Thanks, great article!
Agree. Great article.
He hit the nail on the head.
Overall, a good article. I am a liberal at a liberal university. I want to hear arguments from conservatives, particularly those sophisticated ones. Most likely, I will disagree with those arguments, but I want to hear and think about them. I shake my head a few times in the past when my university denied conservative speakers because of the opposition from vocal faculty members and students.
Great article. Sadly, I skimmed a few top comments, and most assert that the Republican point of view is not worth including in the academic discourse because they are ignorant (this commingles Repubs with religious fundamentalists of every stripe, but who cares about consistency?).
@Twicer The comments are what I expected, sadly.
@prof2dad - It’s likely that many of those students have been trained, almost out of necessity - especially in subjective classes - to suppress those thoughts/arguments.
One of the comments:
"I have lived in red states all my life. From the chirpy reassuring sounds of his claim that it is a “caricature” to think of such a large number of people as the current wave of conservatives as “racist bigots,” Nicholas Kristof (the author) is the one who doesn’t actually know any conservatives.
Come live where I do, my man, and get to know them in their natural state over a period of years. Get them talking, get them to tell you the stories of their past and the way their beliefs are shaped and what they think has “gone wrong” with the world. Then tell me whether your lovely optimistic notions hold up.
My idea is that all the liberal prophets telling us we live “in a bubble” because we distrust conservative bigotry are living in such thick-walled shells themselves they can’t even bear to face the very, very obvious."
It starts in middle and high school.
What’s a liberal? I rhought the “progressive” rebranding was now complete.
I think that the only reason liberals (semi-including myself) are less interested in hearing a republican perspective is because a lot of their social positions lack logic. For example, pretty much all arguments that are pro-birth, or anti-gay marriage are based on religion. Religion lacks logic or proof, and in my opinion is therefore not valid academically, and doesn’t merit a discussion.
@philbegas what about fiscal conservatives?
Last I looked Harvard, Yale and many other universities had schools of theology.
I am perfectly willing to debate politely with a fiscal conservative!
In my ideal usa, the two political parties would be more like social democrats (ie bernie sanders/scandinavian style of thinking) vs libertarians (more gary johnson style). Social views should be left out of politics and governance.
Plus personally my views tend to fall very liberal socially, but a bit more conservative fiscally.
Closing thread, since every one of the recent posts involves religion or politics.