The Hidden World of Campus Conservatives

[Mindmaster]

I was watching the video below, and I find it rather amazing how much schools have changed in the twenty years since I've left. We've gone from having a set of campuses filled with mixed political views to a nearly homogeneous culture of liberalism that has so inundated the academia that is doubtful that they can even understand viewpoints outside of their reality tunnel. So the question is, do you think this negatively impacts education to the point where free thought and divergent opinions are trampled by a stampede of SJW 3.0's painting themselves red and punching police horses when they cause riots at Trump rallies? Do you think this accounts for the poor academic performance scores across the USA as a train of intellectual sycophants taints the entire system?

What do you think?

 

[psychoslice]

I think there is a lot of truth in what you said, I notice it everywhere, even here in Australia.

 

[lovesong]

Watch Milo Yiannopoulos, this is literally him.

 

[Tumah]

I don't have to stand for this damaging discussion!
Please provide a safe thread, where those of us not willing to expose ourselves to such scary ideas can play with teddy bears.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Universities should be places of idealistic discourse. I'd think that requires various views and a level of dissent.

 

[Laika]

i think that, particularly in an educational setting, the political views of faculty members should be based on evidence and learning. Not all political views are equal in terms of their relationship with the evidence. Demands for intellectual equality have to be based on a level playing field and not "equality of outcome". We would not expect diversity amongst evolutionary biologists to include creationists or amongst climatologists to include climate change deniers. the dominance of certain ideologies in academia has a political role in reinforcing existing beliefs but cannot be dismissed as such as artificial when it can demonstrate a relationship to evidence.

If I replaced "conservative" with "communist" the subject of this discussion would barely differ as to the ideological role of the education system as propaganda branch for various interests and is very alien to (politically) liberal understandings of political beliefs as the property of the individual which is accidental in relation their area of work and expertise. Treating conservatives and liberals as battling groups in academia as part of the culture war is very close to treating the education system as a conscious weapon of indoctrination for these ideologies. That is highly collectivistic and not conducive to a healthy free or democratic political culture. It's political correctness and affirmiative actions tactics for the right. I am not sure if that is a desirable way for libertarians to combat left wing ideologies by employing near identical tactics.

 

[Revoltingest]

At UofMich 40 years ago, things were uniformly leftish.
I can't speak about other schools though.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

I was watching the video below, and I find it rather amazing how much schools have changed in the twenty years since I've left. We've gone from having a set of campuses filled with mixed political views to a nearly homogeneous culture of liberalism that has so inundated the academia that is doubtful that they can even understand viewpoints outside of their reality tunnel. So the question is, do you think this negatively impacts education to the point where free thought and divergent opinions are trampled by a stampede of SJW 3.0's painting themselves red and punching police horses when they cause riots at Trump rallies? Do you think this accounts for the poor academic performance scores across the USA as a train of intellectual sycophants taints the entire system?

What do you think?

I think you're over-generalizing. Yes, there is a lot of liberalism on many campuses, especially public universities, but there are many more private universities, and many of them are quite conservative in both organization and student body.

My experience at my public university is that while there are a significant number of conservative students on campus, they tend not to form or get involved in very many of the activist organizations--and we have LOTS of organizations on campus. It's not like conservatives don't have the opportunity to organize and hold events.

Why might this be? Conservatives, in America at least, seem to be in favor of the status quo, and are thus less likely to form activist organizations advocating for change. And often, they tend towards using the more traditional routes to power than social activism--such as working to directly lobby those in power, using their social, economic and political connections within and outside of the campus to advance their agendas, etc. Third, I think many conservatives at my school, while they may think the campus is more liberal than they themselves are, realize that out in the real world (that is, off campus and out of school), the rest of the world goes on in a much more conservative manner. Finally, while many conservatives complain about the liberalism of education, when it comes down to brass tacks, many conservatives actually hold some fairly liberal views on at least some issues--that is, while many people self-identify as conservative, they are actually moderates or centrists in many ways.

 

[YmirGF]

I don't have to stand for this damaging discussion!
Please provide a safe thread, where those of us not willing to expose ourselves to such scary ideas can play with teddy bears.

Your comments SO triggered me.... I can't bear to look at the video....
*Runs off to safe space for a period of prolonged thumb-sucking*

 

[Adramelek]

My how things have changed on campuses over the course of twenty years. I was a lot more liberal in my early 20's than I am today. I am more libertarian now, socially liberal and economically a conservative. The youth of today seem so sensitive and timid, so easily offended. For instance, some students on a university campus needed to see a councilor after being "emotionally damaged" when they saw "TRUMP 2016" spray painted on a wall or "Build The Wall" spray painted on a sidewalk on campus grounds. What the hell is going on with some of these young people? And how the hell are they going to survive in the real world after college?

 

[Mindmaster]

My how things have changed on campuses over the course of twenty years. I was a lot more liberal in my early 20's than I am today. I am more libertarian now, socially liberal and economically a conservative. The youth of today seem so sensitive and timid, so easily offended. For instance, some students on a university campus needed to see a councilor after being "emotionally damaged" when they saw "TRUMP 2016" spray painted on a wall or "Build The Wall" spray painted on a sidewalk on campus grounds. What the hell is going on with some of these young people? And how the hell are they going to survive in the real world after college?

I don't think they can, and that was my point. That maybe, just maybe, the education system has put blinders on its eyes and decided there are no valid alternatives to a certain mode of thinking. All ideologies have flaws, even the far left... People realize that communism (not the Karl Marx kind) kills people who disagree with it once established, right? (Communism is leftist politically, but taken to full extension generally becomes something evil.) Communism is one of those examples that is much better on paper, IMHO.

Yesterday I got into a political argument with someone on Facebook, and that person kept saying I was wrong though not providing any evidence to the same. (I literally have a book of Hillary frauds and self-contradicting quotes... ) I dropped more evidence for the claim I made, and then they decide their answer to this situation was to shout me down. Really, that's what we've come to -- a world where no one has to make sense and still be considered equally? Please...

 

[Twilight Hue]

Damm.

Where's Lyndon larouche to put a stop to all this?

 

[MysticSang'ha]

I think you're over-generalizing. Yes, there is a lot of liberalism on many campuses, especially public universities, but there are many more private universities, and many of them are quite conservative in both organization and student body.

My experience at my public university is that while there are a significant number of conservative students on campus, they tend not to form or get involved in very many of the activist organizations--and we have LOTS of organizations on campus. It's not like conservatives don't have the opportunity to organize and hold events.

Why might this be? Conservatives, in America at least, seem to be in favor of the status quo, and are thus less likely to form activist organizations advocating for change. And often, they tend towards using the more traditional routes to power than social activism--such as working to directly lobby those in power, using their social, economic and political connections within and outside of the campus to advance their agendas, etc. Third, I think many conservatives at my school, while they may think the campus is more liberal than they themselves are, realize that out in the real world (that is, off campus and out of school), the rest of the world goes on in a much more conservative manner. Finally, while many conservatives complain about the liberalism of education, when it comes down to brass tacks, many conservatives actually hold some fairly liberal views on at least some issues--that is, while many people self-identify as conservative, they are actually moderates or centrists in many ways.

This has been my experience as an associate professor and as a business owner. People generalize a LOT about too many liberals in the universities and too many conservatives in private for-profit business, when the truth is way more in the middle ground than many loud mouths are willing to admit.

Bigger problems exist in the corporatization of higher education and tax increment financing that work against small businesses. Political activists on campus are MAYBE as prolific as the alt-right online, with the "SJW" snarl word being used as evidence that enjoys support on a liberal-leaning forum like RF.

Funny how universities were also ultra liberal back in the '60s and people who like complaining about progressives *****ed about it back then too. Nothing has really changed, folks.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

For instance, some students on a university campus needed to see a councilor after being "emotionally damaged" when they saw "TRUMP 2016" spray painted on a wall or "Build The Wall" spray painted on a sidewalk on campus grounds.

Uni students have always been stereotyped by outsiders, and I tend to think a lot of people these days are overly-sensitive in areas not requiring it, and apathetic where it does.

But this whole 'TRUMP 2016' things appears at best severely overstated.

http://www.snopes.com/emory-students-trump-graffiti/

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Uni students have always been stereotyped by outsiders, and I tend to think a lot of people these days are overly-sensitive in areas not requiring it, and apathetic where it does.

But this whole 'TRUMP 2016' things appears at best severely overstated.

http://www.snopes.com/emory-students-trump-graffiti/

People love hyperbole if it supports their worldview.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I think with the new age of media, things probably haven't changed much, but because someone always has their phone out we get to see much more of the world than we have ever before. Sure, where I go is way more liberal on campus than it is off, but it does not in anyway have the drug culture it would have a few decades ago. Of course there are also many as Conservatives--one of whom was deeply offended over a documentary discussing mostly Iran-Contra and the human toll of the war on drugs--but overwhelmingly the clubs, activities, and other events were being done by the liberals groups. Of course there were some exceptions, and the philosophy club president was a Randian Conservative, and even Conservative writers featured in the school paper, but it's typically the liberal students who are seeking and welcoming diversity that are behind much of the social aspects of college.

 

[ScottySatan]

I don't know what the hell you're talking about in your question specifically, but I did notice a huge liberal bias in my college and in every other one that I checked. I do think it biases education. I think soon we're going to have conservative universities, kind of like "Conservipedia". and yes, they will be a laughing stock.

I don't know what to do about it, professors do at least keep their political commentary out of the classroom for the most part.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I think soon we're going to have conservative universities,

We already have them in America. And they aren't the laughing stock you would think they are.

 

[ScottySatan]

We already have them in America. And they aren't the laughing stock you would think they are.

I was thinking of BYU as I typed that post, but that was all I could think of. Who else is there?

edited to add: I'm thinking of universities started explicitly to counter the liberal agenda. Have it in their mission statement. Funded by the kocks

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I was thinking of BYU as I typed that post, but that was all I could think of. Who else is there?

edited to add: I'm thinking of universities started explicitly to counter the liberal agenda. Have it in their mission statement. Funded by the kocks

I'm not sure if you will explicitly find that in a mission statement, but we do have Liberty University, which was founded by the televangelist Jerry Falwell, and they do teach creationism.