DISQUS

Schrodinger · 1 year ago

What the fuck is this

Malfoy · 1 year ago

Yeah, I want to know what the fuck it is too.

Agree on the need for conservative/libertarian/right-of-centre intellectualism though - the lack of it is something that frustrates me more than anything.

The Make Education Fair stuff? Not so much. As someone who worked on that and has written quite a lot on it for various places, I can tell you that not all of the submissions were like that and that it continues to be a real problem, especially in the humanities and education faculties. Nearly anyone who is not left-wing would have a story on this - I was speaking to a family friend who said that this slant was prevalent even as far back as at his time at university, and said it needed to be fixed.

At the same time, to have a massively conservative education would bother me just the same. Balance is key. I wouldn't mind learning all of this left-wing crap if I could balance it out with something. At least it gives me an excuse to argue in class and research my own viewpoint more so that I can write well-researched, non-left wing assignments where I can't be accused of not understanding the material or critically analysing the issues. Those benefits, however, are not worth the amount of times I've walked out of class in a stabby rage wanting to throw course readers at people!

The dismissing of it as having an "undergraduate tone" merely reinforces my belief that ivory tower intellectuals are elitist, condemning anything they disagree with as ill-informed. I suppose the academics and other intellectuals who contributed, such as Mark Lopez and a couple of others, are also anti-intellectual. But, you know, it's trendy to dismiss anyone critical of the politicisation of the classroom, and critical of the movement towards a "social justice" view of education...

I do think the campaign could have been better put together in terms of the writing of it (at least from what I've seen) but the thing is that the fact that the left dominate universities, unfortunately, is symptomatic of the right-of-centre political culture of anti-intellectualism - so the two do tie in together somewhat. I'd daresay, however, that it's a vicious circle as those who are right-of-centre, even if they were keen to become part of intellectual or academic circles, would probably be dismissed as the left-wing culture of educational institutions (at least secondary/tertiary education) has been quite entrenched and is not open to differing views. You'll find that a lot of the cultural left claim pluralism and tolerance, but that extends only to the notion of tolerance for what they believe in, and not real freedom of speech (to be fair, some on the right would have the same attitude.) It would be very tough for any non-left wing academic to break into the field, I'd think, which only perpetuates the cycle.

(Note: this comment probably makes very little sense as I am quite exhausted and tend to blather when I reach this level of tiredness. Short answer is that I agree with you on the need for intellectuals on the right but disagree with your denigration of Make Education Fair, long answer is that fostering a culture of intellectualism would be quite difficult for a variety of reasons but we need to try.)

Billy · 1 year ago

Geoffery Blainey is my favouritest conservative Australian intellectual ever

Geoff · 1 year ago

‘Make Education Fair’ lol.

Try asking any academic in the faculty of business what they think the role of unions in the workplace should be.