|
While one can criticize what can be seen as extremes in the academic world, just like one could back in the 1980s when I brought a few highly respected academics in MN together, in founding the MN Association of Scholars, a state chapter of the National Association of Scholar. Which in its founding, could appear to stand for academic integrity. When shortly after the 1st Gulf War began, it became fully apparent that it was full “neoconservative,” which I was good with at the time. Since then, I’ve learned a lot of the ideological foundations of the Straussians, West and East Coast, and their neoconservative allies, like David Horowitz, a one-time friend, and recognize their extreme militarism. As one can see today, with the founders of this new “University,” like Bari Weiss, the arch Zionist, and war lover, and the arch imperialist, and war lover, Niall Ferguson, one of the loudest cheerleaders of the Iraq War, as recorded here:
Here is Bari:
NYT’s Bari Weiss Falsely Denies Her Years of Attacks on the Academic Freedom of Arab Scholars Who Criticize IsraelThe New York Times columnist and editor spent years crusading for the type of censorship she claims to loathe. Instead of acknowledging this, she denies it.
And here is Niall:
Our Imperial Imperative
Niall Ferguson, the author of Colossus, laments the emasculation of American imperialism
By Frank Bures "A new industry has cropped up around this question, as thinkers struggle to explain the nature of the Pax Americana. One of the most controversial of them is Niall Ferguson, a young British historian who is unapologetic in his defense of America's global conquest, a position he spells out at length in his new book, Colossus: The Price of America's Empire.
"Lobbing witty salvos at emasculated anti-imperialists (Americans, he says, would rather build shopping malls than nations) Ferguson openly fears that America will retreat from the world the way Europe has. He laments the "ideological embarrassment about being seen to wield power," and the "pusillanimous fear of military casualties."
Just what we need, another right-wing Militarist, Zionist, Islamophobic, and Fascist (offer a more accurate term, and I will use it) so-called “University,” to indoctriate another generation of American students into the same, to keep the Perpetual War, perpetual, until we reach the predictable outcome: cantaclysmic failure by the US, at best, or nuclear conflagration at worst. One could probably take a class on the detestable Arabists at this school as well, to study and denounce the likes of Chas Freeman, or at least get extra credit for writing such a paper :-) I can see the lines of conservative students to sign up for this “education” forming now.
On Nov 18, 2021, at 7:29 PM, Chas Freeman via Salon <salon@listserve.com> wrote:
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/university-of-austin-by-james-k-galbraith-2021-11?utm_source=Project+Syndicate+Newsletter&utm_campaign=946b9dbd39-covid_newsletter_11_18_2021&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_73bad5b7d8-946b9dbd39-107152949&mc_cid=946b9dbd39&mc_eid=aa35861c24
A Casablanca for Conservatives Conservative academics are decamping from their positions at top American universities to escape the ravages of wokeness and cancel culture. At the new University of Austin, progressives will no longer call the shots – donors will.
James K. GalbraithNov 12, 2021
AUSTIN – Pity the academic conservative. Having enjoyed tenure at Harvard University, the London School of Economics, and New York University, and now a steady gig at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, the historian Niall Ferguson now plays the victim. He will soon decamp, he lets us imagine, to “a new kind of university – the University of Austin.”
•
James K. Galbraith contemplates the latest hysterical response to American academia’s leftward leanings.
What is the very first thing that Ferguson highlights about UATX? That its founders are “diverse.” To ensure that there is no mistake about the meaning of this word, he follows up: “in 1975, universities everywhere were still predominantly white, male, and middle-class. The process whereby a college education became more widely available – to women, to the working class, to racial minorities – has been slow and remains incomplete.”
So that is the big problem that mainstream, liberal, conservative-oppressing American universities have been ignoring! It’s great that Ferguson plans to help us out. How will UATX achieve diversity? According to Ferguson, admissions will be strictly by competitive examination, to avoid the “corrupt racket” of college admissions in other places nowadays. But what will the competitive examination examine? He does not say.
Driving the good conservative from the ivied halls are the malign forces of wokeness and cancel culture. Citing a study by the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, Ferguson writes that “40% of American social sciences and humanities professors under the age of 40 [support] at least one of four hypothetical dismissal campaigns,” and for PhD students under 40, it’s even worse (55%). As the nonpartisan CSPI states in its mission statement, “In the last decade, white liberals in America have shifted far to the left on issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation.”
That sounds pretty bad. But read the actual study and you will find that just one of the four (actually, five, but who’s counting?) hypothetical campaigns produces the result that Ferguson cites. The other four – dealing with “traditional parenthood,” immigration, diversity, and empire – generated very minor adverse reactions. The one that provoked 43% of the 124 young PhDs sampled in the United States and Canada was a hypothetical about a researcher finding that “having a higher share of women and ethnic minorities in organizations correlates with reduced organizational performance.” The long history of studies trying to show the innate superiority of white men over other groups might, possibly, have accounted for this.
Another terrible problem with top-ranked US liberal arts colleges, Ferguson tells us, is that the professors “with known political affiliations” are “overwhelmingly Democratic.” Apart from the military academies, Republicans are to be found in greater numbers only in lower-ranked institutions.
Now, Ferguson does not suggest that there is anything wrong with the rankings. Instead, he takes this as evidence that better institutions discriminate against conservatives. But if the rankings are accurate, couldn’t that correlation reflect an actual relationship between relatively liberal politics and good liberal arts teaching? Just a thought.
The next great thing about UATX is that it will pay very close attention to its donors. According to Ferguson, regular universities do not do this. As a result, “the capitalist class appears strangely unaware of the anti-capitalist uses to which its money is often put.”
As a critic of capitalism who holds an academic chair in government/business relations, I beg to differ. A great virtue of many American capitalists, to judge by the ones I’ve dealt with, is that they make donations in good faith and then stay politely informed without complaining. What UATX is signaling, then, is that it will be for active donors who want to run the place. This naturally raises a question: If Friedrich Engels were still around, could he endow a chair for Karl Marx?
As for the curriculum, UATX will emphasize such “forbidden” topics as “entrepreneurship and leadership,” and especially the “classical principles of the market economy.” Presumably, that will include David Ricardo’s principle, popularized by Henry George, that all taxes should fall on landlords, and Adam Smith’s dictum that “wealth, as Mr. Hobbes says, is power.” Fine by me. That stuff is already on my syllabus.
Competition is good (there’s another classical principle for you), and it’s a free country. Fools can dispose of their money however they like. So as an academic in Austin, I say bring it on.
Still, after reading Ferguson’s announcement, I cannot help but hear Humphrey Bogart’s famous words echoing in my ear: “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, [he] walks into mine...”
--
Salon mailing list
Salon@listserve.com
https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/listinfo/salon
|