I am a huge fan of Dr. Walter E. Williams.
He serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor Economics.
He has a way of explaining complex economic theories so that anyone can understand. Even me.
Dr. Williams has a short op-ed piece on Townhall.com that is worth reading and discussing with anyone who appreciates critical thinking.
He and I share a pet peeve about college and university faculty force feeding our nations impressionable young minds with all sorts of values and opinions unrelated to the course being taught. (Men bad, America bad, republicans bad, white people bad, capitalism bad, etc.)
Read the article when you have a chance. Here are a couple highlights.
“Learning how to think straight, as opposed to what values and opinions to hold, is the crucial part of education. Part of that learning is to be able to understand the distinction between subjective statements, for which there are no commonly accepted standards of proof, and positive statements for which there are.”
“There are a number of other pitfalls to straight thinking that I lecture on as introductory material before we begin to explore economic theory. I tell students that if they hear me say something subjective, without my having prefaced it with “in my opinion,” they are to raise their hand and tell me that they took my class to learn economics and not to be indoctrinated with my values. Personally, I want students to share my values that personal liberty, along with free markets, is morally superior to other forms of human organization. The most effective means to accomplish that goal is to give them the tools to be tough, rigorous, hard-minded thinkers and they will probably reach the same conclusions as I have.”
If you would like to sample more of Dr. Williams thoughts on economics and politics, visit his site at the University. Click Here.
Dr. Williams has a book out called “More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well.”
Anyone have any comments? Please share any examples of faculty trying to indoctrinate students to a particular opinion or value.
