ForeignDude
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- Mar 22, 2006
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Confessions of An Anti: Part I
Confessions of An Anti: Part II
Graduate School and the Post-Doctoral Years (circa 1996-2003)
I entered graduate school in psychology at a large Texas university in the summer of 1996. I began this period as a graduate Teaching Assistant, and ended it as an adjunct Professor (after receipt of the Ph.D.). Put simply, I transitioned into the role of an active stakeholder in the campus orthodoxy, a teacher invested in the system that validated my worldview.
My views on gun control had changed little since my days at UCLA, although I had discarded some of the more conspiratorial beliefs I held in college. For example, I began to question, and subsequently to discard my previous belief in a genocidal project carried out by the “White Man”. It made no sense to me when examined in depth; the more closely I examined the structure of this conspiracy, the less likely it seemed that such a conspiracy existed. On the other hand, I retained many of the tenets of radical feminism that I had absorbed at UCLA. I still believed that guns and women did not mix (“He’ll just take the gun away from you and use it against you”). The logic was simple: better to be raped and live than to resist and die. If a woman married a man who owned a gun, it was only a matter of time before he used it in a fit of rage to kill her. I was convinced that male gun ownership was the outward manifestation of a latent aggressive instinct.
(As a side point, this is why the “Empty Holster” protest carried out by the various chapters of Students for Concealed Carry is viewed with dread by university faculty and administrators. To gun owners, a holster is simply a piece of leather or kydex, designed to hold a pistol. To a gun controller, of the type I was in graduate school, it means something entirely different: if you own a holster, you must own a gun; if you own a gun, you must also be full of anger and rage; you are, then, potentially dangerous to the campus community.)
To continue, a different dynamic came into play in graduate school. Getting into graduate school is not easy. Entry in most (but not all) disciplines is a very personal affair, far removed from the mass approach that characterizes acceptance as an undergraduate. While grades matter, just as important is the “fit” between you and the faculty member with whom you wish to carry out your graduate work. The symmetry of background and opinion is crucial to securing acceptance, and is essential to your successful navigation of the graduate process. From the beginning, an apprentice academic is invested in the fundamental worldview that envelops the so-called “ivory tower”. To question the orthodoxy is to endanger all you have worked to build: your hopes, your future, your livelihood.
This was also the peak of the Clinton years, just prior to his victory over Dole. The Lewinsky Affair was still in the future, and the Republican tide of 1994 had begun to stall. If any socio-political issue could be said to be enjoying a “golden age”, gun control was it. The AWB had passed, Clinton was trumpeting the success of the Brady check system, gun control groups were flush with cash, and the media were monolithic in their support of future gun control proposals. To a young, liberal graduate student, gun control was the wave of the future: the logical culmination of an unstoppable process to civilize a violent America. All “intelligent” people were in favor of gun control; how could someone be so dumb as to be in favor of guns and the damage they caused?
I cannot emphasize enough how powerful the graduate school process is in molding thought and behavior. Those first months of graduate school were intoxicating: we were the “elite”, the chosen, picked from among the best in the nation. This intoxication gave birth to an inflated sense of entitlement and a profound arrogance that twisted the soul. (It wasn’t true for all of us, but it was true of most graduate students I met.) Being a graduate student meant that you were part of the academic elite-in-training. As such, the only views that mattered was those of other academics. The “great unwashed” (i.e., those outside the gates of the university as well as the undergraduate population) could not possibly comprehend the importance and complexity of the work we carried out. It was up to us to teach them: in our classrooms, in the legislatures, in the media. We would teach them the best way to raise their children; we would advise government officials in developing the best policies for society; we would save the masses from their own worst instincts. If the masses cling to their guns and will not listen to reason, then we must forcibly take those guns away from them – for the good of all.
The means for implementing our wisdom was government policy. Thus, it should come as no surprise that the vast majority of academics are in favor of Big Government, and vote accordingly. Government was, at once, mother and father. Government was the mother that sustained us: through research grants, contracts, etc. Taxpayer money was, and is, the milk of Academe. Government was also the father whose stern mandates kept the masses in line, and punished those who erred. The people are the “children” of Government, to be taken care of, nurtured, guided, and (if necessary) punished. As with all children, the people cannot be trusted to do what is best for themselves.
These, then, were the intellectual foundations of my views on gun control through graduate school. It was the wave of the future, inevitable and irresistible as the ocean tide. It elevated the safety of all above the wishes of the uneducated, violent few. Gun control was supported by the vast majority of academics; it was championed by scientists of eminent repute; it was reasonable, logical, scientific.
However, the first chinks in the armor were starting to appear. These chinks had nothing to do with gun control, and did not stem from a comprehensive evaluation of gun control policy and legislation. I continued to have no doubts about the wisdom of gun control.
No, the first chink in the armor began with a re-evaluation of some basic tenets of the liberalism I had cherished for so many years. Once I began to re-examine these tenets, profound doubts began to rise to the surface.
So, what prompted this re-evaluation? The seed was planted on September 11, 2001. I saw 9/11 for what it was: a military strike. A military response, therefore, was justified in the face of this strike. Unfortunately, I was in the minority in my views. Most of my peers, virtually all of the faculty with whom I interacted, and even some of the undergraduates, were of the opinion that the attack was ultimately America’s fault. In their view, an imperialist power should expect resistance to its hegemonic ambitions. The less strident around me counseled that we work through the United Nations to negotiate for the hand-over of Osama bin Laden, and to wait as long as it was necessary for the Taliban to hand him over for trial. War should be avoided, at all costs.
I would not, could not, accept this; it was the first time that I found myself outside the academic “mainstream”. Justifying, minimizing, or excusing the incineration of three thousand innocent people was not something I was willing to do in defense of a political philosophy. This prompted an earth-shattering question for me: Is there something wrong with me, or is there something wrong with what I have been taught? This was the beginning of a long period of study, observation, and reflection, wherein I challenged and tested that which I had believed for nearly all of my life.
It was shortly after this that I volunteered for an Army commission. I was commissioned in late 2002, and shipped out for my Officer Basic Course in early 2003.
Part IV will narrate my developing views on gun control, and my first exposure to firearms.
Confessions of An Anti: Part II
Graduate School and the Post-Doctoral Years (circa 1996-2003)
I entered graduate school in psychology at a large Texas university in the summer of 1996. I began this period as a graduate Teaching Assistant, and ended it as an adjunct Professor (after receipt of the Ph.D.). Put simply, I transitioned into the role of an active stakeholder in the campus orthodoxy, a teacher invested in the system that validated my worldview.
My views on gun control had changed little since my days at UCLA, although I had discarded some of the more conspiratorial beliefs I held in college. For example, I began to question, and subsequently to discard my previous belief in a genocidal project carried out by the “White Man”. It made no sense to me when examined in depth; the more closely I examined the structure of this conspiracy, the less likely it seemed that such a conspiracy existed. On the other hand, I retained many of the tenets of radical feminism that I had absorbed at UCLA. I still believed that guns and women did not mix (“He’ll just take the gun away from you and use it against you”). The logic was simple: better to be raped and live than to resist and die. If a woman married a man who owned a gun, it was only a matter of time before he used it in a fit of rage to kill her. I was convinced that male gun ownership was the outward manifestation of a latent aggressive instinct.
(As a side point, this is why the “Empty Holster” protest carried out by the various chapters of Students for Concealed Carry is viewed with dread by university faculty and administrators. To gun owners, a holster is simply a piece of leather or kydex, designed to hold a pistol. To a gun controller, of the type I was in graduate school, it means something entirely different: if you own a holster, you must own a gun; if you own a gun, you must also be full of anger and rage; you are, then, potentially dangerous to the campus community.)
To continue, a different dynamic came into play in graduate school. Getting into graduate school is not easy. Entry in most (but not all) disciplines is a very personal affair, far removed from the mass approach that characterizes acceptance as an undergraduate. While grades matter, just as important is the “fit” between you and the faculty member with whom you wish to carry out your graduate work. The symmetry of background and opinion is crucial to securing acceptance, and is essential to your successful navigation of the graduate process. From the beginning, an apprentice academic is invested in the fundamental worldview that envelops the so-called “ivory tower”. To question the orthodoxy is to endanger all you have worked to build: your hopes, your future, your livelihood.
This was also the peak of the Clinton years, just prior to his victory over Dole. The Lewinsky Affair was still in the future, and the Republican tide of 1994 had begun to stall. If any socio-political issue could be said to be enjoying a “golden age”, gun control was it. The AWB had passed, Clinton was trumpeting the success of the Brady check system, gun control groups were flush with cash, and the media were monolithic in their support of future gun control proposals. To a young, liberal graduate student, gun control was the wave of the future: the logical culmination of an unstoppable process to civilize a violent America. All “intelligent” people were in favor of gun control; how could someone be so dumb as to be in favor of guns and the damage they caused?
I cannot emphasize enough how powerful the graduate school process is in molding thought and behavior. Those first months of graduate school were intoxicating: we were the “elite”, the chosen, picked from among the best in the nation. This intoxication gave birth to an inflated sense of entitlement and a profound arrogance that twisted the soul. (It wasn’t true for all of us, but it was true of most graduate students I met.) Being a graduate student meant that you were part of the academic elite-in-training. As such, the only views that mattered was those of other academics. The “great unwashed” (i.e., those outside the gates of the university as well as the undergraduate population) could not possibly comprehend the importance and complexity of the work we carried out. It was up to us to teach them: in our classrooms, in the legislatures, in the media. We would teach them the best way to raise their children; we would advise government officials in developing the best policies for society; we would save the masses from their own worst instincts. If the masses cling to their guns and will not listen to reason, then we must forcibly take those guns away from them – for the good of all.
The means for implementing our wisdom was government policy. Thus, it should come as no surprise that the vast majority of academics are in favor of Big Government, and vote accordingly. Government was, at once, mother and father. Government was the mother that sustained us: through research grants, contracts, etc. Taxpayer money was, and is, the milk of Academe. Government was also the father whose stern mandates kept the masses in line, and punished those who erred. The people are the “children” of Government, to be taken care of, nurtured, guided, and (if necessary) punished. As with all children, the people cannot be trusted to do what is best for themselves.
These, then, were the intellectual foundations of my views on gun control through graduate school. It was the wave of the future, inevitable and irresistible as the ocean tide. It elevated the safety of all above the wishes of the uneducated, violent few. Gun control was supported by the vast majority of academics; it was championed by scientists of eminent repute; it was reasonable, logical, scientific.
However, the first chinks in the armor were starting to appear. These chinks had nothing to do with gun control, and did not stem from a comprehensive evaluation of gun control policy and legislation. I continued to have no doubts about the wisdom of gun control.
No, the first chink in the armor began with a re-evaluation of some basic tenets of the liberalism I had cherished for so many years. Once I began to re-examine these tenets, profound doubts began to rise to the surface.
So, what prompted this re-evaluation? The seed was planted on September 11, 2001. I saw 9/11 for what it was: a military strike. A military response, therefore, was justified in the face of this strike. Unfortunately, I was in the minority in my views. Most of my peers, virtually all of the faculty with whom I interacted, and even some of the undergraduates, were of the opinion that the attack was ultimately America’s fault. In their view, an imperialist power should expect resistance to its hegemonic ambitions. The less strident around me counseled that we work through the United Nations to negotiate for the hand-over of Osama bin Laden, and to wait as long as it was necessary for the Taliban to hand him over for trial. War should be avoided, at all costs.
I would not, could not, accept this; it was the first time that I found myself outside the academic “mainstream”. Justifying, minimizing, or excusing the incineration of three thousand innocent people was not something I was willing to do in defense of a political philosophy. This prompted an earth-shattering question for me: Is there something wrong with me, or is there something wrong with what I have been taught? This was the beginning of a long period of study, observation, and reflection, wherein I challenged and tested that which I had believed for nearly all of my life.
It was shortly after this that I volunteered for an Army commission. I was commissioned in late 2002, and shipped out for my Officer Basic Course in early 2003.
Part IV will narrate my developing views on gun control, and my first exposure to firearms.
