Self-Selection, Conservatives, and Left-Leaning Universities

Do conservatives self-select out of academic careers?:

Do Conservatives Self-select Away from Academic Careers?, Lee Sigelman, The Monkey Cage: Academicians in this country, especially those in the social sciences and humanities, are disproportionately left of center, or at least centrist, politically, rather than conservative. That finding has cropped up in so many surveys over the years that I won’t even bother to cite sources. Let’s just take it as a fact and go from there.

Go where? How about addressing the “Why?” question? It’s here that things begin to get interesting.

One answer is that conservatives are discriminated against in academia. They don’t get hired in the first place, and the fortunate few who do find academic employment aren’t tolerated for long by their liberal colleagues. That answer is simple, straightforward, and politically combustible. It’s the standard story that conservatives tell and liberals dispute.

Now, however, comes quite a different answer. Based on their recent research, Matthew Woessner and April Kelly-Woessner contend that the culprit isn’t discrimination against conservatives, but rather self-selection on the part of conservatives. ... Woessner and Kelly-Woessner conclude that “The personal priorities of those on the left are more compatible with pursuing a Ph.D.” than are the priorities of their conservative counterparts. For example, ... conservative undergraduates are outnumbered by two to one in the social sciences and humanities. Conservative students are more oriented toward financial security and raising families. Accordingly, they gravitate toward more “practical” courses of study that lead them into highly remunerative professions like accounting and computer science. They’re also less willing to delay having children — a common pattern in academic life, where childbirth often awaits a favorable tenure vote.

For a chatty and not especially informative introduction to this project in the current issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, click here. For a copy of the paper itself, click here. ...

In comments, Lee adds:

Richard Posner has some interesting thoughts about self-selection into or away from academia; click here. Among other things, he notes that members of the military are disproportionately Republicans. Does that mean that the military discriminates against Democrats? Maybe or maybe not, but a more plausible account would be that liberals are less drawn to military service in the first place. Another of his points is that liberals may be more attracted, and conservatives less so, to the "quasi-socialistic" culture of academia. Like so much of what Posner writes, you may like it or not, but it will make you think.

I had this ready to post a few days ago, but never actually posted it. But it seems relevant here.

Conservatives embrace the idea of diversity on campus:

University creates a position to promote conservative thought, by David Accomazzo, Longmont Times-Call: The College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado has approved an academic position specializing in conservative thought to foster ideological diversity on campus.

In December, the University of Colorado Foundation began raising $9 million to create the Visiting Endowed Chair of Conservative Thought, which CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard says could be funded as early as the 2008-09 academic year.

The chair would teach one class a semester, give speeches around Colorado, and assist with research and coursework in the department closest to his or her specialty, Hilliard said.

Todd Gleeson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, will hire an instructor every two years to fill the temporary position. An advisory board of donors, alumni, well-known conservative leaders and others will recommend a candidate to the dean, Hilliard said. Officials have not yet recruited the advisory board.

The university will not necessarily hire an academic, but candidates should have a background in conservative thinking, such as former politicians, political strategists and journalists in addition to political science scholars, Hilliard said.

He named political strategist and pundit Bill Kristol as an example of a qualified candidate. “It’s going to be someone with some national standing who could teach a class,” Hilliard said.

Former Chancellor Richard Byyny said via e-mail that he proposed the idea for the chair to a receptive political science faculty sometime between 2001 and 2003. “I did not pursue this because I am a conservative,” Byyny wrote. “I pursued it because I thought it was the right and responsive approach (for intellectual diversity).” ...

Uriel Nauenberg, physics professor and chairman of the Boulder Faculty Assembly, said the chair “is a perfectly good idea to discuss as long as the faculty are in charge of the curriculum.”

Economics department chairman and professor Nicholas Flores said he supported the new position but thought CU also would benefit from a chair in liberal ideology. “There should be a diversity of thought,” Flores said. “I’d like to see something on the other side as well.”

Professor Kenneth Bickers, chairman of CU’s political science department, supports the position and doesn’t believe the chair is necessarily political in nature. “I don’t see it as a partisan chair,” Bickers said. “The idea behind the chair is to expose students to a wide array of ideas that could be considered conservative.”

[A letter to the editor from my pre-blogging days. I'd write it a bit different today, but not much.]

Comments

[spencer]

i always find it to be a great example of incongruous behaviors that the professional military tend to be conservative or republican while they create for themselves the most socialist organization in the world. Everyone works for the government and pay is very strongly influenced by the "to each according to their needs" philosophy. For example a single NCO or officer gets a room in the barracks or the BOQ. But if the same individual is married they get an apartment or a housing allowance to rent an apartment. If they have kids they get a larger allowance. I remember as a kid on army bases in Germany if someone with a large family was transfered in they sometimes would cut a door between two apartments so they would have enough bedrooms to meet regulations.

[lonesome_moderate]

I think a better term than "discrimination" or "self-selection" would be "groupthink". My wife took a few education courses a few years ago, and I was astonished by the kind of Berkeley-left-fantasy nonsense which she was expected to "learn", and to regurgitate on tests, if she expected to make a good grade. You can of course get good grades in, say, a chemistry (or, probably, economics) course even if you and the professor have very different ideas about "correct" politics. But it's often not possible if you're studying education, sociology, or political science, unless you get really good at faking it. People who can only get good grades by writing what they consider to be nonsense certainly will "self select" out, and probably should.

[NLS]

Great, we've seen what "ideological diversity" has done to the phony even-handedness of the cable news. I can't for my kid to bring home his ID homework...

[billyblog]

OK, maybe I shouldn't, because its only a link from the Lee Sigelman post to the Richard Posner article, but here is a delightful example of the Sean Hannity-style reasoning of the good judge, who is on the U.S. Court of Appeals and is empowered to write opinions that affect all of us.

"The conservatism of military officers is easy to understand--conservatives are much more favorable to the use of military force, and to the values of honor, personal courage, discipline, hardiness, and obedience, which are highly prized by the military, than liberals are."

He's no doubt right on the military force thing. But, that not a lot of diplomacy and pacifist leaning personalities pick careers in the military hardly requires a great pop psychological logical leap.

But notice the smarmy underside of "values of honor, personal courage, discipline, hardiness [though its not clear this is a value/virtue, or something you get by watching your diet and working out a lot], and obedience."

Oh?

You're suggesting that liberals on the whole are less honorable, more craven, less disciplined, and less obedient to lawful authority than conservative military personnel?

Exactly what are the respective standard deviations for payment of parking tickets as between liberals and conservatives?

"Don't be querulous, billy. You know what I was trying to say."

Yes, Judge, I'm afraid I do.

[robertdfeinman]

Universities are supposed to be places where the pursuit of knowledge is allowed to take one where ever it leads. This type of attitude is more frequently associated with "liberal" thinkers.

"Conservative" thinkers tend more to an authority dominated world view where the received wisdom is handed down from one generation to another without much challenge. In areas where there is little social aspect of discipline (like computer science) either group can fit in. In areas like the social sciences, where ideology gets intermixed with research, the dislike of being challenged inclines those who don't like this sort of atmosphere to be reluctant to enter the discipline. This is also why there are "schools" of thought in the social sciences found at various institutions, the ideologues can at least congregate together and find support amongst themselves.

I refer again to the work of psychologist Robert Altemeyer. He didn't address hiring patterns in higher ed specifically, but one can easily extrapolate from his studies. Read the free, online book at:
theAuthoritarians.com

[Andrew]

"Reality has a well known liberal bias." - Stephen Colbert, White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, 4/29/2006

[anne]

"Academicians in this country, especially those in the social sciences and humanities, are disproportionately left of center, or at least centrist, politically, rather than conservative. That finding has cropped up in so many surveys over the years that I won’t even bother to cite sources. Let’s just take it as a fact and go from there."

No; let's not take it as a fact, and let's not go from anywhere until you explain precisely where left of center or centrist means. I have no idea what you are talking about until you precisely tell me what constitutes left of center.

[Worker]

Interesting article, but it should at least self-selection in due to universities love affair with identity politics, which has created whole departments dedicated solely to the production of leftist diatribe.

Facing a lack of market demand for Marxist rhetoric and/ or shoulder chips, identity politicians must engage in a vicious (virtuous) cycle of polical maneuvering to usurp critical thought in order to create sinecures for their otherwise unemployable acolytes.

[realpc]

Yes it could be mostly self-selection, rather than discrimination. Academic job applicants don't have to reveal their political preferences, after all.

But once you become an academic you have to go along with the majority rule to some extent, or else be ostracized.

[Bill Jefferys]

Bill Kristol? Give me a break!

[Gerard MacDonell]

I always thought that liberals and conservatives would AGREE that conservatives have respect for authority while liberals tend to be more skeptical. It follows from this that conservatives are not really interested in thinking and ought not be in universities. They are better off doing their thinking in churches or tanks sponsored by corporations and rich eccentrics.

If a conservative can use the term intellectual as an insult, then it follows that he is anti-intellectual by his own lights. So why argue. Refusing to think is fairly central to conservatism. It is a point of pride.

You see it in their respect for religion, tradition, authority, certainty and a priori reasoning as well as in their disdain for doubt, vacillation, caution, empiricism, etc. Conservatives are the stupid party. I believe it is a point of pride among them. When Bush is trying to sound authentic and appeal to his base, he intentionally messes up his grammar and thickens his accent.

But can I change the subject back to economics? I remember from a paper I read somewhere that there is no trade-off between growth and inflation that can be exploited beyond the short run, and even there unreliably. However, there is a trade-off between inflation and growth VOLATILITY. And this provides justification for the Fed smoothing the business cycle and avoiding recessions if voters like growth, dislike inflation and have a quadratic utility function, whatever that is. Right? Social utility is raised by smoothing the business cycle.

But I propose for you a possible caveat. It seems to me that about 40% of the American public and 90% of the people who post to liberal blogs like this REALLY REALLY want a recession, as confirmation that Bush is evil and as punishment of that guy down the street who swanned around his fancy car purchased with that cashout, neg am, flotaing rate, subprime, teaser mortgage.

So maybe the Fed should raise rates and throw us into recession, just for the psychic benefits accruing to that 40%, which I think would have to be pretty large -- based on my reading.

[anne]

"Interesting article, but it should at least argue self-selection is due to universities love affair with identity politics, which has created whole departments dedicated solely to the production of leftist diatribe."

Interesting, so focusing on women or Asians or Africans or Latin Americans is the problem. Focus on male Anglos is always fine, though, no distribing Chinese or Brazilians or even women to worry about. Can I mention Indigenous people? I might ever fall in love with and Indigenous person and imagine the diatribe then.

Yes; the problem is always identity. Conservatism I suppose is always male Anglo.

[anne]

"Another of his points is that liberals may be more attracted, and conservatives less so, to the 'quasi-socialistic' culture of academia."

As opposed to the "quasi-capitalist" culture of the military. * The essence of idiocy, here. But I am still wondering, what is left of center?

* Following Spencer.

[TigerPaw]

A conservative: Obey me and no questions!

A liberal: one that doesn't comply with the above.

[Bruce Webb]

Call me a crazy, I've been called worse, but in the multi-century debate between Enlightenment thinking and Reaction we have been logically and intellectually been kicking some reactionary butt. We have overreached (see the nuttiness of Stalinist 'science') but by and large I will put up Franklin Jefferson and Einstein against the ya-hoos.

[donna]

Why do wingers insist they are "moderates"? Who is to the right of them, anyway?

[dd]

What does it mean to be "conservative" in social sciences?
No birth control? No divorce? No integration? No hot lunches? No Medicare? No unemployment insurance? No unions? Physical punishment for errant children? Torturing prisoners?

Posner seems to enamored of the '50's ("Between 1955 and 1962 I was a student at Yale College in the humanities and then at the Harvard Law School, and neither the humanities faculty at Yale nor the Harvard Law School faculty was noticeably liberal (the former was actually rather conservative), and I mean by the standards of that era, not by today’s standards"). Is this a white male thing the fascination with the '50's?

[gordon]

Anne is asking an excellent question which points up confusion on at least two levels. First, there is confusion between "conservative" according to the dictionary definition and what I might politely call "right-wing". Right-wingers aren't conservatives - they are in fact howling radicals, intent on creating a world very different from the one we and our parents lived in. A "dictionary conservative", on the other hand, is suspicious of proposals for change, often suggesting that the unintended negative consequences are likely to outweigh the anticipated benefits. A "dictionary conservative" might sometimes be an incrementalist (in very small steps) but isn't going to try to remake the world.

There is also confusion between the meanings of conservative in relation to political science/history and in relation to psychological character traits. This is fuzzier. Robertdfeinman offered a link to Altemeyer on the psychological conservative, and of course some of us old codgers remember Adorno's "F Test" (F for Fascist). But the character type is not the same as the sort of political theory which I suppose is associated with Hobbes or with the Anglican exponents of unconditional submission to authority which James II was so fond of. I might leave references to that sort of theorising to any political science majors or historians who happen to be reading this.

Yes, lots of confusion about what a conservative is, before we even start to think about how discriminated against they are.

For the record, I'm an Anglo male.

[assenzio]

Has anybody checked for some source of bias such as the educational level of the family?

[JRossi]

I teach first year med students. Exceedingly smart, most of them could have gotten into grad school at good institutions. They have no interest in such foolishness. A lot of them are pretty conservative. It's the money, baby. I suspect law and business siphon off a lot of conservative brainiacs as well.

[joseph]

It seems to me that the University world is fairly isolated in the sense that there isn't too much interaction with the real world. College classes (esp social sciences) see discussions of ideals, optimal outcomes, trends, etc... without ever having to actually deal with them. It follows that this would be the perfect fit for the intellectual liberal who stays awake at night over social injustice. A world where liberals don't actually have to deal with the issues that torment them, but can complain endlessly to a like-minded audience... sounds like college to me.

[Bruce Wilder]

I cannot help but wonder if there isn't more than a bit of sample bias underlying the generalization that academia is dominated by moderates and liberals, compounding the bias in defining left, center and right.

There are a lot of fairly conservative institutions -- the University of Chicago, George Mason or Claremont. Think of all the business schools, which are hardly hotbeds of liberalism. Or, all the religiously affiliated schools: the various Loyolas, Pepperdine, Southern Methodist, all those bible colleges. It is easy for me to believe, from personal acquaintance, that the Humanities are chock full of liberals, but I kind of doubt that biology and physics are, and I know that business schools are pretty conservative places.

[James Killus]

Hmm. Just at a guess, I'd say that most university academics believe that women should have the vote, that miscegenation should not be a crime, but slavery should be, and that our nation should not torture people.

Perhaps the opposite of these positions is not "liberal" today (save perhaps the last one), but there was a time when they were the defining issues of liberalism. Moreover, someone who takes the above positions will self-identify as a "conservative" and will generally not be kicked out of the Conservative Movement's "Big Tent."

Oh, and Gerard MacDonell, your belief that this is a "liberal" blog, and that the people here "REALLY REALLY want a recession" tells me a great deal about you, and also a great deal about how little you understand about the people here, or about economics, for that matter.

I for one, would be very happy if everything were just peachy, economically, politically, the works. But pigs do not fly, though you can put lipstick on them and stuff them into a cannon. What comes out the end of the cannon is no longer a pig, however.

[reason]

Gerard MacDonell,
no actually it is the Austrian school who tend to be Libertarian who really want a recession. We fear one (given all the parallels between the current situation and the 1920s), but some of us also are a bit fearful that we need at least a moderate one in order to shake people out of their complacency. It would be nice if people were more intellectually alert and could be convinced that change is necessary even in the absense of a major jolt.

[hari]

@ Mark -

That was good and reasonable letter!
I agree with the fact that knowledge is a dangerous commodity! The more you know the less you're likely to commit to either/or diatribes of one kind or another. My experience with unis is simply that its a place to develop your cognitive instruments, and profs can be more often than not very influential - in directing your vocational interest. After all, that's their job.

* Ruler Morality - conservative values.

*Slave Morality - liberal to nth degree!

So, if knowledge is power (as our Moniyan used to argue) then, of course, ignorance is bliss.

[Nicolas]

To do science, you have to use data and logical thinking. And you can get a Nobel prize by proving previous generations wrong, not by taking everything they said on faith.

[Nicolas]

@ joseph

Could I rephrase your post:
Conservatives tend to act without thinking too much.
Liberals tend (most of the time) to think before acting.

[Keith]

Of course, you could have a self-reinforcing process, where self-selection and discimination go hand in hand.

This is especially true in academia, where the so-called "reality principle" of peer review favors those who agree with their colleagues. In other words, academia lends itself far more to irrational discrimination than the marketplace.

So, assuming two ideologies A and B (you could have more but the results would stay the same, so we make this simplifying assumption) you may have some initial self-selection out of a discipline by people with politics A. Then you have a disproportionate share of people with politics B writing and teaching, and you obtain groupthink and discrimination against people with ideology A, which simply reinforces the process.

[Keith]

As for liberals and conservatives in general, they offer an unpleasant choice.

Liberals are provincial and close-minded, and pretend they're not.

Conservatives are provincial and close-minded, and are proud of it.

[Jay]

The distinction between conservative and liberal is as much nonsense as looking at blacks and whites differently. All of the blanket statements above are just as bad as the bigotry towards African Americans. Until we can look at people as individual organisms and stop obsessing over imaginary collectives we will experience little to no progress.
Although after rereading Keith's post I think his is the least inaccurate generalization.

[Nicolas]

"A "dictionary conservative", on the other hand, is suspicious of proposals for change, often suggesting that the unintended negative consequences are likely to outweigh the anticipated benefits."
- gordon

Before looking for sophisticated theories about discrimination, could we just look at obvious ones.

Assumption 1 : Conservative people are uncomfortable or hostile to new ideas on social / political / cultural issues

Assumption 2 : New ideas are the fuel of sciences and universities

Consequence : Conservative people are uncomfortable in university departments dedicated to social / political / cultural issues.

This is also why they must feel no discomfort in other departments like physics, computer science, medicine or business schools.

[Keith]

I think there's way too much conflation of politics and personality on most of these posts.

I would guess a political conservative who's tried Indian food would be more likely to be smarter and more intellectually inclined than a political liberal who hasn't (assuming both aren't Indian). I say this because the trying of different foods likely correlates with cognition and attitude in certain ways that might have predictive value.

At best, you can argue that certain cultural traits make one less intellectually inclined, and they loosely correlate with some political affiliations at some points in time. So certain strict religious views may have certain effects, and they correlate with certain political views. But then if you hold those political views, the reverse doesn't follow.

But it still appears to me that your typical women's studies department is as close-minded and provincial as a typical fundamentalist Baptist congregation, perhaps more so.

And it still looks like the peer-review process, especially in non-scientific disciplines, really lends itself to groupthink and ideological discrimination. This would then enhance the effects of any intial self-selection.

[anne]

"But it still appears to me that your typical women's studies department is as close-minded and provincial as a typical fundamentalist Baptist congregation, perhaps more so."

The voice of prejudiced idiocy, either way; specifically not typically speaking.

[pborder]

All right, a Department of Conservative Studies! It will probably be just as important and influential as the departments of Chicano, Women's, African-American, Scandinavian and Classical Studies. Oh well, the more the merrier, I suppose.

Frankly I think the whole notion of a faculty agreeing on ANYTHING (except the extreme importance of the tenure system) is just totally absurd. Universities just don't work like that- there's always somebody with an axe to grind, and the vendettas, arguments, feuds, and general political bickering is totally out of control. Whish is actually just exactly the way it should be in a place that supposed to advance knowledge.

I think the conservatives get upset at universities because it's not the model they prefer. There is no grand leader who everyone tries to support, instead a university has a million little quests going on, and people do things they find interesting. This is why conservatives are drawn to the military- it's just easier to have someone tell you what to do.

[Jay]

"I think(believe) the conservatives get upset at universities because it's not the model they prefer."

You could go through these posts and create a Liberals Creed that is longer and equally as absurd as the Nicean equivalent.

[Holly W.]

Granted that I attended college over 20 years ago, but I minored in political science, and honestly, I could not have told you what party most of my professors would have voted for. Many of the texts we read pre-dated the current definitions of 'conservative' and 'liberal' and included Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, and our Founders (the Federalist Papers) -- and several them of contradicted each other. We were expected to discuss the ideas amongst ourselves, and write papers expanding our own thoughts on the topics. Granted that my experience is only an anecdote, but I ratherdoubt that my college was all that unusual.

At no point did I feel that any of my teachers was telling us what to think, and I always find myself a bit offended when conservatives suggest that this must have been the case. I also get annoyed when people seem to think that college students in general must be mushy-minded and easily influenced. Is a college course the last information we're anticipating a person will get in any subject?

[Holly W.]

Veering slightly off-topic, I notice Gerard McDonnell states: "I always thought that liberals and conservatives would AGREE that conservatives have respect for authority while liberals tend to be more skeptical."

And yet conservatives are supposed to be suspicious of government while liberals are supposed to trust it ... just another of life's little contradictions.

[Holly W.]

Joseph: "It seems to me that the University world is fairly isolated in the sense that there isn't too much interaction with the real world."

Gee, my academic father has served on our county planning commission, and on the board of the local hospital and the Salvation Army, among other institutions, and my mother was elected to City Council after knocking on every door in town and talking to the people who answered about their concerns -- but no, you must be right and they weren't/aren't interacting with the real world in any of those endeavors.

says...

...[to what Holly says]: Veering slightly off-topic [ this B the essence of non-conservative, yes? ], I notice Gerard McDonnell states: "I always thought that liberals and conservatives would AGREE that conservatives have respect for authority while liberals tend to be more skeptical. [ this B the conservative central foundation: WE (that universe that is totally populated with conservatives or liberals) all AGREE...that you listen while I speak...an B bloody polite about it...your chance will come...when you demonstrate you have my lines down." ]

And yet conservatives are supposed to be suspicious of government [ the supposers bein the non-conservatives since the conservatives cannot mount a genuine suppose if their life depended on it]while liberals are supposed to trust it [ and make it accountable, and reinforce it --to make sure it works, and B proud of it... not like the current example in the WH, head in the toilet...heckofa legacy! ] just another of life's little contradictions.

[joseph]

@Holly
In response to your rebuttal. You're right, I suppose many college professors do become very active in the community. Whether it be in the form of civic service or philanthropic endeavor, many academics certainly pitch in.

Your parents seem to me to be the kind of liberal that actually is liberal... The kind that will actually go out and try to change the world they live in. Good for them and good for their community.

My gripe is that so much of the right and the left doesn't "practice what they preach," so to speak. So many liberals claim to be very socially progessive, when they wouldn't spend a day working in a soup kitchen actually helping the downtrodden... they would prefer to pay the government (through higher taxes) to deal with it so they don't have to encounter the injustice they so despise. Also, far too many so-called conservatives who are supposed to be skeptical of authority (by definition), are, in fact, just the opposite. I think that overwhelming repub support for the Patriot is the most glaring example...

But, back to the main issue here. I don't think that there's anything wrong with the generally liberal nature of universities, and, I don't think there's anything wrong with the generally conservative nature of the professional world. What is interesting to me is how quickly this turns into a sounding board for us (myself included) to spout opinionated party-line bs. I propose that we redefine ourselves according to two new parties: wholist and egoist. The wholist camp would weigh their decisions in light of what's best for not only themselves but also the whole. The egoist camp would only weigh decisions in light of what's good for themselves. In a nutshell, I would say that wholist would more closely align with liberal and egoist would more closely align with conservative. What's interesting though is how Adam Smith seemed to think way back when that an optimal outcome arises out of the latter.

[STS]

"...University of Colorado has approved an academic position specializing in conservative thought to foster ideological diversity..."

This affirmative action for anti-affirmative action intellectuals reminds me of the old line: "a liberal is someone who won't take his own side in a fight."

Seems to me that the administration at U of Colorado is being gamed by the right-wing noise machine. Why can't anti-egalitarian, anti-affirmative action intellectuals compete on their own merit for a change?

[Bruce Wilder]

STS: "Why can't anti-egalitarian, anti-affirmative action intellectuals compete on their own merit for a change?"

Because Bill Kristol will still need a job, when writing hack columns for the increasingly atrocious N.Y. Times Op-Ed page runs out?

The university will not necessarily hire an academic, but candidates should have a background in conservative thinking, such as former politicians, political strategists and journalists in addition to political science scholars, [CU spokesman] Hilliard said.

He named political strategist and pundit Bill Kristol as an example of a qualified candidate.

All of this is just part of the continuing right-wing assault on liberalism's institutional foundations.

Back when the same right-wing was complaining about a liberal media, the Media was not all that liberal -- what pissed the conservatives off, though, was that the handful of first-rate papers, plus CBS News, the best of the Networks, were liberal.

The right-wing took care of that problem. Now, the N.Y. Times and Washington Post and L.A. Times are mostly crappy, and frequently serve the same right-wing purposes as Politico.com and Fox and Matt Drudge.

There's nothing inherently liberal about academia. A conservative academy is historically more common than a liberal academy. That's as true of humanities faculties as, say, economics and business faculties.

This is a fight, not just for liberalism, but for excellent. Because one thing a conservative academy is not, is excellent.

[Keith]

"I always find it to be a great example of incongruous behaviors that the professional military tend to be conservative or republican while they create for themselves the most socialist organization in the world."

I used to think that. But then I realized that it makes a lot of sense. If you really want socialism, then go join the military and earn those socialist benefits. Don't impose it on your entire society.

The meritocratic notion of earning health care and retirement benefits through military service may not be libertarian, but it surely isn't "liberal," in the modern political sense.

[Keith]

"In a nutshell, I would say that wholist would more closely align with liberal and egoist would more closely align with conservative."

Wrong, dumb, and biased. Both liberals and conservatives fall into the camp of egoism disguised as wholism. They make themselves believe that whatever is good for themselves is also good for the whole.

[hari]

Pursuit of knowledge must be free of these stupid labels. At my age, I get rather disturbed with your so-called libertarian junk! What the hell is it? Are you getting holier than whatnot?

Keep learning absolutely "free" of these stupid labels, for Gods Sake!

There's no end to what HELL you're capable of creating with these incendiary labels or ideological predilictions.
Fascism and Communism didn't come out of nothing...

[Jay]

"I used to think that. But then I realized that it makes a lot of sense. If you really want socialism, then go join the military and earn those socialist benefits. Don't impose it on your entire society."

Keith you hit the nail on the head. There are those that are in favor of voluntary collectives, and those that are in favor of coerced collectives. Any other jibberish used in place of these terms is euphemistic rubbish.

says...

The article about the "position to promote conservative thinking" is shocking. Universities may be expected to study and analyze conservative "thought" (hopefully there is anything to study there) but promote it? So an expert in conservative political thought who is not herself conservative doesn't need to apply? I would be very surprised if that is even legal. Let's see what selv-declared conservative fighters against "bias" in academia have to say about that one.

[piglet]

-

[Nicolas]

"There's nothing inherently liberal about academia. A conservative academy is historically more common than a liberal academy. That's as true of humanities faculties as, say, economics and business faculties."
- BW

Interesting. Maybe in fact the academia is apolitical, but the whole US society is among (if not the most) conservative among OECD countries. So academia looks liberal by comparison.

[Bruce Wilder]

Nicolas: "Interesting. Maybe in fact the academia is apolitical, but the whole US society is among (if not the most) conservative among OECD countries."

The U.S. is, in effect, several OECD counties, or a range of OECD countries all by itself. The U.S. has more than 3x the population of Germany, and its territory dwarfs all but population-tiny Canada and Australia.

The U.S. is very large, and very diverse, by OECD country standards. Most OECD countries -- even France and Britain -- are metropolitan in their social and political configuration. That is, they are countries with a single large metropolitan area functioning as the political and economic center of gravity for the whole. There may be some diversification in geographically expansive countries, like Canada and Australia, although those countries are really just a confederation of a handful of metropolises.

Anyway, without getting lost in the weeds, the U.S. is vastly more diverse in its political economy. There are many more cities, and large areas, even fairly populated areas, in the South and Midwest, which are effectively outside of the orbit of a super-metropolis.

To speak of "the whole" U.S. society misses this important feature of the case: parts of the U.S. are fully as liberal and economically advanced as the most progressive OECD countries; and other parts are, indeed, pretty retarded conservative. That's one reason why the whole red state / blue state dichotomy is so compelling, even if it does not also hold up to close scrutiny.

There are deep roots for this economic/political/cultural divergence, going back, at least, to the early 19th century. It played an important part in the politics of the Civil War and Reconstruction, and of the Great Depression and New Deal.

It may be that most OECD countries have something of a Dr. Jeckyll, Mr. Hyde character hidden somewhere, based on some historic divergence. Austria, for example, has the conflict between the metropolitans of Vienna and the reactionaries from the uplands; Italy has the painful division between the North and the Mezzogiorno; Finland has its Swedes, and Belgium . . . For most OECD countries, though, whatever divisions may exist, the homogeneity of small size or overwhelming dominance by a single City, as is the case in Britain and France, decides the case, and minorities, at best, can only seek some form of autonomy, not control of "the whole".

But, at the moment, and for the last generation, this conflict is at forefront of American politics, holding it on a knife-edge of 51-49% politics, and a ruthless Right has made its dominance of the 51% -- its majority of a (bare) majority highly effective. In effect, 1% have led 30% to control 51% to rule. That 30% is significantly more reactionary and authoritarian than the country "as a whole" and the 1%, who lead them . . . well, don't get me started.

And, the geographic component of all this has served to make this arrangement stable, and so can not be discounted, but the blue State / red State map is highly misleading.

Anyway, to bring this analysis back to answering the question at hand, two of the major components of U.S. academia are products of the Dr. Jeckyll, liberal, blue-State political culture. This goes all the way back to the American Revolution, when the idea of public education and university education took root in New England. State-sponsored, "private" universities began with Harvard and Yale, and were imitated and reproduced -- Cornell, Rutgers, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, Stanford, Chicago, Duke, etc. A second generation of State institutions took root in the parts of the Midwest settled by New Englanders and the basic pattern was institutionalized in the land-grant Morrill Act: the University of Michigan and Michigan State University were reproduced in most States; in California and New York State, still larger "systems" were created and the systems were also imitated and reproduced across the country.

The Morrill Act, which mandated the land-grant State university systems, which today dominate, in student numbers and finance, American academia, was, tellingly, passed during the Civil War, when the reactionaries were out of power. Culturally and politically, they are creations of what we, in the 21st century, call Blue State America. In terms of prestige, the Northeast's "Ivy League" leads, and it, too, is a product of New England/Blue State political culture.

I guess the point I would make is that this apparent divergence in political culture is not some town-gown thing writ large, where a liberal academia lives among a reactionary populace. In fact, the populace "as a whole" could be fairly liberal, but "majority of a (bare) majority" politics has given a conservative government to a mostly moderate, and increasingly liberal population. In areas of the country encompassing a large part of the population, liberalism holds undisputed sway.

The University of Texas is, in important ways, a product of the same institutional history and culture as the University of Michigan, the University of Oregon and the University of North Carolina, and Austin is an island in the same archipelago as Ann Arbor, Eugene, and Chapel Hill.

That island chain was the historical and cultural product of one of the main tendencies in American history, a main tendency with its roots in New England and manifest, today, as Blue State America, which if The South Must Rise Again, must also rise again to confront that reality. It is a main tendency that has aspired to political and cultural dominance throughout American history, and achieved it for extended periods.