Are all university courses in sociology really really leftist?

[yllus]

Someone asked me tonight to describe the Popular Culture course I took in the sociology dept. of my university back in 2000. It was...interesting. The idealogical bent of the course was very, very leftist. The instructor (I refuse to call him professor) went on and on rather heatedly about the evils of capitalism, the dollar, the use of popular culture to 'control' and subjugate women, the use of popular culture to glorify guns and violence. I'd say he was having flashbacks from the sixties if the guy wasn't 28 or so. He was, however, educated at Berkeley.

A lot of my fellow students didn't go in with their eyes open and ears perked up towards the bias of the course. I kept hearing gasps of disbelief and people listening in rapt silence to the instructor railing against capitalism, praising Noam Chomsky, denouncingagainst pretty much everything in the Western world. Some of the studies of movies and television are incredibly laughable - they read *far* too much into EVERYTHING, like the pronounced humiliation of females in episodes of The Simpsons. Hell, the course reader was called "Bang Bang Shoot Shoot".

It kind of made sense then that the workload was as miniscule as possible, simply one essay. Keep us nice and happy with the course while we get fed the instructor's views on how the world should exist.

Okay...long held-in rant off my back, I was wondering if this was a nationwide phenomenon. If so, WHY? You're enjoying the very fruits of this society and all you do is try to find the faults which playing up another system that's never done anything but fail, and fail spectacularly? It seems so hypocritical for people who are supposed to be better educated than this.

 

[bradruth]

I'd say many college courses are leftist in general. It's pretty natural, considering that higher education benefits so strongly from free information, which can only come from a free society.

 

[ScottyB]

Yes, liberals are moral/intellectual capitalists but economical socialists, opposite for the right.

 

[SweetSweetLeroyBrown]

it's good to have some of those leftists teach college students....hell at least it exposes those kids to an alternative view compared to Fox "News"

 

[Mookow]

In general, my sociology class instructors make Mao look like a Republican... OK, well, maybe thats not true... its more of Libertarian.

Seriously, I drove one of my professors absolutely nuts (as in, spittle was visibly flying, and I wasnt sitting very close) during the argument between myself and him after he said "I think we can all agree, guns are bad and should not be available to the public". I laughed, he asked what was so funny, I said he had to be joking. I thought this because he had spent the previous two lectures saying, in essense, "think for yourself" and "question everything", and he had not at this point shown what a frigging idiot he is.

The argument ended when he flat out told me in front of the entire class that he was going to fail me, and I told him I would be talking to the ombudsman that day, and giving copies of every grade for every paper/quiz/test I recieved in the class to the ombudsman... which I did. Plus I had a lot of fun during the discussions... :evil:

 

[paulney]

guns and violence. I'd say he was having flashbacks from the sixties if the guy wasn't 28 or so. He was, however, educated at Berkeley.

Haha. This reminds me of a History AC (American Cultures requirement) I took with Litwak at Berkeley. Very similiar experience.

2 baselines for the course:

1. Kill whitey!
2. Capitalism sucks

For extra credits you can blast Ronal Reagan all you want.

 

[yllus]

Yeah, sounds like the guy I had. He spoke with such disdain for opposing viewpoints and got into the habit of cutting down people with questions so quickly that I (with my dreams of a perfect GPA still intact) decided to stay low profile. Managed an A- with a final essay on the evils of computer games influencing our kids towards guns, hahah. What a crock!

 

[Mookow]

Originally posted by: SweetSweetLeroyBrown
it's good to have some of those leftists teach college students....hell at least it exposes those kids to an alternative view compared to Fox "News"

My experience with leftist teachers at college can be summed up with the following list of what they taught:

-We support freedom of thought/speech, just as long as it agrees with us. Disagree with me and I will fail you.
-The white man is responsible for every bad thing... EVER.
-Any good thing that history says was invented by a white man... well, he really stole that idea from a "minority person"
-Women are a "minority", never mind statistics
-Asian's arent
-A woman's right to choose is unlimited... if she wakes up in the morning and reconsiders her choice to have sex with you last night, last night was rape.
-If a man and a woman have sex, and the woman has had a glass of wine and the man has had 18 beers, the man raped her, because she was under the influence.
-Any gun with a black stock has only one purpose, killing people.
-All guns are evil and will spontaneously shoot people, even if no one is operating them

I could go on, but I really had intended to stop with the first one, then decided that a few more wouldnt hurt. So I'll stop here.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Yeah... sociology teachers at JCs are even worse.

 

[GoingUp]

Originally posted by: bradruth
I'd say many college courses are leftist in general. It's pretty natural, considering that higher education benefits so strongly from free information, which can only come from a free society.

 

[silverpig]

I have a friend who's doing a sociology degree and she even said that there are certain lines of thought you're supposed to follow. Her teacher once admitted to being a(n) (insert weird sociological type of thought here) and apparently that made her somewhat of an outcast amongst the faculty.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

BTW Mookow, you forgot "Michael Moore is the 2nd (fat) coming of Christ."

 

[Feldenak]

Originally posted by: Mookow

Originally posted by: SweetSweetLeroyBrown
it's good to have some of those leftists teach college students....hell at least it exposes those kids to an alternative view compared to Fox "News"

My experience with leftist teachers at college can be summed up with the following list of what they taught:

-We support freedom of thought/speech, just as long as it agrees with us. Disagree with me and I will fail you.
-The white man is responsible for every bad thing... EVER.
-Any good thing that history says was invented by a white man... well, he really stole that idea from a "minority person"
-Women are a "minority", never mind statistics
-Asian's arent
-A woman's right to choose is unlimited... if she wakes up in the morning and reconsiders her choice to have sex with you last night, last night was rape.
-If a man and a woman have sex, and the woman has had a glass of wine and the man has had 18 beers, the man raped her, because she was under the influence.
-Any gun with a black stock has only one purpose, killing people.
-All guns are evil and will spontaneously shoot people, even if no one is operating them

I could go on, but I really had intended to stop with the first one, then decided that a few more wouldnt hurt. So I'll stop here.

Yeah, that pretty much sums up my experiences as well.
The one professor that really took me by surprise was an econ instructor who was devoted Libertarian...I wasn't expecting that.

 

[Mookow]

Originally posted by: Feldenak

Originally posted by: Mookow

Originally posted by: SweetSweetLeroyBrown
it's good to have some of those leftists teach college students....hell at least it exposes those kids to an alternative view compared to Fox "News"

My experience with leftist teachers at college can be summed up with the following list of what they taught:

-We support freedom of thought/speech, just as long as it agrees with us. Disagree with me and I will fail you.
-The white man is responsible for every bad thing... EVER.
-Any good thing that history says was invented by a white man... well, he really stole that idea from a "minority person"
-Women are a "minority", never mind statistics
-Asian's arent
-A woman's right to choose is unlimited... if she wakes up in the morning and reconsiders her choice to have sex with you last night, last night was rape.
-If a man and a woman have sex, and the woman has had a glass of wine and the man has had 18 beers, the man raped her, because she was under the influence.
-Any gun with a black stock has only one purpose, killing people.
-All guns are evil and will spontaneously shoot people, even if no one is operating them

I could go on, but I really had intended to stop with the first one, then decided that a few more wouldnt hurt. So I'll stop here.

Yeah, that pretty much sums up my experiences as well.
The one professor that really took me by surprise was an econ instructor who was devoted Libertarian...I wasn't expecting that.

Actually, two of my three econ profs only described themselves as "fiscally conservative" and the third called himself a Libertarian. I guess most of the time, if you study long enough to get a Masters or better in Econ, you find out that capitalism is the most efficient method of producing goods and services. OTOH, every now and then you keep your nose in the books too much and never experience the real world, and we have a word for that: communism.

 

[Wuffsunie]

Originally posted by: Mookow
My experience with leftist teachers at college can be summed up with the following list of what they taught:

---

I could go on, but I really had intended to stop with the first one, then decided that a few more wouldnt hurt. So I'll stop here.

Aw, you were going good, too!! These are great More, please!

We have a faculty on my campus called Information and Media studies that I hear devotes a good part of the first few years' courses to the evils of capitalism and the corruption of the media Not that I've gone to any such classes, mind you.

 

[Feldenak]

Originally posted by: Mookow

Originally posted by: Feldenak

Originally posted by: Mookow

Originally posted by: SweetSweetLeroyBrown
it's good to have some of those leftists teach college students....hell at least it exposes those kids to an alternative view compared to Fox "News"

My experience with leftist teachers at college can be summed up with the following list of what they taught:

-We support freedom of thought/speech, just as long as it agrees with us. Disagree with me and I will fail you.
-The white man is responsible for every bad thing... EVER.
-Any good thing that history says was invented by a white man... well, he really stole that idea from a "minority person"
-Women are a "minority", never mind statistics
-Asian's arent
-A woman's right to choose is unlimited... if she wakes up in the morning and reconsiders her choice to have sex with you last night, last night was rape.
-If a man and a woman have sex, and the woman has had a glass of wine and the man has had 18 beers, the man raped her, because she was under the influence.
-Any gun with a black stock has only one purpose, killing people.
-All guns are evil and will spontaneously shoot people, even if no one is operating them

I could go on, but I really had intended to stop with the first one, then decided that a few more wouldnt hurt. So I'll stop here.

Yeah, that pretty much sums up my experiences as well.
The one professor that really took me by surprise was an econ instructor who was devoted Libertarian...I wasn't expecting that.

Actually, two of my three econ profs only described themselves as "fiscally conservative" and the third called himself a Libertarian. I guess most of the time, if you study long enough to get a Masters or better in Econ, you find out that capitalism is the most efficient method of producing goods and services. OTOH, every now and then you keep your nose in the books too much and never experience the real world, and we have a word for that: communism.

Heh, the first day of class he ran a bunch of liberal arts majors out by stating his government & economic beliefs.

 

[Mookow]

Originally posted by: GoodRevrnd
BTW Mookow, you forgot "Michael Moore is the 2nd (fat) coming of Christ."

Yeah, I havent taken a soft class since BfC (Bull-f***ing-Crap aka Bowling for Columbine) came out, with the exclusion of one African American History class. And my instructor was too busy chanting "kill whitey" to get into anything else, with the exclusion of why she thinks racism is justified, as long as it is against whites.

 

[Mookow]

Originally posted by: Wuffsunie

Originally posted by: Mookow
My experience with leftist teachers at college can be summed up with the following list of what they taught:

---

I could go on, but I really had intended to stop with the first one, then decided that a few more wouldnt hurt. So I'll stop here.

Aw, you were going good, too!! These are great More, please!

We have a faculty on my campus called Information and Media studies that I hear devotes a good part of the first few years' courses to the evils of capitalism and the corruption of the media Not that I've gone to any such classes, mind you.

I'll post a few more as they come to me tomorrow. Right now I need to get some sleep... time to get ready for bed.

 

[Willoughbyva]

I had a pretty decent experience with a few lower level Soc. classes. I really enjoyed them. They were not about the types of things you guys are refering to. I took them at a cc so I guess we werent as politically charged as you guys schools.

 

[0roo0roo]

your fault for taking sociologiy

 

[SSibalNom]

both i took were..... I remember one of the teacher's claiming "most white people in L.A. think armenian's are terrorists"..... everyone can tell what an armenian is by now who lives anywhere in town

 

[GermyBoy]

Ahh...the illusion of 'free.'

 

I've taken one sociology course at U-M and the professor was a self-admitted former member of the Socialist Party. The class was called "Introduction to Information Studies." I'm now taking a history course titled "The U.S. Since 1945" that thoroughly discusses the evils of the '50s, including the repression of women, the evils of the capitalist mantra, and the Beat generation, and how the Beats are wholly responsible for the amazing cultural explosion that happened in the early-to-mid '60s, with no influence from the mass-culture of discontent that began when Vietnam took a decided downturn.

I can see through the biases of the classes I take (in most cases) but it's always interesting to hear other viewpoints on decades I always thought were a certain way.

 

[WinkOsmosis]

Of course they are leftist. It's sociology. Do you bitch that your economics classes are rightist??

 

[bigalt]

I think you're right. I found out early on that it was best to end all your papers with "...and therefore women and black people are superior and should be given the highest paying jobs."