I'm so sick of hearing right-wing academics play victim.

Maybe the reason they are under represented in academia is because when the majority of students who evolve into full-time acdemics learn to think critically and analyse social situations based on reason and what is best for society, they are drawn more to a 'leftist' view on politics.

What a miserable smorgasboard of comments! They simply underscore the author's contention that the left can't see the mote in its own eye, and, when challenged, attack the messenger instead of dispassionately debating the message.

In reading this piece from Rohan D'Souza you have to remind yourself that its original purpose and intention was to entertain the self righteous political theories and phobia’s those who religiously read the IPA.

Ssshhh. Preselection in his liberal party branch must be heating up?

Its interesting to note that D’Souza claims to come from a Labor background but I don’t for one minute think he actually knows what a Lefty is. I think he tends to confuse Labor with Leftism. Nothing new in this , so does the current Labor party.

So you’re happy, jeremy29, for Mr D’Sousa to make sweeping statements about Australian academics even when he acknowledges there’s no evidence (“no contemporary statistics about the political leanings of Australian lecturers and tutors.”)?

And you’re happy for him to contradict himself throughout his essay?

If you publish on a forum like this one, it is reasonable to expect your arguments and your evidence to be scrutinised. It was Mr D’Sousa, after all, who said “It is the nature of academics to challenge and criticise popular thought”.

I’ve re-read the original essay and can’t find what you find - Mr D’Sousa saying that “the left can't see the mote in its own eye, and, when challenged, attack the messenger instead of dispassionately debating the message”. jeremy29, I smell a whiff of hypocrisy in your “smorgasbord” attack.

I have long wondered what the terms left and right wing mean, other than lazy thinking. Yes I know there are long if somewhat tedious monographs devoted to defining differences and maybe they are right. To me the terms are shorthand for stated positions for which assertion masquerades as truth. This an assertion or observation of events?

This article apart from pointing out the left, avoids the hurly burly of corporations and is dominant in Universities, based on one citation, does little to clarify the idea of left and right.

Just over 50% against presumably less! Full reference is not given, which may just show my ignorance, conflating politics and scholarship I assume.

The idea of uni is in part to teach the process of thinking or more recently to produce the economic ciphers needed for the Country and its GDP and foreign policy. Which, how to think or belief?
Agreed exclusion of views is and should not be part of education. Only after critical analysis of fact and reasonimg allows entry. Unlikely in the cases you cite.

This seemingly is the opposite of democracy for here the elector can be denied requisite knowledge on the grounds of secrecy or it being the Government’s role within democracy?
Certainly this allows us to get worked up by propaganda material in which the intelligence is made to suit the cause. The intelligence is then found to be the excuse for the action, Flood report.
Certainly given the revelations of the Downing Street Memorandum (report of the UK cabinet 2002) leaked May 1 2005 show the intelligence indeed was made to support the case for war, though the revelations concerning wheat in to-day’s AGE and SMH show the needs of the market may play here as well, the necessary compromises of competition?
The frightened country running to its latest mummy, replacement for the UK, has all the hesitations of youth balancing family and self.
NZ has apparently grown up.
A little less than 50% of academics in Australia need not teach this, excused from implication.

Frankgol, I think you've hit the nail on the head. One of the common place and pathetic right wing strategies is to hit and run and then blow raspberries from a distance. Do they ever really engage in critical discussion with the Left? Of course not. Why? Because it’s too Leftist. What a copout! As for academics all being Lefties, well the last time I looked there were all sorts roaming the corridors of my local university. You can’t help someone not seeing what they desperately want to see.

Finally Rohan D'Sourboy claims that " Some theorists argue that academics always oppose the dominant political system, regardless of what the system is"

Which theorists are these? John Howard? Peter Costello? Keith Windshuttle?