If any thing, mailing lists are encouraging. It is knowing that there are people like their are here in academia that makes me want to keep going there. I think your observation is correct. Alot of the "leftist" USF faculty seems elitist and introverted, but on the other hand they did alot of brave things defending Al Arian.
But it does get annoying to see professors wear the badge of "marxist" as a term meaning "vaguely leftist person who says 'accumulation' every now and then." I had a self described Marxist English prof mark me off on an essay for saying that from a Marxist standpoint, southern slaves weren't wage laborers. When I brought it up with her, she said "you need to re-read your Marx, southern plantations weren't socialist!" OTOH, its better than having a rightist prof, probably. The best teacher I have had politically was a "China Today" prof who was basically a run of the mill US liberal, but who agreed with my assessments of Mao, just made different value judgments. BTW, since my first post here was dedicated to criticizing "Mao the unkown Story" the latest issue of The China Journal has a symposium discussing it. They act polite but put together the criticisms demolish it totally. > Walt, it is hard to believe that you are an undergraduate. I don't > seen anybody comparable here. One of my students who is on the list is > trying to catch up. I am confident that he will. > > But anyway, don't get too discouraged by the left. Mailing lists bring > out the worst in some people. Often marginalization does as well. > > After you look around for a while, you will also see evidence of > courage, generosity, and integrity. I can think of a number of people, > even here on the list, who measure up to that standard. > > So please, don't get too discouraged. > > On Thu, May 25, 2006 at 10:37:09PM -0400, Walt Byars wrote: >> For full disclosure, my only experience with academia is two years of >> undergraduate training, but so far what I've seen, especially from the >> "left," disgusts me. > > -- > Michael Perelman > Economics Department > California State University > Chico, CA 95929 > > Tel. 530-898-5321 > E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu >
