A conservative explains what's wrong with academia

[Simon_Jester]

OK... sounds like that guy had a whole swarm of issues that had little to do directly with religious fanaticism. I get the feeling that that guy would have been badly mentally unbalanced even without the Jesus-freakery; his crazy-stupid behavior would have just taken different forms.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

What is PACS 101? Googling it gives things like Physics and Astronomy Classification System and Political Action Committees, none of which seem appropriate.

Peace and Conflict Studies.

[Oskuro]

I think I agree with your point here, but when you say they're choosing to live in their fantasy, are you also implying that they must know, on some level anyway, that it's a bunch of bullshit?

I don't think they believe they are wrong, but i'm sure they are aware that they could be wrong, so rather than scrutinize their own ideas, or expose themselves to rebuttal, they close up their mind.

[Darth Wong]

Update: Rebecca implied that he was being close-minded, so he responded with this gem:

PACS 101 did grant some opportunity for me to learn, and also to open my mind. There are no question that there was some "mind opening" going on for myself. In fact I can say that on several issues my position changed and I was challenged to think things through and question my perspectives. The changing of positions or adapting a different perspective did not happen on every issue or in the face of every challenge especially when it meant conflict with faith based beliefs and or principles which I believe in. That is why I pointed out that on some issues I am not necessarily willing to "accept" a slightly different interpretation. That may can give the impression of arrogance or closed-mindness however I would be highly disingenuous if I claimed I was accepting an interpretation completely contrary to a belief I had already stated. With regards to voilence... I ...a few times as a child smacked my brother over the head with a plastic shovel. I had all the water and food I needed. When I addressed the question in the test I brought it back to the "sinful nature" and stressed the nature of man rather than social causation.

Take a good look at that. He says he learned to open his mind, but not "when it meant conflict with faith based beliefs". Notice how he says that he refuses to accept any interpretation "contrary to a belief I had already stated", and then says that this might "look" like arrogance, but presumably he thinks it is not. What else can it be? He's saying "if I've already said the answer is A, then I reject anything which might imply any other answer".

I also like the way he dismisses the idea of resource competition as a cause of violence with an anecdote about how he hit his brother as a child even though he was well-supplied with food and water. Holy fuck, what an imbecile. Never mind that "human sinfulness" is common to all societies and is therefore obviously inadequate to explain why violence erupts in some situations and not others, or why it is more endemic to certain societies than others. And I think it goes without saying that he never considered the question of why Christian nations were no less prone to violence than other nations in history. With his previous E-mail, one might have given him the (huge) benefit of the doubt and assumed that he carelessly described what was actually a more nuanced position, but in this E-mail he actually says that the cause is not social.

PS. For those who asked, PACS does indeed stand for "Peace And Conflict Studies".

[Thanas]

Fundies and history...yeah, I have known similar stories for a long time. One time a professor started going on about christian martyrs using historical fact and two fundies apparently found it very painful to listen to.

There are many fundamental christians who succeed at History though. For example, a very close friend of mine is a very conservative catholic, but she is easily able to seperate religion from science.

Apparently, the guy failed at even that.

[Vendetta]

Notice how he says that he refuses to accept any interpretation "contrary to a belief I had already stated", and then says that this might "look" like arrogance, but presumably he thinks it is not. What else can it be?

Since his position is, presumably, based on the Christian faith, he believes that it is not arrogance because it is a position he has received through his faith, not one he thought up for himself.

And because he has received this position through his faith, which he will, I am sure, say that he professes with all Christian humility, any contrary positions must, therefore, be arrogant and closed mided.

[Count Chocula]

There are many fundamental christians who succeed at History though. For example, a very close friend of mine is a very conservative catholic, but she is easily able to seperate religion from science.

Apparently, the guy failed at even that.

In that respect, I'm fortunate that my mother chose Dahlgren Chapel, which is on the grounds of Georgetown University (and also the site of several scenes from The Exorcist), for my sister's and my church attendance and catechism. The priests who gave Mass, and those who taught catechism, were Jesuits. For those of you who quite reasonably don't know the ins and outs of the Catholic faith, the Jesuits are the official black sheep of the faith. Jesuits are the faction of the Catholic church who question the premises of Catholicism, explain them, and tie them in with morality and civil culture to the extent they are able. They are the part of the faith that does its best to reconcile Catholicism with the rational, modern world, and as such are much more open to ideas in general than your typical doctrinaire priest. Among the traits they exhibit is a healthy skepticism, which carries easily into academia. Which makes sense from my point of view, since Georgetown is a Catholic university that accepts students of all faiths. The Jesuit perspective, in my opinion, gives a healthy leavening to the faith and an acceptance of different points of view that's not present in the mainstream Church....including many of the Catholic private schools. Ironically, I didn't really question the core tenets of Catholicism until I went to Catholic school in Virginia, a school which was frankly far more hidebound than the church I attended every Sunday.

Back on point, and reinforcing my earlier supposition, this man seems to be completely blinkered by the self-reinforcing feedback any doctrine will produce in a newcomer to it; especially one who has not had either life experience or opportunity to develop his/her own moral compass. This man has reached the point where he has apparently rejected his previous life and embraced his new, 'better,' view of the world, but has not reconciled his new view of the world with his own experiences.

To give him the benefit of the doubt, it's possible he's at the "revelation" phase but has not reached the more nuanced, variegated "enlightened" view of his newfound faith and how it actually affects his perspective.

[Darth Wong]

To give him the benefit of the doubt, it's possible he's at the "revelation" phase but has not reached the more nuanced, variegated "enlightened" view of his newfound faith and how it actually affects his perspective.

He's actually an old acquaintance from Rebecca's university days ... two decades ago. He has not improved; after twenty years he still thinks the professor shafted him by giving him 38% for his idiotic "man's sinful nature" argument on the origins of conflict. The quotes I printed here are taken from his current statements about events that took place twenty years ago. He was certain that he was right back then, and he is just as certain today. He hasn't learned a damned thing.

[The Yosemite Bear]

The situation most of us find ourselves in, is that articles of faith are internally inconsistant. I've been raised mixed Jewish/Catholic, and I realize there's big descrepencies. In deed I've found the only way to take holy writ. is as Alegory and poetry, In fact I find it a big break through when I can in conversation get a fundamentalist to understand that the good book is mostly prose and allegory.

[Count Chocula]

He's actually an old acquaintance from Rebecca's university days ... two decades ago. He has not improved; after twenty years he still thinks the professor shafted him by giving him 38% for his idiotic "man's sinful nature" argument on the origins of conflict. The quotes I printed here are taken from his current statements about events that took place twenty years ago. He was certain that he was right back then, and he is just as certain today. He hasn't learned a damned thing.

Holy cow, he's drunk the Kool-Aid. Twenty years ago I was a conspiracy theory, secret cabal, Jesus-had-a-kid-with-Mary-and-his-bloodline-survives, the CIA is a Fordham-Catholic-Knights-Templar cabal, and Area 51 Has Aliens conspiracy theory aficionado. Since then, I've learned to actually apply logic and facts to a given situation.

If this guy, who's apparently my age or close, still hews to beliefs he learned 20 years ago, he's either mentally lazy, comfortable (nay, supremely satisfied) in his beliefs, or has not bothered in the last generation to fact-check any of his suppositions. Based on your information, he's a thin thread away from being a lost cause.

[Darth Wong]

Holy cow, he's drunk the Kool-Aid. Twenty years ago I was a conspiracy theory, secret cabal, Jesus-had-a-kid-with-Mary-and-his-bloodline-survives, the CIA is a Fordham-Catholic-Knights-Templar cabal, and Area 51 Has Aliens conspiracy theory aficionado. Since then, I've learned to actually apply logic and facts to a given situation.

Wow. I always thought you had a bit of Kool-Aid in you still, but it sounds like you've made huge strides over the past 20 years. You should be proud of yourself.

As for him, he's a sad case of someone who hit his intellectual peak at 18. You occasionally run into guys like that, who have not grown at all since high school. It's just a tragic waste.

[Vympel]

My worst intellectual moment was buying for a period of some months in 1996 (I was 15, ok?!) Von Daniken crackpot nuttery about the pyramids and similar stuff in some book about Gods or something.

[Darth Wong]

I can't blame anyone for believing stupid shit when he's 15. That was so long ago for me that I don't remember much, but I'm sure I believed some stupid shit at 15 too. The question is whether you've improved since then, unlike the retard described in this thread.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Holy cow, he's drunk the Kool-Aid. Twenty years ago I was a conspiracy theory, secret cabal, Jesus-had-a-kid-with-Mary-and-his-bloodline-survives, the CIA is a Fordham-Catholic-Knights-Templar cabal, and Area 51 Has Aliens conspiracy theory aficionado. Since then, I've learned to actually apply logic and facts to a given situation.

Wow. I always thought you had a bit of Kool-Aid in you still, but it sounds like you've made huge strides over the past 20 years. You should be proud of yourself.

As for him, he's a sad case of someone who hit his intellectual peak at 18. You occasionally run into guys like that, who have not grown at all since high school. It's just a tragic waste.

If it were not for the fact that they are a good chunk of humanity and thus have political power, they are also excellent Schadenfreude fodder. They do not know it, but they are suffering. They are squandering their intellectual potential, and it is their own doing.

[Gil Hamilton]

I'd have failed him for his paper too, on the grounds that "Mankind's Sinful Nature" is not an argument. You can make an argument which has that as a PREMISE and probably make a well constructed paper out of it*. It sounds like his professor failed him because he turned in a shit paper, and less because of the nature of the content contained within. Like any self-centered person whose gotten a bad grade on something, he took the wrong lesson away from the bad grade.

(*after all, crafting a good argument doesn't depend on the specific content, but how logically you organize and present this information. I don't see any reason why you couldn't craft a paper blaming societal violence on Mankind's Fall at the Garden of Eden, if you write it well)

[Darth Wong]

(*after all, crafting a good argument doesn't depend on the specific content, but how logically you organize and present this information. I don't see any reason why you couldn't craft a paper blaming societal violence on Mankind's Fall at the Garden of Eden, if you write it well)

Sometimes it's impossible to present an argument without using some really weak logic to support it. This looks like one of those cases. No matter how carefully you constructed the argument, you would end up blaming violence on a factor defined as universal to all humans, thereby begging the question of why it is worse in some situations than others. If you're going to blame something universal which might interact with other factors (ie- the real causes), why not blame violence on the biological need to eat? No one would defend the idea of submitting a paper which blames "the stomach's hungry nature" as the cause of violence.

[Gil Hamilton]

Sometimes it's impossible to present an argument without using some really weak logic to support it. This looks like one of those cases. No matter how carefully you constructed the argument, you would end up blaming violence on a factor defined as universal to all humans, thereby begging the question of why it is worse in some situations than others. If you're going to blame something universal which might interact with other factors (ie- the real causes), why not blame violence on the biological need to eat? No one would defend the idea of submitting a paper which blames "the stomach's hungry nature" as the cause of violence.

It depends alot on the quality of the writing and how good you are at argument. You can argue logically and reach a correct conclusion for anything, based from certain premises being true. It's hard to tell without actually reading his paper, but you can argue even outlandish premises if you construct your argument logically.

I just think from what he wrote that what happened was that he turned in a shit paper with the expectation that if he wrote the Good Lord's Truth that his professor would crown him with an A for telling it like it is (or some such bullshit) and got mad that he was whipped because such assertations don't make good arguments.

[Junghalli]

The thing is, as Darth Wong said, "man's sinful nature" is not a bad answer, it is not really an answer at all. Assuming humans have "sinful nature" it's something that everyone has, yet not everyone commits violence to the same degree. Since some people commit more violence than others there must be other factors at work to explain that, and "sinful nature" would be a constant in all cases and therefore of no value as a factor in a comparitive analysis. For "man's sinful nature" to be a meaningful answer some people would have to have a more sinful nature than others, causing them to commit more violence.

You could argue humans wouldn't commit violence if they didn't have a sinful nature, but since "sinful nature" is not a scientifically testable concept* that would be impossible to prove without using Scripture - i.e. appeal to authority of a book of highly dubious accuracy (its main claim to accuracy being itself an appeal to authority; "this is God's word"). And therefore that too would make a pretty worthless poli-sci paper.

* You could redefine it into being testable by defining it as a catch-all term for various tendencies in humans that are scientifically testable. I suspect that isn't what this guy did though.