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Tuesday, February 17, 2004

On the campus right

Andrew Sullivan, among others, is inviting people to write in with stories about liberal professorial bias.  His first correspondent says this:

“It isn’t just Duke. I just wanted to pass along this anecdote from my days attending Indiana University. It was the fall semester of 1994 and it was also the evening of the midterm elections which brought the Republicans to majority status in the House. My prof strolled into class (a class on the Beatles) and began to spew left wing hate in all directions. He said he could not belive a country was so naive as to elect the Nazis (how I tire of this comparison) to head the House of Representatives. Then, as an aside, he smiled and winked at the class, and said, ‘well, at least I know no one in here contributed to the end of America as we know it.’ I wanted to stand up and scream, ‘I did!! I am bringing about a revolution in American governance and I am damn proud of it.’ But, feeling a little ostracized, I did not. I am not one who normally gets ‘offended’ by other people and the things they say but, I have to say I was on this occasion.”

There are plenty more stories like this, from what I’ve heard over the past few months, and I promise to say more about them in some other medium. Can’t say too much more just now-- I’m being watched by right-wing campus groups! And to Sullivan’s credit, he has posted one letter from a Princeton undergrad who thinks this whole conservative-persecution-in-academe thing is overblown.  But can I say just one thing about anecdotes like this-- leaving aside, for now, the question of whether Sullivan’s first correspondent was right to think that he or she had in fact brought about “a revolution in American governance”?

What political work, exactly, is being done by professors who mouth off like this at their classes? Do snarky left-leaning professors really believe for a moment that the right bit of snark or the perfect vent, perfectly timed, will cause the scales to fall from the eyes of their conservative students?  Do any of us seriously think that all we have to do is to mutter an aside about the unelected fraud, etc., in order for right-wing students to smack their foreheads and cry, “Eureka!  It had not occurred to me before now, but Bush is indeed both unelected and a fraud!  To hell with conservatism? I wanna be like my cool left-leaning, aside-muttering professor!”

I’d like to suggest that Andrew Sullivan, David Horowitz and company shouldn’t get too upset about such classroom moments.  Quite the contrary: so far as I can see, professors who go on like this about Republicans and conservatives (and yes, there are a few of us who do this-- not all these stories are made up) are doing Sullivan’s and Horowitz’s work for them.

That is, producing even more whiny, aggrieved conservatives-- who then graduate and go whining to journalists and legislators about their exposure to snarky, venting left-leaning professors.

Pedagogy is partly about rhetoric and persuasion, folks.  And you’re not going to be very good at the arts of rhetoric and persuasion if you begin by assuming that there isn’t a single person in the room who might disagree with you.

Posted by Michael on 02/17 at 09:43 AM
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