Dissent in Academia
by Chris on Nov.28, 2004, under General Thoughts, Internet and Rants
As seen on “Instapundit”:http://www.instapundit.com/ today, a New York Post editorial on the topic of academic uniformity that I can really see being a problem.
Essentially the gist of it is that there’s an overwhelming bias towards liberalism in the humanities at a few major universities, and (although the article is not clear on the source of the statistics) probably at a majority of them.
There’s a few pretty clear arguments as to how this happens here, as well — ones that might be valid, might not, but they’re convincing to me. The truth of it is that it is hard to get a position in studies of social issues unless you agree with the prevailing opinion. Try to imagine the last person you knew of who was studying race relations in a humanities program who was opposed to affirmative action. While I imagine that there exists an example or two, contrast those with the uniform majority.
One comment that was really telling/galling in the article was a (para)quote from a linguistics professor at Berkeley:
The disparity in hiring, he explains, occurs because conservatives are not as interested as liberals in academic careers. Why does he think liberals are like that? “Unlike conservatives, they believe in working for the public good and social justice.”
With all due respect, and I want it clear (this is for you, Matt) that it’s an arbitrarily small, non-negative quantity, this is bullshit. Self-serving, self-righteous, and self-fulfilling bullshit. All it says is that if you disagree with the left slant of the modern humanities, then by definition you don’t care a whit about the society that you live in. Well, fuck that. I do disagree with the left lean, and I do so because I care about the society I live in, not despite it. I think they’re wrong about what is best for the world.
And that just gets me angry, and I shouldn’t code when angry. Which I need to get back to.
This post brought to you by Chris killing time on blogs while he should be writing a compiler.
November 28th, 2004 on 11:41 am
You should spend a day at the UofA’s anthropology if you think there’s uniformity of opinion among academics. And these are anthropologists. Who tend to be left wing.
November 29th, 2004 on 7:53 am
Also, in the social sciences and humanities in particular, and in my field of science that I’ve noticed so far, most people are left wing. So it makes sense that most people who are hired are left wing: there are just more of us. Academics tend to be left wing. It is an overall trend among people who persue academic positions, at least in the 3 areas I’ve mentioned.
November 29th, 2004 on 9:38 am
The thing is, it should not follow that since more people presently there are left-wing they should hire more of the same, if anything the opposite should occur. Universities, and even more the humanities, are charged with maintaining an active debate on the human body of knowledge. If one view is overwhelmingly held, that does precisely the opposite, stifling debate and opposing views instead of bringing them out and facing them.
Regarding trends: How many right-wing folks might have taken poli-sci courses or social sciences curricula if this environment did not exist? I can name one—me. Not ever as a primary degree, but certainly I find the issues interesting enough to debate extensively, just not interesting enough to place myself in an environment as mentally toxic as I expect those faculties to be. This is what follows from the monotonicity of opinion that has come about in the academic world. Good minds (me) and great minds (others) will pass on entering an academic world that views them as “not believ[ing] in working for the public good and social justice,” and worse.
November 29th, 2004 on 2:29 pm
What can ya do? We are far from perfect as individuals and as a society. You could spend your entire life getting angry at things being different than how ‘they should be’ but why?
Perhaps a career in politics is in the cards mes ami.
Kr og
November 30th, 2004 on 6:43 am
Why don’t you take a poli-sci course or something else then? Why not try it? So what if it’s taught by a left wing person? They might want someone to challenge their opinions. Why not have yours challenged, too? What if you both learned something? Would that be so bad? Left wing people aren’t all the stupid screaming idiots you’d have us be, you know. Most of us are intelligent, thoughtful people who have come to our political views by choice, by examining what our values are and why. Especially in this province. If you don’t want to be dismissed out of hand by academia, it’s not fair that you dismiss them out of hand, either. Maybe more left wing people are hired simply because there are more left wing academics and maybe right wing people don’t tend to enter these areas of academia. I know some who have, but you need to keep in mind that very, very few people enter academia as it is. Most, regardless of political orientation, choose or end up in the private sector.
November 30th, 2004 on 11:49 am
A couple of reasons. One, i’m not bothering with the junk courses that precede anything that would be interesting in the discipline. I assume that there are prerequisites that I would simply rather not take.
Two, why should I bother? I’ve been in the humanities buildings, I’ve seen and heard the prevailing sentiment on the subjects, and I’ve had enough conversations with people who study that to know that my opinions will not be welcome there. I make no claim of universality and uniformity of opinion on behalf of the departments, but I do claim that there is sufficient evidence to indicate a strong bias, and it’s one that I see no need to beat my head against.