This is a really, REALLY good article.
From the late 1960s forward it has been acceptable among too many students and faculty to ridicule or attack ideas with which they disagreed. Worse yet, the ridicule and attack often became a substitute for substantively addressing the disagreeable ideas.
Seem familiar to the debating style used by liberals at this very site? And, before you accuse me of quoting some right-wing nutter, go read what he has to say. This guy is definitely a liberal, but not a "leftist".
Bits and pieces:
But despite the healthy, productive, and necessary debate concerning global economic history and contemporary policy measures, often the loudest and most aggressive voices in academia do not represent healthy, positive or informed debate. The anti-globalization movement, anti-Americanism, and lingering communism that are common in some academic departments do not offer a useful, positive, or well-considered means of making the world a better place. Hatred and bitterness are no substitute for intellectual coherence. The social and intellectual atmosphere at most universities (and, significantly, the two cannot be distinguished) continues to support views that are better described as “Leftist” than as Liberal. It is not socially acceptable in the humanities departments of most universities to suggest that Hong Kong and Singapore are economically successful today in large part because they had the good fortune to have inherited classical liberal principles as a legacy of British colonialism, or that free trade is the best means available of alleviating global poverty today, or to debate whether FDR or LBJ was the most destructive U.S. president in the 20th century.
This guy is a freakin OUTLAW.
Another Link, because you REALLY must read this.
h/t: Protein Wisdom.
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