David Horowitz's newest book, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. Horowitz edited and rewrote many of these entries, some of which originally appeared on a website devoted to uncloaking the identities and activities of the political left. The Professors is a compendium rather than a woven narrative, but its pages are always informative and occasionally quite stunning.
In these short, appalling mini-biographies we are made privy to the belief systems of those most responsible for the decline of the American university. Many of these academics were veterans of the counter-cultural experiment that was the 1960s, and they began their long march through the institutions after reaching adulthood. By blocking the hiring of their ideological opposition, they have created an environment wherein long disproven theories like Marxism and post-modernism are able to still flourish and emit their poison into the greater culture.
Their devotion to power and control may be totalitarian but it certainly has been effective. By denying that there is such a thing as "objectivity" they are able to repudiate the need to search for truth and turn their sections into clubs for aspiring radicals. They then excuse their actions by declaring their "engagement" and that teaching of all forms is "a political act." Veritas is replaced with opinion while students receive credit for attending rallies and writing papers about why George W. Bush is a war criminal.
The worst abuses occur in the liberal arts departments which are held prisoner to the race, gender, and class religion. Nowhere is the anti-intellectualism of these academics more prominently on display than in their racism. They claim to be "liberals," but the depth of their race-based hatred is startling.
Obviously the left will avoid reviewing this work. From my past dealings with them I believe they will summarily dismiss The Professors by labeling it a McCarthyist blacklist plot, and also that those figures discussed are in no way characteristic of college faculties on the whole.
Let me respond to the possible McCarthyist objection first. Although "Naming Names" is best practice in regards to university bias, David Horowitz does not have the power to blacklist anyone. What this work accomplishes is to merely give notice to those leftists who disguise themselves as "liberal" and excuse their propagandize with the phrase, "everything's political," that we're ready to highlight and respond to their transgressions. Identification should allow some students to avoid being subjected to their machinations. Hopefully, more and more moderates will become aware of the brainwashing in store for their children, and boycott colleges which allow lecturers to confuse activism for instruction.
As for representativeness, Horowitz addresses this question in his third chapter. He convincingly postulates that universities are conformist by nature and that faculties are formed in the image of those who do the hiring. This is the method by which our campuses have reached the point of toxicity and where radicals reign supreme. Many times the "long short list" of potential candidates for positions is narrowed down by the department chair and reflect their ideological inclinations. The rest of the department is then presented with a fait accompli or a "pick any leftist you want" scenario when approving new colleagues. The law of group polarization causes colleges to become more and more left wing as, with no dissenting opinions to counter-balance it, the center moves to the extreme.
What one is left with upon completion of The Professors is a sense of sadness. Yes, it's easy to laugh about the don who believes that teaching proper English is akin to oppression, and of the gay professor who opens sections by announcing, "My name is Michael Vocino and I like d*ck," but somebody somewhere is having their bank account, prospects, and perceptions destroyed by this useless evangelizing. Just how many sections of "Gender, Nationalism, and War," "Hip-Hop Eshu: Queen B*tch 101-The Life and Times of Lil' Kim," "They've Killed Kenny," or "Feminist Geography" must one take before being considered truly educated? Such questions are best left unanswered if you're a comptroller at a liberal arts institution.
Students mortgage their futures to pay for classes which will only delude, demoralize, and miseducate them. Only the very young and impressionable could survey America and confuse bounty, liberty, and security with oppression, conspiracy, and hate; yet, novices are exactly the people whom these pseudo-intellectuals lord over. In light of this work and the admission that school is now all-too-often a place for indoctrination, perhaps the next time someone impugns the reader for questioning the patriotism of the left, quote to him or her the words of a scholar : "Under no circumstances, therefore, should we ever support the U.S. government or believe what it says." This can be more accurately applied to the multitude of pronouncements and publications emanating from our corrupted universities.