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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (28241)	9/8/2006 2:58:24 PM
From: Suma	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541281

Using Ward Churchill as an example of left thinking professors is going to the extreme.. He certainly opened a bag of worms for himself and unfortunately a lot of academia has suffered from it.

To: TimF who wrote (28241)	9/8/2006 3:58:08 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541281

Suma said that one of the central aims of higher education is critical thinking. You said: But strong bias in academia works against that goal not for it. That's certainly a myth of the rather strident part of the the further right in this country. And the evidence advanced is Ward Churchill. One bit of evidence does not even come close to making this argument. In fact, at the moment, Churchill is evidence for the opposite, since the University of Colorado faculty committee made its report. If your argument is that there are some genuine ideologues of left and right in the American academy, no one who knows anything about it could reasonably disagree. If your argument is that, regardless of political convictions, there are some crackpots on faculties, no one who knows anything about it could reasonably disagree. But your argument quoted above is not either of the above. You assert a "strong bias which works against that goal not for it." The assertion of a strong enough bias to be counted as working against the goal of critical thinking means, to me, you think there is some systemic problem to account for. If that's your argument, then it needs far more substantiation than you've advanced. As they say, you are entitled to your opinions. But your assertion is more than simply opinion.