Wednesday, 10 November 2004

Groupthink

Mungowitz End points in the direction of an interesting Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed by Mark Bauerlein, an English prof at Emory, arguing that left-wing dominance in the academy is detrimental to intellectual discourse.

I tend to think that it’s important in the classroom to ensure that everyone’s ideas or preconceptions are challenged; ironically, I think this makes me look like a flaming liberal in front of my (quite conservative, with a few exceptions) Intro class and something of a greedy capitalist bastard in front of my (bleeding-heart liberal) Con Law class—of course, Methods makes me look like a sadistic bastard who likes to torture students with math, but that’s to be expected, and rather non-ideological (at least outside of The Discipline) to boot. So be it.