Because of the class background that tends to be required to make it into and through these programs. They have difficult entrance requirements and are very gruelling. It tends to be that the people who get in and make it through had a strong educational background, which is correlated with socioeconomic status. There’s a myth that you must be tough and/or smart to get through, but that’s not true. You must be tough and good at school and privileged.

We need scientists and engineers who are also committed leftists, and it’s absolutely possible to get those. I was one, before life came at me too hard and took my career. But this requires an understanding of the world that people are not getting at bougrois liberal educational institutions. “My son went to college as a good christian conswrvative and she came back a communist” is a right wing lie. If only it were true! The truth is far worse: their sons go off to college and come back as conservative as ever, or perhaps a smidgen liberal but still firmly western chauvinist and fascist.

I saw too many engineering professors speak casually or even proudly about working for the MIC. I saw too much “we stay out of politics, politics don’t matter, I just want to know how the two materials behave under stress”. I saw too much “our disciplines are serious, the liberal arts are bullshit” – I participated in that last one too for a while, envious of how easy my liberal arts friends had it compared to how awful my courseload was