Re: this is a tragic situation now the comedy

Daniel writes, as if I was saying this:

"Politics are full of corruption and power grabs, like Churches, and
Corporations but somehow Academia is immune."

But I have said quite the opposite to Luke; that academia is just like all
these other working environments and certainly carries its share of corruption
within its halls. Still, there is no mass brainwashing of American students by
the far left in our universities across the country. In fact, recent polls
tell us that the university student population throughout the nation has
actually been growing more conservative than it has been in generations, not less.

So if someone really is trying to brainwash all these kids, they're doing a
rotten job.

I'll tell you what Daniel, if you really believe that the universities are in
the hands of some far leftist cabal, despite my own anecdotal experiences and
admittedly personal testimony directly to the contrary, I'll make a deal with
you.

You give us the universities, and we'll give you talk radio (oh, and the
board rooms of the Fortune 500 multinationals -- who, I dare say, have become far
more influential within the culture in their own way than any humanities
professor or literature scholar ever dreamed of being).

That seems like a fair arrangement.

Seriously, Daniel, you ask me two questions you already know the answers to:

"Who decides good internet chat and posts?"

I do. Mine are good. Yours are awful. It's just the way of things.

"Who says nothing meaningful is going on here?"

Me. 'cause it's not.

The whole discussion is ridiculous, of course.

I've just had an excellent class discussion on Descartes' Meditations and now
I get to prepare Wednesday's class on the final part of Madame Bovary for
another class and I love re-reading it. And I get paid for this and for talking
about it with kids who are experiencing this magic for the first time. It's a
joy and I am the luckiest guy in the world in this respect. And all this
silliness about liberals and conservatives on campus battling for the hearts and
minds of America is irrelevant nonsense. Students are going to class and
reading books and taking Chemistry tests and studying philosophy and literature
sometimes and prepping for their computer engineering mid-term and getting drunk
and sleeping with their roommate's girlfriend and eating much too quickly at
Subway between classes and every now and then stumbling across and idea or a
book or an argument or a moment in class that strikes a chord within them and
makes their eyes widen and the hair stand up on their necks and they argue and
they think and they learn and they go home and stay out all night and do it all
again the next morning.

The rest is just talk-radio bullshit, conservatives whining about liberals
and liberals whining about conservatives as if it mattered to anyone but
themselves.

Whine on, Daniel. But frankly, to me, your little anti-academic tirades reek
of desperation and frustration and rejection and resentment and they sound
like the sad complaints of a bitter man.

--John (who would absolutely NEVER "equate academic knowledge with
intelligence")

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Received on Mon Sep 29 18:00:59 2003