Campus Conservatives gain power

plenty of P'town action in this lenghty (6,000 word) but quite interesting piece. The thrust is that right-of-center students are making serious in-roads against an overwhelmingly left-of-center institutional academia.

I don't remember any obtusely politicized lectures while at Princeton, but first, I was far less conscious of it, and secondly, the national political tone was less charged. Sure, there was plenty of talk about Clinton and Monica, but the stakes just weren't there. Impeachment was an academic exercise; war in the Middle East is all too real. And sure, most of the campus supported Gore over Bush, but that had far more to do with our preference for someone we deemed to be about as smart as we were vs. someone we deemed an idiot. Switch their parties and I think the campus would have switched with them.

I don't doubt the phenomenon, though. I think Ireland will be on the lagging edge of this one though, as my experience here has been that of the lone American, expected to stand for all charges against the US. I've seen angry anti-US political diatribes that have absolutely nothing to do with class content, and I've heard plenty of snide comments that assume everyone listening shares the same leftish politics. I've buckled against the system at times, mostly out of principle. It just doesn't feel intellectually honest to get such a one-sided view of contentious, unresolved issues. I don't doubt a more organized movement will come.