Why are colleges so liberal? | Barking Hard

Why are colleges so liberal?

Infested




I think it's that Professors are just more likely to be liberal. that trend has grown the past 5 decades or so. needless to say ambitious students leave to fulfill their ambitions. the ones who stay pass on their personal views. it's all of our school systems being infested by now.
 
Yeah it's worst when it's like we think we know what's best for you reasoning of them. Also don't like how teachers in general look down upon people doing low wage/hard working jobs for a living.
 
Chuck Brown said:
Also don't like how teachers in general look down upon people doing low wage/hard working jobs for a living.
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Because people working those jobs aren't lining colleges' coffers by getting a becoming-more-useless-every-year degree. The job I work in relates to my degree, but it's far from a necessity to have in order to do it. I read a meme-type thing once that said "Our parents' generation told us to go to college so we wouldn't have to flip burgers for a living. And now they call us entitled because we don't want to get a job flipping burgers." That's another discussion entirely but relates a little to that point.

As for why it more left-leaning? There are plenty of anti-education righties out there (creation-based science teaching for example is a right-wing phenomenon; most who criticize people for being an overeducated egghead tend to be more right-leaning than left-leaning in my experiences), and I think that gets magnified and stigmatized and thus the push back in the opposite direction tends to be forceful. Lefties also tend to be more open to ideas that bring change instead of maintaining the status quo. I put myself in the middle of the extremes-- change is a good thing, but we don't always need change for change's sake in every aspect of life. I don't believe in guaranteeing equal results, just in giving equal opportunity.

It's just like any political reaction in this country-- Carter got in as a reaction to the Nixon corruption and wanting to get away from anything tainted by it (i.e. his VP, Ford). Reagan rode a wave of frustration with Carter's inadequacies into the White House. The reaction to the years of Reagan and GHWB and the feelings of the middle class of being swindled by Reaganomics led to Bill Clinton. Then the perceived low ethics of the late Clinton years resulted in a big neoconservative movement that fueled the GWB years. The reaction to the late Bush administration struggling with responding to Katrina and being in command when the housing bubble burst led to a major leftward swing that was the Obama administration. And the reaction to perceived leftist sentiments that came with OWS and BLM led to the far-right Trumpism that is taking over the GOP presently. It's a pendulum that instead of decreasing its arc over time increases it. While I'm no Trump fan, my biggest fear is that in 2020 the Democrats will trot out some Bernie Sanders type who carries the pendulum further out on its leftward swing.

Hell, even the impeachments and threatened impeachments of the last few decades provide evidence to this. the GOP was willing to side with the Democrats in prosecuting Nixon's obvious crimes. Meanwhile, Clinton pretty obviously committed perjury, but the vote for a removal from office was split almost directly down party lines. And now you have plenty of GOP members who are more concerned with holding power than daring hold Donald Trump to scrutiny (Paul Ryan has even tried to warn that electing democrats in the midterms will mean Trump gets held accountable... frankly, I'm okay with that, but I think BOTH sides need to be far more open to calling out their own kind). I think a significant amount of that can be traced to a resentment that the Democrats wouldn't stand with them against an obvious presidential abuse of power by Clinton. It's a shitty way to act for both sides: get over yourselves.

It works the same in higher education. Educators are meant to be there to educate and when you feel that you're being attacked by something that is both education and right-wing, you likely will strike back stronger and side with the left more often.

And really if you don't want a left-leaning college, there are plenty of more right-leaning schools and programs out there. I was one of the few fairly middle people in my (really far left) college; I found that most I went to school with were willing to listen and discuss if you don't come at them guns blazing, and that is the mistake that you see out of hardliners on both sides. Once in a while you can make a convert, or at least find others who think similarly. There's a saying from the world of skepticism that I tend to live by: keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out.
 
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Stuff I didn’t think of at the time but now realize. Want to go back to community college at night where the classes are more practical and less biased. Most still liberal but at least it’s not rammed down your throat
 
It's also possible, dare I even say likely, that a teacher can hold a certain political leaning and not let it affect their educating.

I had a high school American Civilization and Economics teacher (this was at a fairly right-leaning non-denominational private boys school near Cleveland) who absolutely loved Zinn and Loewen, but everything she taught was pretty straight down the middle. There's room for a wide range of viewpoints, and the wider a range you're exposed to the better-informed your decision-making will be. There's nothing wrong with reading Marx. Or with reading Mein Kampf. Just don't accept either as being 100% accurate and worthy of being the only viewpoint.

And as stated above, kids are capable of making the right decision (even if two people have different viewpoints of what the "right" decision is).
 
I keep on coming back to this topic in my mind during slow days at work (right now I’m on a project that isn’t due until the middle of next week; I could easily finish it up today or tomorrow at the latest so it gives me a lot of time to think about other things) and re-reading it with my thoughts on Dr. Stevens in my previous post, I had a college professor and another high school teacher come to mind who really both highlight my points from (likely) opposite sides of the political spectrum.

First is Rev. John Coffee, former history professor at Emerson College.

Professor Coffee was likely fairly liberal as an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister and son of a former Democrat Congressman, but he didn’t care what your opinion was politically, and he rarely made his views completely known. All he asked is that you always think and question everything. Take your beliefs and ask yourself WHY you hold those viewpoints, and don’t be afraid to change if your questioning them leads to an answer different from what you expected. Sure, most students in his classes were on the far liberal side of the spectrum (this is a New England communications/arts school, after all), but all he asked was that you think and question everything. And I’ve always thought that’s the way education should be. Rarely is anything anywhere absolute. Coffee was enjoyable. Listening to his lectures was almost like listening to your grandfather recounting tales. My last class with him was in his final year as a teacher, and students who weren't in his class often came in just to sit and make sure they got to listen to a lecture. He compared every event to how it would look if someone put the entire history of the world into a movie, how events would be dramatized, and it made you remember. Coffee concentrated on expanding our vocabulary with two words at the start of each class, many of which appeared on the midterm and final. Fustigate. Lapidate. Catamite. Callipygian. Hortatory. Circumspect. Lugubrious. Puerile. Maudlin. Apparatchik. Quidnunc. Proper spelling of cemetery, supersede, accommodate, and privilege. Proper pronunciation of schism. I know students who didn’t just get a history minor; they got a John Coffee history minor (I wish I had done that, frankly; only half of my history minor was with him and it’s one of my few educational regrets).

And yes, the main character in The Green Mile is named after him.

Three quotes from him stick out in my mind: "Some people don't really want history to be history; they want it to be a celebration," "Bureaucrats are always hired for somebody else's services and then end up running the whole show; there's a lesson to be learned somewhere in there," and "What happened is not nearly as important as what people think happened."

I especially love that last point. Perception is 9/10ths of reality.

In high school, it was Mr. Aliazzi, whom I had for sophomore Western Civ.

I don’t think any of us ever asked him about his political views, nor did he really make them known because really why does it matter? Considering his Catholic upbringing, I’d assume fairly right-wing, but I’ve known plenty of Democratic Catholics in my lifetime (mostly in New England though; they tend to get more conservative as you go Westward). Mr. Aliazzi spoke something like seven languages fluently and could “fumble around” in two others (by which I mean he could speak them about as well as I can speak French—enough to pass a French 3 proficiency test with the second-best score in the class). He would glare at you and honestly scare the hell out of you with the way he would nearly scream lectures at you, pound on the blackboard to emphasize a point, and his liberal use of the word “shit” in a high school classroom. Intimidating as all hell, but he wanted to make you think more than anything. You probably weren’t going to get out of his class with an A. I had a C. Freshmen typically got blanket D’s and F’s the first grading period. But it taught us how to think and about what matters most when learning about history. He's another one where I wish I had taken more classes with him: it would be a GPA killer, but you'd come out better off as a thinker.

We didn’t have many discussions in these classes, mostly lectures, a few questions, readings, the usual tests, but rarely major group discussion. And sometimes that can be a good thing: group discussions can often end up a time to marginalize and demonize those questioning the majority view. But we were all encouraged to think and question and examine, even just on our own. With Coffee, it was especially true when we had papers due. Coffee would recommend a book for us to read but was open to us exploring something else from that time period or that subject. He didn’t want a report on it: he wanted to know what we thought of it. I always liked that. Anyone can read and spew back a synopsis. He wanted to know our thoughts and what we got out of it, what we agreed with, what we disagreed with, what we learned. With Aliazzi, it was about analyzing the many causes of and effects from major events in history.

In journalism, we care about the Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How of every event. History, as we teach it in this country, tends to concentrate too much on memorizing and spewing back elements of Who, What, Where, and When.

But does it matter that you know the Magna Carta was signed in 1215 at Runnymede? Or does it matter more that you know what it contains, what led up to it, and what all came from it?

Both Aliazzi and Coffee cared most about that Why and the How. And they both knew that sometimes those things can be complex issues, and that conservatives, liberals, libertarians, and authoritarians will all view them differently. And that’s okay; as Coffee's earlier quote shows, no one is going to view the same event the same way and they both tried to convey that to us. Obviously with some it will go in one ear and out the other and they'll accept one side as the whole truth and the other side as completely fake, but they gave us that freedom to let us analyze and think for ourselves.

Are our educators liberal? Sure, for the most part they are. But if it's being done correctly, it shouldn't matter.
 
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I think PGL is just a contrarian these days because the forum roasted him so bad about Manziel. Dude is tenured here as anyone and doesn't deserve that.

Now as for the topic at hand. I have a hard time thinking if my university was especially "liberal". I suppose there was the vocal student union but what university doesn't have one of those? A shitty one I reckon but I digress. I'm probably the biggest 'leftie' on this board (pun intended because i'm left handed. Ned Flanders meme here) anyway.

I think any institution that is not free thinking in all directions is a faulty one but then again I took a lot of philosophy classes. It makes you think outside the box.
 
Often younger people lean liberal. I find this to be the case when people aren't familiar with the real world and haven't actually experienced how the world works. I was actually a democrat until around 26 when I realized I was more of a libertarian. I preach balance most importantly.

Unfortunately kids are brought up with thinking that the world is this perfect place and that every single human life can be saved and that all bad things can be erased. They typically have no knowledge of statistics or data and certainly can't understand that in an overpopulated country as ours, it's exponentially more difficult to completely rid the country of racism, sexism, insert "Ism" here.

That's just my brief overview. Once people start realizing how the world works, they'll often lean towards being a moderate, typically socially liberal and fiscally conservative.

This world just needs balance.
 
DaBrowns41 said:
Often younger people lean liberal. I find this to be the case when people aren't familiar with the real world and haven't actually experienced how the world works. I was actually a democrat until around 26 when I realized I was more of a libertarian. I preach balance most importantly.

Unfortunately kids are brought up with thinking that the world is this perfect place and that every single human life can be saved and that all bad things can be erased. They typically have no knowledge of statistics or data and certainly can't understand that in an overpopulated country as ours, it's exponentially more difficult to completely rid the country of racism, sexism, insert "Ism" here.

That's just my brief overview. Once people start realizing how the world works, they'll often lean towards being a moderate, typically socially liberal and fiscally conservative.

This world just needs balance.
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Well said. I leaned on the Democratic side when I was still in college. Wasn’t until I got my first job working for a small business when I started leaning more conservative. That and the fact I saw my college degree really wasn’t applicable to what I was doing and as you said being exposed to the real world.

Agree though as in everything balance is most important
 
Colleges are no longer liberal but progressive. This started in the Mid 90s with universities staring to enforce strict speech codes. Very little diversity of thought or opinion at the top.
 
DaBrowns41 said:
"Progressive" is still such a subjective term when you have no legitimate understanding of how the real world works.
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All terms are subjective, liberal, conservative, progressive, Left, right.

I don't think of progressive as a positive, it's the original progressives more than a century ago that took the a long march of slow incremental changes. The thought then, as now is that the general populace won't accept the whole enchilada at once. So incremental change will occur.

It's not limited to the Democrats. Teddy Roosevelt was an admitted progressive, Woodrow Wilson and FDR were aggressive progressives.
 
Young minds desire education,not so much as we get older,I’ve never seen a political mandate as far as college but it’s really not much different than our military wanting young people to train simply because there open to it.
 
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