I have a letter in The Chronicle of Higher Education responding to Steven Teles’ call for more conservative college professors. It’s a shortened version of a longer piece I wrote, which I’m posting here.
It's so funny to me that these guys are screaming bloody murder about affirmative action for anyone else but put it forward with a straight face for themselves.
I thought it was fairly simple? Universities are institutions where people search for truth, but conservatives are weird lizard-people who are allergic to truth.
Any well-paid anesthetist will confirm that conservatives are immune to empathy. And a dermatologist can confirm that their skin turns orange.
I have long adhered to the self-selection explanation advanced here, with the additional point that for right of centre people of above-average intelligence and communication skills, careers outside academia also offer them more scope to give effect to their political values than do academic careers. Would Professor Andrew Bolt have the influence that bloviator Andrew Bolt has? Why did Professor John Hewson accept Liberal Party preselection in 1987?
Another thought- 10% of US college (university) enrollments are at private religious colleges. Presumably most of the faculty will be Republican (and conservative). Also the US has a massive White Evangelical Industrial Complex, with tens of thousands of professional pastors, apologists and so on. Much of the White Evangelical Industrial Complex fear/hate secular colleges and tell the faithful to stay clear of them. Religion is therefore part of the explanation for why secular US colleges have so few conservative faculty
I don't believe this is entirely correct. If I want to hear a nuanced and intelligent take on gender ideology, I need to read folk like the philosopher Kathleen Stock, who was pushed out of academia by progressives. If I want to understand the difference between male and female and gain a detailed and strictly scientific understanding of DSDs, I need to read biologists like Dr Colin Wright. Dr Wright would literally put his life at risk dared show up at a major university today. Both progressivism and conservatism in their current forms involve "rejection of the intellectual values of a university" in certain academic fields. The conservatives have far more problem areas, but progressivism is also sick.
>Implicitly, Teles is rejecting the view that the views of American conservatives in these fields could be wrong in the same way that scientific creationism and folk economics are wrong.
Is there an exploration on how having Republican views on science can disadvantage someone in the social sciences and humanities? Like, it isn't likely that a Republican who believes that climate change is fake would have a great time interacting with much social and political philosophy that assumes that climate change is dangerous.
It's so funny to me that these guys are screaming bloody murder about affirmative action for anyone else but put it forward with a straight face for themselves.
I thought it was fairly simple? Universities are institutions where people search for truth, but conservatives are weird lizard-people who are allergic to truth.
Any well-paid anesthetist will confirm that conservatives are immune to empathy. And a dermatologist can confirm that their skin turns orange.
I have long adhered to the self-selection explanation advanced here, with the additional point that for right of centre people of above-average intelligence and communication skills, careers outside academia also offer them more scope to give effect to their political values than do academic careers. Would Professor Andrew Bolt have the influence that bloviator Andrew Bolt has? Why did Professor John Hewson accept Liberal Party preselection in 1987?
Most of those who'd otherwise be conservative professors are probably sitting in superyachts and C-suites instead of university offices.
I'd be happy to send them Ian Plimer :) although I think he's retired, just wheeled out on occasion for the climate change denial side
Another thought- 10% of US college (university) enrollments are at private religious colleges. Presumably most of the faculty will be Republican (and conservative). Also the US has a massive White Evangelical Industrial Complex, with tens of thousands of professional pastors, apologists and so on. Much of the White Evangelical Industrial Complex fear/hate secular colleges and tell the faithful to stay clear of them. Religion is therefore part of the explanation for why secular US colleges have so few conservative faculty
I don't believe this is entirely correct. If I want to hear a nuanced and intelligent take on gender ideology, I need to read folk like the philosopher Kathleen Stock, who was pushed out of academia by progressives. If I want to understand the difference between male and female and gain a detailed and strictly scientific understanding of DSDs, I need to read biologists like Dr Colin Wright. Dr Wright would literally put his life at risk dared show up at a major university today. Both progressivism and conservatism in their current forms involve "rejection of the intellectual values of a university" in certain academic fields. The conservatives have far more problem areas, but progressivism is also sick.
>Implicitly, Teles is rejecting the view that the views of American conservatives in these fields could be wrong in the same way that scientific creationism and folk economics are wrong.
It's their deeper worldview. Social sciences explicitly use empathy as their method: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verstehen
Is there an exploration on how having Republican views on science can disadvantage someone in the social sciences and humanities? Like, it isn't likely that a Republican who believes that climate change is fake would have a great time interacting with much social and political philosophy that assumes that climate change is dangerous.