When I first heard that David Horowitz had included me in his list of the "101 most Dangerous Professors in America," I was quite pleased. It was an honor, after all, to receive such a distinction from one of the doyens of the neoconservative movement.But my ego quickly returned down to earth when, during a debate we had a few weeks ago on Mother Jones Radio, he admitted, without a hint of embarrassment, that he hadn't actually read any of my books or academic articles, but only perused my website and perhaps a Mother Jones article or two. Indeed, he didn't even know the intern who actually did the "research" on me for his book.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Dangerous professors of the mind
Cold shower on Horowitz's "Most Dangerous Professors" list. From Mark Levine, dangerous professor, writing in [gasp, fainting spell, smelling salts and kerchief] Mother Jones. See also this earlier post.
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5 comments:
Horowitz: The Brand.
If he puts out a logoed line of clothing I bet I know what people would be wearing next year in Berkeley and Ann Arbor.
If the "research" is that shabby, we ought to all make up "Horowitz Dangerous Professor" t-shirts, professor or not.
This seems like as good a place as any for this. If you love bad academic writing, this will hit the spot.
That's some bad writin.' I had a prof once who insisted, similarly with Heidegger and Strauss, that philosophical secrets were only accessible through changing/creating a language through which to access them. Scary, I thought, especially as his grad students would come up to me and say things I didn't understand at all. Then smile.
Gordon - what's the "complexity of the matter"?
Seems pretty simple to me, if one believes in academic freedom. No one forces students to take classes from professors who have a political view with which they disagree. And the PC climate Horowitz wants to create in academia is a real and simplistic assault on academic freedom that deserves to be derided before it gains any purchase.
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