Friday, March 18, 2005

Expanding on yesterday's topic -- The Nation weighs in on the suppression of voices within the academy

Click Here: The Nation | Editorial | The Captive Mind | The Editors

You'll see that the Whiskey Bar quotes I pointed to yesterday were not evidence of an isolated attack or two on progressive, liberal, and (godforbid) leftist professors, but part of a much wider and more organized attack on the one institution (the internet is not yet an institution) in which there is still some freedom of debate:
"Not since the McCarthy era have American campuses felt such a cold breeze--make that an idiot wind. And the new campus McCarthyism is made of much the same ingredients: thuggish intimidation, the circulation of specious rumors and [ . . . ] that least venerable of American traditions, anti-intellectualism. Left-wing professors of Middle East studies pose a dangerous threat to the new McCarthyites because they dare to open minds. That used to be the mission of American education."
(I love the reference to Idiot Wind.)

Click The Nation link and read the rest.
True Blue Liberal

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