Why do conservatives hate academia so much? Referring to someone as an Ivy League Scholar is considered an insult. People who have excelled in an academic position are referred to as elites living in an ivory tower who are not in touch with America. Why is it conservatives have such a hatred of the best and brightest at America’s premier universities??
Because they can’t control academia with money the way they can control most every other major American institution.
But they’re working on that.
It’s because academia has lost touch with the world of reality, I think.
It may also be because there is a perception that acedemia is disproportionately liberal. I’m not sure if this is really true, but it does seem that way some times.
Yep. That’s the Alpha and Omega of it. :rolleyes:
No, the best and the brightest of the universities went out into the real world of business, science, etc. Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.
A bit more seriously though, where do you get “hatred”. i do not think conservatives have any more hatred of academia than academia has of conservatives. Both worlds complement each other and both tend to have different views of the world and, therefore, think the other side is wrong. It is mutual.
Academia has given us many great ideas and many which were not so great. The thing is that great ideas are only proved great once they are proven in the real world. Great ideas that don’t work are a dime a dozen and nobody needs them.
Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, and Ann Coulter.
Please don’t take offense at this, but I have to say that your post gave me one really nice New Year’s chuckle. Peace.
Yeah, we conservatives hate education. It’s the reason why I dropped out of school after 8th grade. I couldn’t take the risk of being indoctrinated by liberal educators. Pedagogy and politics should never mix, that’s what I say. Just give all the kids a bible, and they’ll learn to read by themselves, by God!
My, my, Pepsi Classic, what value would it be to hate academians merely because they are weak-kneed clatterfarts that are out-of-touch with the mores and traditions of their own culture.
Conseratives don’t hate anygroup, they just don’t pander to the self-aggrandizing ideas of academic pimps.
A few of the many many many people who, according to that analogy, couldn’t: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Albert Einstein, T.S. Eliot, John Houseman, George C. Scott, Hannah Arendt, Stephen King, Isaac Asimov, C.S. Lewis, W.E.B. Dubois, Annie Sullivan, Golde Meir, J.R.R. Tolkien, LBJ, Woodrow Wilson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Frank McCourt. Think how productive they’d have been if they could have.
Yes, it’s quite well established that all academians share the same views on practically everything and have no experience in the real world due to their incredibly bloated paychecks and the assignment to them of eunuchs and scribes to handle all matters quotidian. My academic co-workers include such candy ass Mama’s boyz and girlz as a former NASA physicist, a former Israeli paratrooper/intelligence officer, several ex American military personnel, lawyers and prison guards, none of whom have evidently seen “the real America” as seen on The Waltons.
Of course they do. Just like all the conservatives do in the OP. :rolleyes: <insert something about brushes, pots and kettles.>
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Another reason that Conservatives don’t much cotton up to academians is that some academians can be real snitty and some of them don’t like the Waltons.
What, the TV show?
Referring to someone as an Ivy League Scholar is considered an insult.
It is? I must have missed that article in my “Down With Academia” newsletter.
People who have excelled in an academic position are referred to as elites living in an ivory tower who are not in touch with America.
Not in touch with America? Ya think?
When is the last time you saw a professor from an Ivy League school chillin’ with a McDonald’s cashier? I submit that the people in academia you are talking about do not have one friend that doesn’t share their politics. These types generally do not hang around the “little people,” (or know any of them personally) they just like to cry crocodile tears about them in class.
Why is it conservatives have such a hatred of the best and brightest at America’s premier universities??
Just how smart do you have to be to be a professor? I’m not saying that there aren’t some smart ones out there, but puhleze. Getting a Ph.D. is more about determination and the ability to be bored out of your skull for 5-7 years than it is about smarts (in most areas, anyway, I’m sure there are some areas that require a big dose of intelligence as well). If you can read and write, you can get a doctorate if you’re willing to put in the time. After that it’s all about tenure – managing not to piss someone off until that magical day that they declare you tenured and then you never have to actually work again.
Ah, a Milum special: begin accusing others of rudeness rather than making an argument. (Incidentally, not only do I love “The Waltons” (the series, not the godawful reunion movies that completely lost track of the timeline) but I made the trek to the .museum, which I heartily endorse. My ex was closely related to the Hamner family through Earl’s mother’s side [her family was Italian, btw, descendants of Tuscans brought over by Thomas Jefferson to develop Virginia’s wine industry], though the genealogy isn’t why we dated.)
In fairness, it’s not just conservatives. In Alabama the most detrimental effect on academia in recent years hasn’t been one of the Republican governors as much as ardent Clintonian Bobby Lowder, the man who singlehandedly got Auburn placed on probation. Having worked for him for years I can honestly endorse him as one of the biggest micromanaging megalomaniacal bastards to traipse through Central Alabama since Hernando de Soto.
When was the last time you saw your dentist or your tax accountant or your lawyer chillin’ with a McDonald’s cashier (unless said McDonald’s cashier was a really hot redhead)?
[Q]** I submit that the people in academia you are talking about do not have one friend that doesn’t share their politics.**[/Q]
Cite? If this is based on a hunch, you’re wrong. I’m a professor and my close friends range from dyed-in-the-wool socialists to cutthroat freemarketeers.
One of my colleagues literally worked in a leper colony. I’ve volunteered on more AIDS wards and worked in mental hospitals that would make you puke. It’s not totally a world of theory. The professors you mention do exist (just like lazy welfare mothers, young black guys who only care about crack and p*ssy, and snake handlin’ rednecks with yards full of old Plymouths on blocks, but they’re the exception.
Agreed (particularly in the liberal arts). My one word advice for students interested in pursuing a doctorate in English, history or philosophy is, without exception, “don’t”.
That’s rich. So, tell us about your experience with academic world! Clearly, you know ALL about it.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:
Conservatism is about maintaining the status quo, about keeping things the way they are and not making changes.
Education (and academia) is about challenging your beliefs, to be exposed to new ideas and to grow as a result.
Ergo, conservatives dislike academia because its very nature is a challenge to conservatism.