Biased Against Bullshit

A post at Pandagon reminded me that I’ve been meaning to write a post about David Horowitz’s crusade to end the “liberal bias” on college campuses :

Conservative author and speaker David Horowitz says that American colleges and universities need an “Academic Bill of Rights” in order to counter what he says is the radical liberal agenda that exists on campuses today.

Horowitz, who exposed the left-wing bias of higher education in a book he wrote in 1994 entitled “The Heterodoxy Handbook: How to Survive the PC Campus,” says the time has come for the “Academic Bill of Rights” to become a reality because conservatives are being denied equal time and access to the university classroom.

“The most successful and pervasive blacklist in American history is the blacklist of conservatives on American college campuses, their marginalization in undergraduate life, and their virtual exclusion from liberal arts faculties, particularly those that deal with the study of society itself,” Horowitz proclaimed in an e-mail.
. . .
Horowitz has proposed an “Academic Bill of Rights” for colleges and universities in the United States. It would call for intellectual diversity, balanced reading lists, a ban on political bias by professors, equalized funding for student groups and on-campus guest speakers, and a non-hostile environment for conservative students.

Horowitz says higher learning has been hijacked by liberals for far too long and it is time for conservatives to demand students get a complete education.

“It should not be a fight for young students to get a complete education, to learn more than half the story,” Horowitz argued. “It shouldn’t be a battle for conservatives or Christians to gain teaching positions, to have their work seriously considered, and to be tenured.”

Has it ever occurred to people like Horowitz that the reason the vast majority of intellectuals disagree with him is that he’s..um…wrong?

You hear similar complaints from conservatives when they talk about the evils of the “liberal media”. Despite the fact that the editorial boards of most media outlets are Republican-leaning, the fact that journalists tend to be liberal is enough to convince people that there’s a “vast left-wing conspiracy”. Once again, you’d think that the opinions of people whose job it is to understand and report both sides of an issue would indicate that the left is right and the right is wrong.

And in science, you’ll hear about the liberal bias of scientists, who base their opinions on the scientific method. Nevermind the fact that repeated testing in various scientific fields support the liberal positions on the environment, evolution, sex education, etc., any “science” that disproves a conservative position is obviously part of a socialist plot. As Occam’s Razor states, “Of two competing theories or explanations, all other things being equal, the simpler one is to be preferred”. And in this case, the simplest answer is that conservatives are just wrong.

But in a sense, conservatives are correct. There is a liberal bias. It’s not a conspiracy or anything, but it’s still pretty one-sided. Y’see, liberals are have a bias toward facts and the truth, to the detriment of fiction and lies. While known for having a pretty “big tent”, those who want equal time for superstition and falsehoods are persona non grata. While an “Academic Bill of Rights” is one way to deal with the problem, I’ve got a better one for Horowitz : Stop Being Conservative.


posted by greg on November 24, 2003 @ 11:15 am

25 comments

  1. The simplest solution would seem to be that if the people paid to understand and report an issue have been trained by people who possess a bias, then they will understand and appreciate the issue through that schema.

    Or would you argue that the people best suited to run businesses and the country are conservatives since that seems to be the prevailing trend, historically?

    I would submit this as the pitfall Horowitz thinks exists for the conservative on campus.

    Comment by Earnest — November 24, 2003 @ 11:13 am

  2. Well a few things here :

  3. Journalists don’t ultimately determine the bias (if there is one) in the media, the people at the top do. For example, even if every reporter at Fox News was a member of the Green Party, the slant of the news would be determined by the daily memo.
  4. The link that you posted was really interesting, but where’s the “spiral of silence”? Conservative are in charge of all three branches of government, almost every corporate board of directors, and most major media outlets right now. In fact, conservatism is even on the rise on college campuses as well (as documented in the horribly-titled NYT article “The Young Hipublicans”).
  5. Actually I do think that conservatives are generally better suited to running businesses. After all, aren’t an unwavering love of money and a callous indifference to human suffering both assets in the business world?

    6. Comment by greg — November 24, 2003 @ 11:32 am

  6. “After all, aren’t an unwavering love of money and a callous indifference to human suffering both assets in the business world?”

    in the words of Ross- ZING!

    Comment by tom — November 24, 2003 @ 11:43 am

  7. Blast it! Zing is mine! Now everyone will be saying “blast”! :)

    The spiral of silence didn’t refer so much to media or government but to the atmosphere on campus. I didn’t swing one way or the other in college (though I did write and edit for the liberal paper on campus), but it doesn’t take a genius to notice that saying anything that wasn’t “PC” was akin to inviting an anvil to drop on your head.

    Who can forget the tale of David Deming, which happened during my time in Norman? His letter to the editor made national news, and he ended up being accused of sexual harrassment. By OU’s code of conduct, he had sexually harrassed the female population of OU because the code explicitly stated that simply making someone aware of their gender is grounds for sexual harrassment.

    Comment by Earnest — November 24, 2003 @ 12:05 pm

  8. “Blast it! Zing is mine! Now everyone will be saying “blast”! :) ”

    yeah, ross has been using your “ZING” all over town lately.

    Comment by tom — November 24, 2003 @ 12:28 pm

  9. I would beg to differ that “After all, aren’t an unwavering love of money and a callous indifference to human suffering both assets in the business world?” This is great in the short term, and that’s where many people screw up though, is it isn’t necessairly the right way to go in the long term. That’s why we’ve seen so many big businesses go belly up recently. The executives were so concerned about money in the short term that they failed to plan for the long term and it eventually caught up to them. Of course I think that is a trait common in a lot of humans, so I don’t know if I can blame them.

    Comment by andrew — November 24, 2003 @ 12:30 pm

  10. Speaking of “ZING!”, check out this brilliant quote from Matthew Yglesias regarding gay marriage :

    I continue to think that an enterprising public official somewhere in Blue America (New York City, for example) should simply state that he is disinclined to perform genitalia inspections when people apply for marriage licenses and will issue them to whoever shows up. I’d love to see the legislative response to that.

    Comment by greg — November 24, 2003 @ 12:32 pm

  11. The executives were so concerned about money in the short term that they failed to plan for the long term and it eventually caught up to them.

    Sorta. They ran their businesses into the ground, but CEO’s are still making seven- and eight-figure salaries. If it really “caught up to them”, Key Lay would be eating Ramen noodles right now and posting his resume at Monster.com. Instead, he’s probably in the Oval Office getting the President to suck his dick for campaign contributions.

    Comment by greg — November 24, 2003 @ 12:37 pm

  12. (That’s probably the crassest thing I’ve ever posted here. I hereby apologize to my more puritanical readers.)

    Comment by greg — November 24, 2003 @ 12:39 pm

  13. Hey, I gave earnest credit! Report this accurately!!!!

    Comment by The Eligible Ross Lincoln — November 24, 2003 @ 12:53 pm

  14. you only gave earnest credit after i called you on it. you were plagiarizing till you got caught, then you gave him a brief footnote before proclaiming that you would be using and abusing the “ZING!” as much as possible and claiming it for your own.

    Comment by tom — November 24, 2003 @ 1:10 pm

  15. Zing is for everyone. Rawdog Ross (his new old-school name) is absolved of any guilt

    Comment by Earnest — November 24, 2003 @ 1:42 pm

  16. You guys are like a bunch of little school girls talking about a new ‘N Sync album. Your mama needs to take away your internet privileges so the big people can discuss big people ideas in peace. “Zing!”

    P.S. No one cares about your stupid non-points. It’s a futile waste of everyone’s time. Go back to internet card games or whatever else you get off on.

    Comment by GuessWho — November 24, 2003 @ 4:20 pm

  17. Everybody just got zinged.

    Comment by Kyle — November 24, 2003 @ 4:31 pm

  18. Dammit, the space of time in which I “zinged”, then tom mentioned earnest (as I was about to!!!), is about 5 seconds. Literally. I would really like to not be made fun of anymore about this, particularly since Tom is the one who put me in the hotseat by quoting, not Earnest, but me, earlier in the thread.

    Zing!

    Seriously though, we’re talking literally about 10, more like 5 seconds. You’re misrepresenting me to make a comic point, I’d like that to stop. So can we please stop making fun of me now? So shut it Tom. Word.

    Oh, and zing!

    Also, since guess who didn’t put in his real address, there’s no point in saying anything about his herpes infected slut of a mom. So I won’t.

    Zing!

    Comment by The Eligible Ross Lincoln — November 24, 2003 @ 4:48 pm

  19. And for the record, my new Old Skool name is MC-17, AKA Oral B.

    Comment by The Eligible Ross Lincoln — November 24, 2003 @ 4:55 pm

  20. To the Eternally Eligible Ross Lincoln (your mom didn’t seriously name you Ross did she?): Your mom’s a whore. I was just giving you guys shit. Lighten Up.

    Comment by GuessWho — November 24, 2003 @ 4:59 pm

  21. Hey look stud, Why don’t you put your real e-mail address in there and tell me to lighten up? Otherwise, get back under the rock you came from.

    And my mom isn’t a whore, she’s a slut. She gives it away for charity, and tax reasons. Try doing your research next time.

    Comment by The Eligible Ross Lincoln — November 24, 2003 @ 5:06 pm

  22. oh, and Zing!

    Comment by The Eligible Ross Lincoln — November 24, 2003 @ 5:06 pm

  23. What the hell are you all talking about? The Eligible MC-17 & GuessWho, if you guys wanna talk shit and throw down some mamma jokes, take it to freerepublic.com. Seriously, you’re both acting like children.

    GuessWho, if I catch you spoofing someone else’s email address again, I’m going to ban your IP address. I’m not kidding. I don’t care you you use a fake address, but if you use someone else’s I’m gonna get pissed.

    Comment by greg — November 24, 2003 @ 5:11 pm

  24. cheerfully withdrawn.

    Comment by The Eligible Ross Lincoln — November 24, 2003 @ 5:13 pm

  25. Also, here’s one for you guys who would rather spend your time discussing the etymology of the word “zing” than discussing politics :

    zing - 1918, slang word, probably of echoic origin. Zinger “cruel quip” first attested 1950.

    Comment by greg — November 24, 2003 @ 5:17 pm

  26. My bad. Crossed the line. No more of that or the trash talk. (just can’t stand the zing nonsense and related discussion - i’ll let it go)

    Comment by GuessWho — November 24, 2003 @ 5:26 pm

  27. My bad as well. Sorry for crossing the line.

    Comment by The Eligible Ross Lincoln — November 24, 2003 @ 5:27 pm

  28. What I want to konw is, what the fuck ever happened to “whistle-ass?”

    Comment by JoeW — November 27, 2003 @ 12:11 pm

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