A reader cc’d me on a copy to Duke Professor Robert “Stupid People Are Generally Conservative” Brandon; here’s what the letter said:
People with above average IQ’s are more likely to be original thinkers, not mind numbed robots mouthing the party line so they can become tenured and then go to sleep for the next 30 years.
Your remarks are so unintentionally hilarious, they merely illustrate the decay of education from nursery school through graduate school thanks to great thinkers like yourself.
Thank G-d the younger generation is finally getting it and I have high hopes that you and your “brilliant colleagues” will be the last of your kind defiling our classrooms.
My questions: Is the letter likely to have helped change Prof. Brandon’s mind? Or is it likelier to have simply reinforced Brandon’s views? Yes, I realize that the likely purpose of the letter was venting, not persuasion. But how worthwhile a purpose is such venting, especially if the likely effect of the letter is to lead Brandon to think “Yup, I was right all along”?
UPDATE: Tim Sandefur picks up on a point I missed (though, maybe, if my correspondent is lucky, Brandon missed it, too):
[T]he term “mind numbed robots” that the person uses in his letter is a line that Rush Limbaugh uses very often. It’s one of those things that, when you hear it, indicates immediately that the person saying it is (like me) a Rush fan. Of course, Brandon most likely thinks that all Rush fans cannot think for themselves, but just parrot things that Rush Limbaugh says. So using a Rush-inspired catch phrase is CERTAINLY going to make Brandon think “Yup, I was right all along”!
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