No self-respecting conservative would be an academic surrounded by a sea of rabid liberal-zombie types. It's like "night of the living dead" every day on a university campus near you.

There is an aura of "nobody here but us chickens" about the cited studies but I'm willing enough to go along. Liberal professors do make for a liberal academy, though, and a liberal academy makes liberalism the more 'intellectually respectable' political fashion. It's a kind of celebrity product endorsement.

That the students don't learn to be liberal? Well, maybe that's just part of an overall failure to teach.

I went to Berkeley without much in the way of political opinions beyond my parents' general conservative views, and came away a disgusted libertarian. I was in the hard sciences, but I still had enough exposure to the liberal orthodoxy that I decided that their only purpose was to produce more liberals. I'm not sure how I would have ended up without that exposure, but I certainly think it inoculated me against their views. I would never even consider being a professor there- I would have had to keep silent or lose my job.

To my mind the most surprising claim in the article was by "libertarian" Daniel Klein, economist at George Mason, who claimed that at universities today kids were not exposed to "good stuff" like, among others, John Stuart Mill. This is an amazing claim since it's so clearly false. Mill is a standard in pretty much any ethics class, most political philosophy classes, philosophy of law classes, lots of political science classes, more than a few history classes, some English classes, and even more than a few women's studies classes. It's so shockingly false that one can't help but wonder if professor Klein isn't perhaps the brave truth-teller he presents himself as but rather a partisan with an ax to grind.

I still had enough exposure to the liberal orthodoxy that I decided that their only purpose was to produce more liberals

They might have other purposes as well.

Do Liberal Academics Make Students Liberal?

They try, but mostly fail.

Read the article and seems to me that it doesn't prove its point. Liberal professors apparently don't make students into liberals (or so clucks the Times); what about the proposition that liberal professors keep students from becoming conservatives?

My parents are lifelong Democrat moderates and even Bush hasn't been able to push them much further left. I went to college with a somewhat conservative bent that amounted basically to "Government, leave me alone" and innate disgust with the fawning marxists in academia. I came out with an even stronger libertarian inclination, having witnessed the thought/speech police at work and realizing that the right will try to impose an authoritarian system in an obvious way while the left will try to sneak it in under the radar in the guise of altrusim.

M:

To my mind the most surprising claim in the article was by "libertarian" Daniel Klein, economist at George Mason, who claimed that at universities today kids were not exposed to "good stuff" like, among others, John Stuart Mill. This is an amazing claim since it's so clearly false. Mill is a standard in pretty much any ethics class, most political philosophy classes, philosophy of law classes, lots of political science classes, more than a few history classes, some English classes, and even more than a few women's studies classes. It's so shockingly false that one can't help but wonder if professor Klein isn't perhaps the brave truth-teller he presents himself as but rather a partisan with an ax to grind.

K.C. Johnson is not much better, claiming that whole fields "from traditional literary analysis to political and military history" are not taught. I'm not sure what, precisely, Johnson means by that "traditional literary analysis," but I can say that my colleagues (conservative AND liberal) who teach literature, at my own university and others, primarily emphasize close reading and regularly lament that students don't do more of it. Even grad lit theory classes spend a lot of time on topics like "New Criticism." And if you google terms like "military history syllabus" you'll see that there are plenty such courses out there.

But then again, why let facts get in the way of a good polemic?

I googled "military history syllabus". Got two pages.

It's so shockingly false that one can't help but wonder if professor Klein isn't perhaps the brave truth-teller he presents himself as but rather a partisan with an ax to grind.

Klein does indeed have an axe to grind. Krugman is among his preferred targets, as are Thaler and Sunstein, whom he accuses of being "anchored in the political status quo and their own commitments to certain ideological ideas and values" (the horror). Oddly, he also accuses Thaler and Sunstein of neglecting Mill, Smith, Hayek, Coase (!) and Friedman (!!), among others. Whatever one thinks of their contribution, the suggestion that they do not engage with those authors is demonstrably false.

Richard Aubrey:

I googled "military history syllabus". Got two pages.

Try again. Without the quotes.

I googled "military history syllabus". Got two pages.

I must admit, while I'm a big fan of military history, it's not been "in vogue" in the academic community for a long time. Graduate students are necessarily going to study the popular topics and want to teach classes on those topics. Undergrads are going to take classes that they're required to or are interesting.

Further, beyond the survey level, how much deeper can you really go in military history. Do you expect there to be a substantive student interest in deep analysis of tactics in ancient battles? I doubt it, most undergrads that take military history classes are going to be thinking about the type of stuff that's on the history channel.

That said

9 military history classes at 8 different universities

Hist 386 The military and war in America at sam houston state

History 380: the history of war at Ohio State

Hist 3360 American Military History at Tennessee Tech

I can find more.

military history syllabus without quotes.
About 139k hits.

Now, where are the students? How come only veterans know anything more than that war is bad?

See Seabury and Codevilla. Primer on War. Their view is that the only thing students know today about military affairs is that which is wrong. Hell of a book, by the way.

That sort of thing should be reserved for dedicated amateurs, professional military historians or members of the military who will of course exercise tactical thinking.

My point was generally that "larger strategic concerns" lend themselves primarily to survey classes. I don't think many history departments will devote more than a class or two to such matters

Now, where are the students? How come only veterans know anything more than that war is bad?

See Seabury and Codevilla. Primer on War. Their view is that the only thing students know today about military affairs is that which is wrong. Hell of a book, by the way.

So your definition of a "military history class" is only a class that teaches students the positive results of war? And we're talking about bias in academia? But I digress.

War theory is heavy stuff. I read Clauswitz as part of a senior level European history stuff. I wouldn't inflict that on most undegrads. I don't know whether seabury and codevilla is better, but your amazon book review suggests so.

Got a clue, much? Where did I say that? Oh, right. This is a lawyers' board. You get to make stuff up.

I think I made a perfectly reasonable inference from your argument.

I pointed out that, while I wouldn't say they're everywhere, there are a significant number of schools offering some type of military history class.

Your response was "where are the students? how come only veterans know anything more than war is bad?"

Quite frankly I don't know how I can interpret this statement to mean anything other than that a military history class should have as one of it's results teaching students that war can be good.

That was my initial conclusion, then I proceeded to look up Seabury and Codevilla on Amazon, (where I noticed you have the most recent consumer review oddly enough). The Editorial review begins

War can be preferable to peace: This is the unconventional argument of Seabury, a political scientist at Berkeley, and Codevilla, a Research Fellow of the Hoover Institute....Its major contribution, however, is its development of the thesis that human intercourse produces objective circumstances in which kill or be killed becomes the best option.

If from those two pieces of evidence I can draw any conclusion other than that your statement meant that you expect any "military history course" should result in students learning that sometimes wars are necessary or even beneficial, please I'm all ears. (and I do say that without any snark)

I really don't see those as inconsistent.

My initial quote stated that you'd only consider military history classes that brought out this particular view to be legitimate military history classes. If that was incorrect I apologize, but I still think it was reasonable.

My second quote said basically the same thing except admitting that the military class could have other possible objectives as well.

It's the exact same thing as saying.

All true A's contain B.

Then saying B is one of the components of A, A could also involve C, D, and F, but it still has to contain B.

I read the Grapes of Wrath in lit. but not The Fountainhead.

And you honestly think that politics alone can be blamed for this decision? I'm no fan of Steinbeck, but on sheer quality of writing alone, this one is no contest.

I went to a large state university, and there were no doubt plenty of liberal professors. They wrote a lot, talked a lot and even taught a lot along those lines. But in the classroom, it didn't matter at all, at least from the ones I picked.

I always picked my courses by the professor. I didn't care one whit for the subject matter. My experience taught me that a good professor can make any course interesting and important. and a poor one can make even Shakespeare boring. I was an English major and I loved taking all sorts of classes outside of that, like pol sci, history, sociology, etc.

As a result, I never got indoctrination -- instead I got not-so-good grades (because the good professors are often the toughest graders) but a first class education. The worst that I can remember is my sociology professor who made convincing conservative arguments, and convincing liberal arguments on the state of America. There was no doubt where he stood on the matter, but at least he was fair about the process.

Randy R--I always picked my courses by the professor. I didn't care one whit for the subject matter.

By the way, how as that course on Underwater Buddhist Musicology?

A moving account from an Ivy history prof at FIRE.

Interesting about the kids who regurgitated what they thought the prof wanted on the midterm.
I wonder if he wondered where they got the idea that was necessary.