Smug, snug, and narrow by Stefan Beck

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Mar 21, 2005 11:51 AM

Smug, snug, and narrow

by Stefan Beck

I never thought I’d say this, but here is an excellent piece of commentary from, well, er, Mother Jones, on the misguided "academic freedom" movement among conservative students and their advocates (David Horowitz, for instance).

Is there a left-liberal-multicultural atmosphere at elite institutions? Undoubtedly, though the surveys on which conservatives rely probably misconstrue its pervasiveness. Academics do flock together and sometimes abuse their power. The even more intractable problem is that conformity, both the facultyï¿½s and the studentsï¿½, is self-fulfilling, lending itself to the enshrinement of the smug, the snug, and the narrow. Much of the muffling, as always, is the product of peer pressure, which is as real at liberal arts colleges as at military academies. When fundamentals go unquestioned and dissenters are intimidated, those who prevail get lazier and dumber.
How deep is the silence? Hard to know. Much cited in conservative columns is a 2002 survey by the student newspaper at Wesleyan University, according to which a full 32 percent of the students felt ï¿½uncomfortable speaking their opinionï¿½ on the famously liberal campus.
Whatever that means exactly, the pop-psych language is telling. Since when is higher education supposed to make you feel comfortable, anyway?

Few things make me cringe like a conservative student whinging about his liberal profs. As I’ve written before on this blog, the predominance of these blue-state academics on campus is a problem--but hardly for conservatives. It is a problem for liberal students. These poor specimens must often retreat like turtles from debate, because they know nothing of conservative positions--except from their professors’ testimonials, which rely on dilution or caricature. Meanwhile, conservatives are given every opportunity to "know the enemy," and they can test and strengthen their own opinions in the process. They ought to be thanking their instructors for providing a daily object-lesson in enemy S.O.P.

Intellectual cowardice should not be tolerated by anything calling itself a conservative movement. Fear of hurt feelings should not be tolerated. Fear of biased grading, of all things, should not be tolerated. Education is about education--and clever students must acknolwedge that the judgment of radical profs is suspect to begin with, and shouldn’t be much worried about. Leave the identity politics in the enemy camp, where they belong.