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