‘Go to Berkeley’: Ron DeSantis said students seeking ‘woke’ classes should study elsewhere

[ThatRobGuy]

That is absolutely outstanding. No wonder the Right is afraid of Unversities.

I don't know if "afraid" is the right word.

But if a particular institution was all but captured by the opposing political team, would you be itching to drop thousands of dollars to send your kid there so that they could be in that bubble and come back in 4 years hating all of your values?

I don't think any parent would be too keen on that idea regardless of their political stripe.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Or they're only being given one viewpoint.

If it was purely case where something about conservatism was turning moderates off, then the pattern wouldn't be more pronounced the longer they stay in college, correct?

The chart you posted is a bit messy. The middle decade seems to be largely different than either earlier or later. I wonder if the methodology changed. But, if you want to speculate, then I would speculate agreement with your speculation. The question is *what* puts off the moderates. (Perhaps I can be a case study as I was definitely a "moderate" when I finished BS, and was still calling myself a "moderate" when I finished grad school.)

If there's something about conservativism that's off-putting to moderates, then I wouldn't expect having a PhD vs. a Bachelors to impact that the way the chart reflects.

I'd venture a guess and say that most college kids on the Master's and PhD path in public colleges aren't getting exposed to a whole lot of conservatism to begin with. However, they probably are getting exposed to a lot of "conservatives are evil" rhetoric while they're there.

I don't think we discussed politics much at all in our grad student offices, mostly football, other sports, silly things like creationism and other pseudosciences. As for in the classroom, there was exactly *ZERO* discussion of politics in my graduate work at a public university not from the professors, nor from the TA (me). I did go from a satisfied member of the Church to one who was so dissatisfied I would leave after a few more months. IIRC PhD holders are significantly less religious. I suspect that phenomenon is related.

Here are things I have noticed that might be relevant:

1. Unlike BS/BA programs where most attend in their home state (as you and I did), most graduate students travel out of state for their degrees (as I did). That exposes you to other cultures (like evangelicalism in my case) and at the same time keeps you from tight maintenance of tight reinforcement of your home culture. (I went home once a month in undergrad and worked in my hometown in the summer. In gradschool I mostly went home at the end of each semester for a week or two and stayed on campus in the summer.)

2. It is a lot easier to complete a BS/BA with out acquiring reasoning skills than a masters degree and almost impossible in a PhD program.

3. Both religious positions and conservative ones tend to thrive in the "not questioning" anything mode of thinking. Being well traveled, living away from your home/culture, and developing strong reasoning skills are corrosive to maintenance of religious and conservative positions.

 

[iluvatar5150]

Right, but that influence (under normal circumstances) is one that's usually confined to a person's area of expertise or aptitudes.

For example, if someone loves the guitar playing of Eric Clapton so much that they want to style their own playing after it and be able to sound like him, that would be what I would consider typical influence.

If someone looks up to Eric Clapton so much, that in addition to being able to play like him, they also want to adopt his views and positions on a variety of other subjects outside of music, that would be something more than just typical influence.

And in some cases, it's not even a professor in particular on an individual level, it's the appeal to credentialism as a whole in the soft sciences in ways that don't present themselves as much in the hard sciences.

Where, because someone has a certain title or academic credential, even in a subjective topic that may not be even directly in their wheelhouse, their opinion is given more weight.

You're conflating a bunch of different things. Do some people exhibit the sort of fandom you describe? Yes. Is it commonplace on university campuses? Not at all in my experience.

Again, I've seen it much more often with media personalities who have a clear financial incentive to cultivate this sort of personality cult. Trump is easily the most prominent example of this at the moment.

It's not a pet issue, but it's one where the perception of "taking the issue seriously" is often packaged in such a way that they make it synonymous with "going with the approach we want"


For example: In your opinion, is there any way a person can perceived as having taken that issue seriously without landing on the conclusion of some sort of single-payer/state run/medicaid for all type of solution?

You're putting words in our mouths.

In the 15 years since the ACA passed, Republicans haven't developed a health care plan of any sort. We're not even at the point of evaluating a plan to see if it's serious or not.

 

[BCP1928]

I don't know if "afraid" is the right word.

But if a particular institution was all but captured by the opposing political team, would you be itching to drop thousands of dollars to send your kid there so that they could be in that bubble and come back in 4 years hating all of your values?

I don't think any parent would be too keen on that idea regardless of their political stripe.

A kid who is that impressionable shouldn't be allowed in college, especially if his parents have filled him with crap about "opposite political teams."

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I don't think we discussed politics much at all in our grad student offices, mostly football, other sports, silly things like creationism and other pseudosciences. As for in the classroom, there was exactly *ZERO* discussion of politics in my graduate work at a public university not from the professors, nor from the TA (me). I did go from a satisfied member of the Church to one who was so dissatisfied I would leave after a few more months. IIRC PhD holders are significantly less religious. I suspect that phenomenon is related.

Here are things I have noticed that might be relevant:

1. Unlike BS/BA programs where most attend in their home state (as you and I did), most graduate students travel out of state for their degrees (as I did). That exposes you to other cultures (like evangelicalism in my case) and at the same time keeps you from tight maintenance of tight reinforcement of your home culture. (I went home once a month in undergrad and worked in my hometown in the summer. In gradschool I mostly went home at the end of each semester for a week or two and stayed on campus in the summer.)

2. It is a lot easier to complete a BS/BA with out acquiring reasoning skills than a masters degree and almost impossible in a PhD program.

3. Both religious positions and conservative ones tend to thrive in the "not questioning" anything mode of thinking. Being well traveled, living away from your home/culture, and developing strong reasoning skills are corrosive to maintenance of religious and conservative positions.

You're point on number 1 is interesting, and admittedly I hadn't initially considered that.

However, when you mention that there wasn't much political talk when you were in college, that was was my experience as well, but the polling I linked would indicate that the environment may have changed a bit.

72% of College Students Believe Professors Influence Political Views - Intelligent

54% of students say some or many of their professors express their political views in class

www.intelligent.com

Results like this:
When asked if they have professors who talk politics during class, 32% of respondents said that they have a few professors who do, 41% say they have some professors who do, and 13% say they have many professors who express their political opinions in class. Of these 85%, two-thirds say their professors occasionally (52%) or frequently (15%) express these ideas.

I don't know that I could tell you any of the professors' politics from when I was in college (I mean, you can make guesses, but they never went out of their way to discuss it). Even in a Poli-Sci elective class, the instructor in that course obviously talked politics in a general educational sense, but I don't know that they ever overtly made clear which "side" they were on, on the various issues.

The fact 85% of students are reporting that their professors are "getting political" marks a shift away from the college environment you or I were in. (assuming that we were in college around the same time)

I would've been in that circled demographic, during the time where the biggest share of the pie was still the "mixed" category. (even among the post grads in 2004, the "mixed" group is still the biggest.

The only social catalyst I can think of during that time period would've perhaps been that Bush 2 was a bit of tumultuous presidency (although, people seem to see him as "one of the good ones" in retrospect), and I do recall in the mid-2000's, there was a certain "coolness" associated with being Anti-Bush among some of the younger crowd.

For those who remember these that came out in late-2004:

(and it was actually a pretty star-studded line-up on that)

But my time in college was drawing to a close for that period...so who knows, maybe 2006 would've been a very different environment on campus.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

A kid who is that impressionable shouldn't be allowed in college, especially if his parents have filled him with crap about "opposite political teams."

Well... that would rule out most teenagers then lol.

Most people are a lot more impressionable from 17-21 than they are from 27-31.

Finding people in that age demo who both
A) not impressionable, and
B) didn't have parents with a vocal political preference at home

...is going to be a rarity.

 

[durangodawood]

......2. It is a lot easier to complete a BS/BA with out acquiring reasoning skills than a masters degree and almost impossible in a PhD program.

As a proud member of the BA degree set, I feel a need to speak up in defense of our thinking. We can do it! Some of us at least.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

As a proud member of the BA degree set, I feel I need to speak up in defense of our thinking. We can do it! Some of us at least.

It could depend on the field of study... I could see where some would lean on it more, where others may perhaps more on just memorization.

But for what it's worth, per this OECD 2020 report, it's something of a recently growing problem that doesn't seem to be isolated by country, or level of degree attainment

Does Higher Education Teach Students to Think Critically?

There is a discernible and growing gap between the qualifications that a university degree certifies and the actual generic, 21st-century skills with which students graduate from higher education. By generic skills, it is meant literacy and critical thinking skills encompassing problem solving...

www.oecd.org

There is a discernible and growing gap between the qualifications that a university degree certifies and the actual generic, 21st-century skills with which students graduate from higher education. By generic skills, it is meant literacy and critical thinking skills encompassing problem solving, analytic reasoning and communications competency.

 

[durangodawood]

.....It's not a pet issue, but it's one where the perception of "taking the issue seriously" is often packaged in such a way that they make it synonymous with "going with the approach we want"

For example: In your opinion, is there any way a person can perceived as having taken that issue seriously without landing on the conclusion of some sort of single-payer/state run/medicaid for all type of solution?

For sure! ACA was exactly that. It was not single payer, and it explicitly accounted for:
-pre existing conditions
-preventative medicine
-many pharmaceutical payment issues
-lifetime maximums
-etc etc

It was very comprehensive. The people who devised it took the matter extremely seriously. By contrast the Rs have given us nothing more than "concepts of a plan" - which is being generous.

This is not to say ACA is working well long term. Medical inflation is obviously blowing it up. My point is just that its authors put in the work to devise a scheme that was fleshed out enough for the rest of us to properly analyze. They took the issue seriously.