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Diversity War: Conservatives & Liberals

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While many professors are liberals, some conservatives contend they are indoctrinating students into liberal ideology and that conservative students fear to speak freely within the ivory towers. Some also claim that professors are not always perpetrators of the crimes of political correctness, they are sometimes the victims.

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One scenario in which professors are presented as victims is when they are required to write statements of their commitment to diversity when applying for tenure (and in some other cases). Another matter is the effort of certain schools to monitor professors for signs of bias in the classroom. This monitoring is not the sort proposed by Florida law makers which is to check professors for signs of bias against conservatives and in favor of liberal ideology. Instead, this monitoring checks professors for their sensitivity to diversity and their cultural awareness.

From a neutral standpoint, this puts professors between the Scylla of conservative fears of liberal dominance and the Charybdis of liberal fears of a lack of sensitivity to diversity.  If a professor expresses and enforces sensitivity to diversity in their classes, they would appear to be indoctrinating students in liberal ideology and silencing conservatives. If they do not express and enforce sensitivity to diversity, they can run into trouble in their academic advancement and employment.

Those who think professors are indoctrinating students and silencing conservatives will tend to favor laws, executive orders and policies that purport to protect conservatives from such alleged oppression. They will also tend to oppose laws, executive orders, and policies that purport to protect women and minorities from oppression in the classroom. As such, one might suspect that they do not care about freedom of expression and oppression in general—they just care about their own group.

It could be objected that they do care about freedom and oppression in general, they just think that their orders, laws and policies protect freedom while those of the liberals do not. To the degree that such orders, laws and polices defend freedom in general, this claim is plausible—to the degree they do not, the claim is implausible.

Those who favor orders, laws and policies that aim at sensitivity to diversity will tend to see the conservative orders, laws and policies as attempts to take away the protection of oppressed groups while providing protection for conservative students and faculty who lack sensitivity to diversity. Roughly put, the conservatives will be seen as trying to roll back the clock on campuses to a time when straight, white men were able to express and act on their prejudices and biases with relative impunity and to the detriment of oppressed groups.

Opponents of these liberal orders, laws and policies can argue they are aimed at oppressing conservatives, silencing dissent, enforcing a leftist ideology, and suppressing free inquiry. The main argument would tend to involve the claims that the talk of sensitivity to diversity is simply cover for these efforts at ideological hegemony and that the liberals do not really care about freedom, except the freedom of their side to indoctrinate and to silence conservatives.

The defenders of the liberal orders, laws and policies can counter this by arguing that they do support freedom and oppose oppression in general and not just for their own side. To the degree that these things protect freedom and limit oppression in general, this claim would be plausible. To the degree that they do not, this claim would lack plausibility.

Some defenders of these things might acknowledge they do restrict the freedom of some. To be specific, they are aimed at preventing professors from creating hostile classrooms and protecting students in groups that have long been oppressed or marginalized. In contrast, they contend, the conservatives want to allow for classrooms that are hostile to these students and want to protect groups that have long been oppressing and marginalizing others. These claims do have some merit but should not simply be assumed to be true.

My own view is that the liberals and conservatives seem to be right about at least one thing: the other side often endeavors to protect their side and the motivations can stem more from love of an ideology than a love of freedom. A possible solution is to craft orders, laws and policies that do for real what the ideological versions purport to do, namely protect faculty and student freedom while also ensuring that classrooms are not hostile environments. While this might seem idealistic, it is something that most faculty already do reasonably well.

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The Liberal Academy

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While the high cost of college and the woes of student loans tend to be the main focuses of media coverage of universities, there has also been some attention paid to such things as trigger warnings and safe spaces. A trigger warning, in the context of a university class, is an explicit notification that the content a student is supposed to read, view or hear might be upsetting or even cause a post-traumatic stress disorder response. In an academic context, a safe space is supposed to be a place free of harassment, intolerance and hate speech. As might be suspected, some consider trigger warnings and safe spaces potential threats to free speech.

The existence of trigger warnings and safe spaces is also taken by some as a sign that the liberal masters of the academy have gotten out of hand and are imposing their agenda upon students and a few unwilling faculty. There are also concerns that the liberal dominance has marginalized conservative academics. There is some merit to these concerns. There is apparently a roughly 5 to 1 ratio of liberal faculty to conservative faculty and there are certainly examples of how the academy can be hostile towards conservative ideas. And even liberal ideas that do not match the proper ideology.

Given that the stereotypical liberal accuses the stereotypical conservative of marginalizing others and opposing free expression, there is a certain irony in the claim that the liberal is the alleged oppressor and the conservative is the alleged victim. It is also ironic that some of the defenses offered for the marginalization of conservatives in the academy mirror the defenses offered for the marginalization of minorities by some conservatives. This should not, however, be surprising: those with the upper hand tend to use the same basic playbook—although the vocabulary does change.

While I certainly accept liberal concerns regarding the marginalization of minorities and women in the broader society, consistency requires me to also give due consideration to the marginalization of conservatives in the academy. After all, marginalization anywhere is a threat to inclusion everywhere.

I have considered elsewhere the causal factors behind the general liberal dominance of the academy, but it is certainly worth considering this matter again. One concern is that while conservatives might complain about liberal dominance of the academy, there simply might not be enough conservatives interested in becoming professors. This does make some sense—becoming a professor requires spending years getting a terminal degree, grinding through a brutal job search process that is likely to result in part time employment as an adjunct without any benefits. The same amount of effort applied to other fields, such as business endeavors, law or medicine would result in a vastly better chance of getting a much better paying job with greater benefits. Given that conservatives are often cast as interested in being practical and focused on financial success, it would actually seem odd for them to want to go into academics. The stereotypical liberal character seems to better match this career path. This is not to say that an academic job cannot be financially rewarding; but faculty positions yield far less financially than other positions that require analogous education and effort.

Administrative posts can, however, be gold mines—while they do not quite match the financial rewards of the big corporations, the upper echelons do come close in terms of pay, bonuses and perks. But, of course, conservatives taking administrative posts would still leave the actual teaching in liberal hands. But, back to the main subject.

The above reasoning is, of course, is analogous to a stock reply to claims that other areas are lacking in minorities or women: there is no oppression, it is simply the case that minorities and women are not very interested in those areas. So, while conservatives could become professors just as easily as liberals, they wisely elect to pursue more financially lucrative careers. Likewise, liberals tend to pursue less lucrative careers. For example, while there are liberals in the top echelons of the financial firms and corporations (Apple, which does its best to utilize cheap foreign labor and evade taxes is often presented as ruled by liberals), these positions tend to be dominated by conservative white men.

Conservatives can borrow a stock liberal argument here. Liberals typically argue that women and minorities want to be in the fields where they are marginalized, but there are systematic means of keeping them at the margins. For example, liberals often point to how women are treated to explain the small numbers of women in various fields. These methods include the usual suspects: discouraging women from taking classes relevant to the field, steering women away from careers in those fields, hiring biases against women, and hostility towards women who make it into the field.

Conservatives can use this approach and contend that there are many conservatives who want to be professors, but there are systematic means of keeping them marginalized. These means would include the usual suspects: the discouraging of conservative ideas in the classroom, steering conservatives away from careers in academics, hiring biases against those with known conservative views, and hostility towards conservatives who make it into the academy.

While it might be tempting for liberals to respond using analogies to the arguments employed by some conservatives in the face of claims that women and minorities are marginalized, that would be unjust. If being a liberal involves being opposed to marginalization, then moral consistency would require addressing all warranted concerns about the marginalization of conservatives in academics. As noted above, marginalization anywhere is a threat to diversity everywhere.

Making the academy more diverse would thus require approaches analogous to making other fields more diverse. These methods would include tolerance of conservative ideas in the classroom, encouraging conservatives to pursue careers in academics, addressing hiring biases against conservatives (perhaps with some affirmative action hires), and sensitivity training to mitigate hostility against conservatives in the academy.

 

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Ralph Peters & Killing Journalists I

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A recent essay by Ralph Peters’ in the The Journal of International Security Affairs argues in favor of attacking journalists within combat zones. Naturally, he does not advocate killing any journalists-just those in the “partisan media.”

In making his case, he begins with the straw man of the liberal American media: “we can acknowledge the overwhelming evidence that, to most media practitioners, our troops are always guilty (even if proven innocent), while our barbaric enemies are innocent (even if proven guilty).”

This claim seems to be factually incorrect, unless Peters has access to TV channels, magazines and newspapers that I do not. While there are individuals who have this sort of view, the majority of media practitioners have not exhibited this tendency. However, this is an empirical question. We just need to conduct a suitable random survey across the entire media establishment. This would involve assessing what they have said or written. It should also include surveys of their attitudes. While I do not have the funding for this, given the endless claims of liberal media bias made by folks on the right, they should commission a fair and unbiased survey of this sort to settle the matter. As it stands, this perception seems to be unfounded on an adequate survey. If there is such an unbiased, scientifically rigorous survey conducted by a neutral third party, I would like very much to see it.

Peters goes on to make another common assertion from the far right, that the media folks subscribe to an odd religious view: “rejecting the god of their fathers, the neo-pagans who dominate the media serve as lackeys at the terrorists’ bloody altar.” Once again, perhaps my cable service does not get those channels, but I have not seen evidence that most media folks are neo-pagans. No doubt there are some-just like there are Satanists in the military. Again, this is an empirical matter and can be settled empirically. Peters sees the media this way, I don’t see the evidence for that. But, this can be settled easily enough using the method above. As always, I am open to objective and adequate proof.

Peters is right that the media shapes conflict. Information and how it is presented shapes how we see the world. This, as he argues, does make the media a potentially powerful force in any conflict. Naturally, he thinks that the majority of the folks in the media take sides and that this side is not that of America. Because of this, he goes on to say “although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media.”

None of this is new, of course. Even in the United States, the media has been censored in times of war and there have been news blackouts. Other countries military forces have killed journalists-as have terrorists. However, having an actual policy of American forces killing unarmed journalists would be something new (I hope). It also seems a bit odd to call for this, given how the media behaved during the first and second Gulf Wars. They accepted censorship and were generally very positive-especially those embedded with the troops.

Of course, Peters does not advocate harming all journalists and he does acknowledge the freedom of the press. However, he says that “freedom of the press stops when its abuse kills our soldiers and strengthens our enemies. Such a view arouses disdain today, but a media establishment that has forgotten any sense of sober patriotism may find that it has become tomorrow’s conventional wisdom.”

Peters view has a certain plausibility. What sort of information is presented by the media and how it is presented does shape how people see the world. If a journalist acts in such a way that American soldiers are harmed and the enemy is aided, then the journalist can be seen as giving support to the enemy. A clear cut example would be revealing troop locations, attack plans, and so on. Of course, I have never seen CNN or even MSNBC doing that sort of thing. It is hard to imagine a professional American journalist doing that, though not impossible. In any case, doing that sort of thing is already covered by existing policies and procedures.

Perhaps Peters has something broader in mind in regards to abusing the troops and strengthening the enemy. Now, if his view is that malicious lies and deceit that are intended to attack our troops and aid our enemies should be dealt with, then I agree with him. Of course, this is already be covered by existing laws and professional practices. If CNN broadcast a made up story about US soldiers strangling kittens and another one that the Taliban existed solely to protect kittens from the evil troops, then that would be libel and slander.

However, I am not sure if he has something much broader in mind here. That is, I am not sure of the standards he is using as to what would count (in his mind) as abuse that kills soldiers and strengthens the enemy.

In my next post I’ll take a look at his moral justification for his view.

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Will the Media be Too Easy on Obama?

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While some might think that the notion that the media has a liberal bias is a new thing, it actually dates back to Spiro Agnew. This notion continued under the Reagan administration and is still around today. For example, it has been claimed that the media was too easy on Obama during the primaries and general election. Some even have gone so far as to claim that the biased media contributed to his victory. Naturally enough, some wonder whether the media will be too easy on Obama now that he is President.

Of course, there is the question of whether the media has a liberal bias or not. Some critics point to the surveys showing that journalists tend to be politically liberal as evidence for a liberal bias. While this does provide grounds for concern, the mere potential for bias does not entail actual bias. To use an analogy, I have definite moral views. However, when I grade student papers in my ethics classes, I do not grade them based on whether they match my view or not. Presumably other professionals can exert the same restraint as I and keep their bias in check.

In the face of such a question, the natural thing to do is to turn to the experts. Unfortunately, the experts disagree. For example, Eric Alterman argues that the liberal bias is a myth (What Liberal Bias?) while Bernard Goldberg contends that the bias is a fact (Bias). One problem with reports and books on the media is that they generally come from media folks. As such, this does raise a bit of a problem: can the media folks be trusted to objectively assess their own bias (or lack thereof)?

Laying aside experts, one way to address the matter of liberal bias is to observe what the media says about Obama. Clearly, not all the media folks are liberals who will take it easy on him. After all, the fine folks at Fox News tend to be very critical of Obama. Rush Limbaugh and other such media folks are also clearly not taking it easy on Obama.Of course, they can be accused of having a conservative bias-something that should be criticized as severely as having a liberal bias.

Other news companies might be seen as being biased in Obama’s favor. For example, some folks think that CNN is a bit too liberal leaning (with some notable exceptions) and will take it too easy on Obama. While CNN claims it will “keep them honest”, that remains to be seen.

In general, the media is often easily manipulated by the government. A few recent examples: first, the federal government  created a fake “news report” praising airport security. This “news report” was then distributed to stations along with a prepared introduction for local anchors to read.

Second, during its first four years the Bush administration spent a quarter of a billion dollars on fake “news” about Medicare, Iraq, Social Security, and No Child Left Behind. It should be noted that the Clinton Administration was also active in manipulating the media.

Third, between 2004 and 2005 three editorialists were exposed for taking money directly or indirectly from the Bush Administration to promote its policies and programs. Armstrong Williams received $200,000.

Fourth, in 2007 FEMA held a “press conference” in which FEMA staff members asked the questions. The White House spokesperson replied by saying that the practice was not employed by the White House and was not something that was condoned. This reply was reported uncritically by the White House Reporters, despite the fact that the White House has done the same in the past.

While more examples could be given, these should suffice to show that the media has a long tradition of being manipulated by the government and taking it easy on the President. True, the media did get tougher on the Bush Administration. However, that was when Bush’s approval ratings began to plummet. In light of the past, it seems reasonable to expect that the media will be fairly easy on Obama-provided that he remains popular. After all, shouldn’t he get the same easy ride that Bush got?

While Fox will be critical of Obama, someone should just play them tapes of what they said about the “liberal media” attacking Bush. After all, if the President should be treated a certain way by the media, that should hold whether the President is a liberal or a conservative.

My view is, of course, that the media folks should strive to be objective. When the Obama Adminstration is in error or up to something shady (wait for it…), then the media should call them on this. When the Obama Administration does well, then that should be noted as well.

Should the Government Bail Out Businesses?

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There is a great deal of debate about what the government should be doing about the economic crisis. Coincidentally, in my ethics class we’ve been discussing the legitimate role of the state.

Most thinkers take the minimal obligations of the state to be protecting the citizens and enforcing the laws. Most states take on a multitude of other tasks, but those are the most basic. Naturally, people disagree about what else the state should be doing.

Classic Conservatives hold that the state should be minimally involved in the free market. This includes both regulating it and bailing out businesses that get into trouble. The purest form of this approach is that laid out by Adam Smith. Of course, experience shows what happens in such “pure” economies (the Great Depression, for example). Hence, even conservative thinkers tend to see a role for the state in regulating and perhaps even bailing out businesses.

The “new” conservatives (aka “Bush Conservatives”) hold that the state should be minimally involved in regulation but should support business financially and bail them out. This can be seen as a form of socialism in which the state funnels tax revenue (and loans) to certain businesses. As the economic disaster of today indicates, this approach does not work that well.

The liberal view has been that the state should regulate business but should not be significantly involved in supporting businesses (except certain ones-such as those owned by women or minorities). This is the sort of view often atributed to Democrats. In reality, they seem happy to support businesses that donate to their campaigns, that they have a stake in, and those that are owned by friends.

I believe that government should regulate business for the same reason that I believe that government should regulate other aspects of our behavior: regulation is needed to prevent people from doing harm to others. While most people would probably still behave decently without being compelled, the fact that a significant number of people are willing to behave very badly even in the face of compulsion indicates that a lack of regulation would be bad. If this is true of human behavior outside of business, then it would certainly seem to apply within business as well. After all, why would a selfish and evil person stop being that way simply because he became a businessman?

As far as bailing out companies, I have mixed thoughts. On one hand, this could be justified in terms of the protective role of the state. For example, it could be argued that by bailing out failing banks, the state is protecting the citizens from the harm of financial disaster. Of course, this certainly opens the door to a rather broad interpretation of this role and this might prove problematic. For example, every failing business harms someone-does that mean the state should try to bail them all out?

On the other hand, I consider responsibility to be rather important. If I make a bad choice and suffer because of it, that is my own doing and hence it is not the duty of the state to save me. The evidence is that the economic mess is largely a product of greed, poor decision making, failure in leadership, and various moral failures. Hence, the failed companies should accept responsibility for the failures and expect to be allowed to die semi-honorable deaths.

That said, it could be argued that the companies should be bailed out because their failure would hurt those not responsible for their failure. To use an analogy, if the parents make bad choices and a family is destitute, then the state should help the young children. After all, they were not at fault and are in such straights due to bad luck and not bad judgment.

In reply to this, perhaps it is the people who should be helped out directly. The failing companies could be allowed to fail (or survive) and then new ones could arise-hopefully lead by better people who will make better choices. Realistically, I think we can (sadly enough) expect the same scoundrels back at the helm again, ready to steer onto the rocks in search

Happiness & Politics

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Happiness is a matter of great concern to most people, hence it is hardly surprising that the Pew Research Center conducted an extensive study of the matter in 2006.

The study had some obvious results, such as the fact that rich people claim to be happier than poor people. There were also some surprising results, such as the fact that more conservatives claim to be happy than do liberals.

In the case of conservatives versus liberals, 47% of conservatives claimed to be very happy while only 28% of liberals did so. This fact has been used by some to argue that liberalism is an unhappy world view and thus people should avoid it in favor of conservatism. This, naturally enough, raises the question of why more American conservatives report being happy than American liberals.

One possibility is that it is the nature of liberal ideology to create more unhappiness in people. For example, while the phrase “liberal guilt” is commonly used, one almost never hears the phrase “conservative guilt” (although one does often hear of conservatives being guilty). Perhaps this indicates that liberal ideology leads people to be unhappy.

Another possible factor is that the people who are conservative tend to be married, older, and more religious than liberals. In many cases they are also more wealthy than liberals. Marriage, age, religion and wealth are all factors that are connected with people claiming to be happy. So, it might not be the political ideology that causes the disparity in happiness but rather the other qualities. It should, of course, also be considered that the ideology has a causal role in these other factors as well. A person who is conservative might be more inclined to get married and be religious because s/he is conservative. Alternatively, a person might be more inclined to be conservative because of those factors. And, of course, there might be a two way causal connection. For example, a person might be inclined towards being conservative because she is religious and then find that her religious views get reinforced by her political views.

Another possible factor is that how a person views the world affects his or hear happiness. On this view, it is not the ideology itself that causes happiness or unhappiness, but rather how that ideology affects how one sees the world. Alternatively, it might be that how one sees the world and how one feels about it defines one’s ideology. Or, as discussed above, there can be feedback between the ideology and the feelings.

To be a bit more specific in this matter, liberals tend to feel bad about such things as inequality and social injustice. Conservatives tend to feel less bad about such things. Since there is so much injustice and inequality in the world, it makes sense that those who feel worse about such things would be less happy than those who care less about them. To use an analogy, if I care about Nancy and Tom does not, then if something bad happens to Nancy, I will be rather unhappy while Tom will not be so unhappy.

This hypothesis is born out by how liberals and conservatives tend to view the world. For example, take unemployment. In general, a liberal will tend to see unemployment as the result of poor government policies, corporate downsizing and so forth. In short, a liberal will tend to see unemployment as something inflicted on people. Hence, they will tend to have sympathy and feel badly about rising unemployment. In general, a conservative will tend to see unemployment as the result of bad decision making, laziness or other such factors. In short, a conservative will tend to see unemployment as something self-inflicted and hence they will tend to have less sympathy.

It is tempting to say that liberals are less happy because they care more about other people and, to use Clinton’s phrase, “feel their pain.” It is also tempting to say that conservatives are more happy because they care less and hence that their happiness rests, in part, on indifference to the suffering of others. This is, of course, a possibility.

It is also tempting to say that liberal are less happy because they are weak and unrealistic. This makes them feel badly about things needlessly and thus they are foolishly hurting themselves by being the way they area. In contrast, the conservatives can be seen as smarter-they focus on themselves and do not worry so much about others. Hence, they are happier (or at least say they are).

One final matter to consider is the fact that the survey is base on what people claim. Obviously, there is no machine that measures happiness. Further, the nature of happiness is a matter of considerable philosophical debate. People who say they are happy most likely have no true conception of happiness and are perhaps merely expressing satisfaction or a lack of discontent.

Perhaps liberals say they are less happy because they think that is what they should say. After all, how can someone be happy in a world that has so much inequality and injustice? Perhaps more conservatives say they are very happy because they mistake material success with happiness. They think they are doing well, so they think they are happy. Or perhaps they think they should be happy, so they say they are.

Happiness is, after all, a tricky thing.

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