Anti-Bush protests...in Kentucky?

[Sythe]

Vietnam all over again?

[Davros]

Originally posted by shamrock_uk: quote: Originally posted by Khazadman Risen: These places are nothing but leftist indoctrination centers, where diversity of thought is discouraged.

I wish! Then my reading lists wouldn't be half as long as they are...curse those different viewpoints! [/QUOTE]LOL Shamrock and Stratos [img]smile.gif[/img] .

I think think there might be something in what you say Stratos. If Khazadman had visited a university he may have been exposed to a more diverse opinion of the phrase "diversity of thought" than seems to have been the case up till now .

Universities and colleges I think do a fair job of dis-indoctrination (if I can invent the word just briefly). They take in students who have often been indoctrinated by their parents as to which of the 2 party system they are meant to be on, and they expose them to different ideas and ways of thinking. In some (but not all) cases, this breaks the programming of parental indoctrination and after thinking over the options, the student decides for him or her self where they want to place their allegiance.

I would argue that people who don't go to university and get all their data feeds from a limited amount of sources are likley to view Uni's as much the way that Khazadman has characterised them. Now that isn't saying that you fall into that data set K, but I can see that there exists out there a data set (let's pick on the repugs to be consistent) of family republicans that quit learnin and start earnin after high school. They are used to getting all their input from the repug sections of the media (say Faux News ) and they are ideally situated to mistrust centres of independant thought.

Just my 2 cents of independant input

[John D Harris]

Originally posted by Stratos: quote: Originally posted by Khazadman Risen: Protests at universities? Say it isn't so! Of course you're going to have protests against bush there. These places are nothing but leftist indoctrination centers, where diversity of thought is discouraged.

You've never been to a university, have you? [/QUOTE]Strat, have you been to many Uni's in the USA? The Uni's in Sweden may be differant but here in the USA, Khazadman, has pretty much "hit the nail square on the head". I live in a Uni town "Hale" half my neighbors are Profs, The majority of them are so far left they have to look to their right and use a telescope to see Ted Kennedy. If you look at my, "where are you from", You'll see I'm from Alabama, arguebily(sp?) the Redest of the Red States. (that's Pro Bush) I live across the river form the Home of the CRIMSON TIDE, (that's the University of Alabama for the unknowledgeable about the greatest Collegete football program to ever hike a football.). It's the Pride of the Heart of Dixie, the most powerful man in the state is not the Govenor, it's the head football coach of the Crimson Tide. Alabama is the conservative's conservative, and our Uni is slam damn full of the Left.

[shamrock_uk]

Originally posted by John D Harris: The majority of them are so far left they have to look to their right and use a telescope to see Ted Kennedy.

[img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

If you and Khazadman are both right then, what do you think makes American universities so much different from the rest of the world? Especially as more European's than American's are probably left-wing...

[ 01-23-2005, 02:34 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

[Lucern]

Even if all of your neighbors, and every prof at every university is an extreme lefty, that doesn't guarantee that you have a grand liberal factory in American universities.

I'm with Davros here about de-indoctrination. It's been said that college is a time to question and re-evaluate all of the crap that was loaded onto you during your first 18 years. He was specifically talking about prior education rather than parental and cultural indoctrination (I mean, who listens to their parents? Honestly lol).

And I'm lucky for having re-evaluated it - many of us can believe some of the mis-information, half-truths, and areas of utter ignorance you can come out of high school with. My physics teacher told us that sea levels couldn't go any higher. My history teacher only said of WW2 that "It was important, and you should read about it sometime," and my biology teacher (in a secular college prep private school) never mentioned evolution.

In college you have to stop taking information wholly by authority. A professor isn't telling you "Truth". S/He's telling you what can be learned from a specific discipline and how certain that knowledge can be based on reason and evidence and encouraging you to apply it in ways that test its validity. Some use labs, some use a wide variety of texts, experiments, or exercises, but that's basically what's happening here. Colleges are different of course, and anyone who's been has had his/her share of lousy profs, but to me, teaching people valid ways of gathering and analyzing information is the best thing they could possibly do.

Blinding people with a single ideology would not only be difficult, but pointless and largely irrelevent to most subjects. What's an extreme lefty prof going to do in an anthropology, biology, gender studies, computer science, or foreign language class? What would a neocon* do differently?

*And yes, neocon profs exist. Ask Condi Rice.

[ 01-23-2005, 03:36 PM: Message edited by: Lucern ]

[Davros]

Good post Lucern, and JD, it's a sad day when a University becomes more beloved for its sports teams than it is for the ability to generate independant thought from the youth of the country. Those sports teams are naught but an offshoot of the institution. Without the college there is no red ebbing and flowing.

[John D Harris]

Originally posted by shamrock_uk: quote: Originally posted by John D Harris: The majority of them are so far left they have to look to their right and use a telescope to see Ted Kennedy.

[img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

If you and Khazadman are both right then, what do you think makes American universities so much different from the rest of the world? Especially as more European's than American's are probably left-wing... [/QUOTE]I take it, that you liked that one Sham.

Here's another for you: I'm so far to the right I have to look to my left and use my telescope to see Reagan.

The USA's Uni's maybe different, I have no point of referance for the rest of the World's Uni's, and nothing personal but I don't want to have any point of referance. That is my choice and I freely admit it, no justification, or excuses, just that's the way it is.

The Uni's are made up of people. Based on 43 years of life, whenever there is an authority, as Professors are, the authority will push the agenda that they believe is correct. If I had to place a bet on why, I would bet that since the USA is not as left as Europe. The original indoctrination in the USA is for the most part on the right of center. People want to leave marks/impressions, Professors included. The most effective way to leave a mark is to oppose, stand out, be differant. Which stands out more a red brick in a wall of blue bricks, or a blue brick in a wall of blue bricks?
You've seen the terms used "Free thinking", "thinking freely" or the like. To that I ask what do they want people to think free of? Because it certainly isn't thinking free of indoctrination, the "free thinking" crowd WANT people to think inside the scope of their Indoctrination. Everybody that has posted so far has agreed that Uni's indoctrinate one way or another.(de-indoctrinating IS indoctrinating, it just happens to be indoctrinating an opposing indocrination, from the original Indoctrination.) To me "thinking free" is exactlly that! One is free to think what they want, no matter what the indoctrination is. In other words think what you want and I'll think what I want.
(For those that haven't read what I have writen, I have no problem with agendas. I have a problem with people that think agendas are bad/evil/wrong, when the agenda is one different then the agenda they hold. DO I have an agenda? You bet your sweet bippy I do, I just admit it, instead of trying to say having an agenda is wrong WHILE holding agenda myself.)

[ 01-23-2005, 05:00 PM: Message edited by: John D Harris ]

[John D Harris]

Originally posted by Davros: Good post Lucern, and JD, it's a sad day when a University becomes more beloved for its sports teams than it is for the ability to generate independant thought from the youth of the country. Those sports teams are naught but an offshoot of the institution. Without the college there is no red ebbing and flowing.

You're free to think that, Live long and prosper.

[Azred]

Originally posted by Lucern: In college you have to stop taking information wholly by authority. A professor isn't telling you "Truth". S/He's telling you what can be learned from a specific discipline and how certain that knowledge can be based on reason and evidence and encouraging you to apply it in ways that test its validity. Some use labs, some use a wide variety of texts, experiments, or exercises, but that's basically what's happening here. Colleges are different of course, and anyone who's been has had his/her share of lousy profs, but to me, teaching people valid ways of gathering and analyzing information is the best thing they could possibly do.

[img]graemlins/laugh3.gif[/img] Of course, some professors want to be regarded as Authority and the dispensers of Truth. Naturally, if your truth disagrees with their Truth then you can try to take the class again next semester under a different professor.... [img]graemlins/beigesmilewinkgrin.gif[/img]

[ 01-24-2005, 09:26 PM: Message edited by: Azred ]

[Cerek]

Davros - I have to disagree. (C'mon, you knew that was coming )

Seriously though, I don't agree that parents "indoctrinate" thier kids - and especially not their teens. Teens naturally rebel against their parents as they struggle to form their own identity and a parent or parents that push a "hard-core" line are only going to face an even larger rebellion.

And while I know you were just using the repugs to be consistent, I do take issue with repugs and conservatives always being considered "afraid" or worse "incapable" of independent thought.

To be perfectly honost, I was a registered Democrat in high school. I changed my registration after going to college and actually learning what ideals and issues the Democratic party supported. I admit I registered as a Democrat because my parents were also Democrats - but that isn't because they "indoctrinated" me. It's because I really had no idea what the difference between the two parties were and voter registration is a very important issue...so I just naturally chose what my parents were. Since then, we have ALL changed our registration as the Democratic party became more and more liberal.

And - despite my deeply conservative values - I am not registered as a Republican either. Instead, I chose to register as an Independent because it was the best reflection of my values.

The only reason I didn't register as an Independent sooner than I did is because - for many, many years - Independent voters were not allowed to vote in the primary elections for either party. Primary elections are the ones held to choose which candidate will represent the party in any given race, whether it be President of the United States or Sheriff of the local town. As soon as the rule was changed so that Independents could also vote in the Primaries, I changed my registration.

I don't think either party has a lock on the moral or intellectual high ground. The Repubs are generally more conservative, so they get my vote more often than the Demo's, but I've voted for plenty of Demo's in my time too (for State and Congressional Representatives and Senators) because the Democratic candidate endorsed more of the issues that were important to me than their Republican opponent.

I know it is a popular thought that Universities are "breeding grounds" for liberals and liberal thought. To some extent, that may be true. But I attended two Universities in my college career - one was a major state university and the other was a much smaller uni closer to home. I did encounter more diversity of ideas, lifestyles and everything else at the larger university, but that was just a factor of the sheer numbers there (around 25k students at the time). I freely admit that the smaller college was much more "conservative" in their views than the larger one - at least in my experience. Then again, the smaller university was set in a very small town while the major university was in our state's capitol. So the environment made a big difference too.

Anyway, I think that colleges don't necessarily "promote" independent thought so much as the "coming of age" of the students. I began establishing my own identity in high school, but I didn't really start looking at "world issues" until I was in college. And the biggest influence on my thinking came from my friends and classmates instead of my professors.

So while I would like to accuse University's in general of being bastions of liberalism, I have to admit that both sides of the spectrum are usually represented equally enough (though I will agree that most prof's do tend to lean more towards the liberal side. Again, that is based on personal experience and observation, not hearsay and indoctrination).