November 28, 2004
Juan Cole on "liberul professors"
Juan Cole responds to George Will's complaints about the lack of political conservatives in humanities and social science departments. The main problem with the post is that Cole misrepresents why conservatives like Bill Bennett make so much money. One shouldn't conflate being a political conservative with being a political hack--that is, just being a political conservative doesn't necessarily produce opportunity. Rather, it is opportunism and willingness to write popular ideology that gets you in the door. There are plenty of conservatives languishing in impoverished places like classics departments who have neither the desire nor the social abilities to get onto the think-tank/conservative pundit gravy train.
Beyond that, Cole's argument seems mostly correct. From my limited experience, if a political conservative applied for a position and showed as much likability, discipline, lucidity, and smarts as the next guy, I think the conservative would be favored, mostly because solid conservative work is likely to bring attention to the university. I imagine there are some departments where people just can't stand the idea of having a conservative at departmental meetings or where the departmental committee cannot overcome their biases, but those seem not only few and far between, but contrary to the sort of attitude likely to make a department a good one. Good departments are tolerant of egotistical personalities who carry ideological polemics into interpersonal relations because they recognize that university life is far more about excellence in teaching and scholarship than good feelings at departmental colloquiums.
Any way you look at it, I would like to see evidence of suitably qualified conservatives getting the shaft at academia. Barring that, then I think the solution to Will's problem is encouraging more conservatives to go to grad school rather than instituting some kind of affirmative action. The real problem is that a solid proportion of conservatives (barring the classics/history/geek types mentioned above, who are obviously a minority) feel comfortable in other, more lucrative career contexts. Corporate life is glorified in much of mainstream conservative ideology. On the other hand, the liberal intellectual has few alternatives to academia that are consistent with their attitude and principles outside of public service and journalism.
I think that the question is rather the converse. It is not that there are more liberals than tories among Professors in American Universities. It is the case that more liberals out of the higher education and research environment seek scientific and academic knowledge than plain church goers, for instance. Liberals in the US are more likely to embrace new theories and new philosophies, than those who think thoughts should not change.
Moreover, the role of economists, sociologists and other political and social scientists is not to endorse governmental policies but to scrutinise them. They are paid to analyse what is going on and to produce new kinds of thought, not to applaud everything and confirm old views. For instance, if the mass media and the avarage Republican voter say that Ronald Reagan saved US diplomats, who were kept as hostages in Iran, the optimism is often not shared by the academia. A very conservative social science Professor may, in such case, say that this is nothing, since removing the communist regime in Havana is the real top priority, not attacking the Persian Clergy. Of course, this sort of criticism is not exactly what a common liberal in the US would say, but if some University Professor says it, it is likely that the liberals will quote him to deconstruct Reagan.