Is America An Essentially "Uneducated" Country?

Started by Shiranu, August 27, 2018, 04:44:57 AM

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GSOgymrat

If we want to talk about indoctrination, the most effective are the military academies and Christian universities.

The 70 Most Conservative Colleges in America

https://blog.prepscholar.com/most-conservative-colleges

Conservative colleges are politically right-wing. The students tend to favor conservative positions like outlawing abortion, reducing the size of government, and protecting gun rights.

Christian colleges are often more conservative. Many Christian colleges adhere to more traditional social views and rules that attract conservative Christian students and faculty.

Furthermore, conservative colleges are more strict and regimented than liberal colleges. Conservative religious colleges like BYU and the College of the Ozarks have strict rules that all students must follow. At BYU, male students can’t have beards or long hair. These colleges are much less tolerant of alcohol and drug use than liberal colleges. Also, the armed service academies are known for being conservative. They have many more rules than the average college regarding personal appearance and conduct.

Finally, the most conservative colleges often reflect the political leanings of their locations. Many of the most conservative colleges are located in conservative states. Examples of conservative colleges in conservative locations include Clemson University (South Carolina), Utah State, and the University of Alabama. However, there are conservative colleges in liberal states. Pepperdine and Thomas Aquinas College are conservative colleges in California, but they’re both Christian colleges.

Baruch

Christian colleges are mostly a joke.  Liberty University or Oral Roberts University anyone?  The military high schools are for truants.  The military academies ... well pacifists or traitors would oppose those.

In the Roman Republic, you couldn't serve in an important office, without at least 10 years military officer experience.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

SGOS

Quote from: GSOgymrat on October 31, 2018, 03:07:03 AM
If we want to talk about indoctrination, the most effective are the military academies and Christian universities.
Most colleges and universities are not all that political.  They may lean slightly in one direction or another, but not in a way that I would label indoctrinating.  And teaching students to think is not indoctrination.  It's the desired outcome of education.  From my experience most of the political activities on campuses are actually orchestrated by the students, although by nature, most agitators would prefer to work from the outside as manipulators, so you can't always tell. 

But introduce "military" or "Christian" into the educational system and it's about indoctrination or serving the indoctrinated.  Not to say that none  of those institutions offer solid coursework in some areas.  Our major military institutions have high academic standards, but you can bet you come out with a clear understanding of top down management.  If you want to learn the sciences, you would be wise to avoid Christian institutions.

But your comment does a good job showing how PR's anti academic claims about American institutions are an empty regurgitation of extreme right wing politics.  They might be the most nakedly open and easily identifiable examples of projecting ones own faults onto someone else.  His claims may be vicious, but his claims about Marxist indoctrination at colleges are devoid of reason and amazingly empty criticisms.  It's astounding to me that he believes it.

He tries to support this nonsense by the fallacy of generalization.  He sees some Utube video about some mostly unheard of college happening way out in the fringes, and through lack of actual personal experience, claims this is normal.  But the only reason it's "news" in the first place is that it's [ab] normal.  I will admit that colleges and universities are where students tend to do a lot of thinking that is clearly outside the traditional "box", but I wouldn't go off the deep end and call it Marxist or Communist.  That's just silly nonsense.




GSOgymrat

Quote from: SGOS on October 31, 2018, 07:24:57 AM
He sees some Utube video about some mostly unheard of college happening way out in the fringes, and through lack of actual personal experience, claims this is normal.  But the only reason it's "news" in the first place is that it's [ab] normal.

I'm not referring to pr126, but fringe mining is one of my pet peeves. Some YouTubers across the political spectrum make their entire living finding outliers and using them as evidence to support their agenda. They mock some blue-haired nineteen-year-old college student YouTuber who goes off on an emotional rant or cite a conservative preacher in Utah with a congregation of 400 who is calling for the death of group X and then step up on their soapbox saying this is yet another example of why Z is a problem. They don't focus on the individual in question but use that person's behavior as evidence that group A is bad and WE, group B, are so much more reasonable. "So if you like what I do please click the "like" button and support my work on Patreon." Outrage sells, it's stimulating, addictive and makes people money.

Blackleaf

Come to think of it, the only time my professors were open about their beliefs and pushed them was at the Christian university I earned my Masters from. My presumably Liberal professors kept their own opinions, religious, political, or otherwise, mostly to themselves. That Christian university is also the one I was attending when I switched from Conservative Christian to Liberal Atheist. Coincidence? I don't think so.
"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--

trdsf

Quote from: SGOS on October 31, 2018, 07:24:57 AM
Most colleges and universities are not all that political.  They may lean slightly in one direction or another, but not in a way that I would label indoctrinating.  And teaching students to think is not indoctrination.  It's the desired outcome of education.  From my experience most of the political activities on campuses are actually orchestrated by the students, although by nature, most agitators would prefer to work from the outside as manipulators, so you can't always tell. 

But introduce "military" or "Christian" into the educational system and it's about indoctrination or serving the indoctrinated.  Not to say that none  of those institutions offer solid coursework in some areas.  Our major military institutions have high academic standards, but you can bet you come out with a clear understanding of top down management.  If you want to learn the sciences, you would be wise to avoid Christian institutions.

But your comment does a good job showing how PR's anti academic claims about American institutions are an empty regurgitation of extreme right wing politics.  They might be the most nakedly open and easily identifiable examples of projecting ones own faults onto someone else.  His claims may be vicious, but his claims about Marxist indoctrination at colleges are devoid of reason and amazingly empty criticisms.  It's astounding to me that he believes it.

He tries to support this nonsense by the fallacy of generalization.  He sees some Utube video about some mostly unheard of college happening way out in the fringes, and through lack of actual personal experience, claims this is normal.  But the only reason it's "news" in the first place is that it's [ab] normal.  I will admit that colleges and universities are where students tend to do a lot of thinking that is clearly outside the traditional "box", but I wouldn't go off the deep end and call it Marxist or Communist.  That's just silly nonsense.
Absolutely.  My alma mater is generally considered a "liberal" one, and on top of that I majored in political science, which you would think would be the hub of so-called indoctrination.

Nope.  In fact, it was a Wooster poli sci prof who said in political theory class that the only political theoretician that ever went from page to practice without major modification was... Niccolò Machiavelli.  Hardly Marx, Engels, Debs, Thomas or Harrington there.  We were expected to be able to explain Burke as well as Locke, to say nothing of being as well read of Robert Nozick as well as John Rawls.  And certainly the College Republicans were at least as active (and definitely better organized) than the College Democrats, without interference from the faculty or administration.

Generally, I find the claim of "marxist professors indoctrinating students" to be a pathetic whine from those who are pissed off that students aren't being forced to undergo exclusively right-wing indoctrination -- at least not outside "Liberty" and Bob Jones -- as well as being an admission that they haven't the faintest fucking idea what Marxism actually is.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Baruch

Poly Sci vs someone from E Europe?  Really?  Also college may be much different than it was 40 years ago.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

SGOS

Quote from: GSOgymrat on October 31, 2018, 10:43:50 AM
I'm not referring to pr126...
Fair enough.  I was, but not just him.  He represents a mindset that processes information the same way on this side of the pond.

Cavebear

Quote from: SGOS on October 31, 2018, 08:06:44 PM
Fair enough.  I was, but not just him.  He represents a mindset that processes information the same way on this side of the pond.

As much as I want to think that democracy-oriented people in different places tend to think alike, I keep learning that they do not.  Western Europe does not quite understand the US and vice versa.  It may be the long history of Europe vs the short history of the US experiment.  It may be the history of having monarchies.  It may be the habit of internecine European warfare.  I don't know.

But it is surely something.

I sometimes think it is the isolated nature of the US.  Bismark once commented that the US is the luckiest nation because it has 2 oceans and 2 weak neighbors, but I don't think even that is "it".  There seems do be more. 

I think we are partly utterly practical, just practicing war on ourselves until we got good at it (the trench warfare at the end of our Civil War was the tactics of WWi), but also impractical, having an ideology causum bellum before engaging.

I think of this often.  I don't totally understand it, but there really is a difference between the US and Western Europe.

And in case you are wondering why I keep mentioning Western Europe, it is because Eastern Europe is a complete fucked mess of hatred and ancient memories of atrocities.  I saw a post elsewhere complaining of a Slavic battle in the 12th century as if it was yesterday. 

You can't survive that way.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Cavebear -

Europe = begins with E
America = begins with A

Europe sent all their losers here ... and kept the winners ... how did that work out for them?

Your poly-sci classes must have mushed your brain.  Parliament in GB is much better than the US Congress, as legislatures go.  Compare them in actual operation.  So not everything is better in America.  The British judicial system isn't a matter of "contested advocacy" but of "fact finding".  So GB compares favorably there.  The one thing we have that they don't have, is our President is CinC ... and we have no monarchy (though Kennedy, Bush, and Clinton tried to create one).  Our executive branch is somewhat superior.  And Federal + State + County + Municipality is much superior to GB, where local councils are a recent and badly run institution.  The monarchy couldn't share power.  It was absolute before Louis XIV was even born aka least feudal.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

trdsf

Quote from: Cavebear on November 17, 2018, 01:16:24 AM
And in case you are wondering why I keep mentioning Western Europe, it is because Eastern Europe is a complete fucked mess of hatred and ancient memories of atrocities.  I saw a post elsewhere complaining of a Slavic battle in the 12th century as if it was yesterday. 
Heck, that existed even in my own recent family history.  Five of my great-grandparents emigrated from Poland when there legally was no Poland to come from as it was divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria â€" but don't dare suggest they weren't Polish, even though their emigration papers were in German.  When I was little, I found family events confusing because some of my relatives kept the Germanized spelling of the family name from the immigration papers (Schultz) and some took back the original Polish spelling (Szul).
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Baruch

Bohemian ancestors, from Austro-Hungarian Empire, shipped out thru Hamburg circa 1874.  They hated the Germans of course.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Unbeliever

QuoteAccording to data from Pew, 58% of Republicans believe that higher education is bad for America and puts us on the wrong path. To put it another way â€" a majority of Republicans think that education is a bad thing. This explains a lot about the Republican Party because without uneducated voters, the only people left supporting the GOP would be a handful of millionaires and billionaires.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzgxC6adz2Y


I don't know why this surprises me, but I'm gob-smacked by it!
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Munch

'Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners' - George Carlin

Baruch

Munch - Black Friday involving actual Black people?  What do they think they are, White trailer trash? ;-)

Unbeliever - of course education is bad.  Thomas Jefferson supported education.  So did Karl Marx.  Thomas Jefferson owned Black slaves.  Karl Marx wanted to enslave the proletariat.  Both dead White men, therefore education must be bad ;-)
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.