The Student Room Group

Why are universities so aggressively liberal and left wing?

I swear at my time in uni you aren't allowed freedom of expression.... brexit voters, UKIP supporters or wanting tighter control on immigration = get ostracised. I've graduated and had time to reflect on the 4 years I spent at uni and yeah, basically it feels like everybody's a 'liberal' that puts their fingers in their ears and yells 'lalalla' when a different opinion is put forwards. I thought uni was meant to be the opposite of that. Generation snowflake.
(edited 7 years ago)

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Reply 1
Original post by Duncaaaaaan
I swear at my time in uni you aren't allowed freedom of expression.... brexit voters, UKIP supporters or wanting tighter control on immigration = get ostracised. I've graduated and had time to reflect on the 4 years I spent at uni and yeah, basically it feels like everybody's a 'liberal' that puts their fingers in their ears and yells 'lalalla' when a different opinion is put forwards. I thought uni was meant to be the opposite of that. Generation snowflake.


I also got very annoyed at the hard-left students at my uni. I'm very left wing but some of them seriously took the biscuit. There was very little space for people with differing opinions. For example, the students' union displayed 'Free Palestine' in huge letters across the front of the building. How would that make Israeli students at the university feel? People are welcome to be part of a 'Free Palestine' movement at university but I don't think the Union itself should publicly back that movement. It is supposed to be a welcoming space for people of all backgrounds and beliefs.

However - all your metaphors seem a bit mixed up. You say that liberals are aggressive but you also say they're part of 'generation snowflake' which is kind of contradictory. It seems like you're hurling insults rather than putting forward a constructive argument. I'm trying to sympathise with you, having found a lot of the same situations at uni but you do seem a bit dismissive of people with left wing views.

If you want your right wing (I'm assuming you are right wing, correct me if I'm wrong) views to be heard you probably should show some level of respect for those on the opposite side, too. Mutual respect between people of differing beliefs is the way for all those beliefs to be heard and openly discussed.
Original post by abc:)
I also got very annoyed at the hard-left students at my uni. I'm very left wing but some of them seriously took the biscuit. There was very little space for people with differing opinions. For example, the students' union displayed 'Free Palestine' in huge letters across the front of the building. How would that make Israeli students at the university feel? People are welcome to be part of a 'Free Palestine' movement at university but I don't think the Union itself should publicly back that movement. It is supposed to be a welcoming space for people of all backgrounds and beliefs.

However - all your metaphors seem a bit mixed up. You say that liberals are aggressive but you also say they're part of 'generation snowflake' which is kind of contradictory. It seems like you're hurling insults rather than putting forward a constructive argument. I'm trying to sympathise with you, having found a lot of the same situations at uni but you do seem a bit dismissive of people with left wing views.

If you want your right wing (I'm assuming you are right wing, correct me if I'm wrong) views to be heard you probably should show some level of respect for those on the opposite side, too. Mutual respect between people of differing beliefs is the way for all those beliefs to be heard and openly discussed.


I'm dismissive and angry now because I'm real tired of being accused as a racist xenophobe bigot immigrant hater, and on June 24th the mass hysteria I saw on social media was just absolutely astounding. It was like witnessing some kind of neurosis epidemic.

And No I don't consider myself right wing.. I do think of myself as liberal and left leaning but just sceptical of the establishment, neoliberalism and the EU. That's the problem really, Nearly all the young people who voted remain were conflating the EU with Europe, as if a vote to leave was an anti-European vote.
(edited 7 years ago)
The aggressive qualifier depends who you're speaking to, but I suppose you've got to understand that the general consensus is that there's no room for actual discussion or debate. It doesn't help that the Brexit/UKIP attitudes are usually based on discriminatory idealogy, so if you have a legitimate reason for feeling that immigration is uncontrolled and damaging to the country you'd be guilty by association.

I suppose liberalism emerges as a consequence of high empathy, but it can be equally highly misguided.
Reply 4
Original post by Duncaaaaaan
I'm dismissive and angry now because I'm real tired of being accused as a racist xenophobe bigot immigrant hater, and on June 24th the mass hysteria I saw on social media was just absolutely astounding. It was like witnessing some kind of neurosis epidemic.

And No I don't consider myself right wing.. I do think of myself as liberal and left leaning but just sceptical of the establishment, neoliberalism and the EU. That's the problem really, Nearly all the young people who voted remain were conflating the EU with Europe, as if a vote to leave was an anti-European vote.


Ok... I mean your original post was about your own views being stifled and you not feeling able to express them and I get that. I don't see how that relates to young people conflating the EU with Europe though, which you are saying is the real problem, even if they are wrong in doing so, it isn't hurting you...
It's a justified response to the right wing institutions such as the BBC and the Guardian mocking them. I don't think people understand how traumatising and terrifying it is to listen to someone with different views to you speak!
It's the students. I'm pretty left-wing myself, but so much of the discourse I heard from other lefties was 'That's wrong because it hurts my feelings' or 'OMG you hold a different opinion to mine on morality, you're just automatically scum and I don't need to discuss this omg wow trigrd'
If you look at the people who are aggressively leftist on university campuses you'll find that many of them are snowflake liberal arts students doing degrees in non-subjects like Oriental Studies or Russian Literature. The people who get so worked up at university are the new generation of millennials who subscribe to the notion that they're entitled to free education and a six figure salary post-graduate for the simple fact that they're a human being. I understand that freedom of expression is becoming a rarity on many university campuses - especially for people like us who are politically conservative - but you shouldn't feel threatened by blue-haired feminists who want to silence the opposition using one of their four buzzwords: racist, bigot, homophobe or sexist.

I would also make the distinction between "liberal" and "leftist". A leftist is someone who is at the radical end of the political spectrum who abides to the notion of political correctness and the demise of freedom of thought and expression. A liberal, however, is someone who follow progressive principles but also believes in true liberal policies like right to offend and the right to bear arms. A good example of a liberal is Dave Rubin - you should Youtube him as his interviews are superb.
(edited 7 years ago)
Reply 8
To be fair on the rare occasions I professed opinions at university that are not exactly held by the modern left wing (support for Brexit and Trump being the lesser of two evils) I didn't really get any hostility. But certainly the SU there seems fairly "progressive".
Reply 9
Because universities in general are filled with intelligent people.
Majority of students are young. Majority of students think they are intelligent and enlightened because they passed a couple of exams at school. They think this is solely what intelligence is. They think that humane, good caring inteligent people are on the left therefore adopt left positions without actually thinking, rigorously debating or evaluating any of it

Just my view, could be a loada bolloks and something else

Ohh nope as i post that @Themini posts that ^^^

Feel like i am on the right track as always
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by Betelgeuse-
Majority of students are young. Majority of students think they are intelligent and enlightened because they passed a couple of exams at school. They think this is solely what intelligence is. They think that humane, good caring inteligent people are on the left therefore adopt left positions without actually thinking, rigorously debating or evaluating any of it

Just my view, could be a loada bolloks and something else

Ohh nope as i post that @Themini posts that ^^^

Feel like i am on the right track as always


They don't "think" they're intelligent. They are. So don't get butthurt. I'm not going to go to uni if that counts but I have no problems accepting how the world works. Get over your own insecurities.
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by Themini
They don't "think" they're intelligent. They are. So don't get butthurt. I'm not going to go to uni if that counts but I have no problems accepting how the world works. Get over your own insecurities.


You know its this condescending and contemptuous tone from liberal lefties to other people that think differently to them that contributed to brexit and will put Trump in the whitehouse.
Original post by Themini
They don't "think" they're intelligent. They are. So don't get butthurt. I'm not going to go to uni if that counts but I have no problems accepting how the world works. Get over your own insecurities.


lol what are my insecurities?!

Isnt that just another leftist popular saying like "Edjocate urselv itss 2016 smh" that is used ad nauseum
The real reason is because universities are completely addicted to public funding. Do you think the average GlaxoSmithKline research scientist spends half as much time picketing random organisations as the average undergraduate?
Original post by Betelgeuse-
lol what are my insecurities?!

Isnt that just another leftist popular saying like "Edjocate urselv itss 2016 smh" that is used ad nauseum


So why did you post that patronising paragraph? You quite clearly tried to undermine university students by saying they're "young" and they "think" they're intelligent when in fact they are intelligent and they do know what they're doing..you're venting your own insecurities and frustrations when you post stuff like.. they think they're intelligent because they've passed a couple of tests..or when you posted that intelligence isn't reflected by academic studies or is the sole contributor etc. Stop venting your own insecurities lol..just because you didn't make it. They are more intelligent than you grow up. In the same way Oxbridge candidates are accepted to be intellectually superior to red brick university candidates. That's how the world works mate. You didn't make the cut.
(edited 7 years ago)
Reply 16
Original post by Themini
They don't "think" they're intelligent. They are. So don't get butthurt. I'm not going to go to uni if that counts but I have no problems accepting how the world works. Get over your own insecurities.



Intelligent in an academic sense (and not necessarily - pretty much anyone, however academically inclined, can get something respectable like ABB at A level and go to a strong uni if they work hard, such is the "difficulty" of A levels, and then there are plenty of poor unis which require almost no work to get into). I mean, if you do well in academics, you aren't stupid in the traditional sense; you probably have a decent IQ, for instance. You clearly have some ability to reason, to learn, to memorise and apply knowledge. But just because you are able to do this doesn't mean you will do it with everything. Just because you can weigh both sides of an argument, and come to logical conclusions, doesn't mean you will necessarily do so when forming political views. And one can well argue that one side of intelligence is being aware enough of yourself and those around you to question how reasonable certain views are, while a lot of people, even if they seem intelligent in some ways, will just blindly glue themselves to a political ideology and not think critically about it at all.
Reply 17
Universities have always been left leaning as the student body is formed from young and intelligent people with both qualities correlating with being left leaning.
Original post by Themini
So why did you post that patronising paragraph? You quite clearly tried to undermine university students by saying they're "young" and they "think" they're intelligent when in fact they are..you're venting your own insecurities and frustrations when you post stuff like.. they think they're intelligent because they've passed a couple of tests..or when you posted that intelligence isn't reflected by academic studies or is the sole contributor etc. Stop venting your own insecurities lol..just because you didn't make it. They are more intelligent than you grow up. In the same way Oxbridge candidates are accepted to be intellectually superior to red brick university candidates. That's how the world works mate. You didn't make the cut.


Dude repeating something is not explaining it. I didnt make it? Make what, uni?

This is awesome, tell me more about myself please.
Original post by Betelgeuse-
Dude repeating something is not explaining it. I didnt make it? Make what, uni?

This is awesome, tell me more about myself please.


:congrats:

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