« 21 Names | Main | Magnanimous Victory »
November 11, 2004
Liberal Groupthink
This is one of the best articles on liberal groupthink in academia I have read. As someone who spends a lot of time as a student and (hopefully) soon an employee at a university this seems true to my experiences. A few months ago one of my graduate professors assigned an article to read that was so in love with all things diversity (except having conservative viewpoints, that was about the only diversity catagory the author left out) it seemed like the author had never been seriously challanged on this. No argument was made: It assumed that all diversity was good and this was a self evident truth and that the reader automatically accepted this. (Aha! I just found the article: This Trend Called Diversity by Sandra Rios Balderamma; Library Trends; Summer2000, Vol. 49 Issue 1, p194.)
As an undergrdaute there was not as much groupthink, but it depended on what department you were in at my school. My advisor did his graduate work under Robert Nozick so I got more exposure to convservative and libertarian philosophy than most other philosophy majors probably do. I still do not understand why so many liberals and leftists teach this way. My best professors have defended the minority viewpoint and good teachers should at least occasionally make their students defend positions they disagree with. I wrote papers in college arguing in favor of Marxist and other viewpoints I did not necessarily agree with just so I could learn more and challange myself.
Posted by Pete at November 11, 2004 07:39 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.petetheelder.com/mt-tb.cgi/207