David Yeagley at FrontPage Mag.com sums up a recent debate between former Marxist radical turned conservative David Horowitz and the notorious University of Colorado professor, Ward Churchill. The debate was on the role of the instructor in the university classroom, and this passage in the summary caught our eye:
Horowitz believes that a professor should teach subjects in which he has been trained, and in which he has expertise. A professor should teach the truth, and teach "about" the subject, objectively, rather than advocate personal opinions or conclusions. The classroom is not a place for the professor's political advocacy or recruitment of followers. The classroom is not for indoctrination, nor for the preaching of ideological prejudice.
Ward Churchill believes it is impossible for the professor not to advocate his own opinions. Unavoidably, he must "profess." Moreover, Churchill denounces the idea that there is such a thing as truth, about any subject. Truth is merely the opinion of those in power, and such opinion has never been kept out of the classrooms of America. The classroom is a place of advocacy.
If Churchill really believes that there is no truth about any subject, what does he think is the point of advocacy? In the absence of truth, advocacy of one's political opinions is like advocacy of one's preferences in ice cream. According to his own assumptions nothing Churchill says is really true, so all he's doing with his advocacy is telling his students something about his own mental states. Why does he think that anyone should care about that? Indeed, if there is no truth about anything then Churchill's claim that there is no truth is self-refuting.
And this is the quality of thinking that the taxpayers of Colorado pay the guy $100,000 a year to dispense to their sons and daughters.
