Government by the Faculty Lounge
The Professors Are In Charge
We are being run by the mindset of the faculty lounge, as if the philosophy or English department has taken over running the country. Let me adduce some random examples.
Taxes
Tax proposals in haywire fashion are thrown out almost every day from various Obamians, as if at a faculty bull session over coffee. Can we count them all — much less can small businesses plan to hire a worker when they don’t know how much more they will shortly owe the government?
Here is what we hear from Barack Obama: a restoration of the death tax. Trial balloons for a national sales tax or a VAT. How high will capital gains hikes go? Rates are to go back to or beyond (?) the Clinton income tax schedules? Was the cap to come off income exposed to the full FICA bite, and was it to be set at $150,000, $200,000, or $250,000? What exactly is the new health care surcharge? And when and if these federal income hikes are added to the states’ raises in state income, property, and sales taxes, what will the aggregate tax bite be? Does anyone know? Do any of these guys care how “they” are going to make enough money to pay “us”?
Finance
Match that tax uncertainty with a weird financial policy. Are Americans really saving more or is the new thrift simply a result of skipping out on mortgages and maxed out credit cards that has resulted in less collective debt —the banks eating the loss quite well by paying depositors about 1% on their savings while lending out at 6% and more, or having the government cover their bad debts? Are we not seeing a massive transfer of wealth as retirees and savings holders are getting nothing — or rather less than nothing when inflation is factored in — on their money, while debtors pay little in interest and now find class sympathy by not honoring their obligations? Is not the person who borrowed, spent, and defaulted now seen as the better American than those who saved, paid on time, and passed something on to their children? It’s as if the economics and political science departments now set policy.
Race
Let me review the progress of the last two years, because the national mood reminds me of the free speech area at any California university where groups segregate by race while their professors celebrate “diversity.”
We had a green czar who claimed that whites pollute the ghetto and are more likely to be mass murderers. Our attorney general called the nation one of “cowards” for not holding racial conversations on his terms. He has no interest in trying Black Panthers who disrupted voting, but a great deal in trying the architect of 9/11 in a civilian courtroom, replete with Miranda rights, in Manhattan a few hundred yards from Ground Zero.
The Black Caucus, stung by serial charges against its members of corruption, wishes to prune back the House Ethics Committee as we now know it, presumably because it is “racist” as a bad messenger of inconvenient tidings.
The president came to the defense of a shrieking Harvard professor (not much going on in the world elsewhere) by claiming the police acted “stupidly” and characteristically stereotyped the non-white. Our new Supreme Court justice believes race and gender inherently make people smarter, or in her words a “wise Latina” is often a better judge than the old white guys who dominate the courts.
The doyen of the White House press corps, a liberal icon with a front-row seat at briefings, wishes not just that Israel disappear but that the Jews go back to Poland and Germany — and wins praise from Hezbollah and “sympathy” from her peers in DC.
Our governors of Massachusetts and New York allege their own unpopularity is due to racism — in the manner apparently unlike a most unpopular California governor who earned bad polls on his own.
To suggest that the president should not have said “kick ass” or “bring a gun to a knife fight” or “get in their face” or “tear up” a talk show host is to traffic in anti-black stereotypes.
Note the “no more disown Rev. Wright,” clingers of Pennsylvania, and “typical white person” of the campaign led to the above, just as the above in the next two years will lead to even more — given that our president has always sensed that racial identity politics is a sanctuary for setback and an embryo for career promotion.
Are the ethnic studies departments running the country?
How are we getting this right? The current academia are the product of decades of ‘work’. You cannot just vote for a new President or senator, because it will not change these institutions that are supposed to turn out the leaders of a nation.
Excellent point, Vandenberg. Academia was liberal-to-Marxist when I was last there (1986) and seems to still be. Many professors (then) spoke openly about ‘changing the agenda’ of the country, and students (then as now, apparently) lapped it up. This is the quandary of “academic freedom”.
And thanks to “Myth Buster” for warning us of the slippery slope of desperate times and what they can bring, electorally…(although worse than what we have since ’08 is hard to imagine.)
The inflation of tuition, an appetite for wannabe aristocratic appurtenances, and obliviousness to responsible adult behavior seems like the right mix for academia’s confluence with government bureaucracy.
“so a Mao was better than a Churchill”: Rereading Churchill’s “The Gathering Storm” makes our historic first Islamic apostate president sound rather like an actor in a Broadway show on the road mouthing all of the lines we’ve heard before from the original, adding only the solacing irony of mimicking the failed ideology of those very same British whom he so forthrightly loathes.
I’ve only known three university professors socially. Everything you’ve detailed here is true of them, and in one case it is far worse. He felt we deserved the attacks of 9/11.
Though, on occasion, I have to be in the same room with him, I have never again sought his company. He and his wife enjoy the bounties of his subsidized green-energy start-up while holding views that are antithetical to the prosperity and freedom that made his success possible.
It sickens me.
I admire your restraint. I have never met someone who was willing to tell me to my face that thousands of my fellow citizens deserved to be murdered in cold blood, but if I were, that individual would undoubtedly be pressing assault charges against me shortly thereafter. Free speech should include a willingness to accept the consequences thereof.
It sickens me.
Tell him so – exactly as you’ve done here. I mean it. Call him now. It will make you feel better and make him the way he deserves to feel.
Question: do you suppose that the “intellectuals” in “elite” universities, whose salaries are paid in part from taxes expropriated from the paeons of the “flyover zone”,or the high and mighties of “Charities” and NGOs, do not have advisors and stock /property portfolios in despised “trades”, jealously watched for activity? As no doubt do civil servants and politicians, equally dismissive and contemptuous of those who pay the bills for their “royal” status / privileges. What happened to the commoners’ “common-sense” – so infra-dig – that WHO PAYS THE PIPER CALLS THE TUNE? Not a part of the parasitical professors’ knowledge? Just COMMON-SENSE?
You, and Dr. Hanson, should meet some old-line engineering professors (chemical, civil, mechanical or industrial). Some of the best men and women I’ve met (I’ll have to include a couple of German language professors too). Most, if not all, had worked in the field, all had high expectations of each and every student – no gimmes for class, creed, race or gender, since a substandard engineer was(is) dangerous to the community (not to mention the school’s expensive labs). You put in the effort, and could do the work, or you went elsewhere…
Unfortunately, these are also the men and women who won’t be in leadership positions, precisely because of their practiced equality and fairness. There were a couple of insuffereable hard-leftists, but they were the tiny minority, the rest being pragmatic conservatives or center-left, blue-dog style democrats (as were most of the students- this was in the mid/late 90s, and I know several of the prof’s are still there). So, there is hope- slight, but it’s there.
VDH ..you are very intelligent. Your essays are correct and well presented arguments.
STILL the real problem/issue here is that very few will be further ahead economically , socially or in any meaningful way advanced thanks to this crew which occupies the white house.
People with a public voice (like yourself) should be a little more blunt. Obama and company are moving towards Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Russia and all that is wrong with those places. He has embraced and is producing the same results those leaders have.
Obama is a narcissist, a marxist and a very dangerous individual. Besides being a fraud.
He should be called out on his lack of transparency and his continued lies (yes you have mentioned his lies in numerous essays).
Time is short and I cannot understand why the NAS hasn’t fulfilled their pledge to protect the constitution of the USA.
The educated vacuity of the faculty meeting, vicious retribution rising from tenure politics with long knives — yeah, that is the best way to see this president.
He is like an untouchable professor: now he can do as he likes, and what he likes is always vindictive.
Meanwhile, innocent people perish so that he can settle his scores and pass the “global test.”
Ah, but HE is NOT untouchable. It requires only COURAGE and actions from groups which have shown none of these in living memory: the “august” 535 MEMBER Congress, AND Court. Acting on their CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY in the Separation of Powers clauses in the US Constitution. Clauses assuring that NO single office of the government is able to do what Obama is in a MIGHTY RUSH TO DO. Obama, as putative Constitutional Scholar and Professor deemed “flawed / defective” that Constitution he pledged when accepting the Presidency to DEFEND AND UPHOLD. Isn’t it time to call upon the “representatives of the People” and the Court to DO THEIR DUTY TO DEFEND AND UPHOLD, TO PROTECT THE REPUBLIC IN THEIR CHARGE in the overstepping of powers delegated to the EXECUTIVE OFFICE IN THE US CONSTITUTION, THE FOUNDATION LAW OF THE USA. Is it possible that we’ll ever see such courage while Congress and Court stand on the bridge with this “commander … ” as the ship of state is swallowed up in the ocean of lies and corruption.
Oh NO! Please tell me no. I will vote for electricians only. (Licensed of course)
How about JOE the Plumber?
Dr. Hanson,
As you have written previously, I believe there is an envious relationship between the academic elite and the working entrepreneur. These self righteous people think that society owes them because they published a paper. Who adds more value to society? the auto mechanic who hires 5 workers or the tenured PhD?
These people sicken me. I happen to be an MD, but I realize my opinion is worth no more than the man who fixes my air conditioner. And when I am hot, I don’t need a doctor nor a professor.
These people sicken me. I happen to be an MD, but I realize my opinion is worth no more than the man who fixes my air conditioner. And when I am hot, I don’t need a doctor nor a professor.
As a semi-retired Motor mechanic, I remember a line said to me 30 some years ago: the ONLY difference between a GOOD mechanic and a GOOD doctor is that the doctor washes his hands AFTER he goes to the toilet!
Vindico, I second your sentiments.
While I encouraged my sons to reach for the academic stars-MIT & Caltech graduates-I also taught them that their educations will equip them to be the best EE professionals, but it will in NO way qualify them to be experts at everything.
Therefore, they don’t pretend to be automotive experts, building contractors, doctors or lawyers.The point being, those who are really smart know when to leave their educations at the door, and to call in qualified experts for assistance. Humility, thy name is ……
Apparently, it will be a tragedy of enormous proportions, that the ones who will ultimately bring America to her knees, are those whose expertise NEVER extended past the Academy-except to wreck havoc on the US Republic!
By the way, their planned infiltration into the underbelly of the American system was initiated in the 1960′s,(many of the soon to be retired profs were the radicals of this putsch, too bad so many have lived to see the noxious fruits of their hellish labor-Chomsky, why are you still polluting our air??) their first course of destruction was to takeover the Academy, then advance throughout the media and cultural centers. It is this planned subterfuge which Americans are now witnessing-almost 50 yrs in the making.
Paradoxically, the only ‘jobs’ that they really labored at involved how to subvert the US system. Hell is too good a destination for them.
I am of the opinion that the effort to subvert my country started much, much sooner. I was born in 45 and obviously was not around to see the early phases of the destruction of my country, but I followed if from the mid 60′s going forward.
I am not some highly educated academic, just your run of the mill working guy. I have watched it unfold and wonder why others did not see it. It seems so obvious to me. Perhaps IQ and education are not the touch stone many think it is, perhaps just plain ole common sense. That has become my answer in my later years. I have wondered for a long time about this and see many highly educated socialist and communist in my country passing out all the answer to the problems as they see them. Clueless, raising taxes does not appear to have worked, no matter where it was tried, more govt regs, guidance and direction, a dud.
Unfortunately, those folks are getting old, but I guess those that follow them will reap the rewards of the left and the obama solution that solves nothing, but does make life much harder for all. Wonder if they will wake up, or just keep trying to spend and tax their way out of it all.
A frustrated American
What a relief to find someone else who has watched the political development of the past half century in the US — AND the world, and has drawn the same conclusions. But,
I’m afraid we’re voice(s) crying in the wilderness. because others who see the destruction do not see how long it has been in the planning, and how effectively it engineered WITH THE APPROVAL AND COOPERATION of those who are to be its victims.
Sometimes I read a post and think it does not deserve comment from a boob like me. You have said everything I feel and would write, if I could. I just need to let you know I, and many, many more thank you!
Your description is perfect. I have been there for forty years. I, too, have a background of actually doing something, having grown up on a family farm. God Bless you, Sir.
Mr Hanson, basically you are saying that the US is being run by crazy people who have escaped from acadaemia. You are correct. My suggestion is to NOT send them back to the campus – they are a bad influence on young people. Instead, they should sent to Hawaii – there are already plenty of crazy people there who have run out of places to move on to.
Once there, don’t let them leave.
This a great suggestion but won’t Congressman Hank Johnson object because the islands might become overloaded and capsize?
“Faculty Lounge Wisdom” and “academic wisdom” – both phrases used in this article – will someday join the great list of oxymorons right up there with “civil war”, “government worker”, and “jumbo shrimp.”
Academics pursue intelligence within their subject area and believe that gives them intelligence in all other areas. However, wisdom is more important than intelligence. Wisdom comes both from learning and from experience, forming the basis for judgment. As Horace put it, “Wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived from books alone.”
This comment by Larry J is very insightful. Academics with Ph.D.s are not “smart,” in the sense that they are necessarily able to think logically or rationally. Getting a Ph.D. requires only the ability to learn a set of skills. Some people are good at fixing cars; others are good at studying and writing papers. There is nothing wrong with being “good at” academics. It just doesn’t need to ever be confused with intelligence or wisdom, as Larry J’s comment and Dr. Hanson’s writings have reminded us.
Have you ever tried to read one of those academic polemics? No one is good at that stuff when the performance is measured across the world at large. Only academics accept that nonsense and even then they probably reject most as beneath their standards. The greatest example is the middle ages academia concerned with such issues as determining the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin. Today’s bunch of self-absorbed professors are, within their own narrow horizons, not much advanced beyond this.
There’s an old story about a biology professor who was the world’s authority on the forelegs of the common fruit fly. If anyone ever had a question about those forelegs, he was the go-to guy for definitive information. Lifecycles being what they are, he found himself on his deathbed pondering how he’d spent his life. With his dying breath, he said, “I should’ve specialized in the RIGHT foreleg.” The moral of the story is that too many academics needlessly overspecialize in their subject area.
I have a brother-in-law that is a wise man. Truth be told, I don’t know if he even graduated high school. But in listening to him for 27 years, I’ve learned a great deal about life. What he lacks in academic credentials, he more than makes up for in life experience.
They don’t call academia the “ivory tower” for nothing. It has very little relation to the real world the rest of us inhabit. That’s why you still find unapologetic marxists and socialists in academic settings, convinced that if only they were in charge, they could make these unworkable theories function properly. They are deluded fools.
…learning a set of skills… The most important skills to be learned are to please the professor by assuring him/her that the candidate is not more original in approach to the subject than the Professor.Else the candidate runs the risk of the thesis being rejected to appear later under /over? the name of the Professor in the specialist publications. If that’s not an education in sycophancy, caution and submission! Too cynical? And yet why are they, i.e. universities with Ph.D faculties, called institutions?
I find hollywood wisdom to be the most entertaining, wisdom from those that may not even be able to spell it, let alone understand the word, wisdom.
I don’t think it would be hard to prove empirically that there is more respect for actual diversity of thought in the average Teamssters local than there is in the average faculty lounge and it would be ridiculously easy to prove the point if we compare the Teamsters to an Ivy League faculty lounge.
The willingness to suppress speech they don’t like should be worrisome with an administration that clearly likes academics.
“We are being run by the mindset of the faculty lounge”; i.e., they’re adults, everyone else is a peon who can’t think or do anything for themselves. (In case anyone wonders why academia has so many left/libtards… )
It’s funny. Around 2005, I had just finished my undergraduate degree at a west coast liberal college. I was an anti-war, pro-gun control, anti-American liberal. Hell, I even went to see Fahrenheit 9/11. I’m not sure what caused the change in me, but it started to dawn on me that my world view was completely warped. Maybe it was the inability of the left to confront Islamic extremism or maybe it was when I realized that maybe, just maybe, the war in Iraq was the right thing to do after all. I suppose you can call me a conservative now…I’m even thinking of becoming a gun owner. The past year and a half with Obama has been nothing short of torturous. I suspect many on the left are finding out that they really don’t want the liberal utopia they always dreamed of having.
Danielson, thank you for your comment.
It speaks well of you as a person.
It certainly took me a lot longer than you to recover from my undergraduate indoctrination.
I will be forever grateful to Prof. Hanson and Thomas Sowell. Their books opened my eyes.
“I suspect many on the left are finding out that they really don’t want the liberal utopia they always dreamed of having.”
But how many are realizing that what they’ve been working toward is really a dystopia?
What’s amazing is that you seem to be on a one-way street. From the early teens up to the mid-twenties about 75% of the traffic turns left and 25% right. From then until the mid-forties there’s a steady stream from left to right. After that it turns into a gusher, until all with maturity has fled. Then, probably because of early onset senility, a trickle reverses direction and goes back to the left. Fortunately, though, most of those soon become obsolete.
Danielson,
Jimmy Carter gave me my epiphany. I graduated from a top East Coast university as an extreme liberal. Jimmy said we needed to meet them on their own terms, reach out to them, respect them and they in turn would respect us. Four hundred plus days of Iranian hostage taking convinced me that Jimmy and the whole left movement was full of it. I became conservative then and have never looked back. They are full of it still and they are very, very dangerous to America. Obama is real bad, but if the left persists the one who comes after him will be far worse. Let’s make sure the left wing movement is powerless after the next election and the light of day never shines on them again.
Danielson:
You may just be forced to own guns for your own protection. All of the above as it comes to fruition may require it. A handgun, a shotgun and a rifle are a good place to start. Get familiar with them like an extension of your own arm. Make friends with the local law enforcement (they have the best NRA sponsored programs). Hopefully none of this comes to pass God willing. But free peoples have been required to defend themselves or fight for freedom in the past, could be so again.
I would just add stock up on ammunition as well. With out ammunition a gun becomes a club.
Any suggestions on a good first gun?
Dear Danielson:
That’s a deceptive, but common, question. Deceptive in that there are a number of equally valid answers. Generally speaking, if you can afford only a single handgun, a Glock 26 (commonly known as the Baby Glock) would be an excellent all around choice. Glocks are, out of the box, completely reliable, accurate, virtually indestructable firearms. The smallest Glocks have 10 round magazines (in 9mm), therefore with one round in the chamber have an 11 round capacity. With a semi automatic pistol, one should always carry at least one spare magazine as magazines are always the weakest link. Fortunately, Glock provides one spare magazine with every firearm. It would be a good idea for many shooters who have average or larger hands to purchase finger rests for the magazines. These are made by Pearce Grips, and simply slip into place replacing the floor plate of the magazine, costing only about $9.00.
Keep in mind that any number of gun folk will argue until the cows come home about the proper caliber (to say nothing of the proper make and model of handgun!), some swearing to carry nothing smaller than the .45 ACP while others swear by the 40 S&W. But keep in mind that what matters most is shot placement, a hit with a .22 being far more effective than a miss with a .44 magnum. The 9mm has the advantage of having low recoil and muzzle flash, and is much less expensive than larger calibers. In addition, one can always carry from one to four more rounds of 9mm in a handgun of roughly the same frame size when compared with the larger calibers. Glock does make medium framed and large framed weapons in all the popular calibers, but I recommend the small frame model as a firearm most appropriate for concealed carry for most people.
For a beginning shooter, it is important to have a handgun in a caliber that you can afford to shoot as much as possible. With that in mind, if you can afford it, you might want a Glock for your primary defensive/carry handgun and a .22LR handgun to shoot for practice. The advantage is cost. One can find 100 rounds of 9mm full metal jacket ammunition for about $26.00. On the other hand, it’s easy to find 500 rounds of .22LR ammunition for about $16.00. As long as you are practicing properly, you’ll improve your confidence and skill more rapidly if you can afford to shoot often. However, keep in mind that it’s best to find a handgun that matches the handling qualities of your primary weapon as closely as possible. There are many “target” type .22 handguns on the market (such as the Rugers), but you should stick with something like the Walther P22 (my favorite–and my wife loves hers) or the Sig Mosquito that have the same slide configuration–hence the same handling qualities/manual of arms–as most common defensive handguns.
Be sure you find competent instruction in tactics, the law and technique, and good luck!
Danielson,
mikemcdaniel gave you some good advice on a pistol. As he said, shooters will debate guns 24/7. In the event that you want something cheaper, larger, or perhaps scarier… you might consider a 12 GA pump shotgun. You can buy a good used Mossberg 500 Persuader for $200, new for 250 to 300 if you shop around… You are going to have a substantial defense gun with less than half the cost of the Glock. with a 20 in barrel, it has a shoulder stock that can be removed and replaced with a pistol grip. With high powered loads it will be a shoulder buster. fortunately, light recoil ammo is available. With the shoulder stock my wife can handle the light loads easily. it holds 8 shots… If you know nothing about guns — a shotgun in very versatile. Generally it fires multiple pellets with each shot. Number 9 bird shot is .08 inch dia and a shell might contain 600 pellets… good for a bird. If you have a house full of people, number 9 will dissipate quickly once it hits a sheet rock wall. Something to think about— that 9MM pistol round can potentially make it from one end of the house to the other through 4 or 5 walls. At close range, say 10-15 feet, bird shot it is quite deadly not as effective as larger projectiles but at close range it tends to act as one large chunk of lead. Number 1 Buck is .3 inch – say 11 to 16 per shell and is deadly at longer ranges, and will travel through more sheet rock. If you want to defend your home, this is a great tool. with 8 rounds you have the potential for 120 or more deadly projectiles. That’s difficult to match with a pistol. The thing makes a VERY distinctive sound when a shell is racked home to battery… most people will do whatever you ask them to do once they hear that sound. Best position to be in – peace through superior firepower – if you don’t have to fire, all the better. If you do, since you have multiple projectiles your chances of hitting the target are increased…
Not that I am opposed to the pistol which is easy to carry in a car, under a coat or keep in a nightstand etc. If you want to protect your home, the 12 GA is bigger artillery. If you think about it the Glock and the Mossberg make a good pair. These are likely same two pieces of equipment you will find in most police cruisers.
A succinct summary covering most all the bases.
A particularly standout line…
“…our president has always sensed that racial identity politics is a sanctuary for setback and an embryo for career promotion.”
To Danielson:
Yours is a courageous note. I too was once young and foolish and impressionable. But I graduated college 25 years or so before you. What turned me around was the study and reading I did after college – from Russian defectors to responsible and credible historians (such as Dr. Hanson) and many, many others. This is for me the biggest reason I believe the mania surrounding “getting a college education” is both a joke and a national scandal.
Dr. Hanson: This is one of your best articles in my opinion. We have an elitist
in the White House, but his mind set is in the gutter. “Take a gun to a knife
fight”; he’s going to “kick ___”. Harry Truman, who had a quick temper, would
never have used such expressions. Truman had great respect for the office of
the President. This incumbent does not. In his mind he is still a ward politician.
“We have an elitist in the White House, but his mind set is in the gutter. “Take a gun to a knife fight”; he’s going to “kick ___”. Harry Truman, who had a quick temper, would
never have used such expressions.”
Mostly in agreement with your comment, with one slight definitional disagreement:
Those utterances do not indicate that Obama’s mind is in the gutter. He didn’t utter those words directly from his own vocabulary.
Obama chose those words, just as he chooses all of his words, because he believes those are the words the public wants him to say. His choice of public words bears very little relationship to anything he does as president of this country, or to anything he actually believes or values or pursues. He says words that he thinks will get the public and media back under his skirts, and then frequently acts in a completely contrary manner.
He’s in. He’s been elected. At this point, the citizenry is significant only to the point that it can interfere with the legislature’s willingness to enact his desired laws, and, as we’ve seen in the health care debacle, it can’t interfere much.
So, in perfect contempt of the concept that government serves the people, he occasionally says something like “I’ll kick some ass” as a way to forestall a nascent “Obama’s a weak nerd” sentiment, and then, having sopped the rubes once more, he continues in his (so far frighteningly successful) mission to undermine what this country was and turn us into milch cows for his friends.
We can all talk confidently about how he’s cooked the Dem goose in the next election, but, seriously, what good will that do if he’s spent all conceivable revenues and then some for the next twenty years during his first term? If the Democrats lose the next cycle, but by then we’ve begun nationalized health care, taxation of our very breath and the concomitant death of industry and employment, our national borders have already been sundered and the country peopled with the kind of people for whom laws mean nothing and fences were made to be torn down, the military has been gutted and disgraced, our international friends have been co-opted or overthrown or annihilated and those we despise have been empowered and honored and given keys to our banks, won’t it be too late?
He’s already crippled us. In two more years, he can kill us. He’s well on his way there, and he’s laughing at us all the way as we just watch what he does and argue about how his popularity is suffering.
He doesn’t care about popularity. He cares about power. We can laugh about teleprompters, but he still holds the power.
I can remember reading of revolts where the libraries were stormed and burnt. The Great Library of Alexandria is one that I recall. I used to wonder why the working stiff roared out of the ghettos and destroyed, burned, pulled down the administration and academic centers. Were the attacks on Rome attacks on debts and taxes and the people that live off them?
What added value does Washington, and the other paper shuffling, paper copying, collating, stapling, report writing, filing, storing, shredding, recycling government seats provide?
Oddly, it’s not just me. There is a popular computer game, called ‘Fallout’ that takes place in a nuked Washington DC. Now, to this generation of young, debt dumped on, never going to get a true education youths, a nuked DC seems just fine. What does that tell you?
Perfectly on target! Just let me say that Peru should
not be in the list of wannabe socialist pro-Iranian
countries. Its government resisted Chavism very
strongly. You should, however, include Bolivia.
As a teacher of 28 years . . . I think the author is very accurate in his assessment of our current situation.
Humorous cartoon on Obama and his response to the oil spill at http://drawfortruth.wordpress.com/category/big-oil-2/
1%? How about no %?
You know, it was all good until I got to the end of your “Foreign Policy” section. Here’s what caught my attention:
“Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Peru, and Venezuela all eager to remake Latin America into a socialist, pro-Iranian paradise (this list could be vastly expanded)”
Argentina pro-Iranian? Don’t you know that Iran is the main suspect of the 1994 Buenos Aires bombing that killed more than 80 people at a Jewish cultural center? You do know that Argentina has an arrest warrant on former Iranian President Rafsanjani?
And where do you get that Peru is pro-Iranian and socialist? I had to look it up, but as far as I know the current Peruvian president is not exactly on friendly terms with Hugo Chavez (former Venezuelan presidential candidate is in exile in Peru). I’m thinking that you mistook Peru with Bolivia, and that will denote a certain ignorance on your part.
Brazil relations with Iran are something to worry about, I’ll give you that. But the others? Hugo Chavez is really unpopular in Latin America; but the president of Peru and Mexico won by running against candidates that aligned themselves with Chavez. He is just a clown with money and his house of cards will fall sooner rather than later. And neither Ecuador nor Nicaragua has any relevant influence in Latin America to speak of.
I would advise you to at least do a simple Google search before writing about subjects that you know nothing about. You made good arguments and frankly it’s a pity that everything has to go to waste due to unnecessary inaccuracies.
Pontos excelentes. Agradece.
I agree with about 75% of your comment but the seizure of dollar denominated savings accounts is a very bad indicator and the government of Argentina has flirted with Obama-like socialist policies since Peron. Argentina was once the richest country in the world. Few are aware of that.
Mike,
“I agree with about 75% of your comment but the seizure of dollar denominated savings accounts is a very bad indicator and the government of Argentina has flirted with Obama-like socialist policies since Peron”
I think is more accurate to say that Obama is the one flirting with Peron-like socialist policies. My point has always being that it is a mistake to lump every government in Latin America with a supposedly Chavez-led socialist tide.
Argentina has been following bone-headed statist policies since Peron, but most of Chavez “allies” in Latin America are just taking advantage of his open checkbook while it last. His only real allies are Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua and perhaps Ecuador.
all the latin countries seem to have a strong left/socialist bent to them. more so then other countries from what I have seen.
why people think there is money for nothing is beyond me but they seem to believe there is a money tree out there …or they are just mean-spirited enough to get caught up in screw the rich guy mentality and never get to the real world consequences of supporting socialism.
Mr. Bido, you are a college professor, am I correct? ‘Cause only someone in acedemia would bother to write such a lengthy tome and practically vilify the author, calling the whole piece into disrepute over one mistake. Otherwise, you really need to lighten up!
Mr. Shaw,
” Mr. Bido, you are a college professor, am I correct? ‘Cause only someone in acedemia would bother to write such a lengthy tome and practically vilify the author, calling the whole piece into disrepute over one mistake. Otherwise, you really need to lighten up!”
No, I’m a computer programmer actually. And I might need to follow your advice and lighten up… but here’s the thing: Being from the Dominican Republic I follow Latin America very closely and try to be well informed.
If I read something that I know is obviously inaccurate (i.e., Peru among the countries eager to remake Latin America into a socialist, pro-Iranian paradise) I have to question the validity of the whole article.
I can point out that current Peruvian President Alan García in fact ran against a Chavez supported candidate and is not a socialist (at least, not anymore: the first time he ran the country back in the 80’s he was a socialist and it was a disaster…and he apparently learned his lesson).
I agree with most of what Mr. Hanson writes, I support Pajamas Media and care about their work. I just wish he did a better effort regarding the accuracy of his writing.
There you go again Mr. Bido. I currently live in Costa Rica and follow the news of Latin America but, I knew Mr. Hanson made an honest mistake and, I daresay, anyone reading his post would conclude the same. The response could have been “Mr. Hanson, leave Peru out of this!” but no….oh well, forget it.
“Fuzzy subject” academia fosters a mindset where the opinion of professors and peers is far more important than objective reality. There aren’t any “right” answers, just answers that meet with approval or not.
Anything is possible if you get a consensus in the room that it is. No other information is really relevant.
This is not normally true of fields like medicine, engineering, or other areas where reality intrudes at every level. When fuzzy academic thinking pushes into engineering (“screw the numbers. Four out of six scientists say this is so” the results are disastrous.
This week, with others of a certain age, I received a “Message form Kathleen Sabelius” “Medicare and the New Health Care Law – What it means for you.” – a slick, colorful, 4 page flier with photos on each page: Page 1 – a black couple, page 2- an asian couple, page 3 – another black couple with granddaughter(?), page 4 – a Latina woman. None other – no any white males or females.
“Thanks Kathy, I get the message.” ; )
Dr. Hanson once again hits it out of the park. I would only add that the professioriate scorns both southerners and our military (but only in the facultty lounge). In my experience, college teachers are the most protected, yet most fearful and timid, among us. But they sure can talk. And I think professor Obama’s grade has dipped down below the “gentleman’s C.”
Any small business can tell you that their worst nightmare is some know it all with an Ivy League degree who acts as a consultant. They are consultants because while they know theory, they have no idea how to do a real job. Instead their foist expensive theories on bosses who lack the confidence to ask their employees how to do things better. I’ve seen too many businesses fail at that hands of a boss who trusted consultants more than his hired experts.
Nicely delineated, Professor Hanson. This is why I bailed out of a PhD in Physical Anthropology (way back in the pre-Carter era) to get an MBA, a choice I have never regretted, although it seems the Professariat have followed us into the body politic.
We have known the symptoms of the cloistered academia life for a very long time. We have known about Academic Freedom, tenure, and hiring practices(leftists only, for the most part)in our universities. We see the march of salaries and perks ever upward, such that the budget growth in our universities significantly exceeds the inflationary growth in the nation.
What we do not know is how to cure this insidious problem. Academic defenses are very strong, and for them to have admiring support in the government makes it even harder to consider effective solutions by legislatures and administrations. Must they be allowed to go their merry way without any checkpoints at all?
On the bright side, there’s always plenty of hummus.
If Obama and the Faculty Loungers succeed in cramming socialism down our throats and if they install a central committee that ensures that government operates effectively and properly, then tenure will no longer protect anyone whose words, writings or thoughts are incorrect. Democratic Centralism will triumph.
If you all recall the smartest guy on the Island, The Professor, never did get us off the damn thing.
As Jerry Sienfeld said: What is it with the Professor? He can make a radio out of a coconut, but can’t fix a hole in a boat?
Philosophy? I’m offended. :) Maybe faculty lounges at places dominated by continental philosophy, like Stony Brook. But I think ethnic studies is more on the mark.
As I have posted before… Back in college (the ancient 70′s), I would debate with an avowed Stalinist we called Erik the Red – because he had red hair, and was a… well, you know…
When I would pin him in a logical corner, he would just smile and give me the same response. “It’s all mute. In 10 years we will control the universities, and the media. In another 20 we’ll control the high schools and bureaucracy. Game over.”
Until we arrive at a methodology that financially holds their feet to the fire – and, thus, change their ways – the universities will continue to be puppy mills turning out socialist journalists, politicians, and teachers.
I can’t agree that no one in academia has any business experience. Many faculty in applied science and engineering do consulting in industry or even spin off startups.
Your comments appear most accurate when applied to humanities, so-called “soft” sciences, and the dreaded “studies” departments. On the other hand, the economic exploitation of adjuncts does seem universal.
Yes! I was a liberal arts undergrad. My more practical classmates and I would mock our pretentious Anthropology / History / Lit / Poli-sci professors – none of whom ever held a real job in his or her life. Academia is a great place to keep these people safely isolated from society.
Later I went to a good Business School for an MBA. What a different atmosphere! Almost all of my professors had real business management / ownership / consulting experience. Many of them made far more money consulting than the university was paying them. Guess which education has actually helped my career?
VDH:
After 30 years of state employment I went back to school to earn a doctorate in Engineering. After four years I had to leave. Any thought of becoming a professor was totally ruined by the atmosphere on campus. It’s just as bad as you portrayed. They have no clue of life in the real world.
In my mind, this article raises the question, “What can or should be done about this sad state of affairs?”
Perhaps the mismanagement being perpetrated on our nation by professors from the big names of academia offers an opportunity for satire. I’m always disturbed by the tendency of people to blindly worship Ivy League universities. It seems that Harvard is especially deserving of biting criticism given their high level of representation in the current administration. Johnathan Swift where are you? We need you to cut these loons down to size.
Perhaps we should coin a new expression, “The Harvard Solution” or “The Ivy League Solution” to ridicule the misapplication of academic theories to real world situations. I envision an Ivy League conference to get to the bottom of the “real causes” of the Gulf oil spill. Perhaps Castro or some other third world despot could be cast as keynote lecturer to enlighten us about the critical role of class inequality or similar drivel in causing the spill while praising the way in which Chernobyl was handled.
It was the Boston telephone directory to which Buckley referred.
You’re right, Paul. It was Boston. What a horror it would be to have a govt run by Manhattanites. Much better to take 200 names at random from the Omaha phone book.
VDH, when one spends a lifetime resting on one’s laurels, it’s easiest when surrounded by those who will wash your back, if you will reciprocate.
It’s a club of backsliders advancing by back washing.
It’s a club that must not be penetrated by anyone with a BS detector, because the whole art of being a club member is to bull session your way through ….you simply need to bookworm your way through high school, gain entry to one of the ivy cathedrals and hang on to the Code of Conduct playbook.
Bash America, promote anti-democracy, act smug and pedantic, and the high school bookworm tilts away from the meat of the book and gravitates toward being more the worm.
And, if the book in reality doesn’t say what you would like, you simply become a revisionist…protected from serious inquiry by the “bouncers” at the Club door. (the legacy media, Hollywood, fellow travelers)
In essence, we are being lead by folks who do not have our interests at heart. They can’t. We own the BS detectors. They can’t let us in the door. Ever.
We are now privileged to be subjects of folks who are resting on their unearned laurels…and one, who also is resting on an unearned laureate as well.
I hold a Master’s degree in History and Political Science from a small regional South Texas university. If I am to be governed by university professors, at least let them be historians. Preferably military historians (very rare), but non-”studies” historians please!!!
My favorite professors were: one military historian, a diplomatic history professor, and an historian of Latin American politics and government. They shaped my perceptions of history and the world-at-large. They continue to speak through me to my public high school U.S. and World History classes.
Yep. No Womyn’s History types or “insert protected minority group here”-studies professor. They helped get his to this point.
We adults who pay the bills must take charge and tell our state universities they will no longer be funded until all the communists are out on their a**es. These so-called professors are brainwashing and indoctrinating our kids, and we must stop it. Start complaining to your state legislatures. Explain why you won’t pay taxes to support the communists in our educational system. These people are training our teachers, who are indoctrinating our children, unless you homeschool or send your kids to a Christian school.
I have to assume Dr. Hanson knows personally and describes precisely what he is claiming (proposing perhaps)in this opinion piece.
Imagine then the destruction and damage being wrought every day in our institutions of high education. There may not be enough oscillations left in our ship of state to recover before it capsizes completely.
The ideology shared by the administration is well described. But marry that with the strategy and tactics of Chicago machine politics to get the full picture.
I put most of the blame for the radicalation on college campuses at the feet of the presidents and board of trustees.They have too long ignored what has been going on at their schools
ever so often I have to tell this story to fresh out of school engineers:
A little boy asked his father what the difference is between theory and fact. He sends his son to ask his mother and his sister if they would sleep with their neighbor Mr. Jones for $100K. At first they were reluctant to even think about it but, for $100K they would do it. Once the little boy related this to his father his father explained ” well son in theory we’re sitting on $200K but the fact is we’re living with a couple of whores”.
I am just waiting for the dam to break. This presidency has been so calamitous and ruinous of everything past generations have built that it is hard to understand how Obama’s approval rating can still be as high as it is. But given the nature of the man it is inevitable that there will come a time when the scales will fall from the eyes of even the truest of believers.
It will be very interesting to see what the event is that precipitates the sea change. I imagine that it will be something silly… like Obama’s inability to suck oil up through a straw (Daniel Plainview and his milkshake only existing in Hollywood mythology). I also suspect all of the wrong lessons will be drawn from it by the media just as was the case with Bush, or the mortgage disaster, or the recent terrorist attack on the Israeli soldiers enforcing the blockade.
Well done, professor. Some say the situation may soon be self-correcting. It’s been talked about for several years, but a fresh report restates the warning: Higher education’s financial “bubble” may be about to burst.
If so, one wonders what professional academics might do to survive? I doubt Walmart would be willing to use very many. Possibly offshore customer service call centers? Nah. I do like that “send them all to Hawaii” suggestion, though.
“Obama’s key 500 appointees, like himself, have little experience in commerce, business, law, medicine, or the military, but lots of experience in the academic revolving door”…is that really correct? Seems like there are still an awful lot of *lawyers* around at the top tier of government.
Don’t forget that Obama and his ilk do not become Officers of the Nation on the basis of their CV (literally in the case of Obama as the public has seen no official CV) but because hundreds of voters (having been nudged by the selections of candidates from the National Committees of the major Political Parties ) have voted for /chosen them in “free” elections. The question is whether the elections were honestly administered, i.e. really “free”. A question neither of the Parties pursues. Strange wouldn’t you say. Just as strange as his “approval rating” continuously hovering in the 40% range even after evidence of his disastrous policies and decisions is in. Sort of like the Climate Research Unit data. Very odd !or …you can fool some of the people some of the time…?
Excellent essay!
It reminds me of a line from a recent column by David Warren:
“… everyone is conservative, in a field he knows something about. Reciprocally, there is a tendency to sport more and more liberal views, the greater one’s ignorance of a field (and therefore of its constraints). And let me note, caustically, that President Obama is pretty liberal right across the board.”
An even shorter version: “Everything is easy to the guy who doesn’t have to do it himself.”
Tried to attend University, onne in the mid 50′s and then again in early 60′s, after Tool & Die Maker Apprenticeship and 3 years in Army.
I could not stand the smug professor’s and University life, either time. Liberalism is a sickness to me. Plus, I felt I was wasting my time, and wanted to get out into the real world and make some money.
Reading Books and life experience are the best education.
Plus, people skills and competing to win.
Never looked back and had a very successful business career, Industrial Salesman and Manufacturers Representative. NEVER SUFFERED BY NOT GRADUATING FROM ANY UNIVERSITY. NEVER.
It seems unlikely that there will be change to the nature od campuses any time soon though.
Last few months, there’s been a genius who, below an article like this, usually states the obvious: “Obama was a lecturer in Univ. of Chicago, not a professor.”
Yeah, as if that neutralizes Hanson’s comments. :D
WoyWoyBB,
We can only hope….
I don’t even tell my professos what I actually think. I got pretty much straight A’s in my undergrad theology, which was a really good department, but I had already read the NT about 50 times and the OT about 15, so I didn’t learn a lot, unless I tried to read between the lines of what they were saying and then I learned a lot. Then I went to Grad school at the same school, and almost died, because even though it was a class over a single book of the Bible instead of over a whole set of them, I learned jack crap. The people are crazy, I almost gave up, but I guess I’ll finish my degree. I did not even go to Hebrew the last week because I was so tired from other things. I taught it to myself the first semester and got an A because it is near impossible to pay attention in class. The class laughs at me when I don’t get the translation because I haven’t done my homework, because I’m so wore out. This is a Christian university, but they say some of the meanest things I’ve ever heard. The school takes the government’s money. The school president has publicly stated that he does things that are illegal, I didn’t hear it but apparently someone I know did. I state this all under an alias so I can vent. hahahahaha…….. They think they are going to save the world, but I can get 4 A’s and one B in the first semester even though I have serious problems at home, and don’t have time to study. Then I am almost called an idiot by one of the professors who gives me a B and acts like my paper is incompetent, then acts like I don’t know how to write a paper even though my senior paper in undergrad got almost a perfect score. Then I start writing what I actually think and get B’s. The teacher agreed with me though in my presentation. I actually like him. I don’t have time to get everything really written though. I could really put it together if I had time to read. It’s all very stupid. It’s not really the stuff I think since it’s only a very small part of what I think, but still. I thought the other paper was the best paper I had ever written and still do, the thing he said was wrong with it was that no one would understand it who was not a theologian. Technically I guess that’s what he said. He did if you consider that I had wanted to do what he was telling me to do, but did not have the space in the pages so I had to imply alot. Point is, I am tired of the thought of Academia. I want to run away and lose everything if I can because I try to please these people and they are nuts. Half the kids it seems are remedial, and yet they are all going to save the world just for going to school there. It’s like they just want their money. There was a girl in the library who couldn’t add 2 and 4. People have threatened to hang me because I told some girls they were pulling the dumbest prank I’ve ever heard on them. I didn’t think anything of it because in the end the point is that they know who is telling the joke on them, or maybe not. At least that was the point when I was younger.
They’re all insane. I don’t know about other universities obviously, but this is not something that I want to spend my money on. I could have gone anywhere I wanted if I had tried in high school, but I became tired because it was all so easy. Now I don’t want anything to do with how messed up this stuff is. The only thing I want to do is learn from NT Wright, and let it be done with. Otherwise I don’t want to do it anymore.
Have you thought about going into politics?
by the way, my high school’s tenth grade honors english was harder than English 305, and 9th grade honors Biology was harder than Biology 101.
Permit me the honor of disclosing to you the Secret of Hyde Park, and equally that of The University of Chicago.
I attended the U. of C. 1971 – 1977, first, as a Physics major, and after learning just where my abilities lay, music (what is college for, if not to Learn One’s Abilities??).
Let me tell you a story.
I was sitting in Physics 201 (Fall 1973), Intermediate Mechanics. The course was taught by a man who would later receive the Nobel Prize in Physics for, as I recall, studies in parity conservation in electron spin-flip reactions. AKA superconductor theory. (It’s been a while…)
Well, Himself (who was probably the best physics teacher I had) was a man who realized that he had a great toy (“reality”) for which he had been given the Key : the Language of Mathematics, and he was just having fun teaching. Euler’s equations, Lagrangians and Hamiltonians. Heck, somewhere in a box in my back closet I still have the derivations. (Would you have any other teacher?)
His passions involved both spinning objects (c.f. his Nobel Prize) aka gyroscopes (tops!!) and also “small oscillation” problems. That, later.
On the last day of class, some of the students brought in “Whizzers” (if you’re familiar with the toy), a super-charged top and we put a lot of them on his desk, spinning away, and he sat there, rather bemused, discussing the conservation of angular momentum, among other things.
But then there was the day when he took us through the equations of small oscillations at the bottom of a potential well. OK, how do you design a cuckoo clock? For these are pendulum problems. That thing that swings back and forth, how long does it take? Can it be timed to make a truly accurate clock? Just as a small ball rolls around at the bottom of a test tube. These are subjects with serious real-world consequences.
And then the Idiot in the Back of the Class asked the Stupidest Question of All.
“Professor, what about friction?”
And the Nobel Prize winner, the truly Good Physicist, drew himself up to his (about 6’2″) full height, and flashed a wink in his Avuncular eye, and said: “FRICTION IS AN UNFORTUNATE REACTION WITH REALITY!”
Lesson: This is Hyde Park and the University of Chicago; we don’t do reality here.
Always recall that lesson when considering the Obamarrhoids. Reality? Don’t bother us.
Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it.
It seems as if some left-leaners and Obama sycophants are getting more and more in touch with it.
A good article in terms of listing some of the faulty reasoning of the Left, and what it leads to when put into practice.
But the connection between the Obama Administration and this Congress’ policies and the ideas of the “Professortiate” is a little strange.
Professors are Leftists. Obama, his Admin, and the Democrat Congress are Leftists. Leftists think and act alike. The connection is among ideological compatriots; not between the Government and a specific profession. It’s like saying that the Green Triangles are acting a lot like the Green Rectangles in terms of their aesthetics and wavelengths of light they reflect, without ever noting the fact that both sets are green, …. or, in this case, RED!
forgot to say that the university is accreditted by the american theological society, I think that is what it is called, the most it can be. The whole school is also acreddited by the stuff that accredits stuff in my state or whatever for the full ten years. Education in America feels like it is worth less than it used to be.
Dr. Hanson:
So I suppose we’re faced with the expectation of self-promoting morons such as John McCain, Mike Huckabee or you name him or her leading us out of this insanity we find ourselves in?
What real American Patriot is going to stand up in 2012 and go to the place where solutions to the multitude of problems you so clearly lay out might be forged and implemented?
The Fox News channel should not be allowed to select the Republican candidate for President in 2012. Bill O’Reilly is not qualified. The task is above even his pay grade.
Victor Davis Hanson for President in 2012?
“The perverse was always preferred to the logical: so a Mao was better than a Churchill, Lincoln was faulted for not possessing 1999-era academic sensitivity, and
FDR not WWII saved the economy from further depression. Versailles explains Hitler rather than his own insane hatreds. The Soviet and Chinese nightmares were problematic and based on misunderstandings of Marx rather than natural conclusions from him. The real fear after 9/11 is backlash, not more terrorism. The non-Christian nihilist Timothy McVeigh or the Columbine Satanists are proof of widespread Christian terrorism; the last 50 aborted Islamic terrorist plots are aberations.”
Versailles doesn’t explain Hitler, but it sure does explain why the German people were so willing to accept Hitler.
The Skipper:
First, you have to help me get the Professor elected President of the United States in 2012. Then we’ll see how it comes out. Or do you have a better idea? If yes, what is it?
So will this sorry excuse for a president result in the passive masses to get of their a—- ? If so then perhaps he has done at least one good thing. The Ivy league crowd are a lost cause – hit them where it hurts by cutting off the money. They would starve to death if, and before, they had to get a real job using their hands.
Theoretical intellectualism is a disease of the mind brought about by emulation of the hard sciences in the so-called “social sciences”. Habits of thought is as taught by our educational system become fixed parameters. This pursuit of “objectivity” installs limiting barriers of thought that causes severe reductionism and simplification of the chaotic open system nature of human behavior and relationships, which includes economics. This is why, for example, economics fails to have predictive value.
Even George Soros understands this in economics, but weirdly sides with political leftism that emanates from theoretical intellectualism “Economics seeks to be science. Science is supposed to be objective and it is difficult to be scientific when the subject matter, the participant in the economic process, lacks objectivity. I found scientific theory highly unsatisfactory because it failed to come to grips with this problem; indeed, it goes through great contortions to avoid it ………… A widely accepted forecast of conventional wisdom will often set in motion factors that will result in a perverse outcome” (The Alchemy of Finance)
The educated/intellectual folks are enamored with a theory of knowledge used effectively by hard sciences. However, the only thing hard science can come up with relating to human behavior is the instinctive behavior of genetic imprint of the feral animal. Not the stuff of civilization. The development of this cultural, social, political, ethical, moral, religious alternate operating “software” of sentient beings have no objective base in hard science. It is created and developed specifically to counteract and control biologically imprinted behavior. That’s why committed parents, who see life more than the pursuit of the self, and who truly love and care for their children, seek a civilized environment to raise and develop those little barbarians into civilized adults.
The secular priestly class of “social sciences” attempt to invent an objective base. From this base, a lovely complex edifice of theory appears that is erroneous at the base. The intellectual folks fall in love with their handiwork and think themselves wondrously wise because they understand it while the great unwashed masses do not bother with it.
What is so often missing with this contrived theoretical knowledge is that sense of three-dimensional understanding— that intuitive depth perception called the wisdom,(a lot of which is formalized in religious and cultural heritage tested by history) that gives you the big picture framework to properly place the details. The unwashed masses are more likely to sense instinctively the correct big picture framework because of a closer relation to real world experience.
It is some of these people trapped in this theoretical environment that righteously can be called the educated/intellectual fool, judging from some of the really weird stuff they come up with. And the irony is that these folks call one of the most successful president, Ronald Reagan, the amiable dunce and George Bush stupid.
Perhaps if we hold degree programs accountable for the loans of their students we might see some improvements.
Dr. Hanson:
Well written, as always. May I suggest that a large part of the problem is the all too common academic pretense to superior ideas, expressed through absolute mastery of rhetoric, or in everyday English, words. Montoya, in “The Princess Bride,” spoke a line for the ages, a line that expresses what everyday Americans think when listening to their self-appointed, self-important betters: “I don’t think that word means what he thinks it means.” For our President and his minions, words are wonderful and flexible things, meaning whatever they want them to mean at a given moment. Because words have no commonly understood meanings, because they can soar to the heavens at a moment’s notice, all manner of magical things are possible, things like…
Smart diplomacy. For the elites, merely speaking to one’s enemy is an enormous accomplishment. The more brutal and depraved the enemy, the greater the value of the talk. After all, their pseudo reasoning goes, we’re so smart that we can get our worst enemies to talk to us, while dummies like Bush weren’t smart enough to even try. Of course, the common folk tend to think that negotiations should have a point, such as a positive outcome for you. They hold the silly idea that mere talk for the sake of talk is a waste of time and accomplishes nothing. But of course, our betters, being better than us, know better. Talking is the point and the outcome, and justification for more meaningful talks in the future. Witness Ms. Rice, our UN ambassador bragging about how tough and meaningful are the latest round of meaningless, feckless sanctions against Iran.
And you are correct that academic credentials–which presuppose enlightened talk–are far more important to the elites than ability, on and off the campus. I graduated from a midwestern state university, the name of which most Americans would not know, nor could they place it in the correct state. I took my undergraduate degree in English in 2.5 years with a 3.89 GPA. I earned a spot on the Dean’s list every semester. Yet, the elites would surely consider me to be (let’s not even talk about my white maleness) far inferior to the average Ivy League graduate who barely graduated in five years while majoring in waking up in pools of their own vomit in unfamiliar environs.
One of my favorite academic language stories involves an infamous professor (fully tenured, of course) of English. She had a well deserved reputation as a male hater, and any intelligent and capable male student in any of her classes would earn an “A” on the first exam of the semester, but could never rise above a “B” thereafter (she was one of the few “B’s” in my undergraduate career). Speaking to my male advisor, he told me: “Better you then me.” She was also highly skilled in academic double speak, in making the language say everything and nothing, commonly simultaneously. I attended a summer literature seminar where she was a featured speaker. Seated beside me was a brilliant high school English teacher. She was expounding a trailblazing theory of women in literature that made no sense whatever. The poor chap beside me, absolutely in good faith, kept trying to ask questions to clarify what was apparently nonsense, but couldn’t be nonsense (could it?) as it was being spouted by a tenured professor. Every time he asked a question, she would spout even more outrageous nonsense and do the deft, faculty lounge sidestep, leaving him more and more frustrated. I finally slipped him a note telling him to drop it lest his head explode and explained all at the next break.
So here we see the American people, the folks who actually work, who know the value of a dollar, who actually earn those, and who can make and fix things, many of whom are college graduates. They’re listening to the faculty lounge elites and it’s not making sense. But they’re so smart, how can what they say make no sense? How can war be a “man caused disaster?” How can the Islamists who want to murder us all be moderates who only want to dialogue? How can we be the ones we’re waiting for, what does that mean, and why couldn’t we figure it out pre-Obama? How can no taxes become taxes? How can drilling for oil and building nuclear power plants become the opposite? How can hope and change so quickly transmogrify to joblessness and debt as far as the eye can see? And how can George W Bush (who didn’t talk like an Ivy Leaguer even though he was) be omnipotent and omnipresent? After all, he’s responsible for everything that goes wrong and is single handedly keeping Barack Obama from accomplishing all the good of which only he is capable. How do we know this? He told us so. Listening to Obama and trying to make sense of what he says is rather like the old saw: “I always lie.”
Well said, Mike.
Word abuse is similiar to hyper inflation. Eventually they become worthless. The meaning has no match to any belief or position, and communication deteriorates to noise along with trust and accountability.
I attended a seminar at Smith College a few years back while visiting a friend. During the course of the seminar on feminism/gender politics, I overheard some of the “enlightened” professors bemoaning Chinese capitalism. Basically they concluded that the Chinese system had become perverted since the Great Helmsman finished his mandate from heaven. Professor your analyses of the current malaise in the country is spot-on.
Actually, I suspect that plenty of this President’s advisors have experience in law, but the type of law typified by posh offices in major cities, where people are “partner” by virtue of revenue generation, not a sound business sense honed by decades of prudent advice to clients. This is the sort who prefers glad-handing lobbying and behind-the-scenes policy advocacy rather than dready drafting of commercial agreements and analyzing legal arguments in litigation.
Those sorts of lawyers are constantly seeking connections to government that can then be sold to large business interests–the latter being the “rate immune” clients who can afford to pay lots for the “lawyer’s” (ahem) government connections.
So the client is, in short, a rent-seeking corporate interest, searching for government favor or subsidy, and the lawyer is a person seeking to facilitate that tax subsidy or government expenditure that will make or break the business plan…while pulling that client’s “profit” out of the rest of the country’s pocket.
I’m a tenured professor at a small private university in New England, and I couldn’t agree more.
Rather than ramble on (and I could) I will simply say that any time my colleagues say that academics should be in charge I politely ask why we no longer have a faculty club. Oh that’s right: the faculty who insisted on running it would inevitably run it into the ground. More than once. Even when the club was subsidized by the university so that it didn’t actually have to break even.
Far too often my colleagues see that question as a non sequitur.
There is an easy solution to the problems presented by the cancerous liberal education machine. And yes my friends, it is a cancer. Many of the universities and public k-12 schools have become tumors, recoding the impressionable young minds of the American youth with a back-assward view of reality, and then they are pumped out into the populous to spread the infected message.
The treatment of this cancer is a two-fold simultaneous process. First, is to stem the spread of the infection. To accomplish this we must begin the process of redeveloping a love of reading in our youth. GET YOUR KIDS TO START READING. It is the key to unlock all of our accumulated wealth of human knowledge and experience. It allows the past to become relevant again.
We are all learning our history again with open eyes, recent events have made this necessary. LEARN IT WITH YOUR KIDS!!! Talk to your kids about the true history of this country, it’s founding principles and the philosophical debates that got us to The Constitution. Once we understand instinctively the logic behind the founding of this country, your children will be inoculated against deception. The disease cannot take hold against the genius of the founding of this nation when understood in its proper context.
The second step is the removal of the cancer from the schools themselves. Those of us who find that we may have a knack for teaching must inject ourselves into the system as teachers to get debate moving again amongst the children. Get our kids to ask “Why?” “Can you show me some reference for your point of view please?” and “Could you please show me where in The Constitution, it says that?”
We have a historical knowledge gap in our country, it’s part of the insidious nature of the cancer, its about time to administer treatment. It has been exposed.
The faculty lounge is home to leftists who refuse to question their radical left opinions and apparently often punish those that do,using mockery or worse. We have seen what zealots can wreak in housing and mortgage markets….are they not controlling college admissions by controlling student loans?… How silly of me. Surely they wouldn’t treat our children like political pawns!
While there are plenty of pompous boobs in the hard sciences, their balloons can be pricked. OK, brainiac, now let’s run the equations. What, looking for the door already?
However, that doesn’t work as well with the humanities, where it’s much harder to nail anyone down. It’s often squishy, subjective, perhaps nothing at all.
Self-confessed “Old Left” physics professor Alan Sokal’s spoof piece “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity” published in “Social Text” is thus an entertaining read, though the fallout is better still. He had wondered whether the humanities had become as sloppy as he’d heard and tested them by writing, more or less, that gravity is a social construct, documented with legit footnotes that would have shown the paper was bogus but it sailed through anyway.
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/#papers
ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!!! However it makes me frightened and sad at the sad time. The reason,because I know that it is true. I work at a conservative private school and they are on the O band wagon.
“…(G)iven that our president has always sensed that racial identity politics is a sanctuary for setback and an embryo for career promotion.”
What a near-perfect line. Identity politics serve as a bomb-shelter for an increasing number of political figures. If you question these “leaders” on their politicies they are likely to react with, “You are only asking that question because I am (fill-in-the-blank!)” Ninety-nine percent of the time this is a ridiculous retort but it can be used with impunity because the particular “community” that the speaker represents can be guaranteed to support him/her no matter what sort of goofball things they say.
Yes. I, too, made a mental note about the quality of Dr. Hanson’s writing as I finished that sentence so rich with imagery and meaning.
Reagan summed up the academic left with the same clarity of Dr. Hanson, but with his own pithy style: “High-IQ dimwits.”
My own impression of them is the “Eternals” in the movie “Zardoz”: cynical, effete, enervated elitists so bored and disgusted not only with the “Brutals” that inhabited the world outside their little utopia but also with themselves, to the point that in the end they gleefully welcomed being slaughtered (“Kill me! Kill me!”).
But then again clawing your way up the Fortune 500 Corporate ladder is no picnic either. You do well if you are well connected, play a good game of golf and don’t step out of line. It’s not as if all of that “diversity” in academia translates into the world of big business. Like they say, “its who you know, not what you know”. In both fields its about marking out your territory. We all want the most amount of money for the least amount of work. Human nature.
I am amazed at the rather witless and uninformed comments here. But then given the educational level of the posters, I suppose it is no surprise. I am a Full professor at a major university. I see no reason to entertain the rambling commentary here, especially by such people like “Sol Vason” above or mikemcdaniel.
The country has been ruined by so-called “real-world” people like New york Traders who gave us the financial meltdown. Other “real world” people run the companies that cannot seem to compete with european ones (GM v. mercedes). The real world people brought the US to the brink of debt default and a society of Britney Spears worshipers. They have allowed the TV to become infested with all manner of reality shows.
I am amazed at the rather witless and uninformed comments here. But then given the educational level of the posters, I suppose it is no surprise. I am a Full professor at a major university. I see no reason to entertain the rambling commentary here, especially by such people like “Sol Vason” above or mikemcdaniel. People who probably struggled to attain a 3.o in high school.
The country has been ruined by so-called “real-world” people like New york Traders who gave us the financial meltdown. Other “real world” people run the companies that cannot seem to compete with european ones (GM v. mercedes). The real world people brought the US to the brink of debt default and a society of Britney Spears worshipers. They have allowed the TV to become infested with all manner of reality shows. The real world people have oil spilling into the gulf.
So when an administration finally takes office and listens to professors, you all can do nothing except moan about how professors are “ruining” the country. I assure you, the professors are used to thinking about problems not just ranting on a website; we are used to dealing with problems, not deferring their resolution to others.
Its no accident that even on low brow shows in the old days–when Ameica was strong–professors were respected. Look at the professor in the Time Machine, or the earliest movies about invasions from outer space. Even Gilligan’s Island showed the reality-without a professor those people would have died off.
You little natterers need to quiet down and leave the problem solving to the informed people with judgment and the maturity to handle the problems. Professors.
Dear Full Professor:
I don’t normally reply to comments, but yours has given me pause. I note that while you mentioned me by name (as well as one other poster, and virtually all other posters by reference), you didn’t bother to address any of the issues that I, or anyone else raised, choosing instead to malign our collective intelligence and abilities. Your comment is so stereotypical of the left wing academic who can’t see his own reflection that I wonder if it is something of a parody. But, beyond that, since I know nothing of you or your background, I’ll not respond in kind.
Im afraid you took my comments far beyond what they clearly implied. I do not, for a moment, imply that all college professors are fools. In fact (common disclosure follows) I count among my friends and colleagues many professors and holders of advance degrees who are not tenured college faculty. However, the thrust of my argument, and that of many of the posters, was that mere intellect and academic credentials do not, in and of themselves, guarantee wisdom or ability. And it can scarcely be denied that some of the faculty of the institutions to which I and others have referred are lacking in real world experience and common sense. I have certainly met more than my fair share. Human variability would virtually guarantee that this be the case, would it not? But it does not logically follow that professors, as a whole, and college, in general, have little worth, nor do I make such a shallow argument.
In the end, Sir, (or Ma’am as the case may be), I’ll merely paraphrase Shakespeare in observing that methinks thou dost protest too much.
Ouch. Here’s a story that makes the Gates incident even more distressing.
A fortnight ago, when Obama was in Chicago, he somehow missed the funeral of a young Chicago police officer and soldier who had been gunned down on his parents’ front yard — as the officer visited with them to share pictures he had taken at the Police Memorial ceremony in Washington for officers killed in the line of duty. He’ll be there again next year — as one of the memorialized.
Thomas Wortham IV served two tours in Iraq. His father, also a retired police officer, watched his son die at the hands of four criminals carjacking his motorcycle (his dad killed one of the carjackers and wounded another). His mother, a retired schoolteacher, was active in the movement to stop crime in the previously-peaceful park across from their house, where her son now lay dead. Both father and son were prominent community activists, speaking out against youth crime and working hard to defend their quality of life there. They were leaders in a neighborhood watch group dedicated to taking back the park from the criminals who had occupied it.
Community activist — police officer — volunteer — mentor — soldier — veteran: Wortham represented the very best of his generation and personified every civic virtue Obama claims to endorse. And the young man died not far from where the Obamas had raised their own girls; he had protected the streets the Obamas call home.
So where was the president? Where were the comments from the White House, to praise this time, and thus show police that he is capable of appreciating their sacrifices?
Possibly the family didn’t want the distraction of his presence. But couldn’t Obama have spoken about Wortham in some other forum, or mentioned any of the other officers killed already this year? He felt compelled to publicly attack the police; why doesn’t he feel compelled to show that he has learned anything else? A community activist, volunteer, police officer, soldier, protecting his neighborhood and country has died — and many others died this year. Shouldn’t the president clarify his support for such sacrifices?
On the day Wortham was buried, Obama was nearby vacationing in Chicago but apparently said nothing. And that says everything.
You have identified the problem well enough Dr. Hanson. Now the question is, How did things get this way, and what can we do about it?
In all of my 64 years I have never seen elite opinion as out of step with us just folks as it is now, and the gulf is growing, not shrinking.
If university faculties have been this way for many years, that would explain why members and their followers have destabilized our society instead of improving it.
BINGO!
High IQ dimwits. Succinct and perfect. Leave it up to President Reagan to sort the wheat from the BS. Academics, for the most part, make me want to hurl. The office occupier and his regime make me swallow a little of my own vomit everyday. IMPEACH and throw the rest out with him.
it’s THE VOTERS who are to blame for our elementary teacher president.
they voted for him………. and we all suffer the consequence ……
it’s the voters who are CULPABLE.
IT’S LIKE OBAMA’S THE robber of the bank but it’s THE VOTERS waiting in the getaway car who are CULPABLE……..
russia and china are patiently waiting until obama leave’s us in total economic collapse…… then they will invade us ……… and all the movie stars including CUPLABLE barbra striesand who endorsed obama will be in another country with thier millions as the usa is destroyed by russia and china…..
BLAME the voters ……… they put us with this elementary teacher as commander in chief……
At 50,000 barrels per day, in twenty days it fills a one million barrel tanker. In 100 days it over-fills the largest ultra tanker. Just one oil well. How can such a blow out be tied to a shortage of US produced oil?
Lots of good comments.
Political correctness, socialism, the American democratic party, Hollywood and the entertainment industry, the whole school system from K through university have all become one tidal wave which has crashed over this country and many others. Nothing is sacred, and traditional values which have been the rudder setting the course of a great nation have been gleefully vandalized by these foolish leftist A-holes.
Why has the border been left wide open for so many decades, is simply one of thousands of questions to ask, or observations to make. Has not the leftist democratic party (this is not your fathers democratic party, folks)long ago concluded that by changing the racial make up of this nation and allowing millions of poor Mexicans into the USA, that they, the democrats, would gain millions of new voters?
That’s great for the democrat leftists. But how has that been for the average working man? Oh, but the democrats are the working man’s party, right?
How has the endless flood of third world immigrants effected this nation in regard to the adherence of the people to long held standards. Compare how our nation held together and responded to WWII, and think whether we could act in such a way now.
I love to watch old movies and to see the wholesomeness reflected of a bygone era. Our country was quite homogeneous then, and though it needed some correction regarding segregation, it was a great place to live. A wholesome place of beauty and grace.
Diversity is our strength is just another stupid politically correct phrase.
I venture to say that we would be much better off today if we had tightly controlled our borders, and strictly limited our immigration to a careful selection of immigrants.
How stupid is it to put hordes of Americans on welfare, while a wave of poor immigrants flood this country and do all the unskilled labor jobs. These jobs are great starter jobs for teenagers and young people, as well, but they are to varying degrees, unavailable to the young because the third worlders have taken over millions of these jobs.
I recently told a manager at McDonalds that I thought this was actually a pretty good place to work, as it is one of the best run companies in the world. He agreed saying that a young person starting at McDonald’s would leave that job with a good sense of a work ethic.
But, in my town, McD’s seems to only hire Mexicans.
Here’s a thought.
Instead of millions of Mexicans flooding into the gravy train of America…why don’t they develop their own HUGE country?
No, instead, poor immigrants flood this country, and they don’t give a fig for this country..its just a gravy train to get on. They have little love for this country, and I suspect that many of them despise native Americans (by native I mean the Whites and Blacks who built this nation over a few hundred years).
There is so much more to say, virtually ALL of it politically incorrect. But, I say try to say these things out loud in my daily life for people to reflect upon.
The best movie: No Country for Old Men
The best talk show host: Michael Savage…..He ventures farther than anyone on the airwaves to tel the truth.
By the Way…when the leftists try to stop free speech, would that not be the time for an insurrection? If not then…when?
I LUV KNEE-GROWS….
At 60,000 barrels per day spilling into the Gulf, such a well if made to behave, along with 184 others… would completely eliminate imported oil in the US. (Currently 11 million barrels/day)
That’s kicking A..! Drill… or entertain Proggie Guilt.
Oops, Proggie Guilt wins with Big UhOh in charge.
I’ve always wondered, and this may be a good time to ask:
Does one have to be a jerk-off, to write a “seminal” article in the academic literature?
Those that can, do , those that cannot, teach.
That expression dates back at least to the 50′s or beyond but is never more true that today. Carefully examine the product coming from American factories and judge the company. Apply the same scrutiny to our institutes of higher learning and draw your own conclusions. The travesty of the system is that we take that product from our institutes of higher learning and place them in public office and we get 59 days of rhetoric and millions of gallons of oil on our beaches.
In the old days, the King had a very simple and direct remedy for subjects gone astray: off with their heads!
We have become adverse to final solutions in this day, but can anyone think of an acceptable and legal final solution for now?
……………..
I thought not.
NO IM AGAINST THE ARIZONA LAW ITS RACIAL PROFILING AGAINST ALL PEOPLE OF AFRICAN LATINO OR MIDDLE EASTERN CULTURES AND THIS IS NOT RIGHT THEY SHOULD BEEN MORE SENSITIVE TO THE PEOPLE AND THERE WAYS AND CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS AND WE SHOULD LEARN FROM THEM AT ALL CHANCES THAT WE GET THANK YOU STEVE WILLIAMSON
Steve – you need to read the law you are denouncing, it says nothing about what you are complaining about. It specifically condems racial profiling and says nothing that isn’t already in federal law. We have way too many people willing to pass judgement without having read the bill – Holder, Obama, Napolitano.
And what other illegalities would you excuse?
how true
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