The Chinese Communist Party and Chairman Mao stand with you.
Just a sample:
I have undertaken the task of organizing conservative students myself and urging them to protest a situation that has become intolerable.
David Horowitz
The Campus Blacklist
April 18, 2003
Students on University campuses were organized into groups of “Red Guards” and were given the chance to challenge those in authority. Students quickly turned their attacks on their closest adversaries, their teachers and university administrators.
Therese Hoffman
The Chinese Cultural Revolution:
Autobiographical Accounts of a National Trauma
2001
...
Horowitz's organization has published ads in campus newspapers calling on students to report professors who try to "impose their political opinions" in the classroom.
The Daily Texan
Conservatives gaining ground at UT
March 8, 2004
Mao actively urged young people to confront, denounce, and even punish their teachers and other authority figures in their lives.
Christian Science Monitor
China hums with change
June 10, 2004
Naturally, organizations where it's the duty of people to study, learn, and debate are going to be strongolds of left-of-center thinking. Colleges are unique among other stages of learning because what people are taught is not harmonized - that is, a student could learn an idea in one class, then a contradictory one in another. Naturally, the ruling right-wing theories should be given a fair hearing, but they usually wither away in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Could you imagine the horror of a place where all institutes of higher learning instill the students with unquestioning awe of their leaders, ardent nationalism, and hatred of their country's enemies? Oh yeah, you can - it's called North Korea. Or Saudi Arabia, or Syria, or - well, you get the idea.
It's the responsibility of each generation to deal with the problems their elders leave behind. That can't happen if they're conditioned to believe the status quo is perfect.
4 comments:
"Naturally, the ruling right-wing theories should be given a fair hearing, but they usually wither away in the face of overwhelming evidence."
You presume that "ruling theories" are "right-wing". True conservatives believe that what we have in this country is a light version of socialism and we should return to a less regualted free market in which the government plays a much smaller role. That would be a "right-wing" theory.
"Could you imagine the horror of a place where all institutes of higher learning instill the students with unquestioning awe of their leaders, ardent nationalism, and hatred of their country's enemies?"
"Unquestioning awe" of one's leaders is not a staple of conservativism, but rather of ignorant conformists of any political persuasion. Ardent nationalism should only extend to the principles of the country, such as liberty and justice. As such, one can point out when our leaders stray from the American ideal.
An open market place of ideas and critical minds are the keys to education. Labels only serve to confuse the issue and the objective: finding truth in matters.
Ah, the wonders of Photoshop!
Incompetence is the problem, not elitism. Ideology too often takes the place of real scholarship in academia today, and that only results in an intellectually deprived student body.
No one is suggesting that campuses be institutions of unwavering patriotism and dedication to the status quo. But there is a problem when so many universities are solely the opposite - where pathological America-hatred and incessant calls for revolution are the norm.
There is a lack of real debate. Conservative students feel threatened not because they're not confident of their opinions, but because they've been harassed, intimidated, vilified, etc. That is not an intellectual climate that should be promoted or defended.
your statement on syria is innacurate. Syria is a nation divided severely by nationalistic causes of the Alawite, Sunni and Shiite traditions of the Islamic Faith, not united in hatred. Your attack is based too much on generalisation and lack of actuality and fact, work on that--you're lucky im not in Mass., otherwise you would often be routed in world affairs. When you defend conservatism, its all good--but when you wrongly accuse a nation's people of hatred, you are a war mongerer.
peace out,
hamza
Something is holding Syria together, and it isn't their democratic institutions.
The examples I listed are only general ones - certainly they vary greatly in degree and form. The point was about the necessity of antiestablishment education more than anything else.
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