When Did Academic Go Left?

Old Virginia Blog ^ | 01/27/2009 | Richard G. Williams, Jr.

[Dumb_Ox]

It's sometimes anachronistic to label old movements by "left" and "right" but there are indications of the leftward drift in American pragmatism. See Menand's The Metaphysical Club.

Also see American History Association President Charles Francis Adams' 1901 address:

"That politics should find no place at its meetings is, I believe, the unwritten law of this Association; and by politics I refer to the discussion of those questions of public conduct and policy for the time being uppermost in the mind of the community. Taking into consideration the character and purpose of our body, and the broad basis on which its somewhat loose membership rests, the rule may be salutary. But there are not many general propositions not open to debate; and so I propose on this occasion to call this unwritten law of ours in question. While so doing, moreover, I shall distinctly impinge upon it."

It marks the beginning of a self-consciously activist and politicized academy.

The blogger Mencius Moldbug has proposed that the U.S. government is in fact run by academia. The universities set the bounds of acceptable intellectual debate and demand billions in research funds, while their alumni fill the boardrooms and news rooms of the country.