Some of you may remember a knee-jerk reaction email I wrote to UNCG's Carolinian got published a few weeks back. Well, the columnist has another good one this week. I haven't really paid attention to her columns until semi-recently, but from this one I think she's well on her way to becoming the Carolinian's Anne Coulter. Hence I have condescendingly dubbed her "Lil'Anne".
However, I'm in something of a bind because I already wrote her a nice email before...I think I might come off a little stalkeresque if I send her a new one. So I'd appreciate some directional feedback. I'm going to do up a whole new post with my response, whether I send it to her not, just to make things easier for me ('cause then all I have to do is hit my handy-dandy "send this post as email" button). Please sound off in the Comments. Should I send the to-be posted response, or should I be satisfied it is posted here?
Here is her new article.
3 comments:
I don't see the problem with writing her again. I mean, it is an editorial. Go for it.
Hey Rick... AJ here. Never back down from a good fight.
My only suggestion is to make any letter you send in as clear and unemotional as possible so as to expose her knee-jerk and inconsistent opinions against the starkness of stone cold facts. While she's a total party hack and taking way too much license with her assertions, I do think there is a hint of truth in what she's saying when applied across social science classrooms across the total US college continuum. However, I do think that in the US south, the professorial bias can cut both Republican and Democrat.
Being a veteran of a great many college Poly Sci and Sociology classes in the Old Dominion, I came across several lefties and righties. The rightie professors knew they were in the minority and hence were less aggressive with the positions/views they advocated in class, but the right wing lap dogs dominated class discussions and ate everything they said up. On the other hand, the left wing professors were often unapologetic and painted their positions versus oppositions' positions in very broad almost moralistic black and white, "what I think is superior and anyone who doesn't think so is an idiot" strokes. While I do recognize that some of them were probably doing this just to stir discussions, being a pasive undergrad too concerned with my GPA, I never had the balls to jump in and "stir the pot" so to speak. Further in any papers or exams, I wouldn't stray from the party line in my answers for fear, warranted or not, of grade point reprisals. Now, you can say I was just being a big pussy, and you'd probably be right. But I do think it is remiss to think that all undergrads walk in with full knowledge of the way the system works and a sense that professorial debate is encouraged. I'm probably to blame here, but I certainly didn't.
I would tend to think that as you look at different institutions throughout the country, you'll see different left-wing and right-wing biases in the social science departments. What is lacking in my opinion, is a tacit explanation or "contract" if you will at the onset of the semester for these classes. Department heads need to do a better job of having profs make it clear to students that the topics of study are based upon research and theory with a significant layer of subjective and value-system analysis. It should be made clear to students (particularly undergrads) that they've got carte blanche license and are in face encouraged to express logic-based, defendable disagreements with any "opinions" expressed. I recognize that all of this "should be" implied, but I do think airing out the rules for the game from the get go, would for minimal "costs" go a long way here.
Great blog, by the way.
Thanks for dropping by, my man, and most especially thanks for weighing in on this whole thing. I agree, to some degree, with your last paragraph but I think you'll be happy to know that there already are some profs that do that sorta thing on the first day of class. Most of my studies were in religion, a topic that has sparked a disagreement or two in the past. But I remember some of my professors giving a sorta "Here are the rules of engagement" disclaimer statement at either the start of class that day or the start of class that semester. (As an interesting sidebar: It was always the Christian fundies who started shit first. Always. So, fuck this whole "Right-wingers don't speak out in class" because I've seen a few lash out only to get summarily buried by those troublesome things called "facts". /rant)
But I dunno, man, I never had a problem asking all sorts of questions or challenging the material in my classes. Hell, I even played Devil's Advocate on occassion just to get a discussion going. (My participation philosophy is this: If we don't talk, we get a lecture we have to memorize for the next pop quiz.) I hear what you have to say, I heard what Melissa had to say, and I can at least agree on a very surface level that it can be intimidating to challenge the professor's lecture. I just think its a shame that Conservatives don't have the "testicular fortitude" to present themselves and encourage discussion, and I think its irresponsible for someone like Melissa to tap into that fear and use it to blame the faculty. It ain't their fault the Young Republicans are scared!
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