The Liberal Slant

I found this article interesting. It deals with the way that institutions of higher learning are stacking the deck, hiring mainly professors who subscribe to the liberal mindset. This explains why our children come back from school spouting Marxist dogma like good little commies. Further the article goes on to explain the detrimental effects this one-sided education is having.

Here are a few interesting excerpts:

- More than nine out of 10 professors belonged to the Democratic or Green party, an imbalance that contradicted many liberal academics' protestations that diversity and pluralism abound in higher education.

- After Nixon crushed McGovern in the 1972 election, the film critic Pauline Kael made a remark that has become a touchstone among conservatives. "I don't know how Richard Nixon could have won," she marveled. "I don't know anybody who voted for him." While the second sentence indicates the sheltered habitat of the Manhattan intellectual, the first signifies what social scientists call the False Consensus Effect. That effect occurs when people think that the collective opinion of their own group matches that of the larger population. If the members of a group reach a consensus and rarely encounter those who dispute it, they tend to believe that everybody thinks the same way. The tendency applies to professors, especially in humanities departments, but with a twist. Although a liberal consensus reigns within, academics have an acute sense of how much their views clash with the majority of Americans. Some take pride in a posture of dissent and find noble precursors in civil rights, Students for a Democratic Society, and other such movements. But dissent from the mainstream has limited charms, especially after 24 years of center-right rule in Washington. Liberal professors want to be adversarial, but are tired of seclusion. Thus, many academics find a solution in a limited version of the False Consensus that says liberal belief reigns among intellectuals everywhere.

- ...any political position that dominates an institution without dissent deterioriates into smugness, complacency, and blindness.

- Group Polarization happens so smoothly on campuses that those involved lose all sense of the range of legitimate opinion. A librarian at Ohio State University who announces, "White Americans pay too little attention to the benefits their skin color gives them, and opening their eyes to their privileged status is a valid part of a college education" seems to have no idea how extreme his vision sounds to many ears.

When I read this, the "False Consensus Effect" sprang out as the explanation for the liberal's disbelief in how President Bush could have possibly won the election. It also spoke volumes about the pedigree of the "Republicans are all stupid dumb rednecks" claim.