15 August 2005 @ 2:46PM >>
Over at The Corner, the website of
National Review magazine, John Derbyshire
mentions the
profile in the
Telegraph:
I have just been watching the movie “Brainwashing 101,” made by Evan Coyne Maloney. (You can view it online here.)
Maloney’s work is new to me, though I suspect I’m behind the curve here & you’ve all been watching him for months. I actually read about him in one of the London newspapers. He doesn’t seem to get much coverage over here. Wonder why?
One of Coyne’s premises is that if he can get his films distributed, the parents of America will have their eyes opened about leftist indoctrination on our very expensive college campuses, and alumni donations will be hit. I think he underestimates the degree to which the American middle classes, especially Boomer parents, have bought into the PC package. Bill Clinton won two terms.
I just e-mailed a response:
Mr. Derbyshire,
Thank you for the plug on “The Corner”. As far as I know, Jonah Goldberg is the only Cornerite familiar with my work, although he may know me only as “the Brain Terminal guy.”
Also, although I take your point about President Clinton, he was elected twice in a very different media environment than exists today. There are many more conservative voices who have platforms today than in 1992 or even 1996. And with the continually better technology available at ever-cheaper prices, we can build our own platforms now. That’s what I did online, and it led to my being able to make a feature-length film.
One by one, various channels have expanded to allow the inclusion of views that, for a generation, were largely shut out of the establishment media. Radio, newspapers, television and book publishing have all been slowly opening up. What’s next? Film.
So, I see the trend in all media, and I’m optimistic. Somewhere in the film business, there’s a smart distributor sitting at a desk who understands that the best place to make money is in an untapped market.
I also don’t share your pessimism about college campuses. Public reaction to the recent campus scandals—from Ward Churchill on down—has been fairly uniform in its negativity. When the general public sees the overall picture of academia today, they will be quite shocked, I think, perhaps enough to ask for some changes.
To clarify one point, the purpose of my upcoming film (”Indoctrinate U”) isn’t to starve colleges of funding, but to cause people to ask what we’re getting for our money.
At my alma mater, Bucknell University, one year of education will cost nearly $40,000 per student. Some of this money goes to financing things like the school’s “Women’s Resource Center”, which has full-time employees who arrange bus trips for students to go to Washington and protest the Bush Administration. Some of it pays for Bucknell’s Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Awareness, which has university staffers who use the office to encourage students to adopt their political views on gay marriage. The university may need to admit a dozen students each year just to keep those offices afloat. (The exact number is an estimate, since the university refuses to state how much those offices cost.)
I think you could find a consensus of people in America—right and left—who would support smarter spending by universities. Fiscal conservatives would prefer more prudent spending for its own sake, while egalitarian liberals would like the idea of a less expensive education being available to people who can’t afford it now.
Students and parents pay tuition, alumni give donations, and taxpayers subsidize public universities directly and private ones indirectly through tax breaks. Just about everybody in the country is paying for higher education right now.
Institutions that take your money have a responsibility to spend it wisely. And, if money is being wasted, then count me an optimist, because I think people will make themselves heard...assuming they know about the problems in the first place!
Take care,
Evan Coyne Maloney
