Today's Informal Poll of Colleagues
My question: Is there liberal bias in academia?
Needless to say, I got a lot of "what do you mean by 'liberal'?," "what do you mean by 'bias'?," etc. I'm just cutting all that out. The short version of the answers, in order:
A1: You're joking. Try going over to the English department and [opposing] gun control or [advocating] limits on abortion. See how long it takes you to get run out. [From a cantankerous independent, a bit more liberal than conservative, quite the environmentalist, thinks Bush is an idiot.] [corrections to my errors in early brackets.]
A2: Gee, ya think? [From a liberal Republican.]
A3: [Answer I did not understand.] You think it's bad here, you should try going to India. Back there if you aren't a radical Marxist or feminist or something you'll be crushed.
A4: I think that professors have a tendency to interject irrelevant comments into class, and I think that most professors are liberal, so I expect that most of such comments are pro-liberal. But there's no mechanism that keeps conservatives out of the academy. Except insofar as conservative ideas tend to lose in an open marketplace of ideas. I hear a lot of braying about left-wing academics, but I don't actually see that much of it.
A5: No.
A6: Well, if you mean that most students end their liberal education thinking that they should be more liberal than they used to be, then yes. But I think most of that is because conservative ideas tend to lose when subjected to analysis.
My question: Is there liberal bias in academia?
Needless to say, I got a lot of "what do you mean by 'liberal'?," "what do you mean by 'bias'?," etc. I'm just cutting all that out. The short version of the answers, in order:
A1: You're joking. Try going over to the English department and [opposing] gun control or [advocating] limits on abortion. See how long it takes you to get run out. [From a cantankerous independent, a bit more liberal than conservative, quite the environmentalist, thinks Bush is an idiot.] [corrections to my errors in early brackets.]
A2: Gee, ya think? [From a liberal Republican.]
A3: [Answer I did not understand.] You think it's bad here, you should try going to India. Back there if you aren't a radical Marxist or feminist or something you'll be crushed.
A4: I think that professors have a tendency to interject irrelevant comments into class, and I think that most professors are liberal, so I expect that most of such comments are pro-liberal. But there's no mechanism that keeps conservatives out of the academy. Except insofar as conservative ideas tend to lose in an open marketplace of ideas. I hear a lot of braying about left-wing academics, but I don't actually see that much of it.
A5: No.
A6: Well, if you mean that most students end their liberal education thinking that they should be more liberal than they used to be, then yes. But I think most of that is because conservative ideas tend to lose when subjected to analysis.
posted by Winston Smith at
2:58 PM
6 Comments:
But I think most of that is because conservative ideas tend to lose when subjected to analysis.
Well, that would be a liberal's answer. There's a tautology in there somewhere.
My take would be that if the physical presence of minorities in the student body is essential for a well-rounded education, a little affirmative action is needed for conservative profs.
It is my opinion that many products of the modern (in my view leftist) university system complete their studies with little understanding of conservative thought, because that's what our discussions indicate. What should be common touchstones are met with the cyber-equivalent of a blank stare.
But rather than left/right distinctions, I'd say that the question is more of modernism vs. classicalism. It's my opinion that left and right take their cues from these bodies of thought. (I'd say the Founders were squarely between the two movements.)
To me it's a failing in the system to study Rawls more than Plato, Rorty over Aquinas, Marx over Adam Smith, Halberstam's Vietnam over Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian wars. It fails the purpose of the liberal arts education, to gain a deeper understanding of the world in which we live.
Let everybody be biased, since it's apparently inevitable anyway. Let it all fly. But make sure everything gets thrown against the wall. That is the only way to test the above proposition of which ideas stick and which fall to the floor when subjected to analysis.
(And of course, when subjected to the real world, but I suppose that's beyond the purview of the academy, and another question entirely.)
I'm all for reading the classics, but I'm not sure how much of a bias there is against that in the academy. Looking at your list, I would have to say philosophy departments these days look at Plato more than Rawls, if you include the Catholic universities Aquinas more than Rorty (and perhaps even if you don't include the Catholic universities), probably Marx more than Adam Smith admittedly (though surely Marx is a classic), and Thucydides more than Halberstam. I'm also disinclined to think the modern/classic distinction tracks the liberal/conservative distinction especially well. Certainly, again looking at your list, as a raving leftist, I find myself agreeing with Adam Smith far more than with Marx (I wish more of Smith's conservative fans had actually read his writings). On the other hand, I may agree with Rawls more than with Plato, but whatever Plato was (it's incredibly hard to figure out), he was very little like any Republican I've met.
For completeness, I think Rorty's more worth studying than Aquinas (the existence of God is rather central to the views of Aquinas, and having an obvious falsehood as such a foundational principle considerably undermines the interest of his work), and I've never actually read any Halberstam, so I can't compare him with Thucydides.
I'm sure you could find more apt examples. Further, unless it's in your major, you're going to get only one shot at the entire history of a given subject. It should be a thorough one.
As for your rejection of theology, the study of it makes no difference whether you reject the existence of God or not. It is a large part of the world, and it's necessary to understand theology to understand the human race.
(So much for George Will's recommendation that Intelligent Design be examined in philosophy class rather than biology class. The gatekeepers will keep it out of there, too.)
Also, I would point out that WS' informal poll only points out that people think there is liberal bias. I'd be willing to bet dollars to donuts that none of those polled thought they, themselves, are part of the "problem".
So, it would seem that all WS's poll proves is that he found a number of people who aren't liberally biased, but think that the problem is widespread, none the less.
Well, A, I didn't in any way suggest otherwise.
As I've made clear, I disagree with the majority of my colleagues on this issue.
And it's fairly obvious that the students' opinions are more important than those of the 6 profs I talked to.
I was just throwing out info, not making any claims about its value.
I hope the liberal bias question doesn't become mixed with the science vs. religion question.
I've never heard a political opinion uttered in any of my science classes, with one exception, which was really more a comment about the room's projection system. Science professors don't talk about politics, because they don't see it as part of their discipline.
It sounds like the problem is with various professors who think that bringing students into contact with their political philosophies is morally inextricable from teaching literary theory or history or theology. Maybe if professors were actually required to take some sort of class in how to teach, part of the curriculum could be devoted to getting rid of these assumptions.
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