From today's NYTimes.com's letters section, reacting to a David Brooks column arguing that rational, quantitative "spreadsheet people" (i.e., business people) vote Republican and emotional, innumerate people (e.g., academics) vote Democrat:
At M.I.T., 94 percent of campaign giving was to the Democrats. What does Mr. Brooks think the people at M.I.T. do? Does he think that the electrical engineers, computer scientists, roboticists, biologists and economists run screaming from numbers and sit around reading Derrida?Academia is full of very smart people earning very little money relative to what they could earn. They are curious people, dedicated to pursuing the truth and teaching others.
Business is full of very smart people whose sole responsibility is to make money, for stockholders and themselves.
The first group supports Democrats. The second group supports Republicans. Draw your own conclusion.
Ouch. I conclude Republicans will always have more money to spend on campaigns than Democrats. But, ouch.
There's nothing wrong with making money. Money supports universities (among other things).
What's wrong is giving money to and voting for Republicans.
Posted by: Tom Beck | September 14, 2004 at 04:08 PM
There's nothing wrong with making money.
I didn't mean to imply that I thought there was. Plenty of people in academia make a lot of money, too, albeit not from their college salaries.
Posted by: Mithras | September 14, 2004 at 04:55 PM