"Conservatives Ought to Appreciate Academia, Because It’s a Vicious Market System"

In defense of liberal bias on college campuses:

Liberal Bias is A-OK, by J.D. Porter [senior majoring in English], Columbia Daily Spectator: Here at Columbia, as at most top universities, we enjoy belittling conservative beliefs. Even the professors are in on it, and conservatives often find their beliefs directly challenged by academic trickery, like thinking about things, and facts. But shouldn’t good pedagogy incorporate all sides of an issue? No, it should not. If conservativism is absent from the University, it’s because it hasn’t earned its way in.

The fundamental problem here is that good intellectual exercise of any kind doesn’t mean including all the viewpoints available; it means including the good viewpoints. When I get a headache, I don’t equally weigh the taking aspirin option with the putting leeches on my head option even though many people, including several major founding fathers, have been adamantly pro head-leech. Similarly, when a news program has scientists on to talk about global warming, it doesn’t make sense to invite one who believes in it and one who doesn’t. It makes sense to invite two good scientists, even though they will probably agree. I don’t care about “unbiased” reporting; I want accurate reporting. I also want good scholarship, whether or not it has a balanced political perspective. If your idea gets left out, it’s your fault for having a dumb idea.

The obvious question, of course, is who decides which opinions are good. It’s a tricky issue that requires a lot of thought, but one place to start might be with people who know what they’re talking about. We all know this on some level, but we’re bad at applying it to politics. If you want to know what’s wrong with your car, for example, you don’t poll your neighbors; you ask a mechanic. If most of your neighbors disagree with the mechanic, you ignore them, even if they quote the Bible. For the same reason, it doesn’t really matter what most of the country thinks about global warming or evolution, because the people who know actual facts about those things have pretty much formed a consensus. Yes, you can dig up a scientist who disagrees, just like the tobacco industry has found doctors who think Marlboros make fun Halloween treats, but consensus among experts is really what matters here.

Of course, the experts can be wrong. For example, the New York Times recently reported that scientists in general have basically been wrong about what makes a healthy diet for about a half century. But at least with science there’s a correction mechanism of some kind, namely other science. Unlike, say, conservativism, science doesn’t exist to endorse past beliefs. If scientists could prove that the Earth has secretly been flat all these years, they would, and the other scientists, instead of taking it as a personal affront, would probably give them a Nobel prize.

The same holds for academia. A sociology professor isn’t going to get ahead just by finding a way to blame America first. She’s going to have to do some sociology stuff, which will probably be judged on the quality of the scholarship rather than the viewpoint espoused. Just as there is no organization called Science that holds secret meetings to determine which part of Christianity is going down next, there is no cabal of academics trying to keep campuses liberal, as in, “You barely seem to grasp the difference between supply and demand, but you say you ‘really like Marx,’ so you’re our new economics professor.”

In reality, conservatives ought to appreciate academia, because it’s a vicious market system. Professors have absurdly specific training in tiny career fields. A guy who spends years writing a dissertation on the importance of beads to indigenous tribes in Brazil really wants the world’s other bead expert to fail. If he doesn’t get tenure, there’s a good chance he won’t find a decent job anywhere else ever. He doesn’t care whether bead-man number two is a Republican; he could be left of Castro and the first guy would still spend days writing scathing articles blasting his shoddy bead analysis.

Similarly, Columbia isn’t going to refuse to hire a conservative who has done prominent work, because rich people like prominence, and we at Columbia need rich people to send us their progeny. You could argue that conservative professors have a more difficult time becoming prominent, but if most professors are liberal, then a conservative doing convincing research or writing influential journal articles would probably just be more conspicuous. You might also argue that the liberal environment at Columbia makes conservatives less inclined to work here, but that just sounds like a way of saying that conservatives are pansies who can’t handle disagreement, which seems unfair to me.

Speaking pragmatically, it doesn’t really matter why campuses are liberal, because we don’t have a way to change that. Theoretically, schools could start hiring professors based on their political beliefs, but that’s uncomfortably like totalitarianism, or, even worse, some kind of affirmative action. Of course, if academia is truly a marketplace, and there are truly students interested in conservative education, then we ought to see the emergence of conservative universities. So far we have at least one. It’s called Liberty University, and it is to academia what Larry the Cable Guy is to the performing arts.

If conservatives truly feel under-represented in the academy, their only option is to do better work. They shouldn’t allow themselves to be coddled by some sort of regulatory system looking out for their welfare. It’s a mistake, however, to say that we even need more conservative voices at Columbia. We need good scholarship and good pedagogy, and not lip service to an ideology just because it’s popular. That may mean we hire conservatives, or, if history is any indication, it more likely won’t. If we judge professors purely on their work, however, conservativism will have the place in academia that it deserves.

Comments

[elvis]

If your idea gets left out, it’s your fault for having a dumb idea.

What is this? Some silly libral jab at our "ownership society"?

[Gil]

Yep, it's interesting to see those who are for good old fashioned right-wing free-market value actually have their own preordained sets of winner and losers. Not surprisingly, when things don't go their way it's presumed everyone else is brainwashed by the evil underlying left-wing conspiracy.

[Bill]

How smug can one get?

[Alex Tolley]

The same holds for academia. A sociology professor isn’t going to get ahead just by finding a way to blame America first. She’s going to have to do some sociology stuff, which will probably be judged on the quality of the scholarship rather than the viewpoint espoused.

Oh, come on. Defending looney left wing sociologists and historians as having good scholarship and good, marketplace winning ideas? [rolls eyes]. Professors still espousing Communism as a good idea? Feminists with their "feminist science"? Deconstructivism, hello?

Scholarship is not just writing a few papers in an obscure journal that is read by a few adherents who determine what can be written about. That is akin to religion.

These sorts of people were as obviously daft in my day at university in the early 70s as they should be today. If universities want to maintain the idea that the institution is about scholarship, this dreck should be cleared out of the stables.

[jawbone]

"Of course, if academia is truly a marketplace, and there are truly students interested in conservative education, then we ought to see the emergence of conservative universities. So far we have at least one. It’s called Liberty University..."

Here's another, perhaps even scarier: http://www.phc.edu/

Yes, there is a market for this kind of place, and it's growing.

[save_the_rustbelt]

I really don't care about bias in academia, the youngsters find their own way usually despite the faculty. In fact conservatism has been on the rise among many students for years.

I find it hilarious that anyone thinks that academia is a free market, the tenured faculty control a) who gets into PhD programs, 2) who gets through PhD programs, 3) who gets jobs at what schools, and 4) who joins the tenured elite.

And despite all of that, I think academia, while not a model of efficiency, works well in meeting its objectives.

Academia is more a quilt than a blanket, with lots of disparate pieces that combine and tend to work quite well.

PS: Mark - are you really reading smart ass kids in college newspapers? Such dedication.

[ScentOfViolets]

I keep hearing about this 'liberal bias' on campuses which unfairly keep good conservative ideas out. I have never been able to ascertain just what those good ideas were, despite having asked numerous people voicing this complaint what they could be. The very few substantive replies I've gotten tend to be, as the letter writer points out, 'dumb'. For example, research showing that blacks are not as smart as whites, that the free market is invariably superior to government intervention, etc.

Does anyone have any examples of the 'smart' conservative ideas?

[robertdfeinman]

I think the author underestimates the number of "conservative" universities. We have a continuing discussion about George Mason and Chicago, but there is also Pepperdine and a host of other religiously-affiliated schools.

Some of them claim to be impartial, but this usually is with regard to the science disciplines. When one gets close to their core beliefs that's when difficulties arise.

I also think he minimizes the ideology that is present on the left in some departments. Ideology of any stripe is incompatible with true scholarship, but human nature can't be eliminated from academia anymore than it can be from other aspects of life.

[ScentOfViolets]

That may be true, Robert, but I repeat: just what ideas from the conservative side are given short shrift because they are conservative? I keep hearing this canard, but I never seem to see any examples of these 'good ideas'.

[ScentOfViolets]

Going to the Wikipedia article on Horowitz and doing a little googling produced this:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/03/15/horowitz3_15

I suspect this is what is meant by 'liberal bias' against good 'conservative ideas'.

[Anonymous]

“You barely seem to grasp the difference between supply and demand, but you say you ‘really like Marx,’ so you’re our new economics professor.”

Humor aside, this is pretty darn close to the truth at some campuses.

[Bruce Webb]

How smug can one get?
'Intellectual' Autobiography of Bryan Caplan
Not to name names but we get little Caplanites all the time. Right idjits who found Ayn Rand and actually imagined they had found the intellectual fountainhead. Sure this kid is a smartass but he has a point. I get patronized all the time by people that have simply never addressed the primary sources at all. You can drag a privatizer to the water of the Social Security Reports but you can't get them to drink from Table V.B2.

In Suskind's 'Price of Loyalty' liberals were mocked for insisting on remaining in the 'Reality Based Community'. Well sorry I kind of like my reality real. This people argue for the principle of clear distinctions between good and evil and right and wrong and then find astonishing ways of blurring the line when it suits them.

In the sixties and seventies where did you go to get more most consistent conservative media voices? Where oh where did you find William Buckley's 'Firing Line', where did you get the conservative economic reporting of Louis Rukeyser's 'Wall Street Week'? Well yes that would be PBS widely mocked by the Right as America's version of Pravda. Well sorry a channel that largely devoted itself to Buckley, stock reporting, tennis, Masterpiece Theatre, and nature shows was not exactly the shining example of Liberal bias that certain knuckledraggers would have it.

For those of us old enough to remember the very notion that the media had a liberal bia s is kind of laughable. Just like today the media stuck with the Presidency over Vietnam and with Nixon over Watergate until the public forced them to come around on what was clearly a failed war and then a failed presidency. It didn't take them long to revert to form, Carter was largely seen as a failed President because he was ruthlessly mocked. In these days of $100 a barrel oil and global warming are you still willing to laugh at the guy who advised you to put on a sweater and turn down the thermostat. Take the 'killer rabbit' episode. Rabbits are not normally aggressive, nor to my knowledge do they often take to water, if you saw a large rabbit attacking your canoe you would be well advised to assume it was rabid and smack it with your paddle. Carter never lived that down. On the other hand a well written book on Reagan's press coverage was justifiably titled "On Bended Knee".

Well sorry there really is a thing known as 'Right' and 'Wrong' which could better be titled ' The Enlightenment' and 'Reaction'. The American Right is all about rolling back The Enlightenment. Well sorry I think I will stick with Jefferson and Franklin on this one. And with the smug kid from Columbia. You got your Truth, you got your Truthiness, I like mine unqualified.

[calmo]

This brought a grin to my sombre face

Even the professors are in on it, and conservatives often find their beliefs directly challenged by academic trickery, like thinking about things, and facts.

And then I knew I was reading from one of the "top universities"...atleast until I read this

If conservativism is absent from the University, it’s because it hasn’t earned its way in.

which prompted rdf (possibly graduate of one of those "top universities", but not likely Pepperdine) to note that conservative institutions are "in" regardless of whether they have "earned" it or not.
Consider The President and his school.

Ok, enough cruel and unusual punishment.

So...how respectable is your ideology?
How long can you mull over your basic beliefs without endangering the structure --your mind-set (that allows "top school" graduates to tag you as "liberal" or "conservative"--possibly itself, a conservative distinction)?
Does your ideology have an adequate immune system to protect itself from invaders?...from good Samaritans? [How much thinking can you tolerate?]
Marx might not be the origin of ideology (any sociology of knowledge experts out there?) but he gets my vote as the popularizer. Didn't bother him that his views were the product of an ideology that he and Engels articulated, but over which he had little control...a preference for politics rather than philosophy...not like some of us real radicals, you know?

[calmo]

Good Morning Bruce, from your link

I [Bryon Caplan] was in 11th grade journalism class with Matt Mayers, my friend since the age of six. The course was the most notoriously undemanding in Granada Hills High School, leaving ample time for free reading. While I devoured Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra - and got through The Brothers Karamazov and Faust with less youthful exuberance - Matt read Atlas Shrugged.

and it becomes clear that BC needs to establish his creds...starting at grade 11 "devouring" Zarathrustra [who would club this ass at a moment's notice]...not like my friend Barnum Kluge who devoured it in the original German in grade 7 before he found something more demanding --Einstein's Relativity.
Ok, the poverty of documenting your own credentials...in the hope that the innocents can distinguish the fish paper (Atlas) from the gems (Zarathusra)...making fish paper of itall.
Does Zarathustra begin with his experiences in grade 11?
He has no such insecurities...unlike BC who manages to "devour" this text without comprehending it. Worse: without being able to distinguish it from Atlas garbage.

[John V]

Dr. Thoma,

Do you mingle much in economic issues discussions with liberals from non-economics departments?

If so do you find yourself at odds with their views?

I ask this because I've seen a chart that approximate the percentage of professors in different ideology and political groups.

The economics professors stand out as being much more balanced than others like in history, poly sci and sociology.

This adds weight to the idea that a real understanding of economics makes one less left-wing and much more likely to reside near the center or to the right on economics.

[Bruce Webb]

Calmo the irony of it all is that Caplan moved from Neitzche and Dostoevsky TO Ayn Rand.

But you got to give him credit. Certainly no one could accidentally design a website do profoundly crass, glaring, blaring and marked by sheer excess of color without some sense of irony. http://economics.gmu.edu/bcaplan/ You may want to put on shades.

Is it fair to mock Bryan Caplan? Well the guy is devoting his entire academic career to researching the "Irrational Voter", he is plugging a book on the topic, and his operating principle seems to be that people like me that don't agree with the "deep truths" that are so obvious to Caplan shouldn't have the right to vote. Believe that maybe, just maybe drugs should be regulated? Think that perhaps the minimum wage might be good for workers? No vote for You!

But while fun is fun, the striking thing about Caplan's autobiography is the utter contempt in which he holds his former Professors and fellow students at Princeton as well as the academic process in general. He more or less brags that he simply banged out his dissertation on a topic he didn't really care about and then beefed up his CV by submitting individual chapters of it to journals to be published as individual articles. This might be accepted practice in some places but when I was in Grad School this would have amounted to self plagiarizing, at a minimum it would have required some pretty strict disclosure that this was not in fact new original material.

Basically he treats all of this like it is just something to be gamed so that he can get an entrance to the Clubhouse, and in doing so validates Porter's premise. (From his description the only difference between the Economics Faculty Lounge at GMU and a Boy Scout campout is a relative lack of Smores)

[dogfacegeorge]

Come on, Bruce. Now you've gone too far. It's Girl Scouts who do Smores, not Boy Scouts.

[John V]

I think it's funny that one simple thing is overlooked in all this. It's the idea that certain types of people are more drawn to certain careers. Women are more drawn to teaching than men. Men are more drawn to engineering than women. Different strokes for different folks.

In terms of political views, liberals are more likely to teach at universities, conservatives less likely...by choice. Therefore, right off the bat, the supply side is skewed to the left.

Most social science and humanities subjects, I think, will tend to draw interest from personality types who are generally liberal to the left. Could you see a conservative minded person even being interesting in teaching most of those subjects? Women's studies?? Sociology?

It's a numbers game in my opinion.

Interestingly, or not so surprisingly, some subjects like economics and finance are more likely to have a greater degree of balance....this in spite of the greater tendency of liberals to want to teach. I think the interest and mastery of these subjects tend to attract more non-liberals as well as skew views toward a moderate position if not a little or lot to the right.

[John V]

Hey, Bruce

As a libertarian and someone who reads Caplan's articles a lot as well as having read his book, you're mischaracterizing Caplan a bit.

Caplan's book is ground breaking and excellent. The remarks that you make about Caplan and his views about voting are a seriously uncharitable reading of premise.

That is not the thrust of his book nor is it AT ALL a serious idea put forth by Caplan.

In an interview, Caplan said that one exercise, for a grade, that he does with his students is to challenge his view a certain issue where the student finds disagreement.

In order to get the grade, the student must explain coherently why Caplan is wrong BUT, in doing so, they cannot misrepresent his position or they don't get the grade. In a general way, I think this is an excellent way of challenging students. I also think it's a great standard to use when discussing and debating in general....particularly on politics.

In my experience, I think most people do not meet this standard....not that they're really trying to. And while I don't find it that detrimental or surprising, I tend to shutter a bit when those who demonstrate a greater level of knowledge do it.

[Bruce Wilder]

Maybe because I spent a disproportionate part of my time in academia in economics departments and business schools, I find the premise that academia is this hotbed of liberal bias and exclusivity somewhat incredible.

Our young Mr. Porter might want to meet R. Glenn Hubbard, Dean of the Graduate School of Business at Columbia and Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics, before he concludes that conservatives cannot find a comfortable home at our elite universities, or that partisan politics is biased against conservatives at such institutions.

[robertdfeinman]

Psychologist Robert Altemeyer has another take on the subject of who gets drawn to which sorts of professions. This falls out from his study of the authoritarian personality type. The type who believes in following a strong leader and a hierarchical social organization correlates strongly with those with a conservative bent.

Universities, which are performing their function properly, are supposed to be places which are open to debate and the study of "reality" free from dogma. Those who prefer to leave their beliefs unexamined will not be comfortable in such an environment. I think this also helps explain the existence of schools which are set up explicitly to teach dogma.

Up until recently this has usually meant a religious affiliation, but much of conservative ideology of the past 50 years seems to have a "religious" overtone. By this I mean that the study of the works of the masters is the primary focus rather then branching out into new directions. The old left tended to suffer from this, but aside from the New School and, perhaps, CCNY there we no predominantly leftist schools. Even those that were seemed to have evolved (New School excepted) while these days ideologically inspired schools are being set up explicitly.

If you are interested in reading about the authoritarian personality type here's the link to Altemeyer's free online book:

The Authoritarians

[John V]

Thanks Robert,

However, the problem I have with a lot of these studies is the loose definitions of "conservative" and "liberal". Being that I'm neither though I share subtle and sometimes complex views with both "stereotypes", I tend to smirk when I hear an adherent of stereotype passing judgment onto the other in and vice-versa.

One study, like this one, will attribute "authoritarianism" to conservatives...but what do they mean by conservatives?

I don't consider myself conservative and I'm truly not. However, I do agree with them on many things....though perhaps not for the same reasons. Nonetheless, many conservatives explain their own economic beliefs in ways they do not sound authoritarian at all. Likewise with liberals. Personally I think both have authoritarian personalities.

Another thing is that conservatives and liberals (used broadly) both go to college and voting patterns of college graduates at the bachelor level tend to be pretty even.

Masters and PhD grads tend to lean liberal but I don't see a cause/effect there. I think liberals looking for teaching positions tend to continue on to post-graduate school more than non-liberals. I'd be willing to bet that most non-liberals going to post-grad are pursuing degrees in which interested students are less likely to be liberal like economics, finance and business and maybe engineering and IT.

But anyway, I don't see that study addressing the issue of why liberals tend to be attracted to high level teaching positions at more than non-liberals. There, I simply think it's a matter of taste like I explained before. Liberals are, in far greater numbers, LOOKING FOR teaching careers. The subjects where we see far less domination are subjects that are less likely (statistically) than others to make one liberal in the stereotypical political sense. Some of these are the ones I mentioned above.

[John V]

Bruce Wilder,

Mentioning the people you did along with their subject areas kind of echoes my point about non-liberals being well-represented in academia...but only in fields where the subject matter both attracts people who are not liberal and/or make people less liberal.

[ScentOfViolets]

You seem to have some experericence pertinent to this discussion, John V. So can you tell us what conservative ideas are being ignored in academia? Frankly, I just don't see it, and most of my circle are academics. Just to forestall you, I don't think that the 'conservative theory' that women are intellectually inferior to men to be much of a theory at all, and if you suspect that the Women's Studies departments are liberal because this idea isn't given much examination, or given examamination and found wanting, well, you and I would have a different idea of what constitutes liberal bias. Similarly, the notion that blacks are inferior seems to fail on its own merits; not because it's 'conservative'. Do you have any examples that don't fall into those two categories? Or is this one of those 'They've stopped teaching so much about dead white guys' complaints the Lit department gets so often?

[John V]

Scent,

So can you tell us what conservative ideas are being ignored in academia?

I didn't say anything to imply or assert that I had any answer to this question.

What did you read to think that the question above that you asked me was part of my point?

[Bruce Wilder]

John V: "only in fields where the subject matter both attracts people who are not liberal and/or make people less liberal."

In Business schools, it is not just the "attractions" of the subject matter, which figure in the selection process.

Glenn Hubbard, whom I named in my previous comment, is a good example of how a conservative hack can made a successful academic career out of catering closely to the ideological and propaganda needs of very wealthy people.

[John V]

Bruce,

that's fine but I feel the general point I was making is still valid.

[robertdfeinman]

John V.
I don't know your position on anything, but I'm willing to guess you are not a true "conservative", but are more of a libertarian. I define this as one who favors personal freedom over organizational structure.

Many conservatives use similar language, but whether they really believe it or not can only be gleaned from their actions. Altemeyer admits that his analysis doesn't do a good job in defining libertarians. This may be due to some defect in his methodology or due to the small sample size that he found which prevented him from drawing any conclusions.

He also doesn't discuss left wing authoritarians, just because he couldn't find enough to study during the past 40 years. If he had done is research starting in 1910 he would not have had the same problem.

Before you dismiss his findings I suggest you read the book...

[ken melvin]

I suspect (read know for a fact) that certain libertarian professors use their position to recruit young blood from among their students, especially in the areas of business/commerce. Don't know whence the money for the trips, etc.; assume it is either out of pocket or picked up by the university. By the bye, does anyone dare refute the idea that libertarianism requires some suspension of reason?

[Greg Ransom]

The university system in the social sciences and humanities is a guild system and a system of inherited privilege [old professors with old ideas restraining competition and replicating themselves] -- it's the type of system liberal thinkers and the liberal marketplace fought tooth and nail to replace.

One problem with this guild system is lock-in -- acedemic fields tend to get trapped in a less than optimal "cascade", with no-way out. Often this happens when a yet-to-be science like economics attempts to imitate true sciences like physics and mathematics -- what you get (under the influence of Navy money and Rockefeller money) is a sort of cargo cult science, an explanatory dead end that doesn't hold up to close scrutiny.

[Bruce Wilder]

I have no idea what Greg Ransom is talking about.

American academia is much too vast for a guild system. The little networks of publication and mutual admiration and privilege tend to get swamped. The rebels and outlaws are constantly at work inventing new inter-disciplinary disciplines, launching new publications and centers, moving from state-schools to private ones, from secular bastions to religious ones, from first-tier schools to second or third or fourth, from universities to small colleges, and so on.

[ScentOfViolets]

Uh, John, if you insist on quoting me, at least include the complete quote.

You quoted:

So can you tell us what conservative ideas are being ignored in academia?

But the more complete form is:

You seem to have some experericence pertinent to this discussion, John V. So can you tell us what conservative ideas are being ignored in academia?

Don't you think that first sentence answers your question?

[John V]

scent,

Not really.

[ScentOfViolets]

What? That doesn't answer your question? I commented that you seemed to have some real-life expeerience in these matters.

So I am asking you, based on your experience, what these specific consevative ideas that have not been given a fair hearing are.

Was the meaning really that difficult to parse? Looking back it doesn't seem so, but perhaps it's because I am the author. What did you find ambiguous about the question, or difficult to interpret?

[John V]

Sorry, Scent,

Again, I don't see how anything I posted makes that question appropriate.

I don't need to have experience teaching in academia to say what I said. Plus, I did not say anything to the effect that there are "conservative ideas being ignored in academia".

Hence, like I already alluded to, I didn't make any point that was relevant to your question.

Ask somebody else.

[ScentOfViolets]

Why the rudeness? But, in any event, you're yet another data point - no one seems to be able to give specific examples of this mysterious 'bias'. And yet, some people are so certain it exists. Why? It doesn't make any sense.

[Jay]

"If conservativism is absent from the University, it’s because it hasn’t earned its way in."

Can't we apply Feinstein's "Fairness Doctrine" here.

[John V]

Scent,

I'm not being rude nor did I mean to be.

Like I said, you're question shouldn't be directed toward me.

I did not say anything to merit that question. In order for you to have asked me that question, I would have had to say something to challenge that premise. But I did not.

[ScentOfViolets]

Is Feinsteins' Fairness Doctrine different from the other kind? If not, I'm still not sure what you're saying. Do you think ID or Creation Science or whatever it calls itself today should be taught in an effort to be fair? If so, I emphatically disagree. If conservative ideas aren't being given any attention because they are conservative, then yes, there would be something to the notion of a 'Fairness Doctrince' for academia. If they aren't being given any attention because they are wrong, however, or unproven, then, of course not.

Is this what you had in mind? This really doesn't seem like it would require much thought to arrive at that conclusion.

[John V]

RobertF,

I don't know your position on anything, but I'm willing to guess you are not a true "conservative", but are more of a libertarian.

Yes. I even said that...only very bluntly.

As for reading his book. Maybe. but not now. I actually move from one book into another and I try to alternate Left-Right-Left etc.. Right now, I just started "Left" (Reich's new book) so a "Right" is next....though I can't think of a good new one as I look ahead. I generally don't read "political conservative" or "political liberal" books...in the partisan sense. Meaning I'll read a book like you suggested or Reich or Hayek or Friedman but I won't read Coulter or Hannity or an equal partisan polemic rag from the Left.

Nonetheless, like economic models that don't hold up, I wonder if the book you mention can't explain libertarians because there's something flawed in his methodology.

Personally, I think there's nothing implicitly coherent about a stereo-typical "Conservative" or "Liberal".

What follows that social or cultural conservatism has to wed to neo-con foreign policy to free markets and smaller government? To me, I see 3 disparate views that have been arbitrarily put together. Same goes for "Liberals" for the opposites. Hence, I think studies that assume these views always go together are flawed. I think people may be conditioned to combine views to relieve the cognitive dissonance from supporting the stereo-typical party lines...or...they like one view and "learn to like" the others.

I've read Lakoff. He's to do an OK job explaining this but again it seems labored from a reality that modern politics has created as opposed to a real naturally occurring views.

I may read it in the future. BTW, Robert, would you be interested in Front Page Blogging at a certain site? If so, please email me.

[physfool]

Conservatives not able to find jobs in academia?
Bollocks.
John Yoo hired by UC Berkeley. Douglas 'stupidest guy on the face of the earth' Feith hired at Georgetown.
Give me a break. Same BS story as the 'libul media'. Who was it that first pointed out the absurdity that those who have held all the levers of power for the last 7 years believe they are persecuted?

[James Killus]

"University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small." --attributed to Henry Kissinger

When people complain about academics being "liberal" and not "conservative," what they usually mean is that there aren't many Movement Conservatives in academia, which is largely true, because 1) Movement Conservatives can get much better jobs for far less effort at think tanks, businesses, and Republican Administrations and 2) Movement Conservatives are, in fact, rather dim.

However, academia is actually one of the most conservative environments that one can possibly find. It preserves ideas long after they have gone out of fashion. One can find academics writing about the luminescent ether well into the 1930s, and there are Trotskyites to be found to this very day. And lest someone think that it's only old Marxists that are being preserved, recall that neo-classical ecomomics had largely vanished from the wild until it mutated into a new and virulent form in the Chicago preserve in the 1950s, to infect a generation that had lost its immunity to such diseases.

But if you really want to see conservatism in action, find a tenured female mathematician, if you can, and ask her about the matter. Oh, that's right, women are supposed to be genetically inferior to men in mathematics. Yeah, that's the ticket. Such political correctness. Women didn't make good symphony musicians, either--until symphonies began doing blind tryouts.

[calmo]

Well I like you physfool...using "Bollocks" (possibly borrowing from laffy?) is what duz it.
The coinage "librul media" is a detail of a pre-emptive structural shift..ie Fox takes a far right position that allows the major networks to shift to the right. The Fox audience is small, but the right shift in the majors is not.
Agree with you James about this

However, academia is actually one of the most conservative environments that one can possibly find.

and the note about women who generally are not only smarter but also have a larger capacity to tolerate their generally better paid male peers.
I wanted to see this thread poke around the purveyors of ideology: the media largely but also the schools and those young minds (ex Young Republicans) that are so much more capable than the TV drivel, yes? Yes?
I hope and pray.

[robertdfeinman]

John V.
Robert Altemeyer is a "liberal" and he uses this outlook to make fun of people in his book. This is what makes it fun to read, however the meat of it is based upon 40 years of running psychological tests on his students and their parents as well as several forays into testing elected politicians.

You don't have to agree with his politics to study his results. In fact his biggest champion is conservative John Dean, whose book "Conservatives without Conscience" is based upon Altemeyer's work.

By the way Altemeyer has a comments section on his web site, so if you have questions about his lack of results for libertarians you can ask him directly.

[Pete Drang]

Come on, when conservatives come to speak on campus they are booed off the stage or get vegetables thrown at them before they can even talk.

On the other hand, two-cent dictators get cheers. Even dictators that are protested against by students in their *own* country's universities.

To claim that this kind of behavior at universities is a sign of intelligence and market forces is just hogwash.

[Pete Drang]

Come on, when conservatives come to speak on campus they are booed off the stage or get vegetables thrown at them before they can even talk.

On the other hand, two-cent dictators get cheers. Even dictators that are protested against by students in their *own* country's universities.

To claim that this kind of behavior at universities is a sign of intelligence and market forces is just hogwash.

[anne]

"Scholarship is not just writing a few papers in an obscure journal that is read by a few adherents who determine what can be written about. That is akin to religion.

"These sorts of people were as obviously daft in my day at university in the early 70s as they should be today. If universities want to maintain the idea that the institution is about scholarship, this dreck should be cleared out of the stables."

The crazed voice of the education authoritarian.