Taking the Liberalism Out of Liberal Arts

Today in the New York Times ran an article by Yilu Zhao entitled Taking the Liberalism Out of Liberal Arts. It details David Horowitz' campaign to 'take back the academy' from the Liberal Media Élite.

FUCK! I'm so sick of that phrase. Listen to what Zhao quotes infamous Harvard College right-wing nut Harvey Mansfield saying in this article:

We have 60 members in the department of government,' said Harvey Mansfield, a well-known Harvard professor. "Maybe three are Republicans. How could that be just by chance? How could that be fair? How could it be that the smartest people are all liberals? Many liberals simply don't care for the kind of work conservatives do."

What the fuck does that mean?

I knew from my time as an undergraduate, from friends who worked at the faculty club, that Harvey is as divorced from reality as the bunny what bears his name. He drinks heavily. He, Soldier for Good, drunkenly tried to pick up one of my male friends. He only does this to the brown ones, incidentally. And what is that quote but another self-loathing jab, a suggestion that liberals - as if there are any in this country - are, what? Lazy? Working for the academy because they can't handle 'real life'? WTF?

This entire charade makes me ashamed, the same kind of ashamed I am about our last election, about President-Unelect Bushco & about academic honesty. Because they are pushing biased, bigoted and intellectually dishonest notions, they have to whine like bitches because persons in the academy - the "élite" - see right through their trenchant, self-indulgent politics.

Ooh, look out. Teachers are Democrats. No fucking shit, sherlock. First, that doesn't vouch for someone's social conservativism or not. Half the Democratic party are so far right wing they have political positions identical to "centrist" Republicans.

Second, the true "élite" here are those like Horowitz, crying "Wolf!" because they don't control every fucking aspect of the world. They control business, finance, money, government and now this tiny percentage of loonies are shoving their vomit down our throats.

I remember Mansfield. He was a fuck. I doubt he's improved with age. He's a racist, classist bitch of the right wing. He hasn't published an interesting work since he was younger than I am now.

But I guess I'm going to have to read his shit now innit? Indoctrinate the youth, try to strip them of their natural opinions by forcing the opinions of the millionaires who run this country up their asses.

A later quote sums up my experience with academia:

Stanley Fish, the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, fumed at the suggestion that a liberal conspiracy existed among faculty. "I have interviewed 250 job candidates in the last five years," he said. "There is no room at all, in the hiring process, which is heavily scripted, for revealing political and religious orientation."

"The question you should ask professors," he said, "is whether your work has influence or relevance."

But they don't. So they don't get hired.

Fuck you, Horowitz. Fuck you.