Off By One

As seen on “Instapundit”:http://www.instapundit.com/ today, a New York Post editorial on the topic of academic uniformity that I can really see being a problem.

Essentially the gist of it is that there’s an overwhelming bias towards liberalism in the humanities at a few major universities, and (although the article is not clear on the source of the statistics) probably at a majority of them.

There’s a few pretty clear arguments as to how this happens here, as well — ones that might be valid, might not, but they’re convincing to me. The truth of it is that it is hard to get a position in studies of social issues unless you agree with the prevailing opinion. Try to imagine the last person you knew of who was studying race relations in a humanities program who was opposed to affirmative action. While I imagine that there exists an example or two, contrast those with the uniform majority.

One comment that was really telling/galling in the article was a (para)quote from a linguistics professor at Berkeley:

The disparity in hiring, he explains, occurs because conservatives are not as interested as liberals in academic careers. Why does he think liberals are like that? “Unlike conservatives, they believe in working for the public good and social justice.”

With all due respect, and I want it clear (this is for you, Matt) that it’s an arbitrarily small, non-negative quantity, this is bullshit. Self-serving, self-righteous, and self-fulfilling bullshit. All it says is that if you disagree with the left slant of the modern humanities, then by definition you don’t care a whit about the society that you live in. Well, fuck that. I do disagree with the left lean, and I do so because I care about the society I live in, not despite it. I think they’re wrong about what is best for the world.

And that just gets me angry, and I shouldn’t code when angry. Which I need to get back to.

This post brought to you by Chris killing time on blogs while he should be writing a compiler.

I am obliged, upon actually tasting it in a quiet setting, to reverse my long-held distaste for Big Rock Traditional Ale. It is, in fact, quite tasty.

Also, this essay on academia and truth may be of interest to A) anyone who teaches amongst my readership (all of one person, as far as i know) and B) anyone that learns (Many, many more)

In other news, I finished my last exam today. I need 92% on it to get 90% in the course. Here’s hoping! My other grades seem to be in the A- to A range so far, but Pscyh, and Algorithms haven’t made any splash at all yet. We’ll see.

In case you skipped it, seriously: Read this. I’m not kidding.