officer. But they are present, in their full academic raiment – that’s plenty respectful. Ms. Rice does not get the implicit support of these people because of her office, they are not members of the armed forces to be used as a backdrop.
And really, we’re adults here. We should be able to handle a little rudeness from time to time. I don’t think anyone in the political arena really has much of a leg to stand on in this regard – if they can make hay by rudely pushing an enemy in front of onrushing traffic, well rudeness it is.
May 23rd, 2006 at 4:41 pm
OK so some liberals held up signs saying they are against the war.
That’s still nothing compared to what conservative attack dogs have been doing.
Did you catch fox news this morning? One conservative pundit compared Al Gore to a NAZI for telling the truth about global warming.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/23/gore-movie-g/
May 23rd, 2006 at 4:41 pm
Dos,
I didn’t make a website or a pamphlet about it, first, because the issue, in that particular situation, was not to engage in a debate about the issues, but to make the point that I did not want a right-wing extremist to speak at MY graduation. I think it was rude for the school to select a controversial speaker, and I would have expected the same reaction from conservatives of a left-wing nut was speaking at our graduation.
Second, I’m not going to make a pamphlet or a website which features my ideas because they are already featured on a thousand other websites and in a thousand other pamphlets. My arguments, values, beliefs, and ideas are not new. I’m left, so for the most part, you can guess what I think. The very nature of protests, in general, is to get attention, not to disseminate information. The hope is that you get people to notice you, and therefore, notice the issue, and then maybe they will get some information about it. Or, more likely they already know the information and the protest will just cause the issue to become the focal point of their interest, maybe enough to motivate them to do something about it, if they feel so moved. As far as where is appropriate to protest – almost anywhere. The problem with a protest is that it isn’t one if you only have it where someone has told you to and at an appointed time.
Dos, I think you know where I’m coming from but are intentionally twisting my argument to make your point. I get it.
May 23rd, 2006 at 4:41 pm
Pooh- I completely understand Callimachus’ comment. One of his more memorable quotes relates to his definition of the far left’s anti-Americanism. He believes that it is a “two-headed monster”:
“(1) holding America to the strictest possible standard of behavior and always putting the darkest possible interpretation on everything it does and (2) overlooking or ignoring with a cursory tut-tutting, the most vicious and selfish behaviors of any nation, group or person who opposes or attacks the US.”
His comment pertaining to Castro’s foreign minister, or Ahmadinejad’s, or Fatah’s, or the Taliban’s, ties into the second half of this equation very nicely. I can’t see the far left taking on Castro or the Taliban at a US university.
May 23rd, 2006 at 5:41 pm
Meredith — Your point is well taken. But I disagree that a protest is not a place to disseminate information. I think people have to be creative and that picture is not creative and hurts the cause for those of us who would like to see us withdrawal from Iraq. With friends like these, we’ll never get out the sand box.
May 23rd, 2006 at 6:57 pm
Yawn.
I guess these people haven’t realized that these protests have lost their effectiveness. All they do is make themselves look foolish and disrespectful.
These displays are so 60s.
May 23rd, 2006 at 11:40 pm
New Protest Ideas:
1) Block road with mounds of sand
2) Start a General Zinni clothes line
3) Through Abu Graib parties – everyone has to wear a canvas bag on their head naked and carry around a car battery, at the end of the night you shock a German Sheppard and everyone runs to their car. The first person to get bit on the ass throws the next party.
4) Stock up federal toilets with pages of the Koran, creating a plumbing nightware.
5) Neighborhood waterboarding. Break open a fire hydrant and see who can take the most water pressure.
You see…I’d respect a dumb ass who did this. Holding up an idiotic meaningless sign so that an equally dumb ass reporters can take a dumb ass picture to print in the dumb as paper and give them publicity that they don’t deserve, because they haven’t earned. As a consumer of pre-packaged mass media entertainment realpolitik — I expect a little more from our national dissenters.
Meredith, you write:
Now, if I call someone rudely a left-wing moonbat, I am making a statement about the issues. If that isn’t the case, then your argument is strikely about identity. I am with X and you are with Y and the two shall not mix. I would have perferred a Lawrence Summers or almost any other intelligent left-wing hack than the guy we had and I’m ideologically in bed with him. Why? Because the whole point of an education and, thus, a graduation is a challenging of assumptions and beliefs (so says the mindbending liberal professors at every public university). This is how they justify 95% of their bullshit. Mind expansion. So doesn’t it seem perfectly logical that after 4 or 7 years of brow-beating indoctrination that for 30 minutes an opposing view is heard.
May 24th, 2006 at 12:50 am
Kreiz, I understand his point, I just don’t think it carries much persuasive force. As to the counterfactual as to how a Taliban leader or Castro would be received by the left, it remains counterfactual, because it hasn’t (and mostly likely won’t happen), largely because of the (largely justified) outrage that would ensue.
May 24th, 2006 at 5:59 am
But I don’t think that’s the case, at least not as to Castro. Many far leftists and Hollywood celebrities (and I’m not talking mainstream Dems) have taken pilgrammages to Havana and stood in wonderment at the feet of the populist, cigar-smoking dictator. So there are counterfacts supporting it. Your point has more validity vis-a-vis the Taliban, although Yale’s recent embrace of a minor Talibanic figure cuts the other way (somewhat) as do the pro-Taliban plaudits of Professors Churchill and Chomsky.
May 24th, 2006 at 6:45 am
Protests aside, the very idea of “Not in My Name” is absurd, especially at a University. Since when did it become imperative that one’s opinions, beliefs and prejudices be protected and reinforced? Aren’t our universities to be institutions of challenge and inquiry?
What we are seeing, IMO, is a dull example of the overly protective and indulgent atmosphere in which we cloak our youth. They may act in rude and insufferable ways (they are, after all, kids) but they may not subjected to any concept that could cause a bit of cognitive dissonance. So the whole “speaking truth to power” meme is upheld rather humorously.
It would have been great fun if Rice had demonstrated some humor. When the group turned their backs, consider the snickers if she had plainly asked them, “Is it because I’m black?” Maybe she should recruit Steven Colbert’s writers.
May 24th, 2006 at 8:11 am
OTOH, I did find Jean Rohe’s speech at the New School (another event in the saga of John McCain), while a tad corny and self-indulgent, to have been a genuine brave act. This young woman showed some guts, I think. I don’t buy her arguments (e.g. McCain shouldn’t have been invited because he doesn’t gel with the spirit of the university) but I do respect her action.
May 24th, 2006 at 9:37 am
wj:
Somehow, I seem to remember protests against a despotic government in South Africa. And somehow, they seem to have made a difference, too. And there are other possible examples from the past half century. So I think the theory that mere pragmatism is the reason for the distinction is really a stretch.
Bear in mind my qualifier (emphasis added here): “People who protest democracies and not despotisms do so because they recognize that protesting will have zero influence on a despot (especially not a foreign one), but it at least has a chance to influence a free democratic society.
The South Africans were not protesting a foreign despotism, they were protesting their own despotism. Also there was no democratic outside nation propping up that despotism to demonstrate against. So, the situation you’re describing has little in common with the Iraq war protests, which target a democracy (the U.S.) but virtually ignored the despotism of the regime being overthrown, or the tyrannical goals of the Islamists we’re fighting there now.
That said, perhaps a better example of what Pooh and I are getting at is the half-hearted-at-best support of many Western feminists for women living under strict Muslim regimes. There, again, the prevailing attitude seems to be that the Muslim world isn’t open to reform, so they should focus their efforts on the West because they are open to reform.
May 24th, 2006 at 10:30 am
I meant Lawrence Tribe, not Lawrence Summers.
May 24th, 2006 at 10:31 am
Dos,
“So doesn’t it seem perfectly logical that after 4 or 7 years of brow-beating indoctrination that for 30 minutes an opposing view is heard. ”
In short, no – not during graduation. It may just be a matter of taste, but I do not want to be “challenged” on that afternoon. At my college graduation, I wouldn’t have cared if Hitler spoke because I was hung over and bored to death. I didn’t want to be there at all, and it was way too long. Law school graduation was different because law school was hard and way expensive. Therefore, it really mattered to me to have a nice, celebratory ceremony, with no BS. Granted, our speaker ended up being fine, I guess.
That was just my personal experience, but I can imagine that many people feel about their college graduation the way I felt about law school, and I just think it’s inappropriate for schools to be bringing in controversial speakers when there are so many more inspiring people they could get to come in and give a great little motivating speech. You know, people like Bono or Mel Gibson or Bill Gates (insert smiley emoticon here).
May 24th, 2006 at 10:56 am
Given a choice between Jodie Foster, a D-List actress and Dr. Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of State for commencement speaker, I will go for the person whose merits include actual work doing things people care about, as opposed to a person who pretends to be other people for entertainment purposes.
Quite frankly, the reason we are so far behind the rest of the world in education is because we’re doing too much liberal social engineering. We’re so busy worrying about making everyone feel happy and like a big happy family instead of doing what education is supposed to do: Teach you the basic skills neccesary to survive in this world. Education needs to use what works, and that is, tried and true over time, individualism and capitalism. Communism and Collectivism have caused more death, torture, and destruction than any other ideologies in history, and yet academia insists they have some merit. They are no longer theories, they were tried and they failed. Miserably.
But here’s something that should jar any rational person:
Seattle Public Schools:
http://www.seattleschools.org/area/equityandrace/definitionofrace.xml
Specifically:
“Racism:
The systematic subordination of members of targeted racial groups who have relatively little social power in the United States (Blacks, Latino/as, Native Americans, and Asians), by the members of the agent racial group who have relatively more social power (Whites). The subordination is supported by the actions of individuals, cultural norms and values, and the institutional structures and practices of society.”
“Cultural Racism:
Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and Whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label people of color as “otherâ€Â?, different, less than, or render them invisible. Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying only Whites as great writers or composers.”
This is the inanity going on in the American Education System. Not even the staunchest leftist with a rational thought left can call this sort of idiocy something good for America or any society. Callimachus’ two headed monster is spot on, though I think a third head is needed:
3) Ensuring through social engineering that America continues to raise anti-American leftists who value feeling good (as defined by the liberal mantra, of course) in higher regard than rational thought and critical thinking.
May 24th, 2006 at 11:28 am
My top ten list of Commencement Speakers:
1) Axel Rose
2) Charles Taylor, the Liberian mass-murderer, not the N.C. Rep 11th Dist.
3) Paris Hilton — after several vikes and a cocktail or two
4) Ken Lay, Jeffery Skilling
5) Oliver North
6) Keith Richards
7) Larry Flint
8) Matt Blunt….I almost vomited on the keyboard, I laughed so hard.
9) Ann Coultier
10) Jesse Jackson
Now that would be a graduation to remember. Except for #8 which would just be sad.
May 24th, 2006 at 11:37 am
Brian in MA- bingo on the lack of critical thinking. Cal must update his definition to include your third arm (leg, whatever). That would make it a leftist Triple Crown. Or the left’s Chimaera- a three-headed fire-breathing monster (googled- I didn’t know that).
May 24th, 2006 at 12:31 pm
To paraphrase (probably poorly) one of the best lines I’ve heard regarding debate and learning in college:
“If you spend four years of your life and uncounted dollars to get a college education, and during that time don’t have your deepest beliefs challenged, you should ask for your money back.”
Looks like some of these kids got that just in the nick of time.
I thought it was tacky for the faculty to participate, but I’m okay with the students doing so. Overall, it was a much classier display than The New School’s.
May 24th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
“If you spend four years of your life and uncounted dollars to get a college education, and during that time don’t have your deepest beliefs challenged, you should ask for your money back.�
“Looks like some of these kids got that just in the nick of time.”
“We’re so busy worrying about making everyone feel happy and like a big happy family instead of doing what education is supposed to do: Teach you the basic skills neccesary to survive in this world. Education needs to use what works, and that is, tried and true over time, individualism and capitalism.”
Are you kidding me? I can’t believe this debate has devolved into a discussion of whether or not our schools are too liberal and therefore not teaching kids to challenge their beliefs and not delivering a quality education. Oh wait, yes I can believe it because you all suffer from LDS (Liberal Derangement Syndrome), a cousin of BDS, of course.
Conservatives turning an anti-war protest into an assault on how liberals are f***ing up education in this country. A speaker at your graduation is NOT part of the educational process. This is because everyone has completed their coursework with passing grades, and they have GRADUATED!!!!! I also disagree with the suggestion that a partisan politician speaking at a graduation is providing much in the way of education or a serious challenge to a person’s values or beliefs. They mostly attend those things for PR purposes, not to educate or challenge.
May 24th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
Really, Meredith?
How could this thread NOT be about that? The picture is of the FACULTY…you know, the folks that have been teaching these kids the last four or so years.
You really don’t see the connection?
May 24th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
Brian, I suppose it would prove your point to simply say that that is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
So I’ll go a little further, and suggest that disagreeing with you isn’t prima facie evidence of a lack of critical thinking. Talk about pots and kettles here, but you are so busy demonizing the ‘over-liberalized education system’ that you aren’t even considering positions opposed to yours, which is something of a requisite for critical thinking.
Evidence? or just some assertions as to ‘what works’ that are so amorphously defined as to be useless as touchstones for any meaningful discussion. The fact that you are invoking individualism to indict people protesting those in power is simply stunning.
Sure, you might say that you’ve ‘considered and rejected’, which would be nice and might carry some weight if you recitation of opposing viewpoints bore some relation to those actually espoused instead of the straw-effigies you choose to attack. If you want critical thinking practice, try countering the strongest argument in favor of the protests (for example) instead of the weakest.
May 24th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
So, because they protested at graduation, they devote classroom time to Bush-bashing instead of the subject matter at hand? I mean I’ll agree that the set of those professors who would devote classroom time thusly is probably within the set of those who would protest, but I think you’re making a pretty severe category error by assuming the reverse. What do my political views and actions have to do with my ability to teach Spanish, or Physics, or Literature? (I mean aside from the fact that I personally have no ability to teach any of the above…)
May 24th, 2006 at 4:02 pm
Lonely and Brian,
Yes, really. As Pooh stated above, there is no indication whatever that the faculty in the picture have either: (1) been providing their students with a sub-par education, or (2) done so because they are too busy being liberal in the classroom.
One might look at the picture Justin posted and decide to have a discussion about liberals’ effect on education, but you guys seem to deliberately change the subject from the appropriateness of protesting to “by the way, those liberals are really messing up our schools.” And btw Brian, I have never had ANY teacher or any other adult teach me about “feeling good” at all, much less teaching me about that, as opposed to critical thinking and rational thought. And, “feeling good,” critical thinking and rational thought are not mutually exclusive.
Also Brian, your quote about definitions of racism seemed to be out of the blue. I’m not even sure I care to guess why you think those definitions are so bad. I disagree with those definitions, but I wonder what your beef is.
May 24th, 2006 at 5:56 pm
Meredith: Those weren’t my definitions, they were on the Seattle Public Schools Website (Seattle Public Schools, as in, the educational institutions in Seattle designed with the sole purpose to fill young impressionable minds with knowledge. No wonder people complain about Inner City Schools if that is what they call education). When I first saw them, I too thought it was a hoax, so I went to the main page and tried to get there through links. Sure enough, it could be found through main page links.
In any event:
It is a FACT that collectivist ideologies are the source of much murder, torture, and lack of progress in the world.
Nazis were collectivist. “Aryan Race” ring a bell? That society did a lot of killing, and eventually fell only because of bad military actions.
Communists are collectivists. Stalin killed more people than Hitler did, noone has forgotten about Tiananmen Square, and Castro isn’t a fun guy either. Sure, you got the benefit of being equal. Equally miserable, and prone to being killed at the governments will if you dared have any sort of individuality.
And those “noble” Africans? Tribal system. Africa was around long before Europe, but they never got the hint that dividing people into tribes wasn’t smart if you wanted a peaceful land mass. Now I know it isn’t popular to bash beautiful African culture, but an African war dance put on by students loses context when the audience doesn’t get speared afterwards, like what would actually happen after such an occurence.
Individualism and Capitalism, however, are what caused America to go from a group of dissident rebels to the most powerful country on earth in a span of 170 years, a mere fraction of what other societies took to reach their height. Boosted by the geniuses of the European enlightenment, the spirit of American individuality and personal initiative is what has made us so successful. Sure, we share common “American values” such as the rights we feel we are all entitled to by Writ of God or Natural Law, but the groundwork on earth is all done by individuals.
In short, there’s a reason why Europe and America are top dogs: Individualism and Capitalism. Why mess with what works for the sake of making the world’s losers, murderers, and barbarians feel better.
The point is, commencement speakers are supposed to give you your final advice before you head off into the world. If you haven’t been properly educated in the systems that work, a commencement speech may be your last saving grace. Condi may very well saved some poor artsy-fartsy soul from getting a rude awakening when they hit a world where individualism and capitalism are the requirements of success, and sadly, they were too busy learning Marx and Lenin.
May 25th, 2006 at 6:31 am
Meredith and Pooh both cry for evidence. So I googled this 2002 reference: “a recent survey issued by the Center for the Study of Popular Culture and the American Enterprise Institute reveals that the overwhelming majority of college professors are registered Democrats. It found that more that 90% of professors who work in the arts and sciences departments at leading colleges and universities belong to either Democrat, Green or Working Class parties — with very few registered as either Republican or Libertarian.
I don’t know the survey’s particulars. But it may evidence a bias toward liberalism. It may evidence a lack of intellectual diversity at major college arts & sciences departments. Let’s assume the study’s findings are true. I’d be interested in hearing facts supporting the counterposition.
May 25th, 2006 at 12:56 pm
There simply is no rational, logical, analytical (or another manifestation of correct brain functioning) counter-position to the liberal (I’ll go ahead and say Marxist) bias at most universities. It simply can not be done with a straight face.
The greatest fraudulent meme in the world is when people who intellectually disagree with the common wisdom of professor class are called anti-intellectuals, or anti-intellectualism.
Such universities as Hillsdale College in MA and Patrick Henry in VA and Ave Maria all have their exceptional academic creditials due to the rotting Marxist core of public universities.
May 25th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
Put it this way, Dos. Apologists for the counterposition would have no trouble seeing that Hillsdale and Patrick Henry are populated by right-wing profs. Nor would they have any problem criticizing that arrangement as intellectually undiverse. Their blindness occurs when staring in the opposite direction.
May 25th, 2006 at 2:11 pm
Anectodal evidence may be suspect but here’s an example supporting Brian’s argument. My daughter just finished her frosh year at a large, progressive public midwestern unversity. She took a history class that focused on the Civil-War era. Her professor gave her a writing assignment with three suggested topics. Two related to the effects of slavery on blacks (racism) and the third related to oppression of women (sexism). In other words, there was a decidedly 21st century prism on 18th century history.
Do I think her prof consciously chose to influence her students? No. Nor do I believe that she’s Ward Churchill equivalent. I presume, however, that teaching against the evils of racism and sexism in the context of US history is of very high (if not paramount) importance to this prof.