Never been near a university

[vovat]

On Tuesday, the AOL welcome screen had a link to a page about Independence Day celebrations. The title? "Red, White & Soon." That's pretty bad, even for AOL.

Last night (yes, I do start a lot of paragraphs with those two words), bethje and I watched the episode of Bullshit! about colleges. It definitely wasn't one of the better episodes, for several reasons. revme had discussed the show in this entry, and mentioned that it included something about "left-wing indoctrination." As I suspected, this turned out to be the worst part of the episode. Some guy talked about how there were a lot more Democrats than Republicans at state universities. As revme pointed out, this doesn't prove anything. Maybe it's just that better educated people, or those who would want to seek jobs as professors, are more likely to fall on the left side of the political spectrum. Besides, someone having a certain political viewpoint doesn't necessarily mean they're going to drill that into their students' heads. I would imagine that there are many public universities where more of the professors are Christians than members of any other religion, yet the administration generally trusts that they'll keep their personal beliefs out of their classes.

The guy espousing the Left-Wing Conspiracy idea (hey, didn't Penn and Teller just do an anti-conspiracy show?) said something about how, after the Left took power, they started instituting "politically correct" rules and standards at colleges. First of all, when in our recent history has the Left really had much power? Admittedly, this is one of those issues where everyone thinks the other side is the one with the true power. Conservatives insist that liberals run the media and are making great strides in ruining traditional family values, while liberals point out how much control the Far Right has over the government and the American people. Not surprisingly, I agree more with the latter, yet I do think the country has been making some progress in a more liberal direction, despite the best efforts of Bush and his cronies. I just don't see this as a bad thing.

Anyway, my other objection is the idea that "political correctness" and attempted censorship to avoid offense are the exclusive territory of the Left. What was it that Fox News was attacking Ward Churchill for, if not lack of political correctness? (They also threw in a treason charge, apparently just to show how utterly ridiculous they were.) I also recall arfies once posting a link to a discussion of a Republican-created Ohio bill that proposed legally forbidding professors from ever straying from their official subject matter. That said, I don't think censorship is an official position of either the political right or left. I would imagine that most political leaders at least claim to support the First Amendment, even if they secretly think otherwise.

That said, I think the anti-censorship argument was basically presented well. I thought the argument that speech shouldn't be restricted at public universities was reasonable and logical. I didn't care so much for the staff member who was sent to a college to stage a protest against an already-existing protest, though. Some guy suggested (not ordered) the staff member to go across the street, supposedly for his own protection and the protection of others. For this, Penn called the guy a pussy. Really, the segments where they bring in Bullshit! crew members to hassle people are often their weakest. They've managed to pull them off at times, though. I loved the "water steward" bit from the bottled water episode.

Aside from the censorship issue, the main point of the episode seemed to be that people shouldn't feel obligated to go to college, and that a lot of people succeeded without ever going. The list they gave of successful people who either didn't go to college or dropped out was skewed in favor of entertainers and writers, though, which is a bit unfair. I agree, to a point, that college has become an institution, and a lot of people feel they HAVE to go, and also that there are a lot of people who don't really benefit from it. As someone with two degrees and a pretty good grade point average who still hasn't been able to find full-time employment, I have reason not to be all that thrilled with the institution. That isn't to say I regret going (and I'm fairly sure I wouldn't have gotten my current part-time jobs without a college education), just that thinking college is a ticket to a career is often misguided. So I think there's some merit to the "college is bullshit" argument, but I think the episode as a whole lacked focus, and had too many annoying parts to be successful.

Comments

[revme.livejournal.com]

I was sort of torn on the Anti-Censorship part of it -- on one hand, I'm pretty strongly a fan of the Marketplace O' Ideas. But on the other hand, it's really unsettling when people are constantly talking about, say, people Jewing their stuff without anyone blinking. Or any of the other really racist/homophobic bullshit I heard constantly at PLU. So... yeah. I suppose I would still fall on the whole "Right To Say It" thing, if anything, because it makes it easier to know whom I should avoid. Still, though.

And... yeah. the protest thing was stupid. If the protest were real, it really would be in his own interests to move across the street anyway -- you're not going to get noticed as a lone guy in a crowd saying the exact opposite as you -- the best thing you can hope for in that situation is to pick a fight, and then folks would just tend to dismiss you as a violent nut anyway. Where if you stand off to the side, people will see you, and maybe even get together a full-blown counter protest if perhaps folks agree with you. (Not to mention that, as you mention, the guy _suggested_, not _demanded_.)

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, while I'm generally in favor of unfettered free speech, I can see the advantage to a certain amount of regulation, especially if the speech starts to get to the level of harassment. There's also the question of appropriate behavior for a certain location. I would imagine that classrooms sometimes have to limit what people can say simply as a matter of expediency.

[revme.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- typically the Jewing Of Stuff didn't typically come up in classrooms, but one time one of my best friends and I could have died; we were in a hotel lobby and got separated from the group. One of the people we were with goes "Hold on, I'll go find Mike -- you guys stay here and make sure no one Jews our stuff!"... in the middle of a hotel lobby, he said this relatively loudly. My friend and I looked at each other and say "Did... he just say what I think he said?" and... yeah.