The Times They are a'Changin

by Liberty and Power

Nice little piece in this week's on line edition of Time discussing the status and growth of conservative student movements in the U.S. The piece is longish, but what struck me most were the consistent complaints from the students about the non-conservative policies of Bush and their desire to be"anti-establishment."

I think it's great to see the potential for students being open to points of view that are closer to libertarian positions on a lot of market issues (although the pro morality stuff is still a signficant difference).

I'd like to ask the faculty who are blogging with us to tell me what they think that conservative and libertarian faculty can do to help mobilize this silent majority to help change the intellectual dynamics of campuses. It's clear that nationwide student organizations, such as ISI, help all over, but what can faculty themselves to do foster the development of these folks? Is it done in the classroom, outside of the class, openly, subtly?

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Pat Lynch - 8/27/2004

Well said both of you. It seems to me that living up to our principles and rising above the pettiness that can dominate academic life is the best example we can set. Since we get stereotyped as people slightly out of the mainstream, being reasonable, open-minded, patient, and yet committed to liberty sounds like a good road to progress.

Steven Horwitz - 8/27/2004

Common Sense indeed. I can't do any better than that, other than to add "and we treat our faculty and staff colleagues with whom we disagree with an assumption of good faith, intelligence and respect, just as we would expect them to treat us. In doing so, we model for students the process of civil but vigorous disagreement."

Common Sense - 8/27/2004

I think we do it one day at a time. We present lectures and other materials from our vantage point on the truth as we see it. We distinguish ourselves from many of our colleagues by supporting a wide variety of student views in discussion and encouraging them to push their own views further in an intelligent an informed manner. We make it clear they are graded on the quality of their thought, not the correctness of their views. We post on bulletin boards materials from ISI, IHS, and the like. We conduct our classes in such a way that, should they come to see us as libertarians, they will be open to further explorations of that position.