Neo has done a much better job than I did of answering Huxley’s question in a recent post. That said, here goes.

Rufus: I’d say it’s more a question of academic conformity than a traditional respect for academic freedom. It’s certainly not “viewpoint diversity”. Some varieties of nonsense get a pass, while other, more intellectually defensible viewpoints are howled down. Increasingly granular academic specialization is also a thing. That’s what I was trying to get at in my clumsy mention of Abbott and jurisdiction: it’s all about laying claim to your narrow little patch of academic turf and defending it against all comers. There’s very little career traction in the kind of rigorous interdisciplinary give-and-take you are hinting at, and a great deal of danger.

Geoff+b: yes, the academic radicals replaced the old guard, and they play by very different rules. The ex-English professor at SUNY-Oswego (“Upstate Consolation University”) whose essays Zaphod linked to in Neo’s post about this described the process in some detail:

https://www.thenewneo.com/2021/02/24/why-didnt-more-professors-oppose-the-gramscian-march-or-at-least-stick-up-for-free-speech/#comment-2543063

With the addition that for the Left, as too with many other groups, when you have the power to select who will join your group you choose those you feel most comfortable being with.

The difference with the Left is that this was, until they got majority control, a hidden agenda. In most groups it isn’t hidden and being public can be resisted if contrary to the group’s ideals or accepted as a standard practice.

Doing this, in secret, was discussed in the mid/late 60s among the radical left as a way to take control of various institutions and it has played out for the 50 years since.

I wonder if adhering to the concept of academic freedom didn’t also exacerbate the revolution. For example, Engineering professors are likely an erudite lot. And, a fair amount of them are probably also interested in history, politics, anthropology… and have done a fair amount of self-education on those subjects. However, an academic honoring the tradition of discovery and science would be very hesitant to express professional opinions outside of her area of professional expertise. “Some of the stuff I hear from the Humanities department seems unscientific, or nonsensical, but I am no expert, perhaps they know something I do not.”

A Professor of Civil Engineering doesn’t want the Gender Studies department commenting on tensile properties of metals, so she keeps her opinions about what the Gender Studies Professors are teaching to herself. And, who knows? They may be right. I know they are not, but if you truly honor academic freedom you are very hesitant to denounce any path of potential discovery, no matter how ludicrous it appears on its face.

“I’m wondering how that worked.” My off-the-top-of-my-head list of factors:

1. Reaction to anti-communist “purges” of American universities in the 1950s
2. Vast infusions of federal money in the 1960s (more money = more to lose), accompanied by…
3. Increased federal regulation (Hello, Dear Comrade Academic Administrators!)
4. Bogus professionalization and jurisdictional competition, as described in Andrew Abbott’s 1988 book “The System of Professions” aka “You’ll need a college degree for that” (see http://home.uchicago.edu/~aabbott/bionew2.html)
5. Vietnam (crisis of the postwar WASP establishment, politics starts encroaching on formerly academic concerns)
6. The sexual revolution and breakdown of traditional sexual mores (even profs want to get laid–see the September 1975 National Lampoon cover at http://rwinters.com/lampoon/Lampoon1975.htm)
7. The curdling of the civil rights movement into the politics of racial identity and the concomitant erosion of America’s foundational narrative
8. Retirement of post-WWII GI Bill generation of academics in the 1980s-1990s (exodus of people with other life experiences and backbone) and their replacement by…
9. Former 1960s student radicals and careerists who knew a cushy deal when they saw one and became academic enforcers. Remember: the Left gloms on to power and money like horse leeches glom on to a thoroughbred’s fetlock. Hence its focus on gaining control of rich private foundations, tax revenue, and (at the federal level) the secret police.

Plus the usual human failings: vanity, cowardice, greed, and power lust.

As one might expect, he’s no Republican or conservative. However, to the point, he saw the SJW stuff coming on hard to the universities in the 2000s. He didn’t know what to do. He was near retirement, so he “got the hell out of there” as he put it.

I’m trying to understand how academia slid further and further to the left. I’m aware of the high-profile events and some of the personalities. But I’m not looking for those who threw themselves into the fray from either side and went public.

There’s the classic Burke quote about evil and good men doing nothing. I’m interested in Prof. Everybody, the academicians who watched and are still watching as their world was gradually taken over by the left.

Ideally, being a professor is a more serious calling than being a pipefitter or computer programmer. If nothing else it requires a commitment to academic freedom. Given the opportunity, we have heard many high, wise words to that effect. However, we have seen few efforts from the rank-and-file to uphold that commitment against the left over the past fifty years or so.

I’m wondering how that worked.

It’s a fine mess I’ve gotten myself into.

In Zaphod’s 01 :40 cite Bertie is talking to Spode, although you may have already webbed that out. 🙂

Thanks for the Wodehouse tips. I did watch “Jeeves and Wooster” on PBS in the 1990s, which is how I know about Spode. Fry and Laurie were brilliant. Books: I’ll start with “Carry On, Jeeves”. Could use some light reading these days.

Om and Zaphod,

You guys need to turn this into a vaudeville act. You’ve already got plenty of material ;).

Yes, Silber at BU. A Texas Democrat. With attitude. Drove the Left nuts for years. Still, they won, didn’t they?