- Joined
- Sep 5, 2005
- Messages
- 26,657
- Reaction score
- 15,930
- Gender
- Undisclosed
- Political Leaning
- Undisclosed
southern_liberal said:also, the teacher I will call upon is working on his second masters degree which is in Middle Eastern studies. Wheather or not he went to the middle east? I don't know. But remember, a book can take you to a lot of fantastic places. My book collection is not just text books. Since you are a history major then Surely you have heard of the great historians such as Shelby Foote and the like. I read books by the great historians, and then I do my own research.
Peace
It's been thirty years since I was a student, but even as a 17 year old Freshman, I realized the subjective nature of the teaching of humanities. Now, it's not as if the sciences are completely without politics, mind you, as especially in the fields of applied sciences there is a certain kowtowing to those who write the grants, and of course there are always various "office politics" sorts of squabbles, but nothing compared to the humanities depts. Those are extrordinarily political by nature and highly subjective. The sooner you realize this, the better, as there is no such thing as an unbiased viewpoint, and ESPECIALLY when it comes to middle eastern studies.
Can we say "follow the money" here? With Saudi money pouring into American Universities earmarked for Middle Eastern Studies and the number of virulent antisemites who dominate these departments in so many major Universities, do you actually think you are receiving an unbiased education on the subject?
Your challenge should you choose to accept it is to find a professor of middle eastern studies at your university who isn't anti-Israel. If you have a difficult time finding any, that alone should dispell any notions that there isn't bias involved because in the normal course of human events, opinions tend to follow some fairly predictable bell curves, and so when they don't, you can be almost certain that there are factors influencing this -- factors that act to prevent one viewpoint in order to promote another. If you do find a balance of opinions on your campus, then good, but if your professors are monolithic in terms of viewpoint it is up to YOU to think rather than just absorb and regurgitate. Why are they all uniform in their views? Keep asking the question until you arrive at an answer that does not involve the circular logic of "they are right because they all agree and because they all agree they must be right".