Important to distinguish better informed from being smarter…calling R’s stupid or idiotic is wrong imho. Saying they are under informed and have messed up values is fair game
Critical thinking is,the enemy of the rw Christian nationalists. They have spent billions of dollars and decades destroying American education to ensure the demise of educated thinking voters.
They know this. that is why they have attacked education for decades. They really don't want education to be accessible to everyone. Populations are easier to control when they are ill educated .
“We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat. … That’s dynamite! We have to be selective on who we allow [to go to college].” ~1970 Gov Reagan's education adviser Roger A. Freeman https://theintercept.com/2022/08/25/student-loans-debt-reagan/
The more you learn and the more new information you are exposed to, the more you can accept differences in people and cultures, and the more you appreciate those differences.
Next thing you know, you are a "liberal".
I'm considerably non-religious and had a priest as theology professor. Almost every paper I wrote spoke against his beliefs. Got an A on all. Real education is about learning to think and communicate your ideas. Not about indoctrination. Don't work in the field I studied, but I was better for going.
Me too-I never worked in the field I studied, but l came in contact with real scholars and learned to appreciate (even marvel) at academic scholarship. The fact that only a few people would ever read most of their papers did not stop them from spending a year researching and writing it.
This narrative bolsters the myth that the d-bags on Wall Street, who all went to good colleges, were just so awesome and strong willed that they resisted the "indoctrination" others fell into.
Spoiler Alert: Those lawyers surrounding Trump? yeah, all went to good colleges.
As an instructor in higher ed for more than 30 years (good grief I'm getting old!) I could not agree more with this sentiment. I want my students to reach their own conclusions. I provide them with the tools to do so, and the opportunity to practice with those tools.
It's actually more of a selection effect: people who are religious fundamentalists tend to marry young & not pursue higher ed that conflicts with their beliefs. They can't exactly be creationist biologists, geologists, anthropologists, etc.
This is a media narrative...data on political party affiliation prior to and then upon leaving university shows almost no change - It is true that faculty lean liberal because of most of the reasons listed in comments for why education matters. But don't think that if you're in the Econ dept.
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Next thing you know, you are a "liberal".
Spoiler Alert: Those lawyers surrounding Trump? yeah, all went to good colleges.
Years of research have shown it to be difficult to correct this imbalance, because everything that leans right is mostly bullshit.