Like I said earlier, however much I enjoy ragging on idiots in academia, the university, like anyplace else, has malevolent idiots, benevolent idiots, and halfway intelligent human beings.
For the sake of explanation, let’s contrast two faculty members, Professor Tom and Professor Julie.
Professor Tom is an astrophysicist, and teaches introductory astronomy courses as well as graduate seminars. He wrote his dissertation on some exotic by-product of star formation. While he’s a moonbat of the nuttiest variety (conspiracy theories, tinfoil hats, naked protests) and while anybody could tell from looking at him (he presents himself as a rather pathetic, aging hippie), he takes his job seriously and sticks to the topic in class: astronomy and astrophysics.
Oh. Professor Tom knows that “data” is a plural noun.
Professor Julie is in the education school (though she could just as easily be in the humanities, or one of those pointless yet fashionable “[Your favorite oppressed group] Studies” programs). Like our friend John, Professor Julie wrote a series of personal essays chronicling how one of her students “felt” and showed how “oppressed” her student was for her dissertation. Professor Julie is considered to be the “diversity and social justice expert” in the ed school, and teaches classes such as Traditional Education as Gang Rape (or any of these). Truthy politics, devoid of facts, and conspiracy theories are the sole content of her classes.
Oh. Not only does Professor Julie not understand what the word “data” means, but she thinks it’s a singular noun (and her equally ignorant dissertation committee did not notice, much less make her change it).
Professors Tom and Julie are great pals. They go let it all hang out at those “No Blood For Oil!” protest rallies (see here and here). Yet there’s an important distinction between the two. Care to guess what it is?
They’re both as moonbatty as they come, and you can tell just by looking at either one. Both of them have Che Guevara and Castro posters in their offices. Both of them believe people want to see their naked, flabby bodies in public. Both of them wear tinfoil hats.
Professor Tom’s moonbattiness does not extend into the classroom. When he teaches introductory astronomy, he teaches introductory astronomy. Sure, all his students know he’s a leftwing nutcase, but none of them cares, because they get what they paid for in his class: astronomy.
Professor Julie’s moonbattiness subsumes everything she does, particularly her classes. The only point of her classes is political indoctrination. There is no content in her classes that has anything to do with facts or reality or truth; her classes are nothing but diatribes.
Both can be as moonbatty as they want, as far as I’m concerned. There are at least as many crazies on any given university faculty as sane people; academia self-selects for crazy people, after all. I couldn’t care less how often they strip and let it all hang out as long as I don’t have to see it, nor do I care what nutty conspiracy theories they believe. Objecting to moonbattiness on campus is like objecting to the roundness of circles.
Professor Tom earns his keep. Professor Julie is a waste of a good salary (and tenure) — unless she starts teaching a course that has actual academic worth.
So no, I don’t even object to moonbat faculty — just moonbats who perform no useful function and get paid big bucks for it.
Steve says:
I would like to see “Fill-In-The-Blank Studies” majors to either disappear or more appropriately be recategorized under “Cultural Marxist Theory” classes.
January 14, 2007, 1:59 pmJohn the Marine says:
The sad part is that the “Humanities” at one time was a respected major. You know back in the day when “Humanities” were; literature, writing, art, philosophy, history and so on. Now it has become a refuge of idiots and the lazy. The fill in the blank varieties are the latest insult from acedamia to true scholarship. As a matter of fact crap like Urban studies or Women’s Studies is just so much B.S. I find it hard to beleive it really exists. Just out of curiosity what kind of job do you obtain with those kind of credentials? I mean does Burger King care if its looser employees have a fancy degree in nothing?
January 15, 2007, 9:47 pm