Customer Reviews

Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth

5 star:		(85)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(51)

 

 

Shapiro's book is on-point with so much. I wish I'd written this book several years ago when I was still in college, and then grad school. It would have helped to quell the frustration I felt at being swept up in the liberal tides that my schools assumed everyone supported simply because we were academics.

I think it's great that there are liberal professors in colleges with far-out ideas. However, there seemed to be (in my experience and, apparently in Shapiro's as well) a false premise in colleges that you must be a liberal in order to be an academic. Further, professors, and other students, often get quite angered if you express a view that is not shared by the class or considered politically incorrect. By the time college is over you become adept at couching and qualifying your statements in order to keep the peace in class and avoid being labeled "right-wing", "intolerant", "fascist", et. al. Admitting that you supported the president or were a Republican, for example, was tantamount to academic suicide in my scholastic career. The irony never escaped me and apparently it didn't escape Shapiro either.

You definitely get the sense that Shapiro is venting his frustrations at being silenced during his college years - as well he should. He seems somewhat bitter at times, which some may find off-putting. Nonetheless, I think this book was probably therapeutic for Shapiro to write since he endured so many attempts to silence him in college. He channeled his frustrations quite well by writing this book. Is the book perfect? Of course not - but he takes good care to back up its assertions with painstakingly researched documentation and footnotes. On the whole, it is a noteworthy book.

I entered college a Democrat, and it was my experience in higher education that made me a Republican by the time I finished my MA in '03. I was simply turned off by the lack of tolerance allowed to ideas that departed from the leftist platform. In turn, I became suspicious, and eventually resentful, of the implicitly (and explicitly) stated assumption that, by virtue of being a college student, you should support liberal agendas. I still think people in this country are deluded by labels. I consider myself "liberal" in the sense that I like to consider and discuss all ideas before arriving at my opinions on an issue. However, since all ideas were not given credence in the classroom, I realized what a misnomer the word has become. Kudos to Shapiro for being willing to discuss this openly and defend the importance of critical thinking.

On a side note, I had a very difficult time finding this book at Borders. It was stocked in a remote, low-traffic area of the store, in a section called "Parenting and Education" (near baby name books and such).
When I tried to pay for it, the cashier looked at the book, gave me a patronizing laugh, and (without being asked) volunteered to tell me why she "would not agree with it at all", being a 20 year-old college student herself. When I explained that Shapiro was actually also 20 and just graduating college, she told me that he surely must be making "sweeping generalizations" about the college experience and how he, a 20 year-old, could not possibly write such a "scholarly book, and pretend he's like...this scholar or something". She got really mad! I suggested we both read the book before pontificating about whether or not he's justified for writing it (which of course he is) and she finally shut up, and I was able to escape. Be careful what you try to buy at Borders! You might not find it, or be subjected to a liberal rant as a reward for shopping there.

Interesting book. I finished it last night and this is an enjoyable read. Shapiro is funny and his points are well made. I myself have spent a few years going after a graduate degree and having had my first 4 years of college in Japan I was suprised with American universities.

There is a review below from a someone from Buena Vista University who makes a good case against the observations in this book. I agree with M. Steel in his claims that this is the way colleges SHOULD work. Unfortunately they do not work like this. Instead of openness I have found the universities I attended in the USA ( 3 of them ) to be the exact opposite of openness. Instead of rejoicing in varied opinions, have the "wrong" opinion will get you flunked. There are no frank and open debates - there is "my way or the highway".

We have campus "speech codes" which suppress debate, we have campus groups destroying flyers for speakers or campus clubs that are not "politically correct" and no debate is tolerated.
I have seen speakers heckled and as one reviewer mentioned about a John Stossel 20/20 segment he was yelled down and not permitted to talk to students with the "wrong" opinion. All viewpoints are not explored only the "correct" ones.

I would be inclined to agree with Steel on the points made if my experience had not been so different. I wa told flat out on several occasions by students and professions that I was no to mention certain things nor was I to ask certain questions.

Based on my own first hand experiences I am inclined to accept Shapiros observations. I have heard thes from others and have seen it on 20/20. I have found that this is typical and not an exception.

Nowhere have I ever seen free speech so suppressed and discouraged than in the American University system and this does not bode well for the future.

Excellent book. Shold be read by all, and not just people who have college aged children I would encourage employers to note what having a university degree really means today. Maybe they already have based on the current high level of outsourcing seen today in American business. Perhaps employers are seeing the quality of American college graduates today and reacting accordingly.

I've only taken 3 courses in community college. My first two were critical thinking and C++ and I experienced no liberal bias. My 3rd class was American Government taught by a Liberal Socialist Feminist. This was my first and only experience with what Shapiro wrote about. This teacher actually made us purchase her $20 book, which was nothing but 85 pages printed and binded by the school print shop. It was all about how the government should pay for 100% of day care for women and pass laws for mandantory 4 years of maturnity leave. About 20% of my final was based on what was in that book.

She assigned us an assignment where we had to go out and pretty much preach her agenda to someone and then write an essay about it. Didn't matter if we agreed with her, we had to do it. When asked by a male student if he could preach against her agenda, he was told he would be failed on the assignment.

I talked with her about this privately while I walked with her to the campus parking lot. I asked her if she was being fair. Her response was "you must be a republican". I said yes even though I'm an independent. Her exact words were "I'll convert you..." stopped walking, stared, then nodded, "I'll convert you.".

I guess it's a good thing I waited till I was 26 to go to college. It's even better that one of my first classes was critical thinking.

I've been in the real world long enough to know not to believe things people say. Especially when they don't back it up with evidence or supporting opinions. This book has both. It's a great read if you're a conservative. If you're a liberal, it's going to piss you off when you realize you were brainwashed. It explains the one stars. I can completely understand the liberals hatred for this book. How would you react if you suddenly became aware of the fact that everything you believe in is wrong and you only believe in it because you were brainwashed. Kind of makes you feel like you're on the bottom of the food chain.

'Brainwashed' is young Ben Shapiro's first book, and it shows.

We have a sharp kid here, reasonably well read for an undergraduate student of a public school. I've spent so much time in university environments (nearly half my life) that I claim a little more experience than Ben has swimming with the sharks.

Shapiro shows an astuteness by identifying the source of the 'brainwashing' as he sees it on the modern college campus: moral relativism. Whether he is right or not depends entirely on the existence of God and the universality of the commandments. If the ten commandments come from a real creator God, then the moral relativism from which all leftist thought flows falls like a house of cards.

And vice versa. The challenge from the Right is to prove God does NOT exist, since the challenge from the Left to prove his existence has been out there for a long time.

Call books like Shapiro's a counterrevolution. After centuries of breakdown of the old moral regime, a huge proportion of the populace looks around at the new, Left-dominated culture and sees an increase in human suffering and a decrease in love and regard for one's fellow human beings that flows from the thesis that there is nothing but the here and now. They see an increase in thoughtless, rude behavior and dishonesty, a callous disregard for the life of any besides the self (especially if the one being disregarded is a child, born or unborn) and like Shapiro they are alarmed at the coarsening and animalizing of humankind that occurs when he forgets to aim for the transcendent and wallows with the beasts instead.

I generally agree with Shapiro. But I'll go further: every place that has embraced the Judeo-Christian morality has seen an increase in human freedom, an increased regard for women and children, greater respect for the property and rights of others, and a less violent way of life. Every place that has discarded the Judeo-Christian way of life has seen increases in poverty, violence, crudeness and corruption.

Does this mean Christianity and Judaism are free of corruption?

Just the opposite: they acknowledge the existence of (and man's susceptibility to) evil, identify it generally accurately and provide tools to fight it. That is why, when the rise of the printing press allowed more and more general literacy and people began to read the Bible for themselves, a reformation, renaissance and enlightenment followed in rapid succession.

As our nation slips back into ignorance of spiritual realities, helpfully pushed into such a sorry state by the education cartel, we will see the most free and prosperous nation in the history of mankind dry up and blow away, to be replaced by another Eurosocialist nightmare. And it's a shame, because Europe is finding out every day that its very premise is a dead end. If we want to follow the rest of the world off the cliff, then I guess we will.

But voices like Shapiro's hint that perhaps, as the rebellion spreads, there is hope for our nation as a shining city on a hill for future generations as well as past. I think the worst of the leftists are hitting retirement age. As the baby boom generation ceases to weild decision-making power and becomes just one huge medical and social security nightmare for the rest of us, the revolt will pick up steam. When you realize, twenty years from now, that more of your paycheck is going to support some greedy geezer than is going to feed your own kids, you too will realize the futility of their plans. Large numbers of us will just shrug our shoulders and stop working. Why bust your ass for the government? It's already happened, most notably back in the Left's Camelot of the USSR. The same dynamic is now picking up steam in the EU. When that train wreck is finished, it has a good chance of repeating itself yet again in the United States of America.

Why is it that we can't learn from the failures of the Left that Life, Liberty and Property are the foundations of a free society, and pay some respect to our own roots, the most sound on the planet? If Shapiro can stick with the themes sounded in the first chapter of his book, engage in meaningful research to provide perspective, and derive conclusions from such sound scholarship, such a work would be, at least to me, more enlightening than the anthology of outrageous anecdotes he provides in most of this book.

But there is definitely a need for the anecdotes to be told to the world.

Here's hoping this is only Ben Shapiro's opening shot, with a devastating salvo of research to follow.

Ben Shapiro couldn't have hit the nail more on the head. Currently a USC undergraduate, I had the unfortunate experience of taking a class called "Media and Society." The class was required to read a book entitled "The Five Biggest Lies Bush told us about Iraq" and listen to speakers like Arianna Huffington and the filmmakers of the left wing anti war/Bush administration documentary "Uncovered". I left this class so utterly disgusted that a communications course had turned out to be such a politically driven brainwashing session. The fact that universities throughout the country are promoting this sort of academia is sickening, and I am glad to see that someone has finally brought this problem to the surface..definitely a must read!

I have been trolling the negative reviews, they often tell you more about a book than the positive ones. This book seems to have struck a few nerves here.

I saw one that referred to this book as "Paranoid Right-Wing Perspective of Education" going on to say: "There is no tolerance among right-wing extremists for anyone to get a different viewpoint".

Actually the truth is the exact opposite. It is the leftist colleges who do not tolerate any other viewpoints. While preaching "tolerance" and "diversity" they suppress any debate that challenges the established leftist positions.

Debate is where you refine your arguments and I have often learned as much from my debating opponents as from my partners, maybe more. In todays schools debate is all but prohibited - well no, actually is prohibited. When you confront the establishment view or the politically correct view you are immediatelt labeled a "racist", or "mean spirited", perhaps you are a mysoginistic dinosaur or an evil oppressor who worships "dead white males".

No debate, no discussion especially if you confront the PC crowd with inconsistencies in their arguments. They refuse to defend themselves or their positions. They will just scream invictives and shout you down.

It's pathetic really and embarassing.

Shapiro has done a wonderful job exposing the truth in todays colleges. Bravo Ben - also very brave.

This book was an entertaining read. Still being in collge, I can relate to almost all of Mr. Shapiro's observations. For example, my first day in a Spanish course my professor proceded to tell us all about the great crimes America had perputrated against Central America. The next day in orientation I was treated to a 20 minute rant about how George W. Bush was undermining civil liberties with the Patriot Act. Oh! And did I mention these were my first and second days in college?
Has anyone else noticed the high number of professors here repeating liberal views while denying a liberal bias on college campuses and blasting Mr. Shapiro? I guess education really doesn't equal intelligence, huh?

To all the reactionaries who gave critical reviews to "Brainwashed": 1) Shut Up! 2) Your review earns an "F." 3) You need to be re-educated, and explicitly show that you respect Shapiro's value system and his plea for diversity. Just kidding! :-) But how does it feel? :-).

I have just one quick point. In "Brainwashed," Shapiro notes that professors consider the New York Times, LA Times, etc. "mainstream" rather than liberal. My experience as a student was that professors considered the NY Times too *conservative.* For research projects, we were told to compare coverage of NY Times, LA Times, Time, Newsweek, etc. to left wing journals -- to see (and write) how conservative the "so called mainstream press" is. When some students asked if we could compare the NY Times to conservative journals (National Review, etc.), we were told no... because "there is almost no difference." The difference, it was said, "is just a matter of degree... their philosophies and framing are the same.... NY Times says we should spend X on defense, and National Review says we should spend X + 5%." Pity the poor student who quotes the NY Times without explicitly challenging their "adherance to the status quo." And forty lashes and re-education to the student who references conservative journals. My suggestion: Read National Review, but keep it a secret... keep a copy of The Nation, put National Review *inside* of it, and read away.... Indiscreet "fronting" with The Nation cover may even raise your grades!! Well, hang in there folks!

Some of the reviews here are absolutely ridiculous, clearly the liberals who trash this book have never read it. To compare an "anarchist" who is marginalized on a college campus to disenfranchised conservative activists is a bad joke. News flash: conservatism is a mainstream political ideology embraced by tens of millions, as currently demonstrated by a Republican Congress and President. If the point of going to college is to become educated then surely in the great buffet of ideas available on campus there should be a place at the table for conservatism. There is an atmosphere of hostility toward campus conseratives, or any unwilling recruit to radical dictums, that quickly brands them as racist, homophobic, or whatever mainstream smear will stick. Notice you can be as socialist as hell in college, and side with Castro or Marx - despite the freedoms these men crushed and the misery they created - and never be labeled a damn thing. No, on college campuses, any opinion nestled between Howard Dean and Mao is commendable, and shows how enlightened you are. This is not higher education, and Mr. Shaprio - without aligning himself with ANY point of view - calls a spade a spade with the hope of encouraging more academic freedom. I read many of the stories and anecdotes in this book, and though I finished college over 10 years ago, my experiences were quite similar. That speech codes and liberal/socialist orthodoxies prevail in today's "universities" of higher learning is a poorly-kept secret. Liberal administrators and tenured professors put associate professors through the ringer to publish in liberal/socialist academic journals in order to win tenure, where these sheltered and insecure leaches on our economy then ladel out their personal opinions and philosophies to a young, uneducated and captive audience. This atmosphere is absolutely suffocating to alternative points of view, especially points of view that veer right of center. My department Dean - whose classes I actually enjoyed, would assume I was liberal and spend long minutes offering leftist viewpoints during office visits. When I good-naturedly informed him I was conservative, he grew visibly uncomfortable and eyed me like I had dynamite strapped to my chest. An English professor once spent 2 classroom lectures lauding the liberalism (or non-materialism) of Thoreau while castigating Ben Franklin because he believed earning money was a virtue. I used to wonder how it would affect HIS lifestyle if most of the parents of the kids to whom he was lecturing adopted Thoreau's lifestyle, and opted out of spending $25K a year for the privilege of attending his lecture. As with many leftist professors, disagreement with him was scorned and agreement with his thesis was praised. So it went at my college whenever politics arose in the classroom. Never did I actually meet an overtly conservative professor in 4 years, I don't recall a professor actually encouraging open debate and discussion. In one year we had visits to campus from both Mario Cuomo and Ronald Reagan. Super Mario's speech was respected and he was unmolested by protests. The liberals, on the other hand, kicked and screamed at Reagan's appearance, first hoping to cancel the speech, then took to blocking the entrance. So much for promoting free speech and the open exchange of ideas. Mr. Shapiro is dang fine writer with a bright future. This book is a funny, readable and meaty text that continues in the fine tradition of academic indictments begun by such books as Alan Bloom's "Closing of the American Mind" and Dinesh D'Souza's "Illiberal Education." To the liberals who will continue to leave 1 star reviews without reading this book, please understand conservatives go heavy into debt to finance their college education, and just want to have their opinions expressed freely and openly on campus without being smeared and attacked, and without fear of grade degradation by college professors who think Johny Kerry is a right-winger. It is great news for all that Mr. Shapiro's book is a best-seller. It is required reading for matriculating college students and all involved in political debate on campus. Perhaps with a little luck, conservatives will have the same freedom to express their opinions as enjoyed by your average anti-American anarchist.

I wish I had read this book before going to college. I became involved in animal rights activism and the pro-choice movement. It wasn't until I joined the real world that I began to see the light. I blindly voted Democrat until I was 28 years old.
Looking back now, I can see how I was manipulated by liberal teachers and the mainstream media. Cable TV news did not exist back then. It wasn't until I started to examine the issues on my own that I realized I was not really a liberal at all. I have read Mr. Shapiros columns online & he is a very thoughful writer. This book will be an eye opener for those who may not be aware of how liberal colleges have become.