Monolithic Views In Academia

"Both teachers and learners go to sleep at their post as soon as there is no enemy in the field." ~ John Stuart Mill

A political monoculture sooner or later always degenerates into *extremism and incoherence, because it needs an opposition to keep it healthy. Only your intellectual enemies have the motivation to pick off your weaker arguments and keep you intellectually sharp. . . . A lack of intellectual diversity hurts both left and right. [Emphasis mine.]

Read the rest of Professor John Ellis's recent statement before the California legislature regarding higher ed's lack of intellectual diversity here. 

*Which is exactly where we are today.

I'll be posting some comments and photos about this past weekend's Civil War seminar in Lynchburg within a few days.