One problem with this operation is that it seems to assume that someone who is a 'professor' is automatically engaged in something called 'theory.' Even in the humanities, it is not terribly difficult to find professors who reject 'theory' from a variety of positions. This grows as one enters the social sciences and beyond that, I am not competent to comment on the situation. The irony is that the set of essays that set off this discussion seems to replicating the argument set out by Benhabib written in the 80's, which was fairly quickly dispatched with by Judith Butler (I can dredge up the titles when I get back to Irvine if so desired.) Fundamentally, it seems to be an argument that both operates through the strawman fallacy and through a form of reification.
robert wood
> If you compare the archetypal left-wing social theoretician with the
> entire population of US mechanics... then almost by definition, our
> ideal theoretician will align more with people reading the Left
> Business Observer forum.
>
> And this ideal Theory Prof is very subjective. Some guy who writes for
> the Wall St. Journal's opinion pages might construct a different view,
> like one based on that Dartmouth teacher who had serious problems in
> some undergrad class:
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120995103004666569.html
>
> Incidentally, I delved deeper into the WSJ story, and the prof
> discussed how a colleague explained that "the classroom is not a
> democracy and the way she runs her classroom is with an iron fist."
> The prof further claimed that while she's "a little more lenient" than
> that, "I think a lot of professors are like, I'm the boss of the
> classroom and you listen to me, and that's probably the norm." About
> her disrespectful students, she claimed:
>
> "The fact of the matter is that by being so arrogant about their
> command of knowledge about arguing with me about every point that
> I was making and that's really arrogant. That's very arrogant
> because frankly, and I'm not trying to be an academic elitist, but
> frankly, they don't even have a B.A. They're freshmen. They're
> freshmen. The maturity that they had, and I think that's what it
> is, I think it's a lack of maturity, I don't think it's any
> character flaw, I just think it's a lack of maturity and when they
> grow up they'll find that it's really tough to succeed in the real
> world and I really will start respecting my professor."
>
> http://dartlog.net/2008/04/tdr-interview-priya-venkatesan.php
>
> Whatever went on in this odd case, I think it demonstrates that not
> only does the "correctness" of someone's opinions count, but also how
> they actually act when they achieve a position of a little power over
> others.
>