The first McDonald’s opened on January 31, 1990 in Moscow. This powerful symbol of American-style capitalism attracted over 38,000 hungry Soviets desperate for a taste of wondrous Americana.
Americans concerned about what they’re teaching on college campuses would be wise to internalize the above anecdote, conservatives in particular. Conservatives are singled out because they’re notably so worried about what’s being taught on college campuses. If we forget that “what they’re teaching the kids today” is as old as college campuses, and a major modern cultural trope (does anyone remember Archie Bunker?), we can’t forget that the truth is much more powerful than lies. Though the Soviet citizenry had been taught for decades about how awful the United States was, the people knew differently. Advertising is only effective if the product being promoted is good. Propaganda or classroom instruction similarly can’t overcome a lousy, frequently evil product.
It’s worth keeping in mind as conservatives lament their allegedly insufficient representation in the “academy.” College campuses are said to be overly populated by the left leaning, socialist, communist, Israel hating, and conservatives are worried. They want more of their kind at the front of the classroom. More realistically, they should be bullish about the makeup of college campuses. Think about it.
The fact that left-wingers dominate the academy is a sign that the enterprising aren’t choosing to be professors. FedEx founder Fred Smith is famously right leaning, supposedly the library within his office is full of books authored by names like Friedman, Hayek, and Von Mises, at which point we should pause. Would we be better off if the Yale-educated Smith had chosen a life within academia that would have included teaching students the undeniable genius of Mises et al, or if he’d done as he did and started FedEx? Hopefully the question answers itself.
The simple, rather bullish truth is that those who think highly of enterprise frequently migrate to enterprising pursuits over becoming professors. Good. The previous tautology hopefully helps explain to conservatives the ideological makeup of professors on college campuses: those on the left have a greater tendency to choose academia, and logically have a greater tendency to hire those who think as they do. Good once again. How impoverishing if those with an entrepreneurial bent chose to suffocate it on campus.
And for those who lean right but who also yearn for a life of ideas, don’t fear discrimination care of professors and universities. Think Arthur Laffer and Robert Mundell, two conservative heroes to varying degrees sidelined by the academically minded. Thank goodness they were. Instead of teaching small numbers of students, they became public intellectuals, thus reaching exponentially more people through the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. Considering the great George Will, is there a way to calculate the millions fewer people he would have reached if he had spent all these years as a college professor instead of a globally syndicated columnist?
Yet despite powerful reasons for optimism, the present state of affairs is not a happy one for always-pessimistic conservatives. Increasingly comfortable playing the victim, they lament their lack of representation within the professor ranks. They worry about their kids being brainwashed by socialists, anti-Zionists, or name your “ist” or “ism.” See above. Stupid ideas aren’t very persuasive, nor does a lack of representation on campus limit the spread of good ideas.
Furthermore, it’s more than a bit disturbing to witness conservatives clamoring for representation in areas where they feel under-represented. For decades they’ve criticized affirmative action based on race, only for them to seek it based on ideology. They felt affirmative action besmirched the achievements of those who allegedly benefited from it, that it called into question the why behind the matriculation or hiring of its alleged beneficiaries, but now they demand more of their viewpoint in university classrooms, and much more odious, they demand it from businesses like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter that they feel censor them.
Which brings us to college campuses themselves. Up front, the right to be ridiculous is fundamental. It’s sad something so basic requires stating to conservatives, but it seemingly does. That is so because conservatives have seemingly forgotten this truth as evidenced by their browbeating of the presidents at Harvard, Penn, MIT, etc. These presidents were asked if they would discipline students calling for genocide of Jewish people. Their responses were evasive and ridiculous, but then isn’t that the point? Conservatives have long disdained the ridiculously left lean of Ivy League style schools, so why the browbeating? Or the professed surprise? From there, why stop braindead left wingers as they’re exposing their braindeadedness? Instead of hauling these individuals before Congress in an attempt to force them to say what they don’t believe, isn’t the better choice for conservatives to protect the right of individuals to be ridiculous?
If foolishness is protected speech, then there’s a logical market reaction. And we’re witnessing it right now. Billionaires including, but not limited to Bill Ackman, Cliff Asness and Marc Rowan have made plain that they’re pulling their financial support from Harvard (Ackman) and Penn (Asness, Rowan), no doubt MIT will suffer too, at which point it’s no reach to suggest that some or a lot of kids who are Harvard, Penn and MIT material will take their talents elsewhere. Many will achieve billionaire and eventually trillionaire status despite having not attended Harvard et al, only for schools like Harvard to suffer their braindead ideological ways in the marketplace.
The simple truth is that support for Hamas or moral equivalence about Hamas is mindless, as is talk about the mass murder of Jewish people. At the same time, the right to be stupid via the right to say horrifying things is crucial. Conservatives should be defending the right of the left to show their true colors precisely because they seek to discredit braindead thought.
To which some will reply that Harvard and schools like it employ a double standard: talk of mass murder of Jewish people is allowed, but the mere mention of something similar about transgender people or women is grounds for dismissal. The double standard is offensive, but two wrongs don’t make a right. If Harvard is led by people who require “context” about calls from students for Jewish genocide, then logic calls for would-be or existing donors to direct their wealth elsewhere, and for would-be or existing students to go elsewhere. Conservatives rightly love markets, so let them work. And if the reply is that it’s hard to pass on a Harvard degree, education or whatever, conservatives can’t have it both ways. If the highest of high Ivy Leagues is defined by racism, hate, communism and socialism, then the degree and/or education can’t mean as much as it used to. Go elsewhere instead of enlisting politicians in some weird, lefty-style effort to force Harvard professors and administrators to think as you do.
Lastly, it’s useful to point out to conservatives that many of those who lean conservative in media are “talking their book” as it were. They write endless columns about suffocating illiberalism on campus, publish books promoting the same, but the suggestion here is to look deeper at their manufactured horror. Most of those reporting how awful the intellectual climate is on elite college campuses make a nice living speaking on those same college campuses. Count me among those on the right lucky enough to get to speak on campus. Anecdote is far from fact, but I've always been treated very well despite talks with titles like "The Unrelenting Genius of Wealth Inequality." Eventually an enterprising reporter will attend speeches by the more alarmist on the college speakers' circuit, and they'll find much more often than not that my experience mirrors that of those who've made careers out of scaring parents into believing colleges are populated by totalitarian professors and weak-kneed kids in the fetal position, sucking their thumbs.
The main message to conservatives here is that we’re not victims, nor are our kids. A walk of any college campus today is a reminder of this truth, as is the left lean of the faculty. Thank goodness for the latter. The enterprising are doing instead of teaching.
Instead of self-soothing with up-in-arms-ranting about how mean the lefties are, how about we let them be? If they're as bad as we think, we win as the “best” schools are reduced by decreases in donations and in matriculation by the talented. In other words more markets, less victimhood.
