In light of the recent thought policing of students at Delaware University, and similar efforts elsewhere, Robert Maranto’s article on academic monoculture may help explain how such absurdities come about, and persist, apparently unchallenged from within these institutions.
At many of the colleges I’ve taught at or consulted for, a perusal of the speakers list and the required readings in the campus bookstore convinced me that a student could probably go through four years without ever encountering a right-of-centre view portrayed in a positive light… Daniel Klein of George Mason University and Charlotta Stern of Stockholm University looked at all the reliable published studies of professors’ political and ideological attachments. They found that conservatives and libertarians are outnumbered by liberals and Marxists by roughly two to one in economics, more than five to one in political science, and by 20 to one or more in anthropology and sociology…
I believe that for the most part the biases conservative academics face are subtle, even unintentional. When making hiring decisions and confronted with several good candidates, we college professors, like anyone else, tend to select people like ourselves. Unfortunately, subtle biases in how conservative students and professors are treated in the classroom and in the job market have very unsubtle effects on the ideological makeup of the professoriate. The resulting lack of intellectual diversity harms academia by limiting the questions academics ask, the phenomena we study, and ultimately the conclusions we reach… A leftist ideological monoculture is bad for universities, rendering them intellectually dull places imbued with careerism rather than the energy of contending ideas.
In an environment supposedly geared to the cultivation of critical thinking contending ideas should be grist to the mill. Responding to dissent, even outlandish or ill-informed dissent, may prompt us to revisit our own ideas about the world and our own political assumptions – assumptions that are not infrequently arrived at by unconscious imitation or a kind of peer group osmosis. It generally helps to know why we think whatever we think, especially if claims of unassailable righteousness are being staked upon it – and disagreement is, very often, how that insight comes about. And yet, as we’ve seen, great efforts are being made, often successfully, to eliminate debate and the testing of ideas.
Update:
KC Johnson asks whether events at Duke, Colorado, Delaware and Columbia are merely shameful anomalies or evidence of something more systemic.
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There are other factors here. Academics have a high tolerance for nuttiness — indeed, one must, considering how many wackjobs there are on campus. Academics also tend to be rather insulated, or take an insulated attitude. “As long as they leave me alone to do my research and teach my classes.” Neither is an excuse, of course, but both have a great deal to do with campus culture.
Prof,
Well, I suppose among some an unworldly disposition is a factor – a certain academic dreaminess; the kind that, for instance, makes Marxism and its derivatives seem charming or whatever. But it seems to me that the narrowing of permissible views has escalated somewhat, and rather dramatically, as in the instances linked above.
I should point out that it strikes me as unlikely that any amount of evidence and rational argument would alter the worldview of, say, Dr Shakti Butler, who seems to be indulging in some kind of unhinged personal drama. However, a more politically diverse environment at Delaware would, I think, have made it much more likely that Dr Butler would have been shown the nearest door before she could do much damage.
Academe and nuttiness have gone together for many years, of course. But in my day the nuttiness of academic teaching staff manifested itself in different ways. There was one fellow who used to pee in his sink during tutorials, another who would scoff a dozen mars bars and speak with his mouth full; all rather disagreeable of course, but not damaging.
The problem here, I would say, is not with the “ivory tower” mentality of the modern academics, but with their keenness to be “relavant”. That is, to show how “worldly” they are by adopting current modish attititudes. They apply a veneer of academic respectability to them – or so they assume – and wait for the Chomsky-heads to fawn.
Horace,
There are now entire subjects that seem, in effect, premised on some degree of leftist orientation. I doubt literary “theory”, critical “theory”, “post-colonial studies” or similar guff is congenial for those who don’t have leftist inclinations and, most likely, a capacity for self-deception. In recent weeks I’ve tried to imagine how I might feel if I were a student in an environment of that kind. Oddly, I kept envisioning cowering lecturers, classroom unrest and, possibly, the use of explosives.
As every farmer knows, a monoculture is more vulnerable to pests and diseases. Perhaps our friends in academia are applying this knowledge when they work so hard to exclude, demonize, and occasionally assault, those with whom they disagree.
Friday Morning Links
Where’s the Rock? The Hall of Fame is running out of candidates.A Moslem approach to difficult teens. SDAArkansas tackiness? Powerline. Huck: Tacky. Hillary: Tacky and corrupt. She might be as dishonest as Bill. After all, doesn’t water seeks its own leve