Monday, September 29, 2003

Erin Connor discusses the Brooks column on conservatives in academia. I tend to agree with her on this particular point - that the problem with academia isn't so much its left-handedness, as it is the anti-scholastic character of that left-handedness. The "activist", political character of the doctrinaires infesting the academy is the problem, not the specific content of their beliefs or principles. The situation is not, therefore, addressable with a counterinfestation, or competition of parasites, left and right. The problem is how to depoliticize the academy. That problem is so fraught that I don't even know that it is possible. Connor's own blog tends to inadvertently demonstrate how easily "depoliticizing" become covert counter-politicizing.

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