Reply #17: This is not the case at all [View All]

The range of discussion in Universities is quite limited. Now there are endless permutations within that limited spectrum but I assure you it is not as it seems. If you want a "career" in Academia be prepared to limit your range of thinking.

Are you familiar with this book? Highly recommend it for you to get a firsthand glimpse into "liberal" Academia.



This book shows that professional education is a battle for the very identity of the individual, as is professional employment. It shows how students and working professionals face intense pressure to compromise their ideals and sideline their commitment to work for a better world. And it explores what individuals can do to resist this pressure, hold on to their values and pursue their social visions. People usually don't think of school and work in terms of such a high-stakes struggle. But if they did, they would be able to explain why so many professional training programs seem more abusive than enlightening, and why so many jobs seem more frustrating than fulfilling.

I decided to write this book when I was in graduate school myself, getting a PhD in physics, and was upset to see many of the best people dropping out or being kicked out. Simply put, those students most concerned about others were the most likely to disappear, whereas their self-centered, narrowly focused peers were set for success. The most friendly, sympathetic and loyal individuals, those who stubbornly continued to value human contact, were handicapped in the competition. They were at a disadvantage not only because their attention was divided, but also because their beliefs about big-picture issues such as justice and social impact caused them to stop, think and question. Their hesitation and contemplation slowed them down, tempered their enthusiasm and drew attention to their deviant priorities, putting them at a disadvantage relative to their unquestioning, gung-ho classmates. Employers, too, I realized, favored people who kept their concerns about the big picture nicely under control, always in a position of secondary importance relative to the assigned work at hand. Thus I saw education and employment as a self-consistent, but deeply flawed, system. I wrote this book in the hope of exposing the problem more completely and thereby forcing change.

A system that turns potentially independent thinkers into politically subordinate clones is as bad for society as it is for the stunted individuals. It bolsters the power of the corporations and other hierarchical organizations, undermining democracy. As I will explain in detail, it does this by producing people who are useful to hierarchies, and only to hierarchies: uncritical employees ready and able to extend the reach of their employers' will. At the same time, a system in which individuals do not make a significant difference at their point of deepest involvement in society—that is, at work—undermines efforts to build a culture of real democracy. And in a subordinating system, organizations are more likely to shortchange or even abuse clients, because employees who know their place are not effective at challenging their employers' policies, even when those policies adversely affect the quality of their own work on behalf of clients.

This book is intended for a broad range of professionals, nonprofessionals and students, and for anyone interested in how today's society works. It is for students who wonder why graduate or professional school is so abusive. It is for nonprofessionals who wonder why the professionals at work are so often insufferable, and who want to be treated with greater respect. It is for socially concerned professionals who wonder why their liberal colleagues behave so damn conservatively in the workplace. (Chapter 1 explains how professionals are fundamentally conservative even though liberalism is the dominant ideology in the professions.) It is for individuals who are frustrated by the restrictions on their work and troubled by the resulting role they play—or don't play—in the world. It is also for those who simply find their careers much less fulfilling than they had expected and aren't exactly sure why.

http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/introduction.htm

“I found Disciplined Minds while planning

a course that deals with the social

role and moral responsibility of

intellectuals, and after I finished

reading it I whooped with joy. It is

the perfect book to engage students on

these issues -- well researched,

powerfully argued, and clearly written.

Even conservative students with politics

at odds with Schmidt's find the book

valuable because of its (sometimes

painful) honesty and clarity. In

addition to using it in my course, I

wish I could make Disciplined Minds

required reading for my faculty

colleagues.”



-- Robert Jensen

School of Journalism

University of Texas at Austin