David Horowitz, a former Marxist turned neo-con political activist, has made a personal mission of revealing the “leftist” political leanings of college professors and their nefarious attempts to indoctrinate their students. I posted a link to this article, “The Two Universities of Texas,” that Mr. Horowitz had written for The Daily Texan. This is how Captain Dipshit begins his article:
“There are two universities operating under the name the University of Texas.
One is a world-class academic institution. Its faculty is professional and dedicated to disinterested scholarly inquiry. Its courses observe the principles of scientific method, and its students are taught to respect evidence and to demand more than one perspective on matters that are controversial.
But there is a second university, which is quite different in its methods and goals. This university’s faculty regard themselves as activists, not scholars, and their method is that of authority, not science. Their curriculum is designed not to teach students how to conduct a disinterested inquiry, but to convert them to a sectarian ideology and recruit them to its causes.“
Okay, fine. Mr. Horowitz believes that a certain faction of UT Austin has consciously decided to undermine the methodology of science-based curricula and to institute a “sectarian ideology,” which seeks to indoctrinate the students. Then he goes on to say this:
“Among the departments and programs at UT that are parties to this scam are the Communications Studies Department, the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies and the Division of Rhetoric and Writing. Space only permits a glimpse of the problem.“
Hmmm. Am I the only one that sees a problem with that statement? Last time I checked, neither Women’s Studies nor Rhetoric and Writing were considered science based
disciplines. I could possibly see how Mr. Horowitz could categorize Communications as a science class, that is until he states that the class in question at UT is “Communications and Social Change.” Okay, that’s not a science class either. All of those classes are what rational people like to call “humanities” courses. And humanities courses examines the human condition using methods such as speculation and critical analysis, neither of which are scientific in nature.
To further cement his role as a delusional lunatic, Mr. Horowitz states, “What is the justification for deceiving students that they are getting an education, when in reality what they are getting is a political indoctrination?”
Look, if the students are too stupid to know the difference between a humanities course and a science course, then they need someone to indoctrinate them because they are retarded. Additionally, if a student enrolls in a Women’s Studies course and then receives a shock when the professor professes a feminist leaning, well, that student should then immediately drop out and get a job working the drive-in at Taco Cabana.
David Horowitz isn’t the only person out there that’s worried about the lefty pinkos in the hallowed halls of academia warping the pwecious widdle minds of our college students. Republican Senator Thayer Verschoor of Arizona, proposed the bill SB 1612, which would put a stop to professors revealing any political bias in their courses. If this bill gets passed, which it won’t, any professor caught advocating a political agenda would be subject to disciplinary action and a fine of up to $500 dollars. Here’s a text of the bill . It’s actually much worse than my little paraphrase.
Here’s a tip. If you believe that all collegiate professors are lefty commies that are attempting to subvert the American dream, then you need to recalibrate your commie-detector, because it’s severely out of whack. I’ve spent quite a few years in collegiate settings, and I’ve only come across one instructor whom I felt was way too
radical, but even then, open debate was welcome in the class. If you only associate with people with whom you agree, then you’ve never tested your particular ideological standpoints.
And are we so scared of dissenting opinions that we need to ban them? How far do we take that? And who gets to declare what ideology we accept and which ones we suppress? The majority? It wasn’t too long ago that the majority thought it was okay that black people were treated as inferior to white people. I also remember when the majority thought that AIDS was a “gay disease,” and therefore not a problem for “straight America.”
I can understand how in the science department an astronomy professor requiring his students to view “Fahrenheit 9/11” is inappropriate. However, the humanities are all about examining the human experience, and I’m sorry, but most of the canonical works about the human experience were written by folks that were on the edges of society or who were marginalized in some way. Those types of texts naturally attract scholars that are sympathetic to liberal rhetoric. That’s just the way it is.
And there’s a difference between Political Marxism and Cultural Marxism. Some of these neo-conservatives are confusing critical theory for political activism. They may be related, but they ain’t the same thing.
In the end, Horowritz and his ilk are operating under the delusion that there is some kind of neutral and non-biased way to communicate. There isn’t. We all reveal our biases every time we open our mouths. Ironically, we not only reveal our biases by what we say, but by what we don’t say. You can tell a lot about a person’s system of belief by the information they choose to leave out of a conversation.