{"id":5377,"date":"2011-02-12T20:18:23","date_gmt":"2011-02-12T20:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=5377"},"modified":"2011-02-12T20:19:52","modified_gmt":"2011-02-12T20:19:52","slug":"using-the-masters-tools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/using-the-masters-tools\/","title":{"rendered":"Using the master’s tools…."},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a post up at Discover<\/em>, The academy is liberal, deal!<\/a>, where I confirm that yes, academics are<\/i> liberal, and second, that there’s no profit in changing this situation.<\/b> A conservative weblog, Kronology<\/a>, responded:<\/p>\n

Khan\u2013like many pat-myself-on-the-back liberals\u2013assumes \u201cconservatives value the remuneration of the conventional private sector more than liberals, who may opt for the prestige and status of the Academy.\u201d I have news for Khan: Outside the Academy itself, the prestige and status of those successful in the private sector exceed that of those in academia.
\n…<\/p>\n

Khan\u2019s statement, however, illustrates the problem for society with academia\u2019s bias. When one group excludes another, it is tolerable to American society for two reasons: 1) right of association or 2) a reasonable basis exists for the discrimination. We can eliminate the right of association for justifying the liberal discrimination against conservatives in this case because\u2013whatever its members may think\u2013the Academy is not a private club but a group of professions. In excluding conservatives, the liberals are depriving others of their livelihoods, just as though they opted to exclude all Orthodox Jews.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, I responded in the comments that I’m not a liberal. Back when I started blogging I assumed that reading the full post to which you link and respond was actually the polite thing to do. I conclude in the linked post:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Where does this leave us? Buyer beware! I\u2019ve identified myself as conservative several times on this weblog. I\u2019m pretty skeptical of the findings of social science in a lot of cases because I assume there\u2019s bias which creeps in because there\u2019s so much unanimity of thought in labs. I\u2019ve heard plenty of stories on the ideological pressures which are get reinforced as a matter of course. Not only that, but many social sciences have normative biases baked into the cake of their disciplines. Economics is one where many on the far Left complain that \u201corthodox\u201d \u201cpositive\u201d economics is actually ideology pretending to be science. As a conservative, and not a libertarian, I think they have a point. In particular, the materialistic methodological individualism of modern economic models of utility do miss something I believe when it comes to Eudaimonia.<\/p>\n

But as a conservative, I believe in muddling on. I\u2019m skeptical of social engineering generally, and I\u2019m skeptical of social engineering in this case. <\/b>Just how the die rolls.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My proximate caution is to be very<\/i> careful about the law of unintended consequences. As a simple example, consider if the academy takes proactive steps to entice conservatives into the field. Where won’t<\/i> they go? Liberal bias in the academy does exist, and it does shape many disciplines, especially those with immediate policy implications. But “fixing” the problem through technocratic means is a liberal<\/i> impulse. Second, conservatives need to challenge the whole premise of demographic proportionalism, something that is not possible if one buys into the logic for short-term self-interest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a post up at Discover, The academy is liberal, deal!, where I confirm that yes, academics are liberal, and second, that there’s no profit in changing this situation. A conservative weblog, Kronology, responded: Khan\u2013like many pat-myself-on-the-back liberals\u2013assumes \u201cconservatives … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[716],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5377"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5377"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5380,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5377\/revisions\/5380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}