| | For the sake of brevity I did not include other passages that set a wider financial context for the quote. The authors noted that the Cold War motivated the federal government to start dumping money into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) university programs to draw large numbers of students to them with the goal of keeping the United States in front of competing enemy countries. Unfortunately, the general education requirements that come with all such degrees also became heavily funded as a result. As so often happens, then, the outcome had the opposite of the intended effect. By financing through indirect means those whose philosophies supported the nation's enemies, the government effectively tried to defeat overseas communism by feeding its domestic intellectuals -- an impossible task.
It really is a good book despite some of its paleoconservative foibles such as the its contention that all rights derive from God while ignoring the Objectivist argument that they arise from human nature.
Speaking of STEM, I have remarked on this site bitterly about my unexpected and unwelcome forced consumption of Howard Zinn in grade 11 at my STEM residential high school. If you have 15 minutes for some mild and dry humor, I assembled an animated video poking some fun at the situation. Although Zinn gets no mention by name, the idea of sacrificing academics for other "activities" such as community service does. So does the idea of "intellectual flogging" for its own sake rather than for any productive achievement.
(Edited by Luke Setzer on 5/22, 6:21am)
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With the end of McCarthyism, many universities found ... they [could] not discriminate against communists. ... After all, the thinking went, 'Who's to say what's right or wrong?' Such views did not go far in science, business, or engineering, but the requirements at most universities in general education fields meant that the extremely activist and liberal faculty elements ... would reach the most students.
