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For what it’s worth, my intro to psychology gen ed professor told us to spell “humyn” with a y to “remove woman being dependent on man” and let us skip the final if we recorded ourselves protesting the controversial state house bill at the time.

On net I agree with what you’re saying, but know that the culture war isn’t total bs one sided, and my unremarkable school had plenty of bad examples like this. Evergreen university in 2017 barring white people from attending class for a day was particularly embarrassing.

If the indoctrination ray worked, you wouldn't be complaining about it. :-)

Not complaining about it, just throwing some noise out there and I completely agree, being exposed to different viewpoints and learning to adjust your perspective is what makes well rounded humyns ;)

I went to Stony Brook, so my experience isn't comparable to yours, but I definitely did not encounter any professors doing shit like that[0]. And to be clear, there were a few politically-minded courses in our gen-ed requirements. We had a News Literacy course that was actually really good, that I wish I could force my Facebook-brained parents to sit through.

If SBU had an indoctrination ray, they certainly had it on the wrong setting[1]. I'd already been firmly radicalized by Ron Paul revoLution warriors on Reddit into mainlining LvMI blog posts about Austrian economics and anarcho-capitalism by the end of my first year. It wasn't until I was leaving school when my political positions shifted away from that.

[0] To be clear, SBU notoriously had a heterodox economics professor who was unabashedly a Marxist. I never met him, I only heard about the professor from one of the school newspapers.

[1] Which, given everything else managed by the state of New York, would be totally on-brand for them.

For what it's worth, my one (1) class that had any kind of political spin was Engineering Ethics. In which I was told whistle blowing is bad and making weapons of war is super chill because they would've been made without you anyway.

You likely went to a nice school, Trump supporters’ kids didn’t and my story is the kind of stuff they’re responding to, results may vary

The thing that gets to me, and everyone is overly idealistic about a lot of things(learn to code!) but I really wish that that things were as simple as conservative culture warriors laid them out to be. It would be great if there was this “one neat trick!” To getting a 70k a year job right out of high school, optimized for people less academically inclined.

Professors self-stated political leanings, which have changed markedly over time, are important evidence here.

I kind of wonder if the professors changed, or the politics changed around them. You can only have a Republican Party leader chasing after the “uneducated” for so long before the ideology starts to adapt.

> those pesky general ed requirements that might accidentally tell people how to fight against the elites running the system

There is no group of people I have encountered in my life that I have as much contempt for as the professors and administrators at the $60K tuition (I went for free) private university that pretended like they were fighting against the elites that run the system when they are, if fact, those elites. The level of delusion in the non hard science parts of academia is absolutely mind blowing.

You hold contempt for teachers, who will probably never make more than 250k a year at their career height, for railing against elites who make millions, or even billions? Most teachers are adjuncts anyway, and are not tenure-track, and are lucky to make over 80-100k in any market.

And you hold this contempt because you believe that these teachers are actually elites in disguise trying to hoodwink our kids?

Have you considered the possibility that you’re wrong about them being elites, or at least to what degree and in what context and sphere of influence? Who benefits from misdirecting legitimate ire away from wealthy elite society and toward middle class intellectual elite society?

Yeah, I make in that range and I'm disgusted by people at my income level who complain about money and are bitter and envious of people richer than them instead of enjoying their wealth. Really a waste of life. Got dealt a great hand and somehow find a way to ruin it.

To say that the crux of their dissent is envy of their betters is an unfounded assertion. Most teachers I know are underpaid, and yet still argue more for $15 nationwide minimum wage than they do for pay raises for themselves. And many of those same teachers have to work those same minimum wage jobs when classes aren’t in session just to pay rent.

I’m not sure who you’re arguing got such a great deal here, as I can definitely identify a few benefitting parties, but it isn’t the teachers, or the middle or lower class folks.

Finger pointing won’t solve the problem, and individuals have unique circumstances and abilities to pay. I’m not sure if you have to work for a living that it is even reasonable to use the word “wealth” in the same way that those who make money from returns on capital use the word.

I see you've tried to change the subject from six figure profs and admins at a private university to teachers working part time over the summer, but that's not what I said and you know it.

Make $150K and you're in the top 10% of the US and top 1% of the world. But go right ahead and waste your golden ticket complaining about how unfair it is that you aren't in that top 0.1%. And if they were, then they would be bitter about that 0.01% because if you make over $100K and can't be happy with it, your problem isn't financial.

Money is power in a capitalist system. It is simply rational for every market participant to advocate for their own interests in the pursuit of capital. It’s not a matter of how much is enough, it’s a matter of each individual deciding for themselves how they allocate capital. More money means more bites at the apple. If you don’t invest in in capital-producing ventures, such as stocks or bonds or real estate, then you don’t have wealth, you have money. Money loses value due to inflation and so is not a great store of value.

I’m not trying to change the subject, I’m presenting my point of view related to my understanding of the thread and the OP to you, in order to help you understand how I see the world, so that I might understand you and the world and myself more fully. I happen to be situated in a context so I can’t really step outside myself and be truly objective but I’m trying to engage with the conversation in good faith and assume you are as well so I’m not sure what specifically you found to be a diversion about my remarks in whole or in part.

“Six figure profs” are topped out as far as income growth. The ones working over the summer may never reach six figures. There are working class, middle class, and upper class teachers, professors, and instructors. To make six figures as one, you’re going to have to be doing it for a while at a high level, at a good school, in a field that makes money for the institution.

I would continue, but I don’t want to “change the subject” so I’ll await your reply.

> But that doesn't stop the salient myth of liberal indoctrination in colleges.

It isn’t a myth.

> mainly because they don't have those pesky general ed requirements that might accidentally tell people how to fight against the elites running the system.

There is value in a varied education, but a substantial number of Gen Ed requirements are used as a soap box by professors who would really rather be teaching something else. Social sciences and the arts tend to be the worst for it: Communications, English, Sociology, and Anthropology. Students want to get rid of these Gen Ed requirements primarily because the course content is treated as ancillary to Foucault, Adorno, and other dead-end thinkers.

https://www.nas.org/academic-questions/31/2/homogenous_the_p...