And an industry in which I believe we both have a vested interest - healthcare/pharmaceutical industry. This is a battle I am fighting every day.

{Salute}

MOO, one of the effects is that it keeps those in a specific silo from seeing the diversity of thought and intensity of debate in other silos.

I think most recent college grads would probably agree with me, although they would likely present their POV in rosier terms than me.

After all, "equality" sounds like an American value, right? And "fairness"? "Justice"? "Opportunity"? But those words have a much different meaning today than they did 200 yrs ago (largely thanks to academia).

Start with egalitarianism. Look at a few of the big movements on college campuses over the last few generations:

People must be equal in college training regardless of academic or financial preparation (open admissions and open financial aid).
People must be equal in jobs and promotions, regardless of qualifications (the quota system).
People must be equal in cultural prestige, regardless of talent (such as art subsidies for minority groups).
People must be equal in authority regardless of knowledge (such as Student Power).
People must be equal in moral respectability regardless of behavior.
People must be equal in credit for achievement regardless of achievement (such as the movements against grades and sports scores, and "weighted" grades (giving someone with a perfect score a "B" and someone who would have failed a "C+" because "they tried")).

IOW, values properly belong to those who have reached the eminence of not having achieved them.

And of course, there are now entire divisions at some universities dedicated to egalitarianism, such as the Division of Equity, Inclusion and Diversity at UC Berkeley.

The question was straightforward but I'll rephrase it.

Rather than making up what people you've never met think, please do elaborate on the direct experience working in the Ivory Tower or working with eggheads. Or have you simply researched the issue with the same vigor you've investigated European and American history?

My experience with academic administrators (mostly in California, some in New England) has been that they sincerely think they have integrity, honesty, and so on, in the way they treat and interact with their staff and students. They also work hard at trying convince others that they do. One reason for their ongoing success is that they are often quite effective in those efforts--in part, over the long term, by actually redefining what those words mean to most people. But if you look closely, I don't believe most of them have those things, at least in the age-old sense of what they are.

A few questions can sometimes be very revealing, provided the questioner knows what they're looking for. For example:

Would you deny admission to a high-achiever if it meant you could help a "deserving" under-achiever?
Should an under-achiever who "tried" be told they succeeded when they didn't? Would doing so diminish the value and meaning of success for those who did?
Are you always honest with your students, regardless of their cultural background?
Are there morally correct reasons to fight and kill? To go to war? What are they?
Are there any cultures or beliefs you would reject as being fundamentally flawed and evil?
If someone's cultural heritage includes abuse of women, does that make it OK for them to continue the "tradition"? Is their "good" different from yours?
Are songs or art about despair, death and killing just as good as ones about living and the joy of life?
How free should people really be? Should society impose strict limits, controls and redistribution of wealth "for the greater good"?
Is it OK for society to allow people and organizations to fail?

Of course, I wouldn't expect straight answers or absolutes. I would expect qualifications galore: "it depends" ... "compared to this" ... and so on.

I agree there is a silo problem.

You mention "the attraction of like minded 'believers'". My question is this: believers in what?

This is an interesting-- even, as you put it, "very revealing"--approach to open discourse: ask leading questions so one can confirm existing notions and validate expectations of how others think.

I worked with "eggheads" in "Ivory Towers" for the better part of three decades. I spent much of that time in the land between governments and both universities and corporations--some on the defense research side, and some on the private/commercial side. Most of my experience was in California, with a heavy dose of DC.

I'd say that California (UC-B in particular) and DC are not representative of ANYthing for the rest of the USofA, even academia. Making such sweeping generalizations about an entire 'industry' on those two experiences would seem to me to cast doubt on your assumptions.

Throw in Arizona State, U of Nebraska, Oklahoma State U... and others and you might have something.

I'm the first to admit that CA schools are extreme examples. However, many of the ideas that started there have spread.

Also, you don't have to work at or attend schools all over the country to be able to see a nationwide trend. Do you think the schools you mentioned don't have programs like the ones I described?

For example, ASU has a very active diversity program. The university president said, "Arizona State University's commitment to inclusivity is central to its mission as a New American University and is evident throughout its diverse and talented community." Parse that carefully: central to its mission.

http://diversity.asu.edu/home

What they don't say is that "inclusivity" really means including some while excluding others--and the others are more qualified.

They also say, "#1 for doctorates earned by Hispanic students in mathematics and statistics." Why not something about what their graduates have produced? Or the quality or superiority of their skills? I suggest it's because those aren't the goals. In fact, they've stated what seems to be the key goal: lots-a-doctorates for many who wouldn't have been able to qualify without the school's diversity program.

Kind of validates the concept of people don't know what they don't know.

IMO, your attribution so much of the recent intellectual currents to the UC system ("many of the ideas that started there have spread") as opposed to placing correctly many of those ideas at other academic institutions in America, Great Britain, and Europe, calls into question your assumption that you can assess what is happening on a national level based upon your own experiences.

(IIRC, the Frankfurt School wasn't known as such because its members hobnobbed on Sproul Plaza. Nor did the British Marxists earn that collective descriptor because they shot the breeze in front of Sather Gate. And while Foucault did do some stomping around at Cal, it wasn't until well after he'd made his reputation in France. Also, many of the jump off points of the bitter historiographical debates of the past sixty plus years were at places that included Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Texas at Austin, Columbia, Yale, and the University of Rochester.)

And as long as I'm speaking parenthetically, your grasp of American history is equally controversial. Take for example your comment:Here's something you may not have considered. The leg work for the changing meanings of many of those terms was not done by academics but by normal, every day people who sought to expand the promise of American freedom to cohorts that had been excluded previously.

Exactly, thank you.

You obviously haven't driven by any of ASU's campuses (Is it - or should it be - "campii"?) of late. I don't think the university excludes ANYbody. :D:D

I'll leave discussion of those horrible programs that scare you so much to others. I was concentrating on the main idea of the OP as to whether all the Commies On Campuses (once again... 'Campii"?) were brainwashing our youth in vast numbers.

I just did not, and do not, see it happening in large numbers at ASU (UofA is another kettle of fish altogether :D), and don't think it happens in great numbers at UN-L, or many other places.

YMMaODV (Your Mileage May, and Obviously Does, Vary)

Brainwashing... I suppose it depends on what your definition is and to what degree one considers what is actual brainwashing.

I'm a little rusty in the child psych and child development department, but it seems to me that brainwashing, to a degree, begins at (or even before) birth.

But for the purpose of responding to some of the more recent posts, I would put forth that brainwashing is and has occurred by the state starting in kindergarten. It continues throughout the middle and high schooling. I believe that by the time one reaches college, the brainwashing process is mostly complete and what is occurring there is the validation of said brainwashing...

It seems to me that our schooling (brainwashing) has changed (evolved).

The issue at hand is not that brainwashing occurs, it is rather whether or not that we like the results of the current process...

See The Lamest Generation Thread.