I read the chronicle of higher ed conversation (may be a temporary link) between Michael Bérubé and David Horowitz, the conservative academic who wrote The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America (Regnery, 2006). Frankly, I think Bérubé was funny as hell and kind of yanked on Horowitz a bit, but frankly I think Horowitz’s arguments are a bit… reactionary? not very critical?
Anyway, thought I would post links here for readers. Check out Michael Bérubé’s blog, which has been nominated for the 2006 Weblog Awards, in the category “Best Educational Blog.“ I wish him good luck, he’s a funny man.
Oh, perhaps dumb was the word I was looking for. Yes, dumb.
Uh, either you’re being sarcastic or you really don’t know much about Horowitz(?) He’s a hack that’s trying to get states to adopt what he calls a “Students’ Bill of Rights” – which contains, among other gems, the idea that a student has the right NOT to be exposed to political/cultural ideas s/he doesn’t like. And he girds it in the language of academic freedom, which is really, really annoying.
Berube (how do you add the marks above his name?), on the other hand, is a brilliant writer and very, very funny (and his stories about his son Jamie are marvelous examples of how to humanize one’s child). And he totally digs Critical Social Theory in a very pro-Habermas, upbeat lit-crit sort of way (there are more mentions, these are just the first few I found):
http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php/weblog/liberal_thursday_iv_special_travel_edition/
http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php/weblog/still_nation_time/
http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php/weblog/2004/03/P24/
On the other hand, he has a tendency to dismiss almost anything to his political left. Sometimes he argues against it, but sometimes he’s just snarky.
Oh, I meant Horowitz’s arguments were dumb, not Bérubé’s, if I was misunderstood there. Yeah, I know about Horowitz.
oh, and accents above the e? On a mac (the, you know, superior machines), type ‘option e’ and then ‘e’. The only way I’ve ever gotten it to work on a PC is through copying and pasting (when in a web browser).