What a great post! Just one question: why is what Texas and Florida doing wrong (or why is what the Republicans in those states are doing wrong) if you're right about this? If the choice is between a partisan university system that's completely against them, and no university system--but at least no corrupted one--why are they wrong to prefer the latter?
So if the boot were on the other foot, and Republicans were dominating the university and making people take MAGA oaths or whatever--banning LGBT student groups or whatever mischief you like--you'd still say the left declaring war on the university wouldn't be the answer, I assume.
Surely, though, there's got to be a threshold of badness at which it no longer would make sense to preserve the institution, e.g., every single class is indoctrination with some kind of authoritarianism. Someone who read only Minding the Campus and other conservative sources, and thus had availability bias for the worst sort of real cases, would wrongly believe that we're already there. But there must be a point at which we really would be.
The punch lands squarely on my jaw. His face is blank. "So, Mr. Lutz, has it gotten bad enough yet? Are you willing to betray your principles now?" There's blood in my mouth. I turn my head and spit it out. "Hit me again, and let's find out."
"e.g., every single class is indoctrination with some kind of authoritarianism."
Maybe I missed the point of the article, but isn't this exactly what you have right now, at least at a wide majority of colleges? It may be leftist authoritarianism instead of rightist authoritarianism, but the result is the same if you step out of line.
What a great post! Just one question: why is what Texas and Florida doing wrong (or why is what the Republicans in those states are doing wrong) if you're right about this? If the choice is between a partisan university system that's completely against them, and no university system--but at least no corrupted one--why are they wrong to prefer the latter?
Because my preference order is different from Republicans'. Because I value academic freedom very highly.
So if the boot were on the other foot, and Republicans were dominating the university and making people take MAGA oaths or whatever--banning LGBT student groups or whatever mischief you like--you'd still say the left declaring war on the university wouldn't be the answer, I assume.
Correct. Whether it comes from the left or the right, it's coercion, and I'm a persuasion guy.
Surely, though, there's got to be a threshold of badness at which it no longer would make sense to preserve the institution, e.g., every single class is indoctrination with some kind of authoritarianism. Someone who read only Minding the Campus and other conservative sources, and thus had availability bias for the worst sort of real cases, would wrongly believe that we're already there. But there must be a point at which we really would be.
The punch lands squarely on my jaw. His face is blank. "So, Mr. Lutz, has it gotten bad enough yet? Are you willing to betray your principles now?" There's blood in my mouth. I turn my head and spit it out. "Hit me again, and let's find out."
Sounds less like a principle and more like a tautology - academia is worth preserving because academia is worth preserving.
"e.g., every single class is indoctrination with some kind of authoritarianism."
Maybe I missed the point of the article, but isn't this exactly what you have right now, at least at a wide majority of colleges? It may be leftist authoritarianism instead of rightist authoritarianism, but the result is the same if you step out of line.