In his April 5 column, Paul Krugman argues that the lack of conservative faculty members in college is not a product of bias, but rather is the result of certain deficiencies in conservative thought—an argument I’ve heard made elsewhere by, for instance, esteemed wymynist and law professor, Susan Estrich, among others.
Leaving aside for the moment Krugman’s imbecilic and cartoonish reduction of conservative thought to something “increasingly dominated by people who believe truth should be determined by revelation, not research,” the simple fact is, we need look no further than the faculty selection process, which in many cases—and quite counterintuitevely—rewards mediocrity, diplomacy, bureaucratic deftness, and adherence to the academic status quo.
To be fair, Krugman at least acknowledges this phenomenon of self selection—“the same sort of self-selection that leads Republicans to outnumber Democrats four to one in the military,” he notes (and here I was thinking that only poor minorities, the kinds who typically lean Democrat, were forced into the military)—but then he dismisses this as too simplistic an explanation, and plumbs deeper, arriving, hardly surprisingly, at the conclusion that conservative thinkers are theocratic—and so inherently anti-intellectual:
In the 1970’s, even Democrats like Daniel Patrick Moynihan conceded that the Republican Party was the “party of ideas.” Today, even Republicans like Representative Chris Shays concede that it has become the “party of theocracy.”
Consider the statements of Dennis Baxley, a Florida legislator who has sponsored a bill that – like similar bills introduced in almost a dozen states – would give students who think that their conservative views aren’t respected the right to sue their professors. Mr. Baxley says that he is taking on “leftists” struggling against “mainstream society,” professors who act as “dictators” and turn the classroom into a “totalitarian niche.” His prime example of academic totalitarianism? When professors say that evolution is a fact.
[…] Think of the message this sends: today’s Republican Party – increasingly dominated by people who believe truth should be determined by revelation, not research – doesn’t respect science, or scholarship in general. It shouldn’t be surprising that scholars have returned the favor by losing respect for the Republican Party.
Conservatives should be worried by the alienation of the universities; they should at least wonder if some of the fault lies not in the professors, but in themselves.
Now, why Krugman, a self-avowed intellectual and scholar, is so dense as to consistently conflate “Republicans” and “conservatives” throughout his column—and then to compound that error by reducing the breadth of conservative thought (and really, anyone who was paying attention during the Schiavo case could easily recognize divisions not only on the right, but certain new alliances between some on the right with some on the left) to a single, anti-intellectual impulse—is beyond me; but giving him the benefit of the doubt, I’m willing to write it off as just some transparent (and rather hamfisted) rhetorical maneuvering meant to muddy the waters, and so to cloud the stream of thought that allows him to drift from the fact of an intellectually tragic overdetermination of liberal thinkers in academe, to the condescending—and remarkably un-nuanced—suggestion that this overdetermination of liberal thinkers has something to do with some (perceived and caricaturish) deficiencies in conservative thought, rather than a manifestation of the hive mind given control of it’s own nesting place.
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(h/t Ace, who points to this follow-up, from the NYT letters page)
What are you doing, trying to teach people something?
All my Democrat friends refused to look into the Schiavo case, and so decided we are all a bunch of religious nuts wanting to force our ethics on people. Even when I tried to explain it, they would start yelling and screeching and refuse to listen.
They WANT to remain uninformed. Why are you being so mean and stating the truth? If there were more people like you, just think what this would do to the Democrats? How would they continue their campaign of hate and intolerance?
Next Tuesday, Krugman explains that the lack of women in the sciences is because whenever it’s time to do an experiment they’ve all got their periods or something.
I liked this line:
As if political pressure (in the form of liberal activism on campus) hasn’t already had a chilling effect. I just went back and re-read some of the feminist crap I wrote back in college … OH MY … PTL my husband introduced me to The National Review and I was introduced to a broader world view.
Okay, so I went to Ace to check out the hat tip and came to the conclusion that his Dusty Girl is much Hotter than yours. I’m a very shallow person. Oh Well………..
Okay, now you’re just showing off. Or do you expect me to believe it’s a coincidence that each of the four paragraphs you wrote is precisely one sentence long?
Or are you just in a William Faulkner kind of mood or something?
I didn’t even realize it. Man. I really need to simplify.
Yes, simplify, Jeff. My Republican peabrain can barely grasp what in tarnation is going on.
Do we get to take breaths at the commas, or do we have to read it all the way through?
“Conservatives should be worried by the alienation of the universities; they should at least wonder if some of the fault lies not in the professors, but in themselves.”
I can’t help but think if universities and professors got everything they wanted, they would still find a way to use “censorship” and “chilling” in every other sentence.
In other words, if conservatives didn’t exist, those in charge of the campuses would invent them in order to have something adolescently rail against.
If you’re looking for a refreshing counterbalance, try this:
A professor from Europe says, “Whoa—your university professors are WAY too liberal!”
I occasionally try to read Krugman, but his articles are all variations on the same theme, to wit:
I, Krugman, am a genius and your better; therefore, if you disagree with me, you are not only my inferior, you are retarded, as well. And I need not hide my disdain for you, because you are too stupid to understand what I am saying, anyway.
I am a genius and am therefore in The New York Times; and if you question my genius, I will again point out to you that I am in the New York Times, and am therefore a genius.
You mean the same Paul Krugman/Enron Advisor genius?
To be fair to Jeff, he does use semicolons to join independent main clauses, so that’s virtually the same as having two sentences.
He seems like more of a penius than a genius.
Hell, I read the closing segment three times just to see if it suffered in clarity from being a single sentence.
Didn’t.
…Unlike a Faulkner sentence
Is that all there is to it, to self-avow ?
Christ, why have I wasted so much time and money and energy with useless things like books and school and thinking and stuff ?
Hey everybody ! Look at me ! I’m an Intellectual Baboon… a mental giant ! A scholar even..
I’m a genius and your better.. way better.
and I have a 9” Cut Intellectual Baboon Willy as well..
Hey, that does feel good to say…
So. . . let’s see if I, a conservative, can understand: If I am NOT a Liberal I am a moron? Wow.
I’d love to see the government study that concluded that notion.
I’m disappointed with Krugman. No, not because he claims that conservatives are stupid…it’s that he missed out on a golden opportunity to remind everyone that we’re also mean.
That’s some shoddy work there, Professor K.
I’ve read some of Krugman’s professional work, and it is impressive. Which is why it is especially annoying to read his columns and wonder how he can write such stupid, petty, bizarre and nutty columns. And when I get especially angry is when I catch him writing stuff that is patently false economics. He’ll happily lie even about his own academic specialty if he can twist an anti-Bush barb into it.
He’s quite delusional.
I am not a liberal.
I am a moron.
A red state moron….
Shit…..I’m still only a moron.
Wait. So if there aren’t many conservatives on campus, that means that conservatives are stupid, right? Well, by that argument, why aren’t there many blacks on campus, eh? Krugman is a racist turd-gobbler.
Conservative professors have better things to do than teach and conservative students are too busy graduating to pay much attention to Left-Liberal-Losers.
To simply is to imply.
Those who can’t do, teach. Those who can do, do. Do be do be doo.
Simplification had its pitfalls and its pitbulls.
Wow, Jeff! I have never read such a wonderfully astute deconstruction of that lame excuse given for lack of “conservative thought” in academe.
But then, maybe that’s because I have never before read your response….