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David F. Bedey at Family
Security Matters worries that the Leftist indoctrination machines we
call institutions of higher education have duped the facile minds of
today's coeds into believing in hope.
(In the interest of full
disclosure, I probably ought to note that I attend a Leftist
indoctrination machines, the predominantly liberal former home of the
late, great professor-agitator Paul Wellstone, Carleton College. I study politics, both in the classroom and out, as a political science major and a campus organizer.)
Bedey runs through the
usual arguments: academia is desperately and obediently liberal, with
desperately and obediently liberal professors who stick to the tenets
of progressivism in their classrooms with desperate obedience. It makes me wonder what colleges he's looking at.
more after the jump...
I had a professor once
who, at the end of the term, promised an A to anyone who could
correctly guess his theoretical orientation. No one took him up on it; it would have been foolish. I've had other similarly dispassionate professors, and some more in Wellstone's model, who wore their beliefs on their sleeves. And
I've had plenty of professors who, as Bedey seems to fear so deeply,
asked us to question our assumptions about how the world works.
"It
is rare today in academe to find even the pretense of the disinterested
search, preservation, and transmission of knowledge in a nonpartisan
environment free of ideological intimidation. Instead, the dogma of
multiculturalism reigns. All cultures are considered to be of equal
value - save for Western civilization, which is demonized.
"Questioning the prevailing dogma is not permitted."
Well, let's start by
noting that-in academia and out the "prevailing dogma" is hardly one of
demonizing Western culture, but is still mostly hell-bent on talking
about (mostly dead) White guys, that is deeply suspect of
"multiculturalism" in many of its forms, and deeply suspect of claims
of racism, sexism, and other bigotry.
"The
prevailing milieu of curtailed and policed discourse, accompanied by
what can best be described as Left-wing indoctrination, leaves young
people ill-equipped to form a reasoned worldview."
Of course, "a reasoned worldview". Apparently,
it is not "reasoned" to ask why systemic inequalities exist in our
culture, or to acknowledge the usefulness and value of other ways of
thinking, or to question the things we take for granted - perhaps not
least of all, "Western" superiority. To Bedey, we are "indoctrinated" because we question.
If there's anything I've learned from my liberal arts education, it's to question. If there's any "prevailing dogma" in academe, it's criticism. You get called out on racism, sexism, Eurocentrism-you get called out when you make broad claims from small data sets. You get questioned when you make assumptions and you don't see the whole picture. We
ask you for more, not less; complexity, not simplicity--and even that
gets questioned. That's the opposite of indoctrination.
Tags:
indoctrination |
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