NY Times Conservative/Academic Agitprop

According to a NY Times article, conservatives are paying hard cash to influence academia right-wards:

- Religion-focused Where's religion in all this?

- Apologist for cultural marxism. "They also understand, however, that any mature academic discussion has to take into account the fact that numerous groups have been historically marginalized and excluded from the discourse." Awww...

- The logician wonders why conservatives don't simply argue their case. (Arguing this case would look something like Socrates' conversation with Protagoras.)

- The testosteronic rightists who comment that "It's about time we purge the leftists from academia!" - a la Stalin I suppose?

- Is the left leaving academia? Finally there are the perplexed, who at least are decent in perplexity.

I would like to make some comments.

First and foremost, the source of the information is the New York Times. I have been led to believe the NY Times cannot be considered a reputable newspaper.

Second, look at the tone. Clearly the way the original article is written is calculated to drive newspaper sales... it's inflammatory, it emotionalizes the issue, and it irresponsibly fails to give any practical sense of the context of the issue. Because of the lack of context, the blogosphere must invent one, which leaves it up to the bias of the writer.

Naturally, the story gets picked up by those who are attracted to emotionalized material, and so the most obvious responses are from the most extreme positions. You get the strictly logical critique, the hawkish rightists, the leftist evasions... all of which have simply added their own context to the story.

You want to know what I think?

I think the New York Times is simply not telling the truth.