Monday, October 13, 2008

Study makes short work of a touchstone of Right-wing ideology

This story shoots holes in the notion prevalent among ideologues on the Right that college is a place where "fuzzy-headed, liberal, professors" indoctrinate the nation's youth.

As with all chimeras, the facts say more about the believers in such false notions than it does about those it inaccurately purports to describe.

The Right has a long and troubles association with education and anti-intellectualism.

If you look back to the Third Reich (A Right-Winger's wet dream of a time...), one of Hitler's first actions was to either kill or exile all the college professors. He did this because education and mental discipline were anathema to the Nazi ideology.

The good thing about college is that it teaches people to argue, debate, and exercise critical thinking (At least that's what it's supposed to do..).

Hitler knew critical thinking would undermine his plans, so he took steps to short circuit the potential for critical thought.

The Right similarly hates critical thought and this underscores why the image of the liberal college professor indoctrinating the nation's youth into the liberal church is used to scare like-minded ideologue.

This study is great.

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