tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6708375.post111920500632261678..comments2024-03-28T03:54:21.932-04:00Comments on Canadian Cynic: Canada, academic "bias," and complete and utter BS.CChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11406057201126015750noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6708375.post-1119326854081707222005-06-21T00:07:00.000-04:002005-06-21T00:07:00.000-04:00I don't know that the rightists are necessarily be...I don't know that the rightists are necessarily being hypocritical in that regard. After all, to be hypocritical, one has to have principles to betray.... Or, to be fairer, one has to have principles which are actually betrayed by one's actions. If one's principles are, say, that one's own antecedent evaluative judgements trump everyone else's, then this doesn't look like a hypocrisy problem. For that sort of principle says, taken to its limit, that whatever <I>I</I> think is a problem is a problem, and whatever <I>I</I> think is not a problem is not a problem. And everyone else can take a walk. This suggests that the problem runs much deeper than hypocrisy; it's not a matter of values not matching up to conduct, but of the values being no good in the first place! (Which is usually a better form of argument, IMHO, anyway. "You're inconsistent" suggests only that the contradiction has to be resolved, not that it has to be resolved in any particular way; "you're wrong" suggests that some committment actually has to be given up.)<BR/><BR/>Being in the academy, I tend to think that the minority issue will self-correct in time. Though the proportions are not yet equal, and there's no telling who will escape academia altogether, there are vastly more female and minority grad students than there are professors or even instructors. So, given that professors and instructors are older and thus will retire and/or die sooner rather than later, it seems that the proportions should shift in a more favourable direction in the next ten to twenty years.<BR/><BR/>That said, though, the point in my last comment really applies here, too: would it really be so bad if all professors were white males? (or black females, or whatever) Making the evaluative claim always requires a bit more work than just pointing to bare empirical fact. (Not saying there are no good arguments -- there are also good arguments for eliminating ideological biases, one way or the other. But, these are different arguments, and they will only deploy empirical data in an auxiliary, rather than fundamental, fashion.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6708375.post-1119272873485352602005-06-20T09:07:00.000-04:002005-06-20T09:07:00.000-04:00I think it's also worth pointing out that, if the ...I think it's also worth pointing out that, if the wankersphere is so concerned about balance in academia, why haven't they bothered to address the <I>racial</I> disparity there?<BR/><BR/>The residents of Lower Wankerville are clearly <I>livid</I> over what they see as left-liberal over-representation in academia, and want to take explicit measures to fix this.<BR/><BR/>On the other hand, point out the under-representation of, say, women or minorities and suddenly, you're told that trying to rectify that would be (gasp! horrors!) akin to a quota system. Or affirmative action. Or something equally pernicious.<BR/><BR/>How thoroughly hypocritical.CChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11406057201126015750noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6708375.post-1119272138549684212005-06-20T08:55:00.000-04:002005-06-20T08:55:00.000-04:00Fair enough. Although, as I mentioned, she might a...Fair enough. Although, as I mentioned, she might as well have pointed out his ongoing membership in the BCCLA (which, I would contend, is a fairer marker of his general doxastic leanings than SAFS).<BR/><BR/>Incidentally, does anyone know if any of the genuine right-wing ideologues has bothered to make the argument as to why liberal or conservative bias in university profs/instructors even <I>matters</I>? It's one thing to point out that, say, most professors are liberals, but it's quite another to show that <I>it is a bad thing</I> that most professors are liberals. That is, even if the factual claim were true, no particular evaluative claim follows.<BR/><BR/>The whole issue reminds me a bit of a comment Franken makes in "Lies" -- the issue with Al-Qaida isn't how much oil they put on their hummus, it's that they're trying to kill us. Similarly, the issue isn't whether or not professors are "liberal", it's that they are (en masse) insular, snobbish, and condescending (among other similar sins).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6708375.post-1119258188375947362005-06-20T05:03:00.000-04:002005-06-20T05:03:00.000-04:00adr wrote:"Picking on Andrew Irvine for his involv...adr wrote:<BR/><BR/>"<I>Picking on Andrew Irvine for his involvement in SAFS is a tad unfair."</I><BR/><BR/>Now, now ... I wasn't picking on Irvine for his involvement with SAFS, I was criticizing <I>Kay</I> for not <I>mentioning</I> Irvine's association with SAFS. There's a difference.CChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11406057201126015750noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6708375.post-1119254704253260662005-06-20T04:05:00.000-04:002005-06-20T04:05:00.000-04:00It was with great pride that I recently accepted a...It was with great pride that I recently accepted an invitation to teach a course on "Why the U.S. military are baby-killing Fascists" at one of my old alma maters, University of Western Ontario. <BR/><BR/>I hope to educate Canadians that the U.S. is responsible for all the evil in this world - just like great profs like my idol, Noam Chompsky. From imperial warmongering America attacking Germany and Japan for absolutely no reason and turning them into "peaceful democracies", to Ronald Raygun "liberating" 110 million Eastern Europeans from the benevolent cuddly arms of the great Soviet Union, to Bush's illegal, immoral, and unsanctioned-by-France war in the Middle East, and the reichwing's claims that he "liberated" 50 million people. Sure Saddam and the Taliban were bad, BUT the U.S. is far far worse.<BR/><BR/>Whereas some universities espouse a capitalistic educational system in which students are forced to compete for grades, UWO prefers a kinder, more socialist learning environment where students develop their skills through shared study groups, or pods. <BR/><BR/>Thus, UWO transcends the primitive, gender-based concepts of "ration" and "reason" to embrace crossdressing and self-mutilation as forms of higher knowledge. Most importantly, everyone at UWO is stoned completely out of their gourds.<BR/><BR/>Indeed, some of my fondest UWO memories are of the many afternoons spent beneath the statue of Josef Stalin with my fellow pod people, passing around a bong full of grade-A campus-grown doobie.<BR/><BR/>So yes, it is absurd, absolutely absurd, to claim that there is a liberal bias in universities. <BR/><BR/><BR/>Professym Progressive PaulAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6708375.post-1119237212721764622005-06-19T23:13:00.000-04:002005-06-19T23:13:00.000-04:00Picking on Andrew Irvine for his involvement in SA...Picking on Andrew Irvine for his involvement in SAFS is a tad unfair. He is also heavily involved (past president, if I remember right) in the BC Civil Liberties Association. He's a former prof of mine, and he doesn't deserve pillorying (unlike someone like Horowitz). IMHO, he's got a bit of a bee in his bonnet about free speech issues (I recall one rather involved class where we discussed Mill's famous defense of same in "On Liberty"), which leads him to bed down with rather strange people.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6708375.post-1119234707108458212005-06-19T22:31:00.000-04:002005-06-19T22:31:00.000-04:00David Horowitz is a disgrace. He used to be a goo...David Horowitz is a disgrace. He used to be a good progressive Marxist like us in the reality community. But when he crossed to the Dark Side, it was up to us Enlightened Ones to demonize him - just like we demonize any minority who dares to leave the Progressive Plantation.<BR/><BR/>Ignorant reichwingers will scream "HYPOCRISY" when you accurately pointed out that Barbara McKay provided no proof of her leftwing bias in universities, while later in your post providing no proof of Horowitz's bias. But that's why they are wingnuts. They just don't understand nuance.<BR/><BR/>If they understood nuance, they would have voted for John Kerry because he is the personification of nuance. After all, the man has 5 medals from his 4 months in Vietnam. He is America's greatest war hero.<BR/><BR/>Nuff said.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Progressive PaulAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com