Comments on: Left-leaning academics explained

By: Patty McIntosh

Patty McIntosh — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 18:31:00 +0000

Oh Matt, you said "an hilarious"! The old fashioned English teacher in me approves!

By: Matt J. Duffy

Matt J. Duffy — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:36:00 +0000

You two are an hilarious couple.

By: Scott Mize

Scott Mize — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:35:00 +0000

No, that was the generalized "baby", as in "Vegas, baby!" and it was in response to Mr. Gregory's "Ooee….stir the pot" remark. Meaningless snark, really.

By: Patty McIntosh

Patty McIntosh — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:34:00 +0000

LOL! Ummm…I've only made one comment here, so when you said "He's just questioning the status quo, baby!" I assumed (I hope correctly) the the "baby" you were referring to there was moi? So I was asking what you meant…b/c I hadn't said anything really about any particular status quo.

By: Scott Mize

Scott Mize — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:32:00 +0000

Which status quo are you referring to?

By: Patty McIntosh

Patty McIntosh — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:29:00 +0000

Who is questioning the status quo, handsome?

By: Scott Mize

Scott Mize — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:26:00 +0000

He's just questioning that status quo, baby!

By: David Gregory

David Gregory — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:21:00 +0000

Ooee, that Matt Duffy do know how to stir the pot, don't he?

By: Scott Mize

Scott Mize — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:55:00 +0000

Thanks again, Drew. Rereading the thread, many would take exception or respond defensively to some things I've said.Clearly, your Midwestern upbringing (and your continued respect for that culture) has given you the easygoing swellness of Midwesternguy(tm) !Agreed, some science (the hard kind) and engineering are a different category than the humanities. I don't have a study to back this up, but this is my observation:If you imagine the academy as a spectrum with physics and chemistry at one end, ethnic/gender studies at the other and economics and law somewhere in between, I find that the likelihood an academic is leftist (or that a field of study is dominated by leftists) is a function of where a field falls on that scale.

By: Drew Ayers

Drew Ayers — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:03:00 +0000

@Scott: I also think a distinction needs to be made between science scholars and humanities scholars (though I have problems with drawing a strict boundary between the two). People who do research in, say, cancer treatment, are definitely held accountable to external standards: do their treatments effectively treat cancer? If so, they get more grant money. If not, the money dries up. Science scholars get WAY more in the way of grant money/funding than do humanities scholars, so in a way, they are under much more scrutiny.All scholars (both humanities and science) are also held accountable to their peers. I realize that these "peers" are a very small group, but they do provide some checks to intellectual inquiry. And I'd argue that the peer-group of scholars is no smaller than something like the peer-group of mechanics. Both fields require a degree of specialization, and it doesn't make sense to make the peer-group more general. What of value do I have to add to the conversation about computer controlled A/C in cars?Your other point questioned the "value" of humanities work, and this is something I struggle with myself. What is the point of our work? From a strictly market-based perspective, there is no value, except for the fact that film classes are some of the most popular classes at universities, and thus bring in a ton of money in tuition. The production of knowledge (and art) is not something that provides huge profits. It is something that has to be subsidized by society at large. This is nothing new. In the past, artists and scholars were subsidized by wealthy patrons. Now we're subsidized by tax money. The broader philosophical question is whether the pursuit of knowledge is a value in itself, aside from monetary profits. I think it is. However, it also means scholars have a responsibility to be diligent with their work.