At the reception the Pope Center and the Institute for Humane Studies hosted yesterday for area faculty members, Duke professor Michael Munger made a comment that explains both the Manhattan view of conservatives and the demented notions of the candidate in the 10th District. What Munger said was that it’s actually the liberal students who get shortchanged the most in today’s highly politicized campus environment. It’s as if, he said, you were teaching chess openings and told students that all they needed to know was pawn to King 4. In so many classes, profs “teach” by saying that any time someone disagrees with you, it must be due to racism, sexism, or some other ism. Someone thinks affirmative action might be a bad policy — he’s a racist! (Marx, of course, used the same strategy; anyone who dissented from his views was just a capitalist class enemy.)
So why is it that leftists “argue” almost entirely with ad hominem attacks and the impugning of motives? I think it has a lot to do with the way they’re taught. Maybe “trained” would be the better word.
