Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Academia

  • What’s Next, Book Burning?

    "Roughly 150 Black Lives Matter protesters reportedly stormed a library at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, Thursday night to berate students studying there for their supposed racial privilege."  Here. The solution, of course, is to expel the BLM thugs.  But that would be a 'racist' thing to do.  So is it the leftist view…

  • Three Profiles in Civil Courage Among University Administrators

    There is no coward like a university administrator, to cop a line from Dennis Prager.  But that is not to say that there have never  been any who have demonstrated civil courage.  But we have to go back a long way to the late 60s and early 70s. With apologies to that unrepentant commie Peter…

  • The Rise of the College Crybullies

    Excellent commentary by Roger Kimball. But it seems the vicious 'safe space' girly girls (of all sexual persuasions) are now whining that the Paris attacks are diverting attention from their precious selves. We who value civilization have our work cut out for us.  Job One: defeat radical Islam.  Job Two: bring down the Left.  Kimball…

  • Mizzou and Public Spaces: The Right to Photograph

    This from reader J.J.C.: I'm sure you've heard a lot about the Mizzou [University of Missouri] protests so I'll spare you the details. But one particular debate caught my eye. Some of these student protesters claimed that the press has no right to photograph them because to do such is an intrusion on their privacy (obviously the press has…

  • Capitulation to the Delusional Victimology of the Left

    You thought Mao's Cultural Revolution couldn't happen here?  Racial Hysteria Triumphs on Campus.

  • Abdication of Authority

    It began in the universities in the '60s.  And now it is in full 'flower.'  I recall Dennis Prager putting it this way: "There is no coward like a university administrator."  Now hear David French: Fortunately for the radicals, our universities are populated by the craven and the cowardly. Push a professor, even slightly, and…

  • How Valuable is Ideological Diversity within Communities of Interacting People?

    Arthur C. Brooks  deplores the lack of ideological diversity and the prevalence of 'groupthink' in academia in an October 30th NYT editorial entitled "Academia's Rejection of Diversity."  He is of course right to do so. But this is nothing new as any conservative will tell you.  And we don't need studies to know about it,…

  • On Indoctrination

    Is indoctrination ever a good thing? Presumably, to indoctrinate is to teach one doctrine as if it is true, as opposed to presenting a variety of different doctrines on the same topic without endorsing any one of them.  In general, indoctrination ought not be done at the college level: Competing positions should be presented fairly and objectively and students…

  • It Pays to Publish, but Don’t Pay to Publish

    This just over the transom: Dear Colleague, British Journal of Education, Society & Behavioural Science (ISSN: 2278-0998) is an OPEN peer-reviewed INTERNATIONAL journal. We offer both Online publication as well as Hard copy options. Article Processing Charge is only 100 USD as per present offer. This journal is now publishing Volume 10. Only 100 semolians? …

  • Political Correctness in Germany

    A German reader points us to Bloggende Studenten: Die Professoren-Stalker.

  • Is Reason a White Male Euro-Christian Construct?

    I read John D.Caputo years ago, in the late '70s, in connection with work I was doing on Heidegger. I read a couple of his early Heidegger articles and a couple of his books.  One of them, The Mystical Element in Heidegger's Thought, is in my library.  Caputo seemed worth reading at the time.  But…

  • Against Professional Philosophy

    There is some interesting material here.  Certainly contemporary academic philosophy in the Anglosphere and elsewhere is over-specialized and hyper-professionalized.  A critique is needed.  I have given the APP effort only a cursory reading, so I won't say anything more about it now except to observe that the contributors are anonymous.   I should think that…

  • The Decline of the Universities

    Roger Kimball: Really, is there any more pertinent sign for most colleges and universities?  Cigarettes manufacturers are required to ornament their wares with all manner of alarming advisories, why shouldn’t institutions of higher education face similar requirements?  After all, the noxious atmosphere they diffuse is perhaps even more dangerous than cigarette smoke, which harms only…

  • The Age of Feeling or the Age of Pussies?

    Both.  Here is a liberal professor, writing (not very well) under a pseudonym (of course!) who says he or she is terrified of his or her liberal students. But he or she does make a good point when he or she points to the consumerist mentality that prevails among students.   That's been in place…

  • Micro-Agressions = Micro-Nooses

    No day without some new bit of academic lunacy.  Re: the brouhaha surrounding poly sci prof Jerry Hough of Duke University.