Smarting

In The Chronicle Of Higher Education, UCLA professor of history Russell Jacoby reviews David Gelerntner's latest on how left-wing academics are dismantling our culture.  I had no plans to read the book, but the title of the review, "Dreaming of a World With No Intellectuals," sounded like it might be a fascinating examination of the anti-intellectualism of the Right.

I was wrong.  In place of analysis, Jacoby uses sarcasm.  It's so obvious to him that modern-day conservatives, as exemplified by Gelerntner, are nutty that he figures all he has to do is give a cursory explanation of their positions, add a little sneer, and he's done.

Too bad, as it only confirms what conservatives already believe--that academics are know-it-alls who actually know very little. (Not that conservatives necessarily read the Chronicle. In fact, that's another sign of the problem--Jacoby knows his audience so doesn't feel he has to prove much.)

This claim about conservatives is not exactly new--it's been around for decades.  But there's an argument the phenomenon is getting worse.  For some reason, many conservatives these days openly and proudly reject the authority of the academic world.  And not just in the social sciences, but the hard sciences, too.

Why they do I can't say.  I suppose, in part, it takes two to tango.  Our universities have essentially been taken over by the left, so why wouldn't the right be suspicious?  But which came first, and is the conservative response an overreaction?

I'd like to see a discussion of this some day, but apparently it won't be coming from Russell Jacoby.