The New Republic

Academics tend to be thoughtful people. Thoughtful people value thoughtful analysis and policies. Republicans, at least in their present incarnation, base their policy choices on ideology rather than a thoughtful assessment of facts. That they conclude that academics reject their policies based on ideological bias rather than the failure of Republicans to develop fact-based policy alternatives is, of course, yet another example of an ideologically based, rather than an evidentiary based, conclusion.

- spd1955

February 8, 2011 at 12:46pm

Because Karl Rove and Dick Cheney (and Reagan and Bush-II) have defined a conservative mind-set that says "Reality is what we SAY it is!" Which is odd, because you'd expect people who believe in eternal truths to be very attached to objective truth. Sadly, with the influx of the "Religious Right", apparently the "eternal" part of the dogma has superceeded the "truth" part. This could be yet another symptom of the anti-New Deal bias -- from most objective viewpoints, the New Deal has succeeded in removing the most draconian results of the business cycle from people's lives. Except when New Deal rules like Glass-Stegal are revoked. Reality only has a "liberal bias" when you're avoiding inconvenient truths.

- AllanL5

February 8, 2011 at 1:06pm

Conservatives reject science, so science rejects them. What is so hard to understand about that? And yes, conservatives are all postmodernists now, Allan.

- liberalref

February 8, 2011 at 1:17pm

Of course, there are many conservatives in academia. For example, UVA is an excellent university, one of the nation's best, and both its faculty and student body are predominantly conservative (in the Jeffersonian sense - it is Jefferson's university). Is that a bad thing? No. My best friend, a Jeffersonian, works (and was educated) there, and I very much appreciate and enjoy his perspective on issues large and small. And I don't think UVA is the exception. Rather, I think that "conservative" in the political sense and "conservative" in the academic sense diverged long ago.

- rayward

February 8, 2011 at 1:48pm

Here is my explanation. Academicians are all about diversity of ideas and people of many ways of life. The Conservatives would prefer we did not have a diverse country, which would make it easier to lead everyone down a narrow tunnel with their straight talking and their faith; and they wouldn't have to take into consideration so many different creeds. That's why they promoted family values. They want to govern as if there were four or five individuals in total.

- Nusholtz

February 8, 2011 at 2:00pm

I've never been sure why conservatives believe academia's scorn for them reflects poorly on academia rather than, say, conservatism.

- SarabandeG

February 8, 2011 at 2:13pm

Spot on, libref. Shorter answer: Because republicans are stupid. Not conservatives. Republicans.

- miceelf

February 8, 2011 at 2:24pm

It occurs to me that Liberals tend to value diversity (like Nush said above) while Conservatives value unity of viewpoint. This is the difference between black-and-white thinking, and thinking that values all the shades of gray. Which is also the difference between "There's only one RIGHT way to do it", and "there's many ways, some better than others". It seems to me Academia is all about investigating all the myriad ways of information and reality and theory. I would expect that would appeal much more to a mind-set that wanted to investigate shades of gray, rather than one that wanted to find the one right way and move on.

- AllanL5

February 8, 2011 at 2:27pm

Spot on. A couple of years ago, I helped UC Berkeley sociologist Mike Hout with an update of research on class-voting patterns using the NES. Once you net out other variables like income, education, region, etc., professionals as a whole have been trending powerfully toward Democratic presidential candidates over the last several decades, and the trend continued through the 2004 election. Occupationally, academics are the "professional's professional," relying on and generating (they hope) objective knowledge and expertise even more intensively than professionals. When those values are disdained, academics take it as a personal attack on their life vocation. The other piece of the puzzle here is social liberalism. Regressions done by Jeff Manza and Clem Brooks -- both Mike Hout students -- show that increasingly liberal racial and gender attitudes originally led professionals out of the Republican Party as the Democrats became the defenders of social equality. On this score, the story is essentially the same: a willingness to defend intellectual ideals of equality is part of professionals' broader commitment to rationality. Civil rights for gays are just the most recent illustration of this pattern.

- bmoodie

February 8, 2011 at 2:47pm

I used to find the anti-science, anti-reason bias of the looney left simultaneously amusing and offensive, mostly because I was often surrounded by it just by virtue of buying food at a food coop, and living "close to the land" by choice. But while those folks often accepted demonstrably wrong conclusions and held just plain silly beliefs, they were pretty harmless. The Republican party looks pretty much like them to me any more. Deeply anti-intellectual, ideologically rigid, and perfectly willing to substitute conspiratorial meanderings for thoughtful, fact-based analysis. The big difference is that they have power (the hippies really didn't), and will use it to run the country and economy the way they believe - believe mind you, not think, not conclude from analysis, but just believe - it should be run, even it means running the whole damn thing over the brink. A true conservative would look at lassaiz-faire economics, conclude that it doesn't work over any extended period, and seek minimally invasive regulation to keep it from running aground time and gain. The Republican party doesn't give a shit if the economy runs aground, as long as ir does so (un)managed by their religious principles about regulation and taxation. A true conservative would look at global climate change and see it as the most significant threat to face humanity since the cold war reliance on huge nuclear arsenals kept constantly read - and seek to conserve our ability to live and prosper by rolling back emmissions - again with minimally invasive regulation. The Republicans don't even try to read the damned science - they just believe it to be wrong, because it might get in the way of their ideological agenda. So, to get back to the topic at hand: why are there so few Republicans in academia? Because people in academia actually think, and consider facts relevant to decisions, and are open to the possibility of error. Oddly enough, they don't tend to be anti-intellectual. Which is to say, they are not stupid - unlike the ascendant powers of the Republican party.

- IowaBeauty

February 8, 2011 at 2:48pm

If the Republican Party still had the kind of rational/liberal wing that has been snuffed out of existence over the last 40 years, it would still have supporters and influence in academia. The absence of a continual stream of resentment-filled abuse aimed at professors and writers and scientists might have helped too, of course.

- ironyroad

February 8, 2011 at 2:52pm

Must there be yet another picture of that infernal, brain-dead ignorant woman in TNR again? Have you no mercy?

- tnmats

February 8, 2011 at 3:35pm

I suspect this is yet one more evidence that we need the Fairness Doctrine back. It was repealed because it was thought (by Reagan of all people) that there were enough media outlets that it was no longer needed. Experience has shown that all you need to do is enable one person enough media outlets to express lies, dogma, animosity, conspiracy, and propaganda loudly enough, and you develop a sub-population that listens to only to those outlets. The resulting distortion of the voting populace has a very negative effect on public policy in America.

- AllanL5

February 8, 2011 at 3:36pm

While I think it's true that most academics are liberal, and I don't disagree with many of the reasons above, it's interesting to note that some fields are more conservative than others. Engineers, for example, tend to be more conservative than scientists (perhaps because there's so little ambiguity in engineering--either something works or it's a dangerous failure). At my alma mater, the University of Chicago, the economists in the Department of Economics are largely right-wing Friedman acolytes, but the economists at the School of Public Policy were much more liberal.

- benjamin81

February 8, 2011 at 3:38pm

The prevalence of Creationism in the Republican party (at least publicly) may also have something to do with it. Note that I am not positing that academics would necessarily reject someone purely on the basis that they hold creationist beliefs. However it seems reasonable (nay, easily observable) that adherence to a thought process devoid of the scientific process (most importantly, logic and determining cause and effect) will affect your actions and thought processes outside of a discussion about the origins of life. Such as governing with your "gut", defining reality for your self and seeing things in black and white for example. Acting in such a fashion is unlikely to attract adherents of the sciences (both hard and soft) to you, as well as people who engage in rational thought and are interested in objective truth. And those people are (hopefully) well over-represented in academia in comparison to the general population. This is obviously not to say that the Democratic party doesn't have its own ideological sacred cows, but the comparison with the GOP is pretty stark right now.

- Nari224

February 8, 2011 at 4:29pm

What you fail to point out is that Economics departments and business schools are overwhelmingly "liberal," but in the economic sense of the world-the reign of free markets and absolutely no government intervention in markets a la Friedman. He is the most highly touted academic in conservative circles precisely because of this anti-govt intervention in business affairs. And it runs deep. I took classes in urban planning at a small Lutheran school in Minneapolis. All professors were liberal, until one turned to the business department. There, you could easily find all professors indoctrinating their students on the divinity of the free market. And what made matters worse (yes, this is a bad thing since it did not promote critical thinking on markets and govt. intervention in them) was that the business department fully comprised 1/3rd of the student body!!! This at a self-professed liberal arts school!! Madly in love with business, and I bet the chunk of their tuition money came from those students. This is repeated on every campus across the U.S. Business and Economics departments are free-market indoctrination factories, hence our bloated financial services sector and "management" services sector. We don't have people producing things here. Our economy is based on services-90% service economy to 10% manufacturing, when in the 60's those trends were reversed!! So conservatives have a gynormous presence in certain academic departments. This explains very well how Rand Paul's theories can be taken to be legitimate. It had a full army of academic backers.

- RedState

February 9, 2011 at 10:36am

One sometimes thinks that science could do with a little bit more of conservative (conservative NOT republican) values. If everything is relative and subject to argument or speculation, then there are no ultimate ethical boundaries. Some would argue that there is an ethical crisis in some areas of science, as documented by an increase in scientific fraud, paper retractions, and problems with the integrity of the peer review system.

- lucash

February 9, 2011 at 11:46am

lucash - which actual sciences deal with things that are relative and subject to argument or speculation? Doesn't sound much like science to me, which is more involved with describing and then predicting. And can you provide links to anything describing a sudden increase in fraud, retraction or collapse in the integrity of the peer review system? I would say the first two points would indicate that the third is probably still working just fine. People will always cheat; a BSc doesn't eliminate this, but fraud and cheating tends to be detected much quicker in the scientific arena as people attempt to reproduce your results. The scientific method (as recognizable in its modern form) has survived countless assaults over centuries, mostly because of it's inherent capacity for self-correction. This is not to say that it isn't practiced by people, who suffer from all of the failings of everyone else (or that it can be very difficult to replace certain established dogmas), but the mechanism itself is pretty sound.

- Nari224

February 9, 2011 at 5:19pm

Bunch of commies. Still!

- Tgossard

February 9, 2011 at 6:45pm

Professors are Dems because most are public sector parasites. They, or a member of their household, have worked in/currently work in the public sector. Very strong correlation between public sector and Dems. Also strong correlation between public sector adjacencies like trial lawyers and union members -- whose financial well being dependent to some extent on public sector cronyism Military is an exceptions both in terms of officers and front-line soldiers -- you know places where courage, honor, and valor are required.

- mr_rationale

February 10, 2011 at 1:04pm

Why are most professional democrats in the public sector or adjacent to the public sector either currently/in past? Unable to create economic value? Know they can't compete with private sector republicans? Public sector as employer of last resort? View capitalism as evil?

- mr_rationale

February 10, 2011 at 1:11pm

@Nari224 Peer review: "A Troubled Tradition", ethics commentary in American Scientist http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2011/1/a-troubled-tradition Research misconduct: "Repairing research integrity", commentary in Nature http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7198/full/453980a.html Paper retractions: "A painful remedy", editorial in Nature http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v468/n7320/full/468006b.html But do not get me wrong, science is a great thing! Real scientists have a fantastic sense of integrity and are incredibly dedicated. Ethical values must form an integral part of scientific training, and daily practice. The above articles prove that the over-whelming majority of scientists agree! Science = integrity!

- lucash

February 10, 2011 at 3:18pm

Professors in private universities and colleges are also likely to be Democratic, rationale, but you or your program administrator might think about the fact that the great advantage of public colleges and universities is that students get their education at much less than cost. If it weren't for the public universities and the community colleges, the average educational status of Americans would be much lower than it is, as very few could afford private a third-level education. Hence one can't speak about public sector activities without also noting the public goods that they create -- which benefit all, regardless of political affiliation. Which is exactly what 'public' means.

- ironyroad

February 10, 2011 at 3:55pm

To speak to one discipline, in philosophy departments I would expect a certain conservatism to easily find a place, yet it's increasingly rare. Incidentally the critique of liberalism is readily accepted in many departments, its just leftist (communist, anarchist, etc). It's well known that Carl Schmitt is frequently present on college syllabi in philosophy and other humanities courses. The hurdle then for a conservative would-be academic is to see the affinity of cultural critiques from the Right and the Left, and of course see that "conservative" is not the opposing term to "liberal." Just like leftists actually read rightists like Schmitt. Academics on the left (perhaps though I just to speak for myself) can coexist with culturally conservative critics of liberalism, but the question is really whether what self-identified conservatives, politically speaking, are not actually liberal. That of course connects to the worry about the proverbial Marxist professors, if actually Marxists then they're not liberals and readily disavow liberal principles such as the primacy of individualism, natural rights, and, clearly, the promise of free markets. And for right-wing critics of liberalism, incidentally, today I'm not sure how mainstream "conservatives" would even comprehend someone like Allan Bloom.

- brjenkins

February 10, 2011 at 10:09pm

ironic: Almost all private university professors (or a member of their household) have worked in public sector at some point or view themselves as somewhat likely to. MAIN POINT: Professors, like most liberals with 100+1 IQ who don't view conservatives as inherently evil/racist, are liberal because it is in their economic self-interest. The Gov takes care of them or someone in their household. Very simple to understand. Pubilc good debate would be a totally seperate and very interesting debate.

- mr_rationale

February 13, 2011 at 11:27am

You can find plenty of "conservative" or Republican professors, you just have to search in different colleges. Do you really think the "universities" founded by the likes of Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson are hiring Marxist economists or liberal English professors?

- cspencef

February 14, 2011 at 1:35pm

Oh, and to the above automaton right-wing-hatemongering device: that's "separate," not "seperate." Which of course would be another reason "conservatives" don't get hired by universities, if one takes that as a general tendency...

- cspencef

February 14, 2011 at 1:37pm

libref: ...Conservatives reject science, so science rejects them. What is so hard to understand about that? And yes, conservatives are all postmodernists now, Allan... Are you being sardonic or do you really mean this?

- basman

February 15, 2011 at 12:04am