Just a personal note to you, beyond the standard leftist ideologies that you support, do you also welcome ideologies that you reject? Is it analytical ideology you like or your political team's winning? As someone who doesn't share your politics but benefits from the nonideological portion of your writing, I usually turn off during your political chest beating and fist pumping. Why don't you interrogate the dominant leftist ideologies that actually control the universities? Getting a sense of how overwhelmingly monolithic university politics actually are might help you to understand why the outside political coalition for supporting universities full of committed ideologues is diminishing. Who wants to fund institutions dedicated to ridiculing and despising them? Thanks again for your insights and writing (especially the nonideological bits!)--Anonymous.
My comments policy has reduced my stress level compared to when I was moderating comments at NewAPPS. I get fewer comments, relatively fewer obnoxious comments, and I can make snap decisions on what to accept without second thoughts. Not surprisingly, when people's views are connected to their public identities they tend to be more cautious, especially when they suspect -- correctly or not -- that their views may hinder things they value, too, like friendships, professional advancement, and reputation (etc.). The benefits of moderation should not be underestimated, but obviously it may also generate a status quo bias. Even if the status quo is very pleasant (at least to those that benefit) this also reduces the opportunity of learning. Balloonists are happy to take the high ground but I recognize that other blogs may have other interests -- some noble (inclusivity, openness and experimentation) and some less so (drive traffic and advertising numbers) -- and will encourage anonymous comments. Anyway, it's nice to be informed so kindly that some of my readers are willing to keep reading me even when they do not agree with my purported ideological positions.
I welcome analytical ideology studies because it is developing useful conceptual tools that will facilitate better analysis of political events and movements; it is also regenerating analytical philosophy as such. This is useful because analytical philosophy had grown too comfortable with technocracy and too quietest in light of major social upheavals. Regardless of the ideological orientation of those most prominent within analytical ideology studies, it is foreseeable that the tools they are developing will be used to analyze many kinds of ideologies and ideological stances, including ones cherished by those active in it today. Analytical philosophy does not have the intellectual resources to prevent this.
It is amusing to note the lack of irony among those (including my anonymous commentator) that applaud the use of state power in order to curtail or prevent the lefty political orientation of university professors. Leaving aside irony (which gets tiresome), American elite universities thrive in insanely competitive global markets. Yes, there are subsidies in all kinds of ways, but the existing patterns of outcomes are a consequence of lots of free and responsible individual choices within the market for higher education among students, their parents, university administrators, and faculty all in light of global developments, changing job markets, and public opinion. For good or for ill the very best public universities quite clearly emulate the elite private ones (Cf. my imitation of Veblen). I welcome ideological competition and it is good that within philosophy some programs self-consciously steer non-standard ideological courses (e.g. Arizona), just as it is great that within the philosophical blogosphere there are different options (recall).
This is not to deny that philosophers and professors more generally can take the political for granted. It is, in fact, to be expected that contestable and controversial values will be contested by political forces--I blog about this in terms of the Socratic Problem. My own read for why "the outside political coalition for supporting universities" has diminished is subtly different than the one proposed by my interlocutor: it has more to do with a decline of a certain form of civic religion in the American heartland much indebted to late 19th century Protestantism in which education is valued alongside dramatic demographic and economics shifts such that the rich can expect to exit safely from local institutions (including public universities). You can help destroy Madison if you expect your kids and grandkids to go to Yale (where they can be taught how to think carefully about ideology).
I do not deny the claim that there is considerable group-think even among those that pride themselves on independence of thought. I know of tenure cases that strongly appear to be decided on ideological grounds. Like all human institutions, we find sources of corruption within professional philosophy and the academies that support it. We are, I fear, also in the midst of a newfound receptivity toward rule by the intellectual and educated elite among the wealthy and highly educated and an increasing distrust of popular democracy. Ironically, the most vocal supporters of this trend are on the Libertarian right (e.g. Jason Brennan), but in Europe the technocrats are playing with the idea of substituting lotteries for ballot boxes, and the novelists imagine submission to a form of political Islam. Undoubtedly, Stateside, Liberals were too fond of appealing to the sophisticated judgment of elite judges when they could not win elections and, unsurprisingly, we have seen Conservatives emulating their practices: good tricks get emulated which is why the first one to do so bears a heavier responsibility, if history knows any morality.
Comments