While [Steven Hayward's] presence will provide some additional viewpoint diversity on the Colorado campus, it also smacks of the sort of tokenism many on the Right condemn. Peter Lawler sees the appointment as “conservative affirmative action” and Max Boot fears this sort of thing will encourage the further academic ghettoization of conservative thought.... Half of the country may have right-of-center views, but a single token is supposed to constitute balance? How sad is it that a major university would have to create a position like this to ensure a minimal range of viewpoint diversity on campus. Through all this, Hayward is keeping things in perspective.
March 16, 2013
University of Colorado appoints a "Visiting scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy."
Is this a good thing?
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35 comments:
I wonder who funds something like this. If it makes students think, and teaches them something, it's a good thing.
If the univ. did this under pressure from the state, then it's a bad thing. If not, then it's an acknowledgment of a systemic feature of the academy.
Token conservatives are better than a total censured thought atmosphere in Colleges. Why are conservatives complaining?
The token of truth should knock out an entire 40 years of carefully constructed deceptions.
The truth shall set men free.(See, Coulter, Ann)
The only fear is that it will be done as a ridicule circus or dunk tank the Conservative game.
Conservative thought and policy is grounded in our national charter, The Declaration of Independence, and our organizational directive, The Constitution. The ideals of classical liberalism, tempered by Judeo-Christian principles, are expressed in those two documents.
What are they teaching at the University of Colorado that the character and origin of American conservatism is not self-evident?
What are they teaching that it now requires an explicit counterpoint in order for Americans to understand the character and origin of America?
The modern university is a reflection of the liberal/progressive transition from integration to diversity. Diversity really reflects apartheid as barriers are build to integration of any kind. Thus segregated into neatly identifiable classes, the liberal elite can play to the fears and hopes of each group, extracting support while delivering nothing.
It should be clear, the Steven Hayward specifically accepted the position with the condition that it not be viewed as a conservative one-off.
Hayward should get a good book out of it.
Professor Hayward looks like a man who's just shaved off his moustache.
Better than tokenism would be to abandon the blacklist. Is anyone offering that?
"Token conservatives are better than a total censured thought atmosphere in Colleges. Why are conservatives complaining?"
I agree.
And I think that just having this happen is admitting that everyone *else* teaching on campus is progressive/liberal.
Well, at least they didn't hire David Brooks to be the token non-leftist. So there's that.
Ward Churchill was the previous image of U of C. Maybe they are sensitive to that.
Yale received a large donation about 20 years ago to establish a program to teach western civilization and traditional knowledge. After about ten years the faculty had so distorted the program into a typical leftist outfit that the donors demanded the money back. They got it back, too.
Is this a good thing?
Lol. Conservatives have notoriously low self-esteem. This is just the type of thing to mollify their rage over the problem without actually addressing anything. Which is precisely what they're all about.
I don't see what's so bad about it. Conservatism at one time actually formed a relevant concept in political thought. Just because it's devolved in America into knee-jerk knee-jerkism, doesn't mean the philosophers from before aren't worth studying. It just means that Bible Spice probably isn't fir to polish their boots, let alone claim their legacy.
The chair was funded by a conservative. I forget his name.
Michael Medved was talking about this yesterday (Friday). He is aganst the idea for the same reason Max Boot is, pretty much. Why not just HIRE history professors who teach a more conservative viewpoint / philosophy.
That's what diversity of ideas is really about.
Zoos aren't really about living together with exotic animals. People want to look at them and learn a few interesting things about how they live.
Effective policing is made all the more difficult, considering the time inefficiencies inherent in the task of identifying friend from foe.
I'm all for easing the burden of the thought police.
Sequester times call for thoughtful gestures.
Look on the bright side: At least UC didn't set up an endowed David Duke Chair of Conservative Thought & Policy as their token gesture.
On CU Law's website, I count 62 resident faculty, 65 adjunct, 13 emeritus, 15 visiting.
Ask a conservative scholar if he'd rather have a chance at 1 temporary position or 120 ongoing positions.
Well, it is tokenism no matter how you slice it. But perhaps a token conservative is better than no conservative at all.
Lol. Conservatives have notoriously low self-esteem.
These sort of pinhead statements are why I read your posts, Ritmo.
You're such a heartily malicious bastard that it's funny.
Peace out!
It's a surprising thing, whether it turns into a good thing will only be known in the fullness of time.
O Ritmo Segundo said...
Is this a good thing?
Lol. Conservatives have notoriously low self-esteem. This is just the type of thing to mollify their rage over the problem without actually addressing anything. Which is precisely what they're all about.
Now that's projection on the half shell.
The Lefties are sooo insecure, they have to keep telling themselves and each other how smart and cool they are.
Doesn't work, of course, because they aren't.
Ask black Americans how well tokenism has worked for them. It should work out about the same way for conservative tokenism.
I'm not terribly keen on this, myself. I mean, I'm glad that Hayward has the position, and that it has three years' worth of funding. But the name of the chair does suggest that there's "normal" thought and policy, and then there's the exceptional, "conservative" kind; roughly, "since it does exist, we of UCo want to make sure you're exposed to it, but by no means confuse it with the genuine article."
It would maybe have been better to name it something else, IMO. Endowed chairs in "Liberal Thought and Policy" are thin on the ground, yes? Though in truth it's difficult to think of a good name.
So if the universities don't make an effort to hire conservatives, they are exhibiting bias but if they do make an effort, they are just engaging in tokenism. Damned if they do and damned if they don't, in other words. Just another episode among the permanently aggrieved and victimized, which is to say, another episode in American conservatism circa 2013.
That's sort of a clever act, somefeller.
Stupid, but clever in a fucked up sort of way, the attempt to accuse conservatives of something you assume they deplore.
"Visiting scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy." Hilarious.
Drying up the flood of money from the student loan slush fund would seem to be the best strategy to bringing down this feather bedding heaven for liberal apparatchiks.
Any place that turns into an echo chamber of the like-minded is dead.
Is this a good thing?
No.
Is this a good thing?
No.
Colorado's centers of higher education are certainly advocates of "tokinism."
The academy must be "taken back" so maybe this is a start. Liberals didn't take over the university system overnight, they carried out a program over decades. Conservatives/libertarians need to get in and become regular teaching professors who can then bring in others of similar views. That will mean at times creating "protected" positions, either through endowed positions such as this or with demonstrated heavy-weights that have the funding muscle to bring in people they like as well, and defend them from the liberal thugs that abound in the modern university.
Same with the news media. They can't all just hang out at Fox, they need to get into the other broadcast networks and other media outlets, not just sit in their own conclaves and throw rocks.
Ward Churchill and Joe Biden is the answer to the question: Name two arrogant blowhards with no real accomplishments who would be welcome only in the worlds of education or government.
It's been a cultural genocide in the name of diversity rather like renaming the torture chamber the place where people do the twist. I say it's nice to see an acknowledgement of the cultiral genocide.
A "Front Office ...."?
At the moment, the appointment is held up with a visa is negotiated with Boulder.
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