This from a graduate student whose paper I posted:
Shortly after you posted my paper, I got an email from a friend who also reads your blog. My friend wondered if this was, all things considered, bad for my chances on the job market. He thinks in this age of Google searches, having my name come up on your blog will be viewed negatively by some hiring committees, given that most are leftists. It is completely absurd to me that someone might chuck my application in the trash just because they see a serious metaphysics post on a blog that defends conservative views some of the time, and I'm quite happy to have my name associated with yours, but I was wondering what you thought.
Might it be better to change the post and title a little so it doesn't mention my full name? If it is indeed true that some departments would not hire me because of this post, there is a significant part of me that doesn't want to work with such people anyway, but then there is another part of me that loves teaching philosophy enough that I'd be willing to try to put up with such people, at least for a while. I don't know. I'm not terribly worried about it at this moment, since I won't be on the job market until fall of 2016.
I did remove the author's name out of concern for his prospects. I suspect his friend has a better understanding of how bad things have become than he does. The universities have become leftist seminaries. The few exceptions prove the rule. And where there are leftists there is political correctness and the party line. Anyone who refuses to toe it, anyone who thinks independently and critically and speaks out against leftist excesses and outright inanities runs a serious career risk. But even if one does not speak out, and is only tenuously associated with a website that publishes some conservative material, one is at risk.
I've made mine, so I can afford to speak the truth. A little courage is involved, but not much. I cannot recommend that people who are young or starting out take career-destroying risks. And I ought not expose them to danger. Never underestimate how vicious and vindictive leftists can be. The case of Brian Leiter is very instructive. Details of some of his recent antics here.
And don't ever underestimate the lengths of lunacy to which lefties will go. Recent example: CUNY. Morris Raphael Cohen must be rolling over in his grave.
UPDATE: Another philosophy graduate student refers us to Students Object to Job Candidate for Offensive Views. It begins:
Graduate students in a philosophy department somewhere in the English-speaking world did some online sleuthing about a job candidate for a position in their department, and learned that the candidate seems to hold views they find offensive. In particular, they found reports (including alleged quotes) that the candidate had expressed in online fora the view that homosexual acts and premarital sex are immoral.
It is a good thing Immanuel Kant did not apply to this department. He holds that "Every form of sexual indulgence, except in marriage, is a misuse of sexuality and so a crimen carnis." (Lectures on Ethics, tr. Infield, Hackett, p. 169.)
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