Originally Posted by Kai (Post 476790)

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. I can only say that your experience is different than mine. Therefore, our opinions will differ ;)

A few questions can sometimes be very revealing, provided the questioner knows what they're looking for. For example: I am confused as to who is the "questioner" and to whom the questions are being asked. If you are asking me, I will answer in a separate reply to this post. Please advise.

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. From this line I presume that the foregoing questions are asked of a "hypothetical composite" academic. If I am correct in this assumption, I reply by saying that, IMHO, the questions posed are relativistic and not designed to invoke an absolute answer and therefore are not instructive of the responders personal values (honesty, integrity, etc.). Rather, the answers to your questions that you are posing are revealing of the responders thought process. These are two very different things. As a youth I was strongly influenced by the writing of Bishop Joseph Fletcher "Situational Ethics". To illustrate my point. Question: "Is murder immoral?" Answer: "Yes" Question: "Is killing immoral" Answer: "It depends". Question 1 is revealing of the responders moral values. Question 2 is revealing of the responders thought process.

I agree there is a silo problem.

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

Originally Posted by Sigaba (Post 476821)

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.)

Originally Posted by Sigaba (Post 476821)

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.

Originally Posted by Kai (Post 476790)

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

Originally Posted by Kai (Post 477069)

I was thinking of UC in the context of things like the Student Power movement. However, which schools contributed exactly what is immaterial to the point I'm trying to make.

If you want to trace the full history of the ideas of the modern Left, you would need to go much further back, including philosophers like Hegel, Kant and Plato.

Originally Posted by Kai (Post 477069)

My view (based on both personal experience and history) is that while "normal, every day people" have a general sense of what they think is right -- such as "expanding the promise of American freedom to cohorts that had been excluded previously," it's the intellectuals in the country who flesh out those ideas: Who are our cohorts? What does it mean to be excluded previously? What is the promise of freedom? How do you expand it? Why is it a good idea? The answers to these questions are not obvious, and in fact require a substantial philosophical foundation.

In the US, where is the primary home of intellectuals? I would argue it's in academia.