Friday, July 25, 2008

Does PC dominate? Is the truth "liberal"?

.....
This morning’s Inside Higher Ed (Defining Political Correctness and Its Non-Impact) reports on a new study on “political correctness” in academia that, like other recent studies, should be an eye-opener for conservative critics who seem to view the higher education professorate as monolithic and intolerant:
.....For those who deny that there is an identifiable group of PC professors, the study says that there is in fact a group with consistently common perspectives….
.....But for those who say that these tenured radicals have all the power in academe, the study finds that politically correct professors’ views on the role of politics in hiring decisions aren’t very different from the views of other professors. Further, the study finds that a critical mass of politically incorrect professors is doing quite well in securing jobs at the most prestigious universities in the United States, despite claims that such scholars are an endangered species there.
.....I recommend that you read the entire article. Here (according to IHE) are a few of the study’s findings.
• Yes, faculty members are more liberal than the average person, but they are less so then previous generations.
• Political correctness, understood as embrace of a cluster of beliefs (especially re discrimination) commonly associated with PC, is relatively common in the Humanities and the social sciences.
• Psychology is the only field in which a majority of professors are politically correct. A majority of Economics professors are politically incorrect. (No surprise there.) A high degree of political incorrectness can also be found among professors of accounting, business, computer science, and mechanical engineering. (“Management information” professors, whoever they are, seem to be by far the most politically incorrect group.)
• Community college faculty are less liberal than other faculty, although, for faculty in general, the politically incorrect outnumber the politically correct. (Note, however, that the researchers placed faculty into these four categories: moderately correct, politically incorrect, politically correct, and non-committal.) At community colleges, 28% were moderately correct, 27% were politically incorrect, and 16% were politically correct.
• The research found no evidence that politically incorrect professors were thwarted in advancement.
• “When it comes to hiring and definitions of diversity, there is a strong belief—across levels of political correctness—that political tests should not be used.”
• • • • •

FOR MANY ISSUES, THE TRUTH IS "LIBERAL"

.....I think it's odd that the article’s (or the study’s?) author did not lump together the “politically correct” group and the “moderately correct” group and compare that combined group with the “politically incorrect” group. Perhaps there was a very good reason for not doing so.
.....But, upon doing so, one finds that, even at community colleges, nearly 44% of professors are either moderately or “politically” correct, while nearly 27% are political incorrect. (30% are non-committal.) Hence, even at community colleges, the professorate is definitely skewed toward “correctness”— and, presumably, toward liberalism and leftism.
.....But, of course, the key question is, why is that so?
.....Unlike many conservatives (apparently), I am not a “relativist” about truth. Roughly speaking, in my view, for many questions upon which the professorate concerns itself, determined and rigorous efforts to find “the truth” tends to bring the group closer to the truth.
.....(I suspect that many so-called conservatives—and many liberals too—would laugh at such a suggestion. I call ‘em, “clueless friends of Protagoras.”)
.....My own view is that the professorate skews toward the liberal, the progressive, and the radical because, with regard at least to an important range of political issues (not all), the truth, i.e., the rationally most compelling and defensible position, is found there.
.....Two quick and dirty examples: the nature of homosexuality and global warming. As near as I can tell, what we have learned about homosexuality in recent decades (I am thinking of the empirical sciences) inclines one to suppose that, contrary to the typical so-called “conservative,” homosexuality is not likely to be the product of “choices.”
.....And global warming? I have followed this more closely. This is an issue that, for most of us, requires appeal to expert opinion. (In such cases, logicians and philosophers would have us seek “consensus” among the relevant expert communities. Luckily, such consensus obtains.) Now, unless one is hostile to science itself—or one imagines that scientists are prone to allow political correctness to affect their research (my knowledge of them greatly disinclines me to suppose this)—then one must agree that the evidence favors the reality of global warming and of humanity’s contribution to it.
.....Another example. The knowledge or understandings about the nature of the nations and cultures involved in the current “Gulf War” and the “war on terror” offered by academics by and large contradicts what is routinely believed (or said) by so-called conservatives. Have “radical Muslims” attacked us because “they hate our freedoms”? Most academics in the relevant areas, it seems to me, would say, “of course not.” (Other academics would largely agree with them.) Is the leadership of the groups that have declared war on our country insane? Of course not. Does this conflict have something to do with our dependence on oil? Of course. Is the hostility toward the U.S. that one finds in the Muslim world irrational? Of course not. Does the Muslim world tend to view our nation through the prism of colonialism, a portion of history to which Americans seem largely oblivious? You bet.
• • • • •

PC IN A STRICTER SENSE:

.....This new study seems to be more about “being liberal” than about “being politically correct.” To my way of thinking (and I suspect that most speakers of English would agree), being PC isn’t just being liberal or progressive. It is being liberal or progressive and in some sense enforcing (elements of) that perspective and/or exhibiting intolerance (or dismissiveness) of those who disagree with (those elements of) it. (As opposed to: leaving the question of what to believe entirely to the best evidence/arguments.)
.....With regard to whether academics skew toward the left—well, the empirical data speaks for itself. Conservatives, confronting the data, who immediately infer that there exists discrimination against conservatives (in academia) are reasoning badly, since there are other explanations for the pattern that are at least plausible. What is really going on here, in my view, is this. Conservatives are (usually tacitly) saying: “You liberals immediately infer the presence of discrimination from the unequal or disproportionate distribution of something (e.g., holding positions of power). Well, we’re doing exactly the same thing. So don’t complain.”
.....Logicians call this the “tu quoque” fallacy, i.e., the fallacy of supposing that what one does is unobjectionable since one’s opponent does it too. (“Tu quoque” means “you too.”) Naturally, this is a fallacy, for, if liberals (et al.) err in reasoning as they do (I think so), then so do conservatives.
.....But what about political correctness? Does that exist in academia? In my view, without a doubt, it does, although I do not think it infects everyone, and, even among those who fall prey to it, it does not necessarily infect their research. (I think non-academics underestimate the fundamental earnestness of scientists.)
.....I’m opposed to PC, as defined above, because it is irrational. And, as I’ve argued previously, something like “PC” often infects conservatives as well. The “conservative” reaction to Wesley Clark’s recent remark about John McCain illustrates the phenomenon. (Clark said something—"Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president"—that is plainly true, but conservatives, apparently unable to think clearly about the matter, “enforced” the obnoxiousness and falseness of Clark's statement.)

Robert Novak is Mr. Magoo



ALSO:

Are American voters “cognitive misers”?

.....Not long ago, DtB found itself discussing the dismal ignorance of the American voter, especially voters on the right wing of the political spectrum.
.....Yesterday, Libby Copeland of the Washington Post wrote about an important new book called The American Voter Revisted, which is a revision of a 1960 classic (The American Voter). (See Another Peek Inside the Brain of the Electorate.)
.....According to Copeland, the authors this time reach the same conclusion reached nearly fifty years ago: that the American voter is clueless.
.....See The American Voter Revisited

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

The truth is liberal? No, the Lord is a Republican, and the Lord IS the truth.

Anonymous said...

Clark's statement about McCain was a perfect example of the Straw Man fallacy. Of course his statement was plainly true: that's how the fallacy works.

Maybe conservatives were able to see that.

Roy Bauer said...

12:32, go back to the setting of Clark's remark. When he made it, Bob Schieffer did not say "You are distorting the GOP view about McCain's credentials." No, he said something like, "really?" Schieffer (admittedly, no conservative) is caught up in the conservative PC to which I am referring. Somehow, it just won't do to suggest that McCain's military experience ("He's a hero!") doesn't qualify him in some substantial way as the Commander in Chief.

Also, my friend, you are changing the subject. My point concerned the conservative reaction to Clark's remark, which, as you say, was true. There may have been those who spoke of straw men, but the vast majority didn't bother with such fine points; rather, the postured as innocents aghast at Clark's temerity. They weren't noting an intellectual distortion. They were expressing disgust.

Do you deny this? Well, there you are. Conservative PC.

Anonymous said...

Is 12:32 kidding? No one would deny that the GOP is banking on the public giving McCain a pass with regard to his fitness as "Commander-in-chief" owing simply to his status as a "war hero." Does 12:32 really think that supporters of McCain are motivated, instead, by his knowledge and judgment?

Americans want out of the war. McCain supported the war from the start. He thinks that America should stay there. That's some judgment, boy.

Anonymous said...

Many conservatives were expressing disgust at an intellectual distortion. If your point was about conservative reaction, then that disgust was part of their reaction, and my comment is on point.

Whether Clark perpetrated a distortion or not does not depend on Bob Shieffer's response to it, or on anyone's response to it.

Roy Bauer said...

I brought up Schieffer's reaction because it represented the reaction of many, and it is a reaction involving incredulity at the notion that McCain's war record doesn't establish his "credentials." Obviously, I wasn't using S's reaction to establish that Clark's point was valid. I was using S's reaction to identify the PC to which I was referring.

My point is that conservative PC exists. That some conservatives rejected Clark's remark on the grounds that it committed a "straw man" does not refute my claim that other (indeed many) conservatives rejected Clark's remark because it was, to them, offensive and absurd on it's face. And that they did this establishes that they engaged in a kind of PC thinking according to which certain assertions are simply to be rejected out of hand, the truth of the matter be damned.

Here's another example. The prevailing conservative PC will not permit (or at any rate places extreme and absurd restrictions on) assertions attributing fault or failings to (especially non-officer) soldiers, grunts.

At least to an ethicist, there are clear moral issues that arise about people who sign on to do what others order them to do, despite knowing the patchy record (re wisdom or rightness) of the sort of people who issue the orders. (Soldiers. Functionaries in a bureaucracy. Et al.)

But in today's atmosphere of conservative correctness, one must be very careful not to go there. Obviously, there are prima facie problems with what soldiers do and how they allow themselves to be used. (I'm not saying this is a simple matter; I'm not saying there shouldn't be soldiers.) And, despite the endless flag-waving rhetoric, obviously, some soldiers are non-heroes.

But not a hint of this must be suggested. We are in an era in which, roughly speaking, certain truths may not be expressed.

Isn't this very much like PC? And isn't it in some sense conservative? I'll provide other examples, if you like.

torabora said...

Global temperatures have been dropping for about twelve years, according to scientific research. You can google it.

But of course that is not politically correct so there is global warming instead. Science that doesn't blame man for global warming is Republican science and bad. And it's caused by man. The sun causes nothing. Go back to sleep. It's Ok I believe everything you say. Just kidding. No harm no foul.There really is man made global warming. I'm just prone to believing the wrong things. Please don't beat me. Sorry. It's really hot here now Whew! Somebody leave the heat on? Got a fan?

Roy Bauer said...

TB, re your "global warming" skepticism:

Your view that there is a glaring fact that contradicts "global warming" just doesn't make sense. There is, after all, a community of inter-connected communities in the scientific world that concerns itself with global warming. They freely, constantly communicate with one another. They are aware of skepticism concerning global warming.

Now, on your view, just what is going on in that community? Are they STUPID PEOPLE who can't see what you see? If you have some familiarity with the academic world (leaving aside certain unfortunately pseudo-scientific enclaves: education, etc.), then you know that the answer is a resounding "no."

What, then? Are they part of a conspiracy? Is that it? Again, anyone with any familiarity with these communities knows that this kind of conspiracy theory is about as plausible as the notion that the LAPD had it in for OJ.

The alternative view is that, owing to the nature of reality, the relevant scientific communities have steadily converged on a consensus that global warming is real and that human activity is contributing to it. Since this community is very large, one would expect some experts within it to disagree with the consensus.

The history of such scientific naysaying-against-consensus provides a handful of instances in which the dissedent(s) proved to be correct. (Alfred Wegener, et al.) But in the vast majority of cases, the dissidents turn out to be mistaken.

The alternative theory is vastly superior to either the "stupid people" or the "conspiracy" theories, according to which a glaring disproof of GW is somehow rejected, ignored, or overlooked by scientists.

Anonymous said...

I've been "breaking balls" lately on DtB, Chunk, or at least trying to. But for what it's worth, I think you're firing on all cylinders today. For the above post (12:28)and today's article on Homeopathy, we are in your debt.

(Why can't you say insightful stuff that I agree with all the time? That would be much better!)

torabora said...

Back in the ancient 70's there was "consensus" in the scientific community that there was global cooling. It was as much of a fact as we were going to run out of natural gas in 30 years.

I've sourced climate scientists who don't believe anthropogenic CO2 causes global warming.

There is also evidence that there has been a small amount of cooling over the last 12 years or so. How can that be with an increase in CO2?

The real kicker for me is the ice age phenom. What melted all that ice that covered much of North America? I bet it was global warming.

I believe this whole subject is driven by hysteria and anti-capitalism. And besides the use of fossil fuels will end when we run out...what about warming then?

And that is the real problem...resource depletion accelerated by population growth. Tackle the too many people problem and the game gets easier.

Roy Bauer said...

Well, TB, you are ignoring the points I made above. • That there are experts who deny GW is not an argument, since the only defensible appeal to expertise focuses on consensus among experts. Otherwise, you're just cherry picking. (You can find geologists who believe that the Earth is flat. So what?) • You are confusing the media with the scientific community. The former are quite capable of hysteria, among other failings, but hysteria is not liable to occur and does not seem to be occurring in the scientific community, which, as I'm sure you are aware, encourages and relies upon constant questioning of "received" ideas. That's what distinguishes it from pseudoscience. • Responses to various "skeptical" points (including your rather tired point about the ice age) can be found here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/7074601.stm

Not all issues are the same, TB. For some, we really need to leave the matter to experts to debate. From the outside, the best that we (non-experts) can do is refrain from fallacies such as cherry-picking.

You don't seem to understand this. You seem to think that any point that makes sense to you (as a non-expert) is of course as valid as any point that any expert, or indeed most experts, make.

That is both arrogant and foolish. It is so very Bill O'Reilly.

torabora said...

Hey Chunk, I actually agree with your latter point and know of what you speak. But I'm NOT cherry picking. But it IS so Bill O'Rielly!

What happened to that global cooling "consensus" of the 70's? The warming crowd now claims there was no cooling then. How could that "consensus" then be 180 degrees wrong? How could they have detected a clearly linear warming trend as cooling when it was warming? How could the entire scientific community then be so 'effed up?

My sources are NOT GW deniers. After all GW melted the North American mile deep ice sheets multiple times. The cause of these repeated cooling and warming cycles is what is at dispute. Since the Earth has been doing this for eons it is unlikely that THIS time GW has an anthropogenic cause when previous times it didn't.

We know that climate change onset can occur rapidly. There are full grown Ponderosa pines sticking up in Sierra Nevada lake waters. The Little Ice Age in Europe is well documented as well. And we know that water vapor is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. It has its atmospheric genesis with the sun, as does ultimately GW. Coincidence? Maybe CO2 levels and GW are coincidence. We don't know. As important as an issue as this is I am watching it and will change as the facts change.

This is a conservative response Chunk. You've been bragging on your conservative bona fides lately. Why wouldn't you want to resist a fad? I'm open to the possibility of anthropogenic GW but I've got a Missouri attitude. Show Me. Until all the bugs are out of the soup I'm not eating it.

Meanwhile the real problem, overpopulation, is getting short shrift. Chunk you know that if population levels were to drop significantly, it would probably be accompanied by an attendant drop in greenhouse gas emissions as well as a slowing of resource depletion. Why wouldn't mankind want a high standard of living with fewer people than squalor with lots of 'em? THAT is clearly the issue, NOT GW!

Roy Bauer said...

TB, I agree with you completely on population, although my guess is that "conservatives" will not agree with us.

I am as suspicious of trends and fads as you are, but, again, I distinguish between the thinking of "the media" and the thinking of the scientific community. The latter is much less prone to trendy thinking.

I don't recall the "consensus" on global cooling in the 70s, but of course, assuming it existed, there might be crucial differences between the "confidence" then and the confidence now. As you know, the confidence in GW and human contributions is never 100%, though it seems to be approaching that for the former. If the consensus in the 70s was a luke-warm "probably so," then that does not compare with the present consensus.

It is probably a conservative impulse to be wary of fads, but it is also (arguably) a conservative impulse not to participate in a faddish contrarian position. The Civil Rights movement of the 50s-60s and Womens movement of the late 60s-70s were fads, too. There are aspects especially of the latter that one might not agree with today. But one cannot doubt that, essentially, these movements, despite some excesses, were substantial and based on insight and wisdom. Compared to forty or fifty years ago, everyone's a feminist today; everyone's in favor of racial and sexual equality. No one denies that such things are good and right. (That can't yet be said re homosexual rights.)

So I'm suggesting to you to take your conservatism a bit further and ask yourself whether the "conservative" skepticism that now exists (Rush Limbaugh, et al.) isn't more mindless and trendy than the belief in GW and the conviction that humans are helping to cause it.

I do think that an assessment of the relevant scientific communities and their testimony re this issue inclines one to suppose that humans are contributing to GW.

It is in my mind clearly a conservative impulse to play it safe. (That used to be the "conservative" take on federal spending. Gosh, what happened?) Surely, if there is a strong prima facie case that human activity is contributing to (possibly causing) GW, then, relative to our obligation to future generations, the right thing to do is to assume that we are messing things up. Even if we're wrong about that, our actions will at the very least be very good to the future.

Being good to the future is conservative, my friend.

torabora said...

I figured it out. Since GW is ruining the planet then we need to act and it needs to be simple because complex solutions are unattainable by civilizations.

It would be easy to reduce our "carbon footprint" overnight by the amount the Kyoto Protocols call for. How? Buy ceasing to produce crops for export. Then millions (of people 'over there')would die too, which would help heal the planet! Oil imports would plunge as well which would lessen demand and lower prices. All those starved to death people would also not be using oil and the price drops some more. It's a two-for one move...what are we waiting for? Most of those crops are produced by evil corporate agri-business anyway so they can starve too!

Pass a law to ban the export of food. If you can't eat it you can't sell it externally.The Canadians could help out too. After all we have a planet to save!

Roy Bauer said...

TB, I do wish you would establish tiny icons indicating from the start whether you are (a) busting my balls, (b) crashing and burning in a spectacular spasm of irony, or (c) seriously making a point. I'm I leaving out a possibility? Well, make an icon for that too.

torabora said...

Icon do that?

Anonymous said...

Dear Chunk,

Is the truth about Islam "liberal?" Some of it is, but not all of it.

I suspect that you hate when President Bush, or someone like him, repeats demagogically, "They attacked us because they hate our freedoms." I also know that academics have an obligation to correct oversimplifications and distortions by politicians, and also, to resist stereotypes that de-humanize "enemies." So far, so good.

In fact, though, there is truth in the claim that they "hate us because of our freedoms." Take this paragraph from a story in today's NYT, about the declining influence of the Mahdi Army in Iraq:

"Now neighborhoods are breathing more freely. A hairdresser in Ameen, a militia-controlled neighborhood in southeast Baghdad, said her clients no longer had to cover their faces when they left her house wearing makeup. Minibuses ferrying commuters in Sadr City are no longer required to play religious songs, said Abu Amjad, the civil servant, and now play songs about love, some even sung by women."

Some--obviously not all--Muslims do hate it when anyone is allowed to wear make-up, listen to non-religious music, watch "Western" movies, etc. They know such practices flourish in the United States and often originate here, part of what some call our "Coca-Colonization of the World." (There's your valid connection to colonialism, which is a "liberal" point.)

It is quite fair to call such Muslims "radical" or "Islamic fundamentalists," and it is fair to say that they did and would "attack us because they hate our freedom," even though I find Bush's use of that truth offensive. It's not the whole story, but it is still true.

Furthermore, that "they hate us because of our freedoms" is a truth that supports, to some degree, a "conservative" view of the world, not a "liberal" one (as those two terms are used in contemporary media). Liberals spend too much time denying it to get any mileage out of it in their favor.

Ironically, of course, given what "liberal" means historically, and the term's obvious connection with freedom, one could say that certain radical Muslims hate us because we are...liberal.

torabora said...

The "gay marriage" thing has got to get Mooooslems panties in a bunch too. I wonder if Osama's gaze has ever rested on the Left coast?

Anonymous said...

I heard one Iranian Imam holding forth about the USA, saying that the proper touchstone between Islam and America is our Puritan past. A Puritan level of social control and social order is much more consistent with Islam than with American-style Liberalism.

So here's something few mention: there is an ideological overlap between American social conservatives and fundamentalist Muslims. Maybe such will become apparent as Muslim immigrants here become more integrated into American culture and politics. With a tip 'o the "pen" to TB: Right. Does anyone see recent Muslim immigrants, or any practicing Muslims, supporting gay marriage?

On the other hand, any agreement with social conservatism will be limited. One writer--I forget who--predicts that as soon as gay marriage gets legally entrenched here, by whatever means, the next issue will be polygamy, and the two groups who will file lawsuits for its legalization will be fundamentalist Mormons (not regular LDS ones, I know!) and Muslims. Strange bedfellows! (Couldn't resist!)

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...