American Universities: Conservatives Need Not Apply

[Baron Max]

Well would you enact a business plan that would make you $500,000, if you knew that some people might starve because of whatever policy you employed?

Well, that's sorta' what the ethanol manufacturers did when the big gas scare came along. In the interest of clean air, etc., they built large ethanol production plants to turn corn into fuel. Now not enough people are buying cars that buy ethanol, so the production plants are being shut down and people are being laid off.

Now .......is that a conservative plan or is it a plan created by the liberals to make the global warming disappear? You tell me whose plan it was.

Baron Max

 

[James R]

madanthonywayne:

Most likely very few Republicans are into academia as a profession

And why do you think that might be? Because us Republicans are so durn dumb?

It's because teaching students requires carrying about somebody other than yourself.

The enviroment in US universities is hostile to conservative, patriotic ideas.

That doesn't seem to reduce the net number of conservatives in America. Maybe conservatives don't attend universities...

 

[Roman]

Theology, for example, can be highly intellectual. And yet, you would label that conservative.

So can astrology or alchemy. That doesn't mean it should be valued.

 

[madanthonywayne]

Calling the Vietnam War a big mistake isn't even conservative, it's the consensus of the nation.

No, it's the consensus of the Left. The right believes the war was lost by politicians. Particulary the Democratic congress that refused to provide the aide to South Vietnam that we'd agreed to provide once we pulled out. Instead, we abandoned them and let the commies rip them to shreads. Resulting in millions of deaths.

You might have known this had your education not been so one-sided.

 

[madanthonywayne]

Being intellectual doesnt mean thinking hard about making money, it means making money but weighing the pros and cons of the ways you make money and not jsut sticking to the course of action that you decided is best, taking in opther peoples views is part of being intellectual.

well I would say alot of college students are pro gay rights which would exclude them as a hardline christian, or conservative

being ethical is part of being an intellectual

You see how narrow minded and one sided your thinking is? Your view of conservatives is one dimensional. Superstring is fairly conservative, yet I'm pretty sure he's pro gay rights. Perhaps if you were exposed to some actual conservative intellectuals, you might have a more realistic opinion. Too bad they're not allowed to teach on college campuses.

 

[pjdude1219]

You see how narrow minded and one sided your thinking is? Your view of conservatives is one dimensional. Superstring is fairly conservative, yet I'm pretty sure he's pro gay rights. Perhaps if you were exposed to some actual conservative intellectuals, you might have a more realistic opinion. Too bad they're not allowed to teach on college campuses.

superstring is a true conservative not a neocon i'm guessing when people are saying conservative they are refering to the neocons and not true conservatives

 

[madanthonywayne]

That is, to be sure, the standard view of the history of the conflict, but assuming the people in the history department believed that to be the truth, then wouldn't anyone who viewed Vietnam as a "noble cause" be seen as sort of a simp?

Your summary was good.

But are you seriously saying there's not another side to the story? That there weren't other factors in play that you haven't accounted for? That events could not be interpreted in a different, yet equally valid way by some one coming from a diffent ideological viewpoint?

There's two sides to every story. Except at US universities. There, you only get one side. The side that makes the US look the worst.

 

[pjdude1219]

Your summary was good.

But are you seriously saying there's not another side to the story? That there weren't other factors in play that you haven't accounted for? That events could not be interpreted in a different, yet equally valid way by some one coming from a diffent ideological viewpoint?

There's two sides to every story. Except at US universities. There, you only get one side. The side that makes the US look the worst.

your right in that there is always more than one side to a story but not all of them are going to be equally valid

 

[madanthonywayne]

your right in that there is always more than one side to a story but not all of them are going to be equally valid

Of course not. But the universities are seeing to it that only one side gets presented. Valid or not.

 

[spidergoat]

No, it's the consensus of the Left. The right believes the war was lost by politicians. Particulary the Democratic congress that refused to provide the aide to South Vietnam that we'd agreed to provide once we pulled out. Instead, we abandoned them and let the commies rip them to shreads. Resulting in millions of deaths.

You might have known this had your education not been so one-sided.

You know as well as I that if the US couldn't defeat the North, then neither could the south, even with "aide".

 

[Tiassa]

Resources

Moyar, Mark. "Villager Attitudes During the Final Decade of the Vietnam War". Texas Tech University, 1996. See http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/vietnamcenter/events/1996_Symposium/96papers/moyar.htm

Moyar, Mark. "An Excerpt from Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965". January Magazine, October, 2006. See http://www.januarymagazine.com/features/triumphexc.html

Moyar, Mark. "Heritage". Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965. TriumphForsaken.com. See http://www.triumphforsaken.com/index.php?pr=Excerpt

Moyar, Mark. "An Iraqi Solution, Vietnam Style". New York Times, November 21, 2006. See http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/opinion/21moyar.html

Moyar, Mark. "Knowing When to Let Go". Washington Post. December 6, 2006; page A25. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/05/AR2006120501130.html

Moyar, Mark. "The Vietnam History You Haven't Heard". The Christian Science Monitor, January 22, 2007. See http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0122/p09s01-coop.html

Moyar, Mark. "Halberstam's History". National Review Online, July 5, 2007. See http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ZTI2N2RhOTRjMTQxZGY2NWE0NmYzOWJjOWE4ZDhhMjg=

Dallek, Robert. "To the Editor". New York Times, November 22, 2006. See http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E00E4DF133EF930A15752C1A9609C8B63

Halberstam, David. "The History Boys". Vanity Fair, August, 2007. See http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/08/halberstam200708

History News Network. "Mark Moyar: Q & A with the author of a revisionist history of the Vietnam War". October 3, 2006. See http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/30490.html

Moise, Edwin. "A Glance at Moyar's Book". History News Network, October 8, 2006. See http://hnn.us/comments/99133.html

Marano, Lou. "Vietnam Myths". History News Network (UPI), February 5, 2003. See http://hnn.us/comments/8161.html

Horwood, I. "Review of Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954–1965, Mark Moyar", (review no. 584). See http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/ paper/ horwood.html

Owens, Mackubin Thomas. "A Winnable War". The Weekly Standard, v.12, i.17, January 15, 2007. See http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/133ccyfj.asp

D. "Conservative Sob Stories". Lawyers, Guns and Money. May 2, 2007. See http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2007/05/conservative-sob-stories.html

• • •​

I was going to post this list without any comment, merely a resource list, but that last link actually raised an issue that we're not going to hear much about in this discussion, so I thought I'd highlight it. The author comments, in fact, on the New York Sun article I posted earlier:

As always, I'm not as stunned as I'm apparently supposed to be to learn that yet another Eagle Scout, Harvard graduate and published author has failed to land a job in the historical profession, where a glut of qualified Ph.D.'s -- conservative or otherwise -- are either working part-time, laboring away in non-tenure track positions, or abandoning the profession entirely for law school. I'm also quite literally yawning as I reflect on the fact that he's applied to 150 positions in five years. Only 30 jobs per year? Who does this fellow think he is?

Seriously now. The job market for historians is a humiliating, soul-spindling meat grinder, a fact to which I would happily attest more specifically off the record and over multiple strong drinks with anyone who feels like looking at the clock every five minutes and wondering when this guy is going to shut the fuck up. That said, I obviously can't speak to the specific reasons why Moyar failed to receive interviews or job offers from Iowa, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Old Dominion, or any of the other schools who rejected him (although I assume from the tone of the article that I'm supposed to be annoyed that someone who studies culture received an offer instead of the almighty Mark Moyar.) Now I'm hardly an expert on the vicissitudes of the job market, and I'm pretty much a non-entity in my field, so the appropriate caveats apply here. But I've served on five search committees in five years, and I've seen highly intelligent, qualified applicants who were not moved along for all kinds of reasons. The fact that he received letters from "top scholars" tells us nothing -- most credible applicants to these schools would also enjoy such endorsements. The fact that he's published two books is also not necessarily meaningful. I know a well-regarded lit scholar -- a radical environmentalist, no less -- who teaches in a highly undemocratic nation because his two books (published by two very good university presses) weren't enough to land him a decent job in the US. Unlike Moyar, though, this fellow isn't suing one of the schools who rejected him.

Perhaps Moyar didn't receive a preliminary interview because his areas of expertise didn't mesh with departmental needs (I've seen that plenty of times); perhaps he received a preliminary interview and was completely unprepared (I've seen that at least once a year); perhaps his job talk was an incoherent disaster (seen it three times); perhaps he came to campus and wouldn't shut up about how amazing and interesting his research was (seen it once); or perhaps he just rubbed everyone the wrong way and -- all else being equal -- just didn't seem like a good colleague.

And sure, maybe at the end of the day, it didn't help that Moyar's scholarship argues that Ngo Dinh Diem was a capable South Vietnamese leader who could have prevailed in an anti-communist counterinsurgency if only American journalists like Neil Sheehan, Stanley Karnow and David Halberstam -- communist dupes to a man -- hadn't persuaded Americans that Diem was a font of corruption and brutality. Maybe scholars are a bit suspicious of someone willing to argue that the Kennedy administration was justified in asking the New York Times to fire Halberstam in 1963 because his reporting paid insufficient tribute to US "national interests."

(D)

The reader comments after that last are incredible, too, especially the one from an anonymous and alleged former Texas Tech faculty member:

I was a faculty member in the Texas Tech history department when Moyer stopped in for his interview and job talk. He argued that we should have won the Vietnam war by bombing dams in North Vietnam, flooding the farmland, and drowning the peasants. Only we didn't have the "political will" (or something to that effect) to do it. He was like a character from Dr. Strangelove. He also argued that we actually won the Vietnam war, in a strategic sense, by buying time to split the Chinese from the Soviets. In addition, he had the personality of a robot. The person who got the job (the position was for a historian of the Vietnam War) was a much better fit for the department, and a Vietnam combat vet. Describing the chair of the TTU history department as a "conservative Republican" is like calling the Marquis de Sade "slightly kinky." Politics certainly played no role in his being turned down.

(Anonymous)

And there's one from an alleged Univ. of Iowa faculty member that explains the following:

It's interesting to see who Texas Tech hired. His name is John Miram. The fellow graduated from Wayne State University and the University of Houston. Not only is he qualified to teach courses on Vietnam, dipolmatic and military history, he has qualifications in US government, industrial relations, and political science.

If you want academic diversity, there it is. In fact, this is far more diverse than what Moyar has to offer, which seems to be a singular interpretation on the Vietnam war.

Yet, Moyar places himself in a position of academic dishonesty when he refuses to compare or even mention Milam's experience beyond academics. Whereas Moyar seems to have zero experience outside of the classroom, Milam has a lifetime of realworld experience he can draw from. He served as vice president and senior vice president in a variety of transnational corporations. He was also a decorated officer in the United States army. He was also an military advisor in Vietnam.

Now, who would you rather learn about Vietnam from: a decorated participant or an eagle scout who learned about Vietnam in Boston and in England?

I'm trying to give Moyar the benefit of the doubt, but so much of what he says (especially about the other candidates and the departments that turned him down) is clearly misleading and at times false.

(UofIowafaculty)

Look, there are political problems in classrooms all over the United States. But once we look past the glitter and sparkle on his resume and publicity pushes, we find some valid questions that Moyar and his advocates aren't addressing.

 

[Grantywanty]

Are the people who are so damn concerned about liberal universities at all concerned about how most of us were taught until recently that Manifest Destiny justified the way we treated native americans. that elementary textbooks, as one example amongst many, never mentioned indentured servants or did not make clear what this was like. I think after the hallucinatory, jingoistic, conservative pap I had smeared on my face through public schooling it was only fair I got to hear the other side at college.

 

[Why?]

What are "market rules"? In a completely free market, price fixing is legal and so is lobbying for legislation that makes your company more money. Republicans are following market rules. Market rules are the rules of the jungle. It's up to government to protect itself from corruption to regulate the market for the benefit of its citizens. You blame Republicans for what I deem as quite predictable behavior. You should blame the government for not protecting you. The market is like a football game. Cheating is part of the game, unless the ref penalizes you. The government is the referee. Don't blame the players. Blame the refs.

 

[Grantywanty]

What are "market rules"? In a completely free market, price fixing is legal and so is lobbying for legislation that makes your company more money. Republicans are following market rules. Market rules are the rules of the jungle. It's up to government to protect itself from corruption to regulate the market for the benefit of its citizens. You blame Republicans for what I deem as quite predictable behavior. You should blame the government for not protecting you. The market is like a football game. Cheating is part of the game, unless the ref penalizes you. The government is the referee. Don't blame the players. Blame the refs.

I am not positive what you are referring to, but in the context I love the argument. If there is something wrong with hiring only liberals and lefties as professors, the market should work it out. Students and their parents will choose colleges with more conservatives. Why are conservatives whining about something that their oh so perfect market should take care of. In fact they should wonder about their theory or shut up.

 

[Grantywanty]

Of course not. But the universities are seeing to it that only one side gets presented. Valid or not.

Why doesn't the market adjust this situation? Conservatives trust the market to adjust all sorts of things? Why isn't the market adjusting this? You, yourself, could in fact start up a college with conservative (or a balanced) faculty. Why are you whining?

 

[Grantywanty]

No, it's the consensus of the Left. The right believes the war was lost by politicians. Particulary the Democratic congress that refused to provide the aide to South Vietnam that we'd agreed to provide once we pulled out. Instead, we abandoned them and let the commies rip them to shreads. Resulting in millions of deaths.

You might have known this had your education not been so one-sided.

A look at present day Iraq should humble any certainty about all the lives that would have been saved in your hypothetical past.

 

[joepistole]

Indeed there are conservative colleges and universities founded by leading conservative evangelicals (Earl Roberts, Liberty University, etc). A good choice for those who don't like to hear anything but the conservative line. What bothers me most about many of these conservatives is that if you do not tow the party line, you are a liberal or a treasonous soul...same thing in their minds.

 

[qwerty mob]

Dear neo-cons: "cry me a river, I'll build you a bridge... and we can stand on my bridge, and pee in your river."

 

[Pandaemoni]

Your summary was good.

But are you seriously saying there's not another side to the story? That there weren't other factors in play that you haven't accounted for? That events could not be interpreted in a different, yet equally valid way by some one coming from a diffent ideological viewpoint?

There's two sides to every story. Except at US universities. There, you only get one side. The side that makes the US look the worst.

Of course there might be another side to the story, but if you seriously believe that this guy's version of the "other side" is just wrong, then you are going to pass him by (especially if his competing vision is to bombs the dams in North Vietnam, to hell with the civilian casualties--I don't think anyone seriously argues that we couldn't have won the war if we'd set aside our reluctance to cause widespread civilian deaths in the north, but for obvious reasons that was never really on the table). That was my point.

There is a difference in my mind in passing someone over because you don't like his politics and passing him over because you think his theories on the Vietnam War are seriously and fundamentally flawed. There is some overlap in the more recent rise of certain Vietnam apologists who tend top be disproportionately conservative, but I do think that a formal distinction can be made between rejecting him for political reasons and rejecting him because you think he's holding on tight to an incorrect interpretation of history (even if his politics play a role in why he holds his particular views).

If I were hiring an ancient history professor, and I found one who seriously believed and intended to teach ancient history under the assumption that the Bible is literally true and infallible...I think I'd be justified in passing on him. There is certainly a case to be made (not a presently academically popular one, but the case has been made in the past), that Biblical accounts of history are inerrant, but since I really, truly and honestly don't believe that, I'd feel foolish hiring that person in the name of intellectual diversity. I see that as different than passing him over on the basis of his religion...it's passing him over primarily on the basis of his view of history.

There are some things I know to be true that I nonetheless feel are debatable, and as to which I understand that I might be wrong. Nonetheless, there are certain counterarguments even against these debatable positions I believe in, which I view as invalid--because even if I am wrong, I "know" (or at least confidently feel) that these particular counterarguments are definitely wrong. Even if that confident feeling proves to be wrong, and the counters I dismiss prove to be correct, I think it's legitimate for me to rely on those feelings in the hiring process as a filter. Otherwise, I will start giving equal time to people who deny the Holocaust or who feel that the U.S. was behind 9/11 and is funding bin Laden.

If the history department has its collective head up its ass too far to see that he's making a legitimate point, and honestly believes that he isn't, then I don't see why they should hire him. If they're wrong then they'll look foolish in the long run. There is no "viewpoint affirmative action."

 

[quadraphonics]

You know as well as I that if the US couldn't defeat the North, then neither could the south, even with "aide".

The point was never to defeat the north, but rather to defend the south.