Liberal bias.

[Kooky]

Marx is virtually unreadable to be fair. Not because the ideas are unintelligible, but because his use of language is turgid in the extreme. The Communist Manifesto is more accessible than Capital, though thin on content, but that’s almost certainly down to Engels’ input.

Marx is arguably one of the most readable Germans of his time period. Some of his works of political journalism (e.g. The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte) certainly still hold up in terms of style and readability compared to his contemporaries.

His writings are certainly more accessible than Peterson's, whose writing is mired in a lot of the same overcomplicated postmodernisms he commonly criticizes in the people whose books he hasn't read.

 

[Kooky]

No, I wouldn't agree that is what they are saying.

Seems more like a cartoonish misrepresentation of what you want to think they are saying.

Check back on your source. That is literally what they are saying: Leftists are shutting out conservatives, holding "inquisitions", internet mobs are silencing conservative voice in academia.

"Purges" seem very silly to me. I'd say institutions who value knowledge and learning should aim to create viewpoint diversity, the same as they aim to create demographic diversity.

But how else could we get rid of all those leftists in academia? There is a limited number of influential positions to be had at your average university, after all, and a limited amount of funding to go around.

Do you think academia, and society as a whole, benefits from considering a wider range of views than a narrower one?

I think that academicians should expect and be aware of public scrutiny of their work, regardless of their political slant.

 

[Augustus]

But how else could we get rid of all those leftists in academia? There is a limited number of influential positions to be had at your average university, after all, and a limited amount of funding to go around.

Do you think attempts to increase demographic diversity necessitate "purges"?

If not why would this? There is plenty of natural turnover.

I think that academicians should expect and be aware of public scrutiny of their work, regardless of their political slant.

But do you think academia, and society as a whole, benefits from considering a wider range of views than a narrower one?

 

[Kooky]

Do you think attempts to increase demographic diversity necessitate "purges"?

If not why would this? There is plenty of natural turnover.

So we should engage in affirmative action, then - affirmative action for right-wing ideologues, that is, rather than women or people from minority backgrounds (after all, the article has established that discrimination of these groups is nothing but a leftist fantasy).

But do you think academia, and society as a whole, benefits from considering a wider range of views than a narrower one?

Do you think biology as a discipline would benefit from increasing the amount of creationist biologists?
Would economics as a discipline benefit from increasing the amount of Maoist economists?

 

[Augustus]

So we should engage in affirmative action, then - affirmative action for right-wing ideologues, that is, rather than women or people from minority backgrounds (after all, the article has established that discrimination of these groups is nothing but a leftist fantasy).

That's a bit sexist and racist thinking women and minorities must be liberals.

Anyway it's not 'affirmative action", it is the faculty heads doing their job properly.

Like building a football team, you aim for balance not hiring people who are too similar.

Do you think biology as a discipline would benefit from increasing the amount of creationist biologists?
Would economics as a discipline benefit from increasing the amount of Maoist economists?

Creationism isn't science so that's a dumb example.

Do you think students would get a better education in biology if they were exposed to both gene centred and multi level selection theories of evolution?

You also get plenty of Marxist faculty, should they be "purged" as "left-wing ideologues"?

In any discipline with highly subjective variables, deciding that people who don't match your personal ideological biases have nothing useful to say is a rather narrow minded and ignorant perspective wouldn't you agree? Therefore viewpoint diversity is a good thing.

 

[Kooky]

That's a bit sexist and racist thinking women and minorities must be liberals.

It probably is, which is why I never said that.

Anyway it's not 'affirmative action", it is the faculty heads doing their job properly.

It's targeted hiring with the goal of "balancing" demographics. I don't know what else to call that than affirmative action, apart from the fact that conservatives tend to not like the word for sounding too lefitst.

Like building a football team, you aim for balance not hiring people who are too similar.

I can't recall ideology being a major component in assembling any football team in existence. In fact, I haven't heard of diversity, ideolocial or otherwise, ever being cited as a major component in assembling a competitive sports team, period.
Can you name any such example?

Creationism isn't science so that's a dumb example.

Do you think students would get a better education in biology if they were exposed to both gene centred and multi level selection theories of evolution?

So do you believe that a wider range of beliefs would improve biology as a field, or not?

It seems that you don't - that you are in fact, making a distinction between fields of academia - one category where a diversity of ideological beliefs is an intrinsic good, and one where it is not.

You also get plenty of Marxist faculty, should they be "purged" as "left-wing ideologues"?

You tell me! We are, after all, operating under the premise that leftists in academia are an intrinsic problem in need of a solution.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Socialism has led to disaster in every country that embraces it.

I'll pass.

You might want to consider that ALL nations...including the US...balance both capitalistic and socialist policies. It's the mix of these that are impactful in a practical sense, not a binary decision between two 'teams'.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I can't recall ideology being a major component in assembling any football team in existence. In fact, I haven't heard of diversity, ideolocial or otherwise, ever being cited as a major component in assembling a competitive sports team, period.
Can you name any such example?

Physical diversity is regularly used. And teams do study certain psychological traits (albeit in fairly ham-fisted ways) for a variety of reasons.
Cultural and ideological reasons have been considered at times, but not really for the reason of diversity, and not really in a way I'd call 'major'.

(Mostly talking about basketball and Australian Rules Football here)

 

[Augustus]

It's targeted hiring with the goal of "balancing" demographics. I don't know what else to call that than affirmative action, apart from the fact that conservatives tend to not like the word for sounding too lefitst.

If a football team had 5 strikers and 1 defender would it be "affirmative action" to prioritise signing a defender?

I can't recall ideology being a major component in assembling any football team in existence. In fact, I haven't heard of diversity, ideolocial or otherwise, ever being cited as a major component in assembling a competitive sports team, period.
Can you name any such example?

You're not stupid. Don't pretend to be.

So do you believe that a wider range of beliefs would improve biology as a field, or not?

I believe in any field, it is good for students to be exposed to a range of widely accepted beliefs that are justifiable with widely accepted scholarly methodologies.

This means teaching students about multi-level and gene centric evolution, but not creationism. Teaching them only about gene-centric evolution would be doing them a disservice.

Do you agree?

It seems that you don't - that you are in fact, making a distinction between fields of academia - one category where a diversity of ideological beliefs is an intrinsic good, and one where it is not.

It seems you like to make stuff up.

You are the one who has consistently avoided stating whether it is a good thing to be exposed to a range of scholarly opinions, rather than simply being exposed to only the ones you find ideologically pleasing.

You tell me! We are, after all, operating under the premise that leftists in academia are an intrinsic problem in need of a solution.

No, that's just yet another one of the things you made up (as is your tendency).

If you are still confused, read carefully:

Believing that it is good for society that we examine a wide range of scholarly opinions on complex topics and believing it is bad to create ideologically conformist echo chambers requires a wide range of views including, where relevant, 'leftists', liberals, centrists, localists, globalists, conservatives and whatever else may offer insight into the problems we face as a society.

In other fields where political ideologies are less relevant it requires examining a wide range of beliefs that can be justified with scientific or scholarly methodologies.

Without reverting to another strawman or evasion, would you agree that this is a desirable state of affairs?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

His writings are certainly more accessible than Peterson's, whose writing is mired in a lot of the same overcomplicated postmodernisms he commonly criticizes in the people whose books he hasn't read.

There is no way you've read him. Over complicated? Postmodernism? I have my criticisms about him but he's actually quite opposed to this postmodernism you're trying to label him with. And over complicated? For an adult who's not completely ignorant of philosophy and psychology he's rather easy to read.
I can't find a good sample to post here, so here's a debate. What you're accusing him of doesn't match what's going on.

 

[Kooky]

If a football team had 5 strikers and 1 defender would it be "affirmative action" to prioritise signing a defender?

It would be if they hired a defender explicitly to round out their political positions with a conservative or liberal ideologue, which is what we've been argueing about. It is amusing, however, how steadfastly you attempt to frame what is essentially an issue of political ideology as anything else to make it sound more palatable and less odious.

You're not stupid. Don't pretend to be.

Then don't take me for an idiot by disingenuously framing the issue.

I believe in any field, it is good for students to be exposed to a range of widely accepted beliefs that are justifiable with widely accepted scholarly methodologies.

This means teaching students about multi-level and gene centric evolution, but not creationism. Teaching them only about gene-centric evolution would be doing them a disservice.

So should we hire more creationists or not?

You are the one who has consistently avoided stating whether it is a good thing to be exposed to a range of scholarly opinions, rather than simply being exposed to only the ones you find ideologically pleasing.

Because I find your way of framing the issue inconsistent and incoherent.

Believing that it is good for society that we examine a wide range of scholarly opinions on complex topics and believing it is bad to create ideologically conformist echo chambers requires a wide range of views including, where relevant, 'leftists', liberals, centrists, localists, globalists, conservatives and whatever else may offer insight into the problems we face as a society.

In other fields where political ideologies are less relevant it requires examining a wide range of beliefs that can be justified with scientific or scholarly methodologies.

Without reverting to another strawman or evasion, would you agree that this is a desirable state of affairs?

We should not obsessively duplicate the American notion of political manichaeism down to every single area of society, until we have achieved the "correct" parity of "right" vs. "left" because I believe that is, in fact, detrimental to academic work and a healthy academic environment when political factionalism becomes such a domineering factor on any issue of personnel, funding, research and publication.

The diversity ought to come from a wide range of scholarly opinions concerning their respective fields of study only, rather than whether somebody is "leftist" or "right wing". If that means social research departments happen to be stacked with leftists, then so be it.

It's not like anybody is complaining about the slew of right-wing researchers living on lucrative jobs in the conservative think tank environment, so why make it an issue elsewhere?

 

[Lyndon]

I actually meant the degree to which liberal people are overrepresented.

I would guess they are significantly more overrepresented in social sciences than in STEM subjects.



Yes, the degree to which published findings are reproduced when other carry out the same experiments.

When published research has a coin toss chance of being false or correct, then this is a major problem.

Yes and Republicans are overrepresented at World Wrestling Association events and Monster Truck rallies, do you think that needs to change?

 

[Augustus]

It would be if they hired a defender explicitly to round out their political positions with a conservative or liberal ideologue, which is what we've been argueing about. It is amusing, however, how steadfastly you attempt to frame what is essentially an issue of political ideology as anything else to make it sound more palatable and less odious.

Seeing as you are still struggling, in subjects like politics, history, economics, philosophy, history, sociology, international relations, social psychology and many more, a person's ideological beliefs are inseparable from their work. It drives research interests, motivations, methodologies and influences interpretation of data.

These subjects have a highly subjective component to them, so by hiring people from a narrow range of ideological backgrounds creates a distortion in academia that disconnects it from the real world, and reduces it's potential benefit for society.

You seem to ignore the fact that people are hired on the basis of their ideological beliefs at the moment, strange you only find this "odious" if it involves people from outside your thought bubble.

Then don't take me for an idiot by disingenuously framing the issue.

So should we hire more creationists or not?

You are not doing your case much good that you are an intelligent person using good faith arguments by repeating the same obvious misrepresentation over and over and over...

Kooky: So you are saying we should teach creationism?

A: No, don't be daft. Creationism is not science, but a responsible faculty would teach differing scientific views of evolution such as gene centred and multi-level selection. Do you agree?

Kooky: SO YOU ARE SAYING WE SHOULD TEACH CREATIONISM?

It's not like anybody is complaining about the slew of right-wing researchers living on lucrative jobs in the conservative think tank environment, so why make it an issue elsewhere?

Think tanks are private institutions, universities are generally publicly funded. Also, lots of people complain about the harm they do to public discourse.

For universities to be a 'public good' they need to reflect society, rather than a narrow, self-selecting nepotistic elite though.

The diversity ought to come from a wide range of scholarly opinions concerning their respective fields of study only,

Yes, that is what I have been arguing all along.

What you seem to miss is that in order to do this in many fields you need a balance of ideological persuasion within the faculty.

At the moment there is not a balance of scholarly opinions within many university faculties and this operates to the detriment of universities and society as a whole.

So excellent, we can agree that viewpoint diversity is good and should be encouraged within the bounds of scholarly merit.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

For universities to be a 'public good' they need to reflect society, rather than a narrow, self-selecting nepotistic elite though.

What you seem to miss is that in order to do this in many fields you need a balance of ideological persuasion within the faculty.

What you seem to miss is that in order to do this in many fields you need a balance of ideological persuasion within the faculty.

At the moment there is not a balance of scholarly opinions within many university faculties and this operates to the detriment of universities and society as a whole.

This seems a contradictory set of positions.

On the one hand, you argue that faculties should reflect society, but on the other you argue that they should reflect the range of scholarly opinions. The underlying assumption being that the range of scholarly opinion should, if balanced, be more or less the same as public opinion.

What this fails to take account of is the idea that facts, research and logic may actually lean more in favour of one political direction than another. There is a reason that the more education a person tends to receive the less likely they are to be a conservative. This could be a result of "academic bias", but it could equally be the result of reality simply supporting left-wing views more than right-wing ones. It would be extremely naive to suggest that a left-wing bias in academia mutated apropos of nothing, particularly in a country that is so historically and socially averse to openly left-wing opinions and beliefs, and is still extremely hostile to left-wing people. The left-wing bias of academia could just as easily be explained as s triumph of the free market of ideas than by some pernicious left-wing plotting, but - as with many things in America - when free market thinking starts to favour the left, it must immediately be bulldozed to be more right.

By seeking to eliminate bias in acamedia, you necessarily INTRODUCE bias by forcing the views to reflect the political biases and partisanship of the general populace rather than the actual facts and scholarly opinions involved. In this regard, the earlier analogy about creationism is fairly apt. By your reasoning, you would need to accomodate creationism into Universities. The reason you don't is because creationism is not widely accepted as credible in academia. But this could also be said for a lot of conservative economic or social sciences - they are not accepted as widely credible as more centrist or left-wing ones are. What you would suggest is not far removed from forcing creationism into science classes just because creationism is widely accepted in society. By the same logic, just because a lot of people are economically, politically or socially conservative doesn't mean that these ideas actually hold up under academic scrutiny. So, it comes down to a question of whether you trust the academics to know what the facts are without bias, which is something you admit to in the case of creationism but seem to indicate you are less keen to do for social or political sciences.

You also have yet to explain why an exposure to a variety of views would necessitate faculty or staff to necessarily HOLD those views. Exposing people to a variety of views is important, but I don't think this means the same thing as learning to accept all views as valid, or learning from people who hold them. People learn ABOUT views all the time from lecturers who don't hold those views, and if you wish to argue that this means that bias will creep in then you will have to explain why this bias concerns you while the bias that might develop from learning about a political ideology from the very people who want to convince you that ideology is the best one does not concern you.

Also, what "detriment" are you talking about here, specifically?

 

[Lyndon]

another profession that is mostly right wing Republican; law enforcement. Should they be made to have a balance of left and right wing members

 

[Augustus]

On the one hand, you argue that faculties should reflect society, but on the other you argue that they should reflect the range of scholarly opinions. The underlying assumption being that the range of scholarly assumption should, if balanced, be more or less the same as public opinion.

Not really. Many public opinions are not supportable from a scholarly perspective.

We should aim for a diversity of those that are.

What this fails to take account of is the idea that facts, research and logic may actually lean more in favour of one political direction than another.

It's fair to assume most people think facts tend to lean in the direction of their own personal biases, especially when not exposed to a diversity of perspectives.

Would you say the disproportionate level of intellectual support for Soviet and other Communist regimes reflected the 'facts' available in the 70s and 80s?

Also, what "harm" are you talking about here, specifically?

Solutions to complex problems are more likely to be effective if they consider a wide range of potential solutions.

Exposing people to a wide range of ideas is good for their intellectual, psychological and moral development.

(As a personal opinion, which is obviously speculative, I would say that ideological polarisation will make current methods of government untenable in the modern era. While this could lead to positive developments (for me, a more localist and decentralised system) I have little faith that it will and is just as likely to lead to negative political changes - more authoritarian centralisation.)

 

[Augustus]

another profession that is mostly right wing Republican; law enforcement. Should they be made to have a balance of left and right wing members

A more diverse police force would be great.

Are you saying that would be a bad thing Lyndon?

 

[Lyndon]

A more diverse police force would be great.

Are you saying that would be a bad thing Lyndon?

I guess that makes you very pro affirmative action

 

[Augustus]

I guess that makes you very pro affirmative action

Not really, there are much better options.

Seeing as you agree diversity is good for the police though, why do you think it is bad in other areas?

 

[Lyndon]

I just brought it up because you only want affirmative action for education institutions, you don't want it for police forces, the military, or the Monster Truck audience, or are you in favour of equalizing all those institutions