<p>^ Ah, to that opinion I agree wholeheartedly. The media, the loud political voices may not be open to dialogue, but colleges and people who still haven’t quite found their own beliefs (like me) definitely should.</p>
<p>I love how on the side of this thread I’m getting an advertisement for Ann Coulter’s column.</p>
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<p>Anyway, sorry to post what has clearly been perceived as liberal psychobabble. I certainly can’t speak for the liberal majority at Brown, nor for anyone else but myself. I just think that it’s worth mentioning that, historically speaking, it’s been the left that have been more “tolerant.” I know that there will be severe disagreement about this assertion, and that’s fine - but, after all, it was the right that opposed things like desegregation, and, once more, it is them opposing the inevitable: things like same-sex marriage. Disagree all you want, but it’s true. That’s certainly not to say that only conservatives were “racist,” but it is indisputable that the same conservatives who argued against interracial marriage are now arguing against same-sex marriage using the same arguments (what’s next, humans being allowed to marry animals?).</p>
<p>I’m curious to hear other’s opinions on this - sorry to shift the focus from tolerance on university campuses to politics.</p>
<p>The ■■■■■■■■ left thinks that all conservatives are hick gun loving holy rollers and the ■■■■■■■■ right thinks that all liberals are gay tree humping hippies. Grow up and learn that these stereotypes only apply to morons. There are many smart liberals and conservatives that can back up their opinions and be reasonable human beings (I tend to be a bit more conservative, but I do not follow conservative dogma as the law of my beliefs).</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/642069-liberal-atmosphere-brown.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/642069-liberal-atmosphere-brown.html</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/658604-bdh-opinion-brown-student-liberalism-brown.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/658604-bdh-opinion-brown-student-liberalism-brown.html</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/554062-can-conservative-love-brown.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/554062-can-conservative-love-brown.html</a></p>
<p>After spending the last 6 months at a more conservative state school on study away, I feel that it’s not so much that we are liberal, but that we are naively liberal (myself included). We are very smart. We are very liberal. Most are also very sheltered, and all of this leads to overintellectalizing situations and not accurately appreciating or predicting consequences or results. It’s a bubble. I think this is true of most private schools and not just Brown. </p>
<p>Now allow me to overintellectualize: </p>
<p>Think about it. A lot (not all) of students at private schools went to private school, or a really nice public school. Then they went DIRECTLY to a really nice residential college where people don’t stray off the hill other than to go to Meeting Street Cafe (still on the Hill). And i’m not talking about driving to East Prov to babysit orphans, I’m talking about just going downtown to get coffee on a regular basis. The college becomes your WORLD. </p>
<p>And those liberal values turn into liberal idealizations. Things that aren’t problems become problems. Things that aren’t solutions become symbolic efforts that you think actually matter. If you’re currently about to be deployed in Iraq (which a lot of people here are), you may not think that it’s a huge problem that the corporation meets in private (that’s what corporations do, people). If you walk around by yourself at night regularly you might think it’s okay not to take Saferide. If all of your needs aren’t met by your dorm room, health services, the cafeteria, student life, and the entire world ceated by a residential college, and all you have left to do is think and drink beer, well you might approach politics in general with a little more perspective. Quigly wouldn’t write an article about the atrocities of our libraries and groups wouldn’t wear maroon on the green for Burma and people wouldn’t care so very much about respect for the word Phe. </p>
<p>Now I’m not excluding myself from this. I do it all the time, and that’s kind of my point. It sucks you up and it changes your perspective. </p>
<p>I can’t attest to how it is at other colleges, but I speculate it’s similar. But don’t worry about us being liberal, worry about how we express it. </p>
<p>This isn’t a reason not to go to Brown. I love Brown. It’s more of my litlte perspective on the phenomenon of residential college life where smart kids meet ambitious social goals and sheltered lives.</p>
<p>NapoleonInRags: your message made me smile. I have two older sisters, both of whom graduated from prestigious, liberal schools. Both were dyed-in-the-wool liberal activists when they graduated. The oldest became a doctor. Once she married and had kids, her views of the world changed and she is much, much less liberal today. The younger one became a college professor. She remained very liberal. I am closer with the older sister, and I’ve talked to her about what happened numerous times. She told me that when you’re in college, you feel so smart and hopeful. You feel that you have the world figured out and that you have all of the answers. Once you move past college, however, you realize how little you really know. You start opening your eyes and realizing that idealist dreams are just that, dreams. The real world does not conform to idealism. My younger sister, the professor, continues to live in the idealism of college life, and she has never changed. I work for her each summer (I should be working now, actually). I am around a lot of college professors, and they are pretty much all the same. They are so self-assured, so arrogant, so convinced that they know how the world should work. They are smarter than everyone else. The funny thing is that none of them have a clue about the real world. All they know is how to drive a Prius into work, stop for a Starbucks, and then chat over a 2-hour vegan lunch about how evil and stupid conservatives are. None of them work hard. It’s such a cush job once you get tenure. My theory is that most colleges are really petri dishes of idealism. They are run by admins and professors who have never experienced the real world, and they are full of bright kids who are confident they have the world by the tail. This combination leads to extreme liberalism. There’s nothing wrong with this, but it’s not the real world.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what I want to say here exactly.</p>
<p>My daughter wanted to go to Brown this year. It never even occurred to me to wonder if it was liberal or conservative in its makeup, it’s such a great school. She didn’t get in so she won’t be going. I don’t mean this to sound too snarky but it any of you are giving up your spot because its too liberal she’ll take it.</p>
<p>By that I mean I want her to go to a really good school. I want her to debate issues over lunch, I want her to stay up late at nights in impassioned discussions about politics or current issues or the philosophy of Locke. What may sound like the rantings of kids who think they know everything is probably more kids who are developing their intellects. They are learning to think, learning to write, pushing the boundaries of their minds.</p>
<p>I actually agree with what you said about professors, OldCollegeTry. But what we want from a professor is someone who is highly intelligent, well learned in this field and enjoys spreading his knowledge. Even if it is skewed towards his not liking SUVs that is an opportunity for his students to realize he has biases and they should always question what anyone is telling them, even him.</p>
<p>During my college years I went to visit a friend at another college over one of my breaks. I went to some classes with her and when we left the classes noone was talking about what had been discussed in them. I said to myself, “Wow, this is weird”. I managed to hold my tongue so as not to embarrass her.</p>
<p>I went to Reed. We were always discussing what happened in class and we stayed up late at night discussing issues. In my mind that is what you should be doing at that age. One funny story, one of my friends at Reed was a Republican. He didn’t tell anyone, I found out from a mutual friend. It was so funny that he felt he had to keep that part of his identity to himself. Not a big deal, he fit in fine, he was well liked with lots of friends.</p>
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The ironic thing about this post is that it’s an idealistic stereotype of college professors. You’re one of those college-age kids we’re talking about in this thread, self-assured and arrogantly espousing your silly and naive world-view (this time regarding college proffessors) like it’s a fact, and only you know the truth.</p>
<p>FYI, if you go to a top school (Ivy League especially), approximately half of your professors will have had very real first-hand experience in the “real world” as a consultant or in an advisory role. This is especially true of the political science professors, of whom your post is referring to.</p>
<p>Besides a brief stint in the military (it was WWII), the only job that Henry Kissinger held before being tapped by President Nixon for National Security Advisor and then later Secretary of State was college professor at Harvard University.</p>
<p>In the field of international relations, or really politics in general, most people tend to think that Henry Kissinger has “a clue about the real world.” In fact, most people tend to agree that Kissinger has the most real-world experience in his field of anyone still alive.</p>
<p>In fact, most top State Department officials tend to hold PhDs and to have been professors. And our current Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was formerly an illustrious and most definitely stereotypical “Ivory Tower” professor at Princeton. And the Chief Economic Advisor to the President is almost always a Professor with usually no more public policy experience than a Washington internship when they were in college.</p>
<p>So that’s why professors get to sit around and “chat about how evil and stupid conservatives are,” because they run the country.</p>
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<p>It’s hardly only spoken by “naive college-age kids.” I had this exact same thing spoken to me by an adult with children. He said that after he had grown up and had kids, he was no longer so liberal, but he also said that college professors get to spend a lot of time with kids that they don’t get to see the real word. Is it such a coincidence they reached the same conclusion?</p>
<p>Well then he’s probably ignorantly stereotyping too (although I hate to say that with so little information… it’s like I’m stereotyping him). Did you read the rest of my post?
Even outside of the Ivy League and powerhouse research universities, professors are often quite active in the real world. I know numerous professors at a good liberal arts school who do consulting for the UN, for foreign nations, for departments/agencies of the US government.</p>
<p>I don’t particularly care what reasoning adults come up with to prove that their ideologies are superior to that of their former teachers, but I suspect it’s something like an outgrowing complex, if you understand what I mean by that term - a feeling that you’ve outgrown your past, and coming up with beliefs to prove that assertion. So no, not a coincidence. But who knows, I have no real idea, I’m not an expert on this subject.</p>
<p>mcgoogly, give me a few years and then perhaps I’ll be an arrogant college kid. Until then, I’m an arrogant high school kid. For the record, I don’t count “consultants and advisors” as constituting real world experience. In my opinion, the real world consists of people who work hard for a living, who struggle on a day-to-day basis to survive – people who don’t live in cush Ivy towers where idiotic idealists can waste day after day patting themselves on their backs for being so much smarter than everyone else. Don’t give me your tripe. I have known and worked with 12 different college professors at a major liberal school over the last three summers. I did a project for my AP Government class last year in which I had each professor fill out a survey. None – and I repeat none – had every done manual labor. Only 1 had ever worked a job outdoors, and that occurred when he was in high school. For the most part, these academic elites live shetered existences. If they would live just a few months in the real world, perhaps they would realize how unimportant they are, how completely varnished their views of the world are. I very much look forward to attending college, if only to laugh at those liberal elites who wouldn’t recognize hard work from their own hard heads.</p>
<p>With 81% of our population living in urban or suburban places, I highly doubt that many of those “real world” people who are “working hard to survive” are doing so by working a job outdoors.</p>
<p>If you were to examine professors of color, or women faculty members, especially in the sciences, you’ll get picture of a faculty rather well-acquainted with the real world, Old College Try. Sure, the 55-60 year old white male who’s a professor now is more than likely a professor because of their own tremendous capital (economic, social, and human) because of the time period they had access to higher education, however, this professoriate is aging out and being replaced by a rather different picture.</p>
<p>That being said, your arrogance is hilarious, your statements are vitriolic, but simple, and sound like the whining of a child repeating talking points as a means of expressing childish frustration.</p>
<p>Nothing like a high school student pronouncing they understand and know the real world. It’s amazing you’ve so maligned the entire profession as elitist and filled with idiotic idealists because of your own political leanings and your wonderful survey of 12 professors at one school.</p>
<p>lol, it looks like Old College Try has just read “God and Man at Yale”. Although not really, because he’s not even a college student yet, he doesn’t en qualify for “know-it-all college kid” status, he’s just a know-it-all high school student who doesn’t even know who William Buckley is.
Which makes it harder to have a legitimate conversation, I guess.</p>
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LOL you do realize that your older sister doesn’t qualify for this either, right? As a filthy rich doctor you better believe she’s never (or barely ever) done manual labor, has never actually had to struggle to survive or any of that nonsense your talking about.</p>
<p>You know who else has never had to struggle to survive or do manual labor? Investment bankers. Engineers. Doctors. Most lawyers. Managers. CEO’s. Presidents of the United States. Senators and Congressmen of the United States.</p>
<p>In other words, basically every highly skilled professional, every rich person in America, and especially, every person who has an influence in the direction of this country and every person who runs this country.</p>
<p>But nice try</p>
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<p>Come on, even the ones who do research and don’t teach do more than that. Watch the Frontline documentary about Andrew Wiles proof of Fermat’s last theorem. The brilliant minds of this world should be in the institutions for higher learning, it’s where they belong.</p>
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<p>They are not unimportant, for the most part they are excellent teachers, especially in a place like Brown, and they are shaping the minds of college age students.</p>
<p>mcgoogly – please tell me that you’re not a college student. Your inability to reason would frighten me otherwise. Read my posts again. The point of my posts was to explain how one of my sisters was able to break free from the idealism that suffocates some colleges, while my other one remains locked into that world. For the record, she wasn’t always like that. Our family is well below middle class, and until she went to Stanford she was a person who did have to work hard. She picked fruit in the summer, worked as a waitress, and helped my father with his business. Although she’s not filthy rich, she is a warped liberal who has forgotten where she came from. While I’ll agree with you that most American politicians are as superficial and loathsome as are college professors, you need to meet more investment bankers, engineers, doctors, and lawyers. A large portion of those did live common lives prior to college. That’s why they work now. Those who lived more sheltered lives opted to teach in business school, medical school, and law school. </p>
<p>modestmelody: I am not even sure how to respond to your gripe. Since when does living in an urban setting deprive someone of working hard or working outdoors? Are you serious? Most urban people I know work hard. Many work manual labor jobs. Two of my uncles live in NYC and work as construction workers, mostly outdoors. They would chuckle at your reasoning. </p>
<p>Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. No axiom is more true.</p>
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<p>I’m simply pointing out how your Americana influenced definition of hard work is hardly inclusive and that your realm of experience is so utterly limited that your making grand sweeping statements is, well, precious, like the three-year old bossing all the adults around on his birthday.</p>
<p>I know it feels like you know things, I know it feels like you’ve got a handle on the world, but quite honestly, you’re more naive than the college students and professors you claim to have pegged. We all feel that way in high school, and if your education fails you, I think you continue to feel that way in college. However, one of the most important things about my personal college experience was that it shattered nonsense idealism (perhaps to a fault) and constantly forced me to confront how limited my own vision is. </p>
<p>College should, and often does, kick the teeth right out of the kind of youthful arrogance you’re demonstrating in this thread and that others claim is bred by our Academic elites. Behold, your own posts are a testament to the fact that only a man’s ego is required to become so well-learned as to have grown beyond the limitations of your perspective. At worst, someone can make it through college only becoming aware of the fact that they have a perspective, but at best, a college education can shatter that perspective and leave you wondering how you could ever have been so arrogant.</p>
<p>You’re long before stage I. Come back and talk when you’re at stage II.</p>
<p>And no, talking to two older siblings who have come to their own conclusions and judging them is not the same. That’s precisely the kind of “book” thinking that all of you out there accuse the academic elites of doing, as opposed to living it and learning it.</p>
<p>
No, you need to reread your posts again, including this one because your first and last sentence totally contradict each other.</p>
<p>First in this thread, you blamed academic “idealism” on “living a sheltered life,” which you expressly defined as being a function of how much manual labor you’ve done, and how often you’ve had to work to survive. Unless your family suddenly rose to upper middle class by the time your professor sister went to high school, both of your sisters lived the same life, did the same manual labor, and worked just as hard as each other. They both lived non-sheltered lives.</p>
<p>Yet one suddenly became warped while the other, working in an equally cush, equally professional, equally “detached” from the hard-working blue-collar American stereotype that you’re essentially espousing, yet actually being MUCH MUCH richer (thus, I’d say your doctor sister is more detached from the blue-collar manual labor), “broke free.” The hell? Look dude, you started with an example (2 sisters), and then put forth a hypothesis to explain their actions. Except that the hypothesis HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR EXAMPLE. This is a failure of logic. You are a failure of logic.</p>
<p>
I clearly never said that politicians are superficial and loathsome. I said that they had just as much real-world experience as college professors. Except then you suddenly redefined what “real-world” means. First you implied that it means having experience in the competitive private sector or, in general, having experience in a competitive environment that determines and very much affects the REAL WORLD. Then, suddenly, you redefined “real-world experience” as having a blue-collar construction job. LOL.</p>
<p>Since you’re an ignorant and naive high school student who has only met a dozen professors and a doctor (your sister), let me tell you about investment bankers, engineers, lawyers and CEOs. A large portion of them led your definition of sheltered lives. They grew up in a wealthy suburb, went to a prep school, or maybe a boarding school like Exeter or Andover, Deerfield or Choate. Then they went to university, without needing any financial aid, and joined a fraternity. Then they got a masters or professional degree. Then they got a high-paying job, married and moved to a suburb outside of the city where they work in a large house with a pool. I don’t know what the hell you think living a “sheltered life” means, but I’m pretty sure that’s not your definition of one right?</p>
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ooh look its a ■■■■■!
But way to be, a high school student with a superiority complex, what a surprise. Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll go on to become a successful CEO of a Fortune 500 company and be the richest and most successful man alive, because I just know your better than all of them.</p>
<p>I have two things for you, Old College Try:</p>
<p>1) Are you familiar with the phrase “publish or perish?” Do you have a PhD? Working as a professor is not a sinecure. They work just as hard as your doctors and lawyers, and often get compensated for much less. But they are doing what they love, and therefore deserve respect.</p>
<p>2) Would you prefer professors to work in manual labor instead? These are some of the smartest people in America (because it takes incredible intelligence and drive to make it as a professor), and I would tend to think that their talents lend them to working in academia. </p>
<p>You seem to have a problem with the university system in this country. Which makes me wonder, why are you posting on this site? Why is your username Old College Try?</p>
<p>Ok back to the OP’s original question.</p>
<p>Brown by far I believe is the most liberal college in the Ivy league. Hence why their BS/MD program is called “Program in Liberal Medical Education”. Also Brown’s open curriculum also makes it quire liberal.
(This might be random but isn’t being a liberal college means that there are little to no required classes that all college students have to take?)</p>
<p>Columbia’s liberalism turns into demonstration and other visual displays far more often than Brown’s.</p>
<p>While we’re probably the most homogeneously liberal, we’re not the most visibly liberal IMO.</p>