Why are most colleges and universities so liberal?

College Confidential Community
41

@PengsPhils‌ Thats because I gave you the wrong link-Sorry about that. The correct one is posted below.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/counterpoint/conservative-sociology-what-is-it-/3181152#transcript

Here are some snippets from the transcript. I really recommend just listening to the audio on the link.

“I think that in some of these fields there probably is a pre-existing kind of commitment to trying to locate the locus of power and a kind of obsession with class, gender and race, as if they are the most meaningful frameworks through which to understand society or culture.”

“Steven Thiele: I agree with Eduardo that I think what’s happening is a certain kind of leftist orientation is expanding, and it’s that leftist orientation which has really colonised sociology and now has very little opposition. In fact sociology is so leftist oriented that most people in sociology are kind of unaware that that’s what has actually happened, it’s so run-of-the-mill.”

“So the focus on sociology is about difference rather than similarity,”

“We do have actually…to return to this theme of where the politics of academic sociology lies, there is empirical data from the US, there was a survey conducted of the members of the American Sociological Association that found that in the 2004 presidential election, 86% of sociologists had voted Democratic. I would imagine that in Australia that if you tallied votes for the ALP and Greens amongst academic sociologists I think you would similarly find that 85% to 90% of academic sociologists are voting either centre-left or hard-left. Now, is that where the rest of the population is at? I think that this is where the question of intellectuals, including sociologists, relating to the phenomenon of McMansions and so forth, does have to do with these kinds of differentiations of lifestyles that have been taking place.”

“Terrorism studies comes to mind, which is one area today where…virtually everyone in that area is a ‘blame the west’, ‘be soft on radical Islam’ within the radical Marxist tradition, although Marx may not be read…I think Steven is quite right, Marx is actually not referred to, but in effect this is the Marxist tradition.”

“And studies of gender I think are still heavily politicised where you get such absolute nonsense that there’s no fundamental difference between men and women. I mean, which normal person in their right mind could believe that? For one thing, all the evidence of anthropology is against it.”

"Eduardo de la Fuente: I think this points to perhaps what is one of the most interesting paradoxes about conservative thinkers within sociology. I think conservative thinkers, and I’m thinking here of people like Daniel Bell, Philip Rieff, Christopher Lasch and others, have been incredibly good I think at diagnosing some of the consequences of recent changes in economy, society and culture, including the consequences of the decline of religion. So in a sense I think that…getting back to the earlier point, if conservatives were in the minority within academic sociology, they have nonetheless, if I could put it this way, punched above their weight in terms of their significance, in terms of explaining some of these processes that have got us to where we are today.

It could in fact be that conservatives are better at sniffing the winds of change but also trying to explain the impact of change because they’re not overly convinced that human beings want to revolutionise themselves constantly. So if we take one of the sources of meaning in society; religion or ritual…well, what is it about ritual that seems to bring people together and what is it about ritual that I think people search for it. They want to transcend their lives in some kind of way. If we look at something like the growing significance, for example, of going to Anzac Cove amongst young Australian pilgrims, there’s a deep emotional connection that those young tourists have to that site which I think is really beyond the realms of explanation for many left-wing sociologists.

But I was going to say one final thing about conservatives and their explanations of change. They’re so damn convincing compared to some of the more trendy theories of change that we find in post-modernism and so forth. And I think Daniel Bell in particular has been very good at explaining that in a sense some of the loss of meaning that’s associated with contemporary culture springs, for example, from the tension between defining yourself through work and defining yourself through consumption or self-gratification. I think that Bell’s right. I think that if the only choices are the discipline of hard work or self-expression through pleasing myself through consumption, then where am I going to find sources of meaning?"

42

@PengsPhils‌ Thats because I gave you the wrong link-Sorry about that. The correct one is posted below.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/counterpoint/conservative-sociology-what-is-it-/3181152#transcript

Here are some snippets from the transcript. I really recommend just listening to the audio on the link. Mainstream sociology has been hi-jacked by liberal thought. It focuses on divisive differences rather than unifying similarities.

“I think that in some of these fields there probably is a pre-existing kind of commitment to trying to locate the locus of power and a kind of obsession with class, gender and race, as if they are the most meaningful frameworks through which to understand society or culture.”

“Steven Thiele: I agree with Eduardo that I think what’s happening is a certain kind of leftist orientation is expanding, and it’s that leftist orientation which has really colonised sociology and now has very little opposition. In fact sociology is so leftist oriented that most people in sociology are kind of unaware that that’s what has actually happened, it’s so run-of-the-mill.”

“So the focus on sociology is about difference rather than similarity,”

“We do have actually…to return to this theme of where the politics of academic sociology lies, there is empirical data from the US, there was a survey conducted of the members of the American Sociological Association that found that in the 2004 presidential election, 86% of sociologists had voted Democratic. I would imagine that in Australia that if you tallied votes for the ALP and Greens amongst academic sociologists I think you would similarly find that 85% to 90% of academic sociologists are voting either centre-left or hard-left. Now, is that where the rest of the population is at? I think that this is where the question of intellectuals, including sociologists, relating to the phenomenon of McMansions and so forth, does have to do with these kinds of differentiations of lifestyles that have been taking place.”

“Terrorism studies comes to mind, which is one area today where…virtually everyone in that area is a ‘blame the west’, ‘be soft on radical Islam’ within the radical Marxist tradition, although Marx may not be read…I think Steven is quite right, Marx is actually not referred to, but in effect this is the Marxist tradition.”

“And studies of gender I think are still heavily politicised where you get such absolute nonsense that there’s no fundamental difference between men and women. I mean, which normal person in their right mind could believe that? For one thing, all the evidence of anthropology is against it.”

"Eduardo de la Fuente: I think this points to perhaps what is one of the most interesting paradoxes about conservative thinkers within sociology. I think conservative thinkers, and I’m thinking here of people like Daniel Bell, Philip Rieff, Christopher Lasch and others, have been incredibly good I think at diagnosing some of the consequences of recent changes in economy, society and culture, including the consequences of the decline of religion. So in a sense I think that…getting back to the earlier point, if conservatives were in the minority within academic sociology, they have nonetheless, if I could put it this way, punched above their weight in terms of their significance, in terms of explaining some of these processes that have got us to where we are today.

It could in fact be that conservatives are better at sniffing the winds of change but also trying to explain the impact of change because they’re not overly convinced that human beings want to revolutionise themselves constantly. So if we take one of the sources of meaning in society; religion or ritual…well, what is it about ritual that seems to bring people together and what is it about ritual that I think people search for it. They want to transcend their lives in some kind of way. If we look at something like the growing significance, for example, of going to Anzac Cove amongst young Australian pilgrims, there’s a deep emotional connection that those young tourists have to that site which I think is really beyond the realms of explanation for many left-wing sociologists.

But I was going to say one final thing about conservatives and their explanations of change. They’re so damn convincing compared to some of the more trendy theories of change that we find in post-modernism and so forth. And I think Daniel Bell in particular has been very good at explaining that in a sense some of the loss of meaning that’s associated with contemporary culture springs, for example, from the tension between defining yourself through work and defining yourself through consumption or self-gratification. I think that Bell’s right. I think that if the only choices are the discipline of hard work or self-expression through pleasing myself through consumption, then where am I going to find sources of meaning?"

43

I am not sure about Sociology, but it is most prominent in history classes. Everything is skewed toward a liberal point of view, and the students are never presented with anything from a conservative view. And if there is, it’s always some out-of-context craps from Fox News.

Just like how my class debated about illegal immigration. The professor only showed a movie that portrays sob stories, with absolutely no mention of other criminal activities or effects they have on the country’s infrastructure. Their only mention of opposing view? Cut out clips from Fox News that each lasted for about 5 seconds. It reeks of white guilt and it’s sheer frustration to come to class everyday.

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You know, there’s a classic study—one that’s been replicated several times—that found that the refs really are biased against your team. Objectively so, in fact.

The problem? They’re also biased against the other team. Equally objectively, in fact—but only when the game is being viewed by a fan of the other team.

I do think there are some utterly biased professors out there. Many of them are biased toward the left—screamingly so, in fact. Also, many of them are biased toward the right—screamingly so, in fact.

And then there are the vast majority of faculty, who I am convinced fall into two groups: One group that doesn’t deal with political issues at all in their classes (probably, say, most faculty teaching a course in Topological Modeling of Multidimensional Surfaces, which I just made up, but probably exists somewhere) and who we can ignore for this discussion, and another group (probably larger) of those faculty who do deal with political issues in their classes, and are widely viewed as leaning left by the conservatives around them and as leaning right by the liberals around them.

Interesting fact? Both the liberal and the conservative observers can point to unassailable, objective evidence that any of those professors lean, respectively, right and left.

In all seriousness, if you feel that a professor leans left, ask the liberals in the class. If they agree, you’ve probably got something. But if they disagree? Double-check that you don’t have a confirmation bias thing going—confirmation bias is an incredibly real thing, and we as humans seem hard-wired to fall into its trap.

(And if you’re a liberal and feel that professors lean conservative? Same test, on the same grounds.)

45

^ This

Sociology is on a whole other level.

@Whateverchan‌ I’m sorry to hear that. I do believe if students were only presented with the facts they would be more apt to agree with conservatism. True conservatism is very logical in nature-it makes sense. Sadly, the only way to argue with sound reasoning is to omit it from the discussion entirely.

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Disagreed as expected but I appreciate the answer. I think a lot of the views you think are cut out are cut out because they have been proven over and over again to be misplaced and simply don’t work so they are no longer considered. Differences play a huge role in social treatment and dynamics. When a group of ideas is consistently shown to be wrong or inapplicable / irrelevant, we move on and try to develop the next step. This has always happened over history. See the role of women in history. As far as history is concerned, that’s certainly not taught liberal.

I agree there’s a liberal bias overall and I think this thread has hit on some reasons I would agree with, but I don’t think sociology is the place you’d see it. And overall, I think the general liberal bias is a good thing.

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I think part of it is based on facts that you will be exposed to in college. For example, climate change denial is largest among conservatives, but the facts are pretty solidly with liberals. Another part is that left and right aren’t necessarily the correct ways to look at things, and today’s centrist views are miles away from a century ago or what they will be a century from now. 900 years ago you’d be super far left if you railed against feudalism, but that doesn’t mean that you would have been “indoctrinating” or picking and choosing facts. In other words, just because society deems something centrist doesn’t mean it’s actually a moderate position, only in terms of our current culture.

I consider myself progressive so pretty much everybody is further right than me, which can get annoying. I have noticed a whole lot of pro-capitalism, especially in economics. If you think being left in a right prof’s class is hard or being right in a left prof’s class is hard, try being radically socialist in really anybody’s class. It’s disappointing to see so many professors, even ones who would probably pat themselves on the back for being forward-thinking, still teaching really Red Scare-type skewed perspectives on socialism/communism. For example, I had a professor say that Saddam Hussein was a communist, and another that communism requires a dictatorship or totalitarian state as defined by Marx, etc. It’s pretty laughable to me @albert69‌ to say that colleges are an “indoctrination ground of Marxism”.

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This is what i witnessed in my freshman sociology class. These views were taken directly from the reading of the text and were never opposed by the instructor. The entire text lacked almost any conservative thought.

–Pro socialism, extreme anti-capitalism.
(The U.S. is a mixed economy by the way.) All I heard were the joys of socialism, and the horrors materialistic wealth and income inequality. It never mention that the U.S.'s impoverished were well off when compared to their socialistic counterparts, nor that all this “free stuff” equates to higher taxes (SEE GREECE). I guess nothing is really free, is it?

–White privilege.
“I’ve got an idea! Let’s achieve racial equality by blaming one race for all hardships endured by the others!” Mmm…sounds like Hitler and the Jews. This is one of the most divisive arguments, it lumps society into perpetrators and victims and assumes racism is innate-hogwash! Keep preaching this, and all that will be achieved will be a “reversal” of 19th century racial roles (white slaves). My instructor literally told that because I was “white”, it was impossible for me to be oppressed. I’m all for learning from the past but to dwell in it is a mistake.

–Anti-Americanism
Sitting through the class you’d think that the U.S. was the worst country a person could live in, even though all evidence points to the contrary. “Lets talk about all the perceived American injustices without acknowledging all benefits and freedoms the average American enjoys.” Again, comparing the U.S. to other countries would only serve to shine light upon the hypocrisy. Women’s rights, free speech, democratic elections, the freedom to pursue a career you’re interest in-Life sure does suck. It’s sad to say but I think it’s become “cool” to hate on America.

Similar stances were taken to views of the military and religion.

I’m a non-traditional student, with a military background. Taking the freshman course at 22 as opposed to 18 made the liberal slant overwhelmingly obvious. And my overtly liberal instructor did little to maintain a balance of thought. Most of the texts appeared to be of opinion rather than fact; One side was presented, and the other side was ignored (omitted). These issues are too serious to be debated with half-truths. These issues are too serious to be debated with half-truths. 18 year-olds vote and decide elections, I’d like them to be “informed” when they cast their ballot.

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Godwin!

That said, yes, in a sociology class I’m sure you got lots of left-leaning points of view. You probably (hedge word!—I wasn’t there, of course) also got lots of right-leaning points of view. Like I wrote above, you’re more likely to notice what you expect to see—not to mention that you’re more likely to notice what you disagree with, since what you already agree with is simply “normal”.

In fact, I’d suggest that @judasGOAT‌ and @ibenheim‌ (just 'cause they’re the most recent two posters, and have expressed diametrically opposite views on politics in the academy) could very easily take the same course and guess where the professor’s and textbook’s political ideologies fit on the political spectrum completely differently—and both would be able to point to rock-solid evidence for their guesses…

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@dfbdfb I’d say part of it’s due to the fact that I go to a community college, which I’d bet has political leanings more reflective of the general population (more conservative) than most elite schools.

I think you’re right that most of the time it’s hard to actually determine a professor’s political leanings. I’ve only had one blatantly express their political opinions (in a poli sci class) and for the rest, my peers and I do have different guesses. In high school, I thought my french teacher was really conservative- it turned out the opposite was true, but half of the class believed she was really conservative because we had a hard time understanding what she meant in English.

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@dfbdfb‌
“Like I wrote above, you’re more likely to notice what you expect to see—not to mention that you’re more likely to notice what you disagree with, since what you already agree with is simply “normal”.”

Yeah that’s the problem, I “noticed” the entire class…

52

Why are you so naive about what the media portray? You’re the reporter and you need to get the “college prof” or the “college student’s” perspective. You drive over to campus and you talk to 15 people. Of those, fourteen are clear, well-thought out, middle of the road opinions. You find the radical who wants to “take down the man”. You get 70 seconds of air time. Which interview do you run? Media wants sensationalism. Is this a shock to you?

Do this day after day with the 24 hour news cycle and people are left to think that every campus is filled with free-loving, marijuana infused, protesting against the whales, flag-burning, Wall St occupying, poets reading Marx and Nietzsche on the way to our free abortions, shouting down the white fraternites and returning veterans for good measure radicals.

A third of my Ivy class lined up for those Wall St consulting/IB jobs.

It’s mostly media-over hyped baloney. It’s a favorite scapegoat of conservative talkshows.

Colleges want independent minded thinkers – not lemmings who are driven to paranoia by the extremist commentator du jour. Unless you rant about being a Westboro Baptist church member or Aryan Nation recruit, you’ll be fine. Kudos on your willingness to be involved.

Will you face some mind-numbingly and irrational liberal folks? Sure.

Will you face some mind-numbingly and irrational conservative folks? You betcha.

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It’s the job of the universities to be the repositories of ideas and knowledge. There is more than enough opportunity for people to put selfishness and ignorance into practice in real life.

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“Do this day after day with the 24 hour news cycle and people are left to think that every campus is filled with free-loving, marijuana infused, protesting against the whales, flag-burning, Wall St occupying, poets reading Marx and Nietzsche on the way to our free abortions, shouting down the white fraternites and returning veterans for good measure radicals.”

The scary thing is, after taking my current history class, I am not sure if that’s very far from the truth. I mean, sure, you will face liberal and conservative bastards, but there seems to be more truth to that statement.

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Edit: Oops, just realized this thread is kinda old.

56

College faculty and staff members are liberal because Republicans tend to work in the private sector.

College students are liberal because they’re at an age when they skip going to church and don’t pay taxes yet.

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Fun fact: The old adage about people being more left-leaning when they’re younger and more right-leaning when they’re older? Not true. It turns out it’s actually a U-shaped curve, with people generally starting out leaning right (here in relation to what their eventual center will be) and moving left into middle age, then moving rightward into old age. So the whole thing about how the young are more liberal because they “don’t pay taxes yet”? You need to find a different explanation.

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@dfbdfb, not so. See the American Sociological magazine and Live Science.

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@HappyAlumnus: Yes so. Play around with the data collected for the American National Election Studies project, for starters.

EDIT: Though I’ll admit to oversimplifying this morning, in that there is a group that moves rightward into middle age: New parents. It isn’t a lasting effect, however, and it also has an incredibly weak correlation with income or tax status or anything like that.

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The irony in all of this is that academia also tends to be extremely traditional, which is a conservative trait.