The "Ivory Tower" Insult in Public Discourse

This is about the role of academics in public discourse. Much of what academics say is dismissed as "ivory tower nonsense," or something similar, but should it be dismissed so easily? The essay below from Mark Kleiman was written partly in response to Michael Ignatieff's apparent apology for his support of the Iraq war that appeared in the New York Times Magazine. In the article, Ignatieff blames his errors about Iraq on an thinking like an academic rather than with the good judgment he has learned in politics:

I’ve learned that good judgment in politics looks different from good judgment in intellectual life. Among intellectuals, judgment is about generalizing and interpreting particular facts as instances of some big idea. In politics, everything is what it is and not another thing. Specifics matter more than generalities. Theory gets in the way.

But he has this wrong. Academics learned long ago to look at the data rather relying on emotions, precisely what Ignatieff says he has now learned from being in practical politics. Go back and see what the academics were saying (here too) and compare it to what the "practical politicians" were saying and judge for yourself who had the better perspective on the likely consequences of the war and its aftermath. As Mathew Yglesias states:

Academics in the field of Middle East studies were overwhelmingly opposed to the war. Similarly, international relations scholars opposed the war by a very large margin. The war's foci of intellectual support were in the institutions of the conservative movement, and in the DC think tanks and the punditocracy where the war had a lot of non-conservative support. People with relevant academic expertise -- notably people who weren't really on the left politically -- were massively opposed to the war. To imply the reverse is to substantially obscure one of the main lessons of the war, namely that we should pay more attention to what regional experts think and give substantially less credence to the idea that think tankers are really "independent" of political machinations.

The academic community has often been opposed to conservative plans in a variety of areas, and there have been concerted attempts by some conservatives to undermine academic voices in public discourse (liberal bias, ivory tower, etc.) The attempts have been fairly obvious, and somewhat successful, or so it seems to me. Mark Kleiman says academics should speak up, but if they want to maintain their credibility with the public they should avoid claiming any special authority when speaking outside their main area of expertise:

The academic estate and the political process, by Mark Kleiman: In general, academic specialists in foreign policy, strategy, and Middle Eastern affairs made much better guesses about what would happen if we invaded Iraq than did politicians and pundits. (Yeah, yeah, I shoulda listened. Sorry, sir! Won't happen again, sir!)

And yet "ivory tower" remains an unanswerable insult in political discourse, as if journalists and politicians were proud of their ignorance. Many academics don't speak out much in public fora, even in areas of their expertise. Why doesn't the academic estate do more to claim its rightful voice in public affairs, and why, when it does, is it so little heeded?

I think there are two key distinctions here that are often lost: the distinction between an expert's proper authority in his own field of expertise and a general claim by people with faculty appointments to opine about public affairs, and the distinction between research and policy analysis.

Academics are, by nature, specialists. In general, the claim of specialists to offer expert opinion outside their specialities is to be treated with skepticism. (Socrates made that point, if I recall correctly.)

Back in 2003, the UCLA Faculty (or, rather, the 200 people who bothered to show up for the meeting) voted its opposition to the pending invasion of Iraq. That conclusion was arrived at by vote after a short and chaotic debate (mostly among people with no scholarly credentials relevant to the choice at hand), and was not subjected to the sort of peer review or careful analysis that we require in our scholarly lives. I thought then that the resolution did not deserve the attention that, in fact, it didn't get. By passing it as a faculty, we were illicitly claiming for our political opinions the authority that properly belongs only to our scholarly views. I still think so, though the proponents of that resolution turned out to be right...

That's not to say that academics, per se, have no proper public role. Someone who studies Iraq or climate change or taxation professionally is entitled to a hearing — and, elitist though it may be to say it, to a more respectful hearing than a non-expert ... Non-experts, including other academics, ought to disagree with experts, or disregard expert views, only cautiously and tentatively, unless there are comparably credentialed experts on the other side.

But, even if someone is a genuine expert in a relevant subject area, his claim to dictate the correct policy has much less force than his claim to describe what is the case and predict what is likely to happen, unless that person is also an expert in thinking about choosing good policies...

Read the "policy implications" section of a typical social-science paper. It rarely reflects the sort of cautious judgment about the relationship between observation and inference displayed in the "methods and results" section. That's partly because many social scientists haven't thought about the very different methods appropriate to policy analysis...

To earn respectful attention to our opinions about what ought to be done, we need to learn to make those opinions intellectually respectable, which means, among other things, both carefully distinguishing what we know from what we prefer and accurately representing the limits of our knowledge.

I'm not saying that, if we do so, we will get such attention; we probably won't. But I am saying that the attempt to use intellectual prestige, separated from serious and dispassionate critical truth-seeking, as a weapon in political struggle is no more legitimate than the use of money or celebrity as a weapon in political struggle, and less so if that attempt falsely claims the respect due to actual expert relevant knowledge.

Since academics have some capacity to lead opinion, some leisure, and some money, and since they're mostly on the right side of the current major political divide, I'd like to see them more active in politics. ...

But when I saw an ad in the New York Times in October 1968, with a bunch of professors' signatures under the headline "A Thousand People Who Think for a Living Think You Should Vote for Hubert Humphrey," I thought that was arrogant bullsh*t: "elitism" in the legitimately pejorative sense of the term. And I still think so.

And don't miss this commentary on the Ignatieff article [as highlighted by Brad DeLong].

Update: I've been bothered by how to fit someone like Paul Krugman, who I think has earned the right to be heard on a broad array of issues, not just economics, into the framework outlined by Mark Kleiman. So I don't think we should rule out that people can establish credibility beyond their academic area of expertise.

Comments

[mdm]

It seems to me anyone remotely familiar with the sociology of the Middle East would know invading Iraq would be a disaster.

Just because these people belong to think tanks doesn't mean their ideas are less convoluted than any other non-academic. Their ideas should be promulgated in an environment where can be critically reviewed and analyzed. Instead, you get Heritage lunatics with unchallenged domino theories stuffed in the upper echelons of the government.

I'm curious to know how many of them are "experts" in Middle Eastern politics/economics/sociology/etc. or war for that matter.

[marcel]

Check (i.e., correct) the spelling of Mark Kleiman's name - one 'n' only in the surname. He caught some s**t for repeatedly mispelling PZ Myers surname a few weeks back. As MK said in apology:

P.Z. Myers (whose name I apologize for having misspelled — I hate that when people do it to me, which is often)

This was in response to the following:

It would be like noting that Mark Kleiman cannot spell "Myers" properly, therefore he is incompetent in all things and must be less intelligent than me, who can spell it correctly.

In fact, I might assume that he misspells it to goad me, and is therefore wicked; or that perhaps he is merely ignorant of the correct spelling, because he hadn't seen the word written out before; or that someone misled him and told him the wrong spelling; or perhaps he has grown up in a tradition of inserting a redundant "e" in the name and made the error unthinkingly. If I point that small error out, though, am I going to be accused of both bigotry and elitism in thinking that I must believe myself superior in all ways to Mr Kleiman? At least, that's the impression I get from his complaints.

[Mark Thoma]

Thanks - I think I corrected them all.

[David]

Part of the framework should go beyond credentials to the weight of facts, logic and argument.

[Alex Tolley]

This appears to me part of the "expert vs common man" axis of debate, which I think is the wrong axis.

Expertise in a field is very valuable to helping to form a decision - they are used in many venues. Conversely it is also true that "The Wisdom of the Crowds" (ie no experts or a group of diverse experts) trumps any given expert under some conditions.

The problem really is finding where, or if any, true expertise exists. Much of what is being argued in the article is arguably fairly bereft of expertise that can truly predict outcomes with any accuracy. A Middle East expert may well be able to state that such and such conditions exist and that historically certain results have occurred. But that is narrative and not necessarily useful for making current decisions. Policy makers are no better, they are caught in the trap of trying to make decisions with all sorts of variables and biases and may be no better than guessing.

So in some senses, in any endeavor that is based on social sciences, there is no real expertise at predicting good outcomes, just people making decisions and adjusting as events change. If politics really had much expertise in predicting outcomes, there should be a cadre of indentifiable people who were able to make a good series of predictions that reads like a poor history book - X did Y which 'inevitably led to' Z. Where are these people?

[anne]

"But when I saw an ad in the New York Times in October 1968, with a bunch of professors' signatures under the headline 'A Thousand People Who Think for a Living Think You Should Vote for Hubert Humphrey,' I thought that was arrogant bullsh*t: 'elitism' in the legitimately pejorative sense of the term. And I still think so."

The only arrogant bull in this anecdote is that of Mark Kleinman. Imagine not knowing even now how important such political courage always is and how completely and utterly correct an endorsement.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Mark:

I've spent much of my adult life on both sides, the academic and the "real world," and I offer a few observations.

Many academics are divorced from the "real world," and my own business colleagues are the worst, how can one teach techniques one has never practiced? With the exception of the accountants (audit work usually required for the CPA certificate) many business profs have never sold a tube of toothpaste or fired an employee.

Does that make them bad profs? Not necessarily. Does that make them good profs? Not necessarily. Does that make their empirical research valuable or useless? Depends.

On the other hand.........

Some of those in the real world have such acute tunnel vision that their insights are of no great value, they know how to sell toothpaste and see the whole world in that context.

So everyone can make contributions, but as Dirty Harry Callahan once said, "a man's got to know his limitations."

[anne]

http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F00B1FFC3C550C748DDDAA0894DB404482

March 17, 2003

President Bush Prepares for War

The United States, nearly isolated, is about to wage a war in the name of the world community that opposes it. The meeting that President Bush held yesterday in the Azores with the prime ministers of Britain and Spain made clear that within a day or so, the president is expected to announce that he is sending troops into Iraq. He declared that today would be the last chance for any other solution. If so, let the day not be wasted....

As Mr. Bush stood with the prime ministers of Spain, Britain and Portugal yesterday in the Azores, there was much talk of a strong Atlantic alliance. But overstating threats and dismissing the concerns of friends does not build a strong alliance. No matter what happens today, that is exactly what we will need tomorrow.

[anne]

http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F30B1EFB3F550C7B8DDDAA0894DB404482

March 18, 2003

War in the Ruins of Diplomacy

America is on its way to war. President Bush has told Saddam Hussein to depart or face attack. For Mr. Hussein, getting rid of weapons of mass destruction is no longer an option. Diplomacy has been dismissed. Arms inspectors, journalists and other civilians have been advised to leave Iraq.

The country now stands at a decisive turning point, not just in regard to the Iraq crisis, but in how it means to define its role in the post-cold-war world. President Bush's father and then Bill Clinton worked hard to infuse that role with America's traditions of idealism, internationalism and multilateralism. Under George W. Bush, however, Washington has charted a very different course. Allies have been devalued and military force overvalued.

Now that logic is playing out in a war waged without the compulsion of necessity, the endorsement of the United Nations or the company of traditional allies....

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/opinion/18KRUG.html

March 18, 2003

Things to Come
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Of course we'll win on the battlefield, probably with ease. I'm not a military expert, but I can do the numbers: the most recent U.S. military budget was $400 billion, while Iraq spent only $1.4 billion.

What frightens me is the aftermath — and I'm not just talking about the problems of postwar occupation. I'm worried about what will happen beyond Iraq — in the world at large, and here at home.

The members of the Bush team don't seem bothered by the enormous ill will they have generated in the rest of the world. They seem to believe that other countries will change their minds once they see cheering Iraqis welcome our troops, or that our bombs will shock and awe the whole world (not just the Iraqis) or that what the world thinks doesn't matter. They're wrong on all counts....

[anne]

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/print/2334/Tomgram%253A%2520%2520Andrew%2520Bacevich%2520on%2520the%2520New%2520American%2520Militarism

April 20, 2005

The Normalization of War
By Andrew J. Bacevich

But by the turn of the twenty-first century, a new image of war had emerged, if not fully displacing the old one at least serving as a counterweight. To many observers, events of the 1990s suggested that war's very nature was undergoing a profound change. The era of mass armies, going back to the time of Napoleon, and of mechanized warfare, an offshoot of industrialization, was coming to an end. A new era of high-tech warfare, waged by highly skilled professionals equipped with "smart" weapons, had commenced. Describing the result inspired the creation of a new lexicon of military terms: war was becoming surgical, frictionless, postmodern, even abstract or virtual. It was "coercive diplomacy" -- the object of the exercise no longer to kill but to persuade. By the end of the twentieth century, Michael Ignatieff of Harvard University concluded, war had become "a spectacle." It had transformed itself into a kind of "spectator sport," one offering "the added thrill that it is real for someone, but not, happily, for the spectator." Even for the participants, fighting no longer implied the prospect of dying for some abstract cause, since the very notion of "sacrifice in battle had become implausible or ironic."

Combat in the information age promised to overturn all of "the hoary dictums about the fog and friction" that had traditionally made warfare such a chancy proposition....

[Laurent GUERBY]

"Academics learned long ago to look at the data"

... and academics in economics learned long ago to hide raw data from the public and other economists as much as possible.

[Lafayette]

MT: ... and judge for yourself who had the better perspective on the likely consequences of the war and its aftermath.

I doubt seriously that either the academics or those who believe in "real politics" has a good handle on either the Iraq or Vietnamese wars. Both fumbled the football in each case.

The ONLY rational for war is defense. Lead head innovated this argument by convincing Americans that fighting a defensive war on foreign lands was more wise than battling on home soil. This common sense notion appealed to us.

It was right as applied to Afghanistan but deadly wrong as regards Iraq. Lead head pulled the wool over our eyes. But neither the academics or the politicians complained at the time.

Where were the massive demonstrations on campuses across the nation? Nowhere, since students no longer feared the draft. Where were the nervous nellies in politics after the civil war proved that the military had NOT accomplished any mission except to mire us in a bog in a very unfriendly place? Evidently silent.

A well-liked intelligent man of the center-left, Kennedy, was hoodwinked by a fellow intellectual into thinking that the Vietnam war was winnable ... and -- when necessary -- the same smarties were dragged out to make the same idiotic justifications for the Iraqi intervention.

Each generation makes the same mistake as the previous. When will we ever learn that history repeats itself but in different ways? Not until we learn to appreciate the lessons of history.

[anne]

Where then was Michael Ignatieff when the report of the International Atomic Energy Agency was made to the United Nations Security Council, showing how absurd the mushroom cloud imagery that was being used to drive us to war was?

http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2003/ebsp2003n006.shtml

March 7, 2003

The Status of Nuclear Inspections in Iraq
By Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei - Director General IAEA

[Gerard MacDonell]

What an idiot. His theory is that theory is irrelevant. Has this guy passed kindergarten? Has he any self knowledge?

[robertdfeinman]

I think part of the problem is that may "think tanks" are considered to be the same as real academic departments. The output of these places is usually identified as "Joe Blow, is a senior policy analyst at the Hot Air Institute". So in the mind of the public one pundit is as good as another. It would seem that this is true for much of the press as well.

I recent asked if anyone had a good idea for a name for these groups, as an analogy to grass roots vs astroturf.

The best suggestion that I received was "double think tank".

[TigerPaw]

What may not be realized by American readers is that Ignatieff is positioning himself for a future run at the top job in Canadian politics. As a result his article was an attempt to innoculate himself against his previous position on Iraq. That the explanation he is providing may not ring completely true will be forgotten soon, but the fact that he has recanted will likely immunize him from the mess that he previously endorsed.

[Arne (not anne)]

Since "People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities"
http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf,
how do you get non-experts to figure out who the experts are?

[Brian Holt]

"Academics are, by nature, specialists. In general, the claim of specialists to offer expert opinion outside their specialities is to be treated with skepticism. "

One key point not raised here is that Critical Thinking is a specialty that happens to cross many different academic boundaries. Critical thinking is essentially the foundation for scientific thinking and as far as that goes, academics, mostly, have been trained to employ solid thinking. Frequently, good things are said from academia, some of which runs counter to some political opinions and hopes.

What seems to have happened is that many good ideas have been marginalized not because they were bad ideas, but because they came from academia. That's the problem and it is abhorrent.

[Mark Kleiman]

I agree with Mark that Paul Krugman, for example, is worth listening to about politics or the war in Iraq. But it's not the same sort of listening-to he deserves when he gives a professional opinion about the impact of some change in trade policy. He's just the guy on the next barstool, and his opinions deserve only the respect they earn for themselves.

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/_/2007/08/expertise_and_sensible_opinion.php

Note to Anne: The only "courage" it took for an academic to endorse Hubert Humphrey over Richard Nixon was the courage to withstand the jeers from the left. I worked my heart out for Humphrey that year. But the conclusion "Argument X is a good argument" doesn't follow from the premise "Argument X reaches the right answer."

[Brian Holt]

Robert:

"I think part of the problem is that may "think tanks" are considered to be the same as real academic departments. "

you said it boy, and how.

My training is in psychology. I teach at a local community college. Even though I took an econ class back in the early 90's I thought a refresher would be good. So this summer I'm taking an Intro to Macro. It's mostly been awful, and not because of the subject.

We've read ten or so 'articles' printed in the WSJ OP-ed sections and I think one of them came from a Nobel-prize winner. That one was a good article. The rest all came from think tanks. The impression is that the authors were all academically qualified. The most recent article was written by Pat Toomey.

(As an aside, thank you Professor Thoma for this blog! It's made my Macro class bearable!)

[gordon]

The Mearsheimer & Walt piece to which you link includes the following: “…Saddam invaded Kuwait in early August 1990. This act was an obvious violation of international law, and the United States was justified in opposing the invasion and organizing a coalition to reverse Iraq’s aggression.”

International Law, eh? I wonder why none of the academic sources you link to opposed the Iraq war because it was illegal? All I can find are arguments about National self-interest uninfluenced by any considerations of international law. It's not impressive; just looks as though US academics are more cautious warmongers than other US warmongers.

[lonesome moderate]

I haven't yet seen any evidence that politicians or anyone else ahs any particular immunity from self-delusion. This quote from Orwell says it well(apologies to those who have seen it before):

[W]e are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/nose/english/e_nose

[dogfacegeorge]

"I've been bothered by how to fit someone like Paul Krugman ... So I don't think we should rule out that people can establish credibility beyond their academic area of expertise."

PK has as much credibiilty on non-economic issues as any other newspaper or TV pundit because, generally speaking, none of them have any academic area of expertise whatsoever. Mostly they have BA's (if that) in poly sci, sociology, etc. In fact, PK has much more credibility than they do: he has mastered one academic discipline and thus has trained his mind in close observation and close reasoning.

[jonfernquest]

Analytical journalism, op-ed pieces, weekly and monthly publications should be outsourced to academia (if that isn't happening already) journalism would get stronger and academia would get stronger from frequent doses of in your face reality

[bob mcmanus]

"He's just the guy on the next barstool, and his opinions deserve only the respect they earn for themselves." ...MK

No, he isn't. He is well-educated, informed, has a earned public reputation to protect, etc. Knowing nothing of what Krugman knows about Iraq, I would grant Krugman's isolated opinion on Iraq more credence than I would Arnold Kling's or Bush's or Ledeen's. I know something about each of these men.

Those of us outside of academia are compelled to use standards and methods of granting authority, respectability, credibility that academia may find inadequate or reprehensible. We have to. We vote.

[Professor Steve]

Academics are trained in general critical reasoning skills. If a politican makes an empirically unsupported claim or makes an error of logic then it DOES fall within an academic's methodological area of expertise (if not their content area).

Shooting the messenger (or the messenger's wife in the Plame Case) for delivering inconvenient facts is simply reprehensible, as is concealing, inventing, or creating knowingly misleading information. Academics are trained to evaluate evidence - and I think it is no surprise that most were against the second gulf war.

[anne]

Mark Kleiman, when you can learn to think clearly enough past what should have been understood as obvious deception and fear-mongering by the Administration, when you have the imagination to understand what war is, what war really is, when you can be as afriad as you should simply by the expression shock and awe, when you can understand the pernicious destructiveness of a colonial occupation complete with an Americvan Viceroy, then lecture about what academics should and should not be speaking about. I am not the least impressed and will never be dissuaded by the likes of such arrogance preaching a-morality. Phooey.

[anne]

Mark Kleiman:

"Back in 2003, the UCLA Faculty (or, rather, the 200 people who bothered to show up for the meeting) voted its opposition to the pending invasion of Iraq. That conclusion was arrived at by vote after a short and chaotic debate (mostly among people with no scholarly credentials relevant to the choice at hand), and was not subjected to the sort of peer review or careful analysis that we require in our scholarly lives. I thought then that the resolution did not deserve the attention that, in fact, it didn't get."

Now, there is what a-moral arrogance is about. Phooey.

[bob mcmanus]

WaPo on Tyler Cowen's methods of restaurant selection

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/07/AR2007080700422.html

Tyler Cowen may or not be an expert on restaurant selection, but that isn't why I read the article. TC is not a stranger next to me at a bar.

I really, truly don't understand what Mark Kleiman is saying.

[bakho]

The issue is not who was right and wrong about Iraq. The real issue is

WHO WAS ASTUTE ENOUGH TO NOTE THAT THERE WAS NO PLAN FOR POST-WAR IRAQ??????

Smart people (Like Senator Lugar and General Clark) were asking publicly, "What is the plan?" The pundits and Congressmen who really let the American people down were those that thought a post war Iraq plan was either not a big deal or not needed and refused to demand that Bush present his plan. A good academic would refuse to allow a PhD student to go forward without a thesis plan, but it is OK for a president to go to war without a post war plan?

There are numerous pundits that are serially wrong about many important issues yet they continue to get published. They know-nothing but how to deliver talking points. They trust but do not verify. TV substitutes shouting matches for reasoned political discourse. There is no penalty for the pundit class when they are wrong. Duncan keeps a running account of "things will be better in 6 months" pronouncements as a constant reminder of how wrong these pundits continue to be.

[anne]

Mark Kleiman, when the tapestry of Picasso's "Guernica" had to be covered before Colin Powell could pitch for war and when the pitch could be logically absurd and risably documented as should have been clear as reflection and reading, when you cannot even mention the report of the International Atomic Energy Agency to the Security Council showing the deception and absurdity to which we were exposed, then mocking those who would stand for peace is a-moral arrogance.

Enough then with mockery, start doing what you should have been doing for more than 4 tragic years and asking that we leave Iraq completely and immediately. There is preaching that will be meaningful. Notice, there is still no such preaching in politically dear Michael Ignatieff.

[realpc]

This is not a matter of academic or not, or expert or not. The problem with think tanks, possibly, is that they are full of people who think alike. That's how crazy ideas are born and evolve into crazier ideas -- people who basically agree talk to each other until their fantasies start to look like facts.

This can happen in a think tank, a University, a political party, or anywhere. Experts are just as likely to fall into this kind of delusion. Leftists are just as guilty as rightists. Like-minded people get together and spin their fantasies into obvious truths. Outsiders begin to look insane, ignorant, or malicious.

[Lafayette]

gordon: "International Law, eh? I wonder why none of the academic sources you link to opposed the Iraq war because it was illegal?"

Like it or not, the US is signatory to the UN Charter, which is a treaty. In Chapter 1, Article 2.3 states:

All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.

and Article 2.4 states:

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

The language seems clear, except to a lawyer advising the PotUS who seeks a "loop hole" by pretending that an aggression against the US some how originated in Iraq, a member state and signatory of the UN Charter. In which case, America has the right to "defend itself" from any such aggressor. Which is gross, to say the least.

Of course, one might argue that presidential lead-heads don't understand English, but that too is a bit far-fetched.

There is no way to squirm out of the above language, which is why Tony Blair wanted lead-head to obtain approval of the UN before attacking Iraq. What is amazing is the fact that Tony Blair speaks and understand English perfectly well. When the UN did not approve intervention in Iraq, why Blair continued in his folly is therefore an impenetrable enigma. (That his memoirs will surely try to sort out.)

Perhaps he should go teach English to high schoolers in Texas? Or to bloggers in this forum who insist that attacking Iraq was a legal act of defense?

[anon/portly]

"Much of what academics say is dismissed as "ivory tower nonsense," or something similar, but should it be dismissed so easily?"

Hmmm, MT thinks the views of academics shouldn't be dismissed so easily.... [Stroke chin several times]. Wonder why he thinks that?

Along the same lines I don't think the views of fat, lazy people should be dismissed easily.

[gordon]

I think it is worth reproducing here the UCLA Faculty resolution to which Kleiman disparagingly refers:

We, the faculty members of the University of California, Los Angeles, say to the President of the United States, that we:

1. condemn the U.S. invasion of Iraq;
2. deplore the doctrine of preventive war the President has used to justify it the invasion;
3. reaffirm our commitment to addressing international conflicts through the rule of law and the United Nations;
4.oppose the establishment of an American protectorate in Iraq; and
5. call for the establishment of a post-war representative government in Iraq, answerable to the United Nations, which guarantees to Iraqis inalienable personal, political, and civil rights.

This is what a principled statement looks like. Just in case there are a lot of US academics who have never seen such a thing. Just in case.

[anon/portly]

"The academic community has often been opposed to conservative plans in a variety of areas, and there have been concerted attempts by some conservatives to undermine academic voices in public discourse (liberal bias, ivory tower, etc.) The attempts have been fairly obvious, and somewhat successful, or so it seems to me."

I'm not certain what "concerted attempts ... to undermine" means, but I discern an implication of dirty pool, that conservatives are doing something underhanded when they "insult" academics with labels like "ivory tower."

Which is odd, I think, because the very next post is an approving link to Jonathan Schwarz ... doing what? What he's doing is suggesting that right-wingers who are up in arms about Scott Thomas Beauchamp have developed the same sort of thought-avoidance survival skills ("protective stupidity") that Orwell described the Party members in _1984_ as having.

How exactly is this different, in kind, from conservatives who refer to the "ivory tower" and to "liberal bias?" Isn't this an effort by Schwarz to "undermine" right-wing "voices in public discourse?" (And what's wrong with that?)

It seems like it's not the idea of the useful insult that rankles, just its application in certain cases.

[reason]

Mark,
I personally don't think ANYBODY should be given credence merely because of their credentials. It is the quality of their arguments (and particularly what evidence they marshall) as well as (secondarily) how they are judged by their peers that tend to influence me. I ALWAYS like to read contrary opinions. Very often the quality of the argument used by those with contrary views is the best guage of how seriously we should treat someone's opinions.

[bakho]

"The academic community has often been opposed to conservative plans in a variety of areas..."

Isn't this because academics strive to get the facts correct? There is no evidence that supply-side tax cuts increase revenue and plenty of evidence to the contrary. There is no evidence that the earth is only 10000 years old and plenty of evidence that the earth is over 4 billion years old. Conservatives are at odds with academics on these issues because they make claims that are easily disproved.

Academics also oppose some liberal/leftist ideas such as the benefits of "organic food", local food V imported food and a host of Fad ideas. Conservatives only complain about academics when they disagree, but readily use academics in support of their policies. This says more about the nature of conservatives than academics. Conservatives collect evidence around the argument and ignore or discredit both the information and the messengers of contrary information. They are really not interested in a reasoned debate, only on ideological wins.

[robertdfeinman]

One of the characteristics of "think tanks" that I didn't mention is that the majority of the right-wing ones are funded by super wealthy conservatives who are paying to see their interests promoted by having a veneer of social philosophy applied to them.

There have been some (famous) cases of university departments being taken over by factions and then having this faction ensure that only those who agree with their viewpoint get appointments. This isn't limited to economics, such "high impact" disciplines as English Lit have also fallen into this trap.

What is disturbing is that there seems to be a rise of the influence of big money in universities and not just in think-tanks. I don't know all the pathways, but endowed chairs, paying for a new "institute" or department to be set up or even direct meddling by board members have all been noted in the past few years.

This is nothing new, but may be getting worse. During the anti-Communist heyday state schools were pushed around by legislatures. Many leftists were fired and their careers ruined.

[Alex Tolley]

Academics also oppose some liberal/leftist ideas such as the benefits of "organic food", local food V imported food and a host of Fad ideas. Conservatives only complain about academics when they disagree, but readily use academics in support of their policies. This says more about the nature of conservatives than academics. Conservatives collect evidence around the argument and ignore or discredit both the information and the messengers of contrary information. They are really not interested in a reasoned debate, only on ideological wins.

And left-wingers don't do the same? Your point just addresses idealogy vs knowledge expertise.

[anne]

http://www.juancole.com/index.html/2007/08/beeman-to-nyt-hyping-iran-threat-in.html

To the Editor: *

"U.S. Says Bomb Supplied by Iran Kills Troops in Iraq" by Michael R. Gordon, August 8, 2007:

It is increasingly suspicious that every time the United States has begun a diplomatic initiative with Iran--the latest on August 6, some United States military official in Iraq comes forward to accuse Iran of supplying weapons to attack U.S. troops.

Perhaps it is coincidence, but the reporter rendering these accusations for the public seems always to be Michael R. Gordon. These military reports and the Times reportage seem timed to undermine these diplomatic talks.

Following the historic May 28 talks between Iran and the United States in Baghdad, the Iranian government called for a second round of talks. As negotiations for this second round were underway General Kevin Bergner provided a briefing on precisely the issue of the IED's covered in the August 8 article by Mr. Gordon.

Mr. Gordon's last reportage of General Kevin J. Bergner's account of these Iranian attacks ("U.S. Ties Iran to Deadly Iraq Attack," July 2, 2007) was a textbook case in hype. Mr. Gordon significantly enhanced General Bergner's already specious and exaggerated statements to make the Iranian government appear even more culpable than the evidence in the press conference would warrant.

Although Mr. Gordon's August 8 reporting on Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno's account of essentially the same phenomenon does acknowledge that critics of the Bush administration assert that there is no proof of Iranian state involvement in supplying the IED devices, the article is riddled with innuendo accusatory of Iran, such as identifying "Iranian-backed cells" as if they existed as verified definable entities, and they had been proved to have ties to Iran.

Mr. Gordon's piece appears on page 1 of the Times above the fold (as did his July 2 piece) thus increasing the hype factor. The Times should save its partisanship for the editorial pages, and not conscience it in its reporting.

William O. Beeman
Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology, University of Minnesota Minneapolis, Aug. 9, 2007

* Criticizing reporting by the New York Times.

[anne]

Mark Thoma:

"I've been bothered by how to fit someone like Paul Krugman, who I think has earned the right to be heard on a broad array of issues, not just economics, into the framework outlined by Mark Kleiman. So I don't think we should rule out that people can establish credibility beyond their academic area of expertise."

Notice then the careful thought about New York Times reporting, and the important response by William Beeman which I do hope is to be printed.

[kharris]

Ignatieff is terribly shallow in this self-justification, but that is sort of the way that self-justification goes. It is also a hoot to hear this guy tacitly claiming that his big old brain can function in two different ways, and that only by getting confused about which way he should have been using did he get the answer wrong. Do we have any evidence that he is proficient in thinking in either way? Don't we suspect that figuring out how to think about a problem is a necessary prerequisite to reliably coming up with good answers? Failing to think about things in the right way is a pretty big deal.

But back to how shallow this is. Ignatieff seems to be making the fox-and-hedgehog distinction, on the way to reaching the ridiculous conclusion that "intellectual" thinking is all hedgehog, while politicos are all fox. Holy Horse Hockey, Batman! This is a guy who has room in his brain for "intellectual" and "political" thinking? There hardly room for a dim little bulb, based on the stuff on display here. Has Ignatieff noticed that we have political parties which claim to have ideological underpinnings? Has he noticed that a good many politicians who are heavily involved in foreign affairs show disdain for foreign policy "realism"?

Calling Harry Frankfurter...

[realpc]

"I personally don't think ANYBODY should be given credence merely because of their credentials. "

I agree with Reason on this. I think we should actually be extra skeptical about the opinons of experts. Being an expert and hanging out with other like-minded experts can result in over-confidence and insane ideas. The neo-cons are one sad example of this. They didn't lack expertise, they lacked controversy.

Sometimes it's easier for a non-expert to see that the emperor has no clothes.

Not, of course, that we should put our faith in the common sense of non-experts. We should be generally skeptical, without blind faith in anyone.

Accepting someone's ideas based on their credentials, rather than logic and evidence, is pseudo-intellectual snobbery.

[realpc]

I should add that there are occasions when it makes sense to trust an expert. If you have a very specific question and the expert is highly experienced in that area, and the stakes are not terribly high, then it is reasonable to trust. So you might trust the mechanic who says you need new brakes, for example. In most serious casees, however, you need at least a second opinion. And with non-specific, complex, important, questions, trusting one expert is almost always never a good idea.

[Bandwagon Smasher]

Academics, just like regular folk, can be right and wrong about policy. But academics definitely do not develop their opinions unemotionally. They are human beings with biases.

For example, many academics who are extremely supportive of human rights and equality have also been defenders of International Communism and fundamentalist Islamic governance, two movements that are certainly not proponents of establishing human rights or equality. Rather, academics are sometimes driven by the concept that the "enemy of my enemy is my friend," and as a result take illogical, inconsistent policy positions.

In other words, the Bush administration may be ineffective, incompetent, or even immoral, but that doesn't make terrorism "justified." Global warming may be something that will have an immediate and disastrous effect on the Earth, but that doesn't mean that the movement needs to delight in anti-human rhetoric, and focus on liability of industry instead of on solutions.

Simply put, academics absorb prejudices from their "academic culture," and that's what the "ivory tower" effect is.