Tuesday, April 12, 2005
So - here's my thought (or three)
Very rough, very preliminary thoughts, subject to change or clarification at a moments notice.
One argument I hear for why there are so few conservatives in academia is that they "self-select" out and get high paying jobs in the private sector, whereas liberals prefer to dwell in Ivory Towers and take the low(er) paying jobs in academia so they can espouse Marxism without the taint of market forces driving their jobs (or something).
It's not reasoning I really buy. Why? Well, mostly because that seems to implicitly insult the few conservatives who do decide to serve in academia by claiming they just can't get the high paying jobs.
Second, those conservative who get the high paying jobs have to get an education from somewhere, and it seems to me that argument encourages conservatives to see education as useless or at least secondary to the true goal of making lots of money. Maybe I'm just not cynical enough, but I would like to think that there are conservatives besides myself who see education important for its own sake, and not just because it will make them rich.
One argument I hear for why there are so few conservatives in academia is that they "self-select" out and get high paying jobs in the private sector, whereas liberals prefer to dwell in Ivory Towers and take the low(er) paying jobs in academia so they can espouse Marxism without the taint of market forces driving their jobs (or something).
It's not reasoning I really buy. Why? Well, mostly because that seems to implicitly insult the few conservatives who do decide to serve in academia by claiming they just can't get the high paying jobs.
Second, those conservative who get the high paying jobs have to get an education from somewhere, and it seems to me that argument encourages conservatives to see education as useless or at least secondary to the true goal of making lots of money. Maybe I'm just not cynical enough, but I would like to think that there are conservatives besides myself who see education important for its own sake, and not just because it will make them rich.
