
A Confession of Liberal Intolerance - boona
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confession-of-liberal-intolerance.html
======
savanaly
You can't choose your skin color or where you were born, but you can choose
your political beliefs. For that reason alone, I think statements like

"My Facebook followers have incredible compassion for war victims in South
Sudan, for kids who have been trafficked, even for abused chickens, but no
obvious empathy for conservative scholars facing discrimination."

miss the mark. Excluding people based on their beliefs is completely a
judgement call about whether you think their beliefs are so far from your own
that nothing productive can come from sharing a department with them. The
feelings of the author (and me, and a lot of others besides) is that staunch
liberals in academia might be flawed in excluding conservatives. But not
because it's akin to racism, it's a different (and less objectionable) type of
discrimination.

~~~
zeveb
> You can't choose your skin color or where you were born, but you can choose
> your political beliefs.

Can one? My political beliefs aren't my tastes: they are things that I
_believe_. I can't choose what I believe to be true. Can you?

~~~
pessimizer
I certainly can't. I'm a victim of my own interpretation of the evidence. If I
could choose what I believed, I'd choose a lot differently.

edit: I'm honestly jealous (and intolerant) of people who can. My deeply
religious grandmother told me once during a long discussion about her
Christianity that "faith" to her meant making a choice to believe. I told her
that I have never had faith, and will never have faith. I have faith in that:)

~~~
ktRolster
Good point. I really want to believe that I'll win the lottery, but I just
can't bring myself to accepting it.

~~~
mcphage
> I really want to believe that I'll win the lottery, but I just can't bring
> myself to accepting it.

Probably for the best. Your belief that you will win the lottery doesn't mean
that you _actually will_ win the lottery, but it might lead to you losing a
lot of money.

------
disbelief
The author repeatedly conflates conservatism with Christianity. While there's
probably a higher percentage of Christians who identify as conservative, it's
not their conservatism that would trouble me in a University setting. I
wouldn't want a University science professor to be a creationist for example,
but I couldn't care less if they're fiscal conservative who believes in small
government.

~~~
jccalhoun
That's a great point. There are tons of liberal Christians but in the media
they tend to be overshadowed by conservative Christians.

------
dragonwriter
The decline of conservatives in academia in the humanities and social sciences
(other than economics) post-dates the conservative movement's dismissal of the
value of those fields and is a natural consequence of it: if you are part of a
political movement which rejects the value of a field of work, you are less
likely to seek to work in that field (and, conversely, if you value work in a
particular field, you are more likely to split from a political movement that
does not.)

If conservatives started painting those fields as valuable fields for
scholarship which needed more conservative scholars, the gap would, I suspect,
substantially disappear within a generation.

------
fuzzywalrus
Some false equivalency in this article: "Francis Collins is an evangelical
Christian and famed geneticist who has led the Human Genome Project and the
National Institutes of Health. And if you’re saying that conservatives may be
tolerable, but evangelical Christians aren’t — well, are you really saying you
would have discriminated against the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.? " MLK Jr ≠
Francis Collins. Collins argues that DNA is the language of god which there's
no empirical evidence to which. Plus, he's respected despite this, in his
field. That seems like acceptance.

Also the article lists: "But that doesn’t explain why there are conservative
math professors but not many right-wing anthropologists." I imagine that say,
in the extreme cases of say: evangelical young earth creationists or a
evangelical mormon believing that humans are 5000 years old or that Native
Americans are the lost tribe of Israel is counterproductive.

~~~
incompatible
Religious thinking may be compatible with science to the extent that religion
is only used as some kind of motivating factor and doesn't affect the outcome
or logic of the resulting science. However religion used instead to push an
agenda, influencing the outcome of research, would seem counter-productive,
and I can understand the wariness of social social scientists towards those
with rigid beliefs.

------
haberman
Before you dismiss this as truth-challenged partisans who want recognition of
their unjustifiable views, read this. There is a pretty compelling case to be
made that a lot of important questions facing us today are being studied by a
relatively politically homogenous group of people, and beliefs not rigorously
supported by evidence nonetheless become orthodoxy. A monoculture of thought
on questions that are far from settled:
[http://heterodoxacademy.org/problems/](http://heterodoxacademy.org/problems/)

------
drewrv
I think there's more to it than "academics are hostile to conservatives".

The conservative movement in this country is vehemently anti-intellectual.
People love to point to Trump but even George W Bush played dumb to appeal to
his base.

Add in a strongly capitalistic attitude among the american right, that smart
ambitious people should work in industry and not in "ivory towers". Why would
a fan of Ayn Rand take a government job for meager pay?

Academics are probably biased against conservatives. But a conservative is
biased against becoming an academic as well.

------
npsimons
If you think college faculty are liberal, it’s only because American politics
has twisted your perspective:
[https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2016/05/09/if-you-
th...](https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2016/05/09/if-you-think-
college-faculty-are-liberal-its-only-because-american-politics-has-twisted-
your-perspective/)

~~~
ikeboy
> If you are one of those things, you are much more likely to believe in
> creationism, or conspiracy theories, or so-called ‘scientific racism’, or
> any of a number of other destructive and thoroughly debunked ideas

I notice no citation, nor what "much more likely" means.

~~~
npsimons
> I notice no citation, nor what "much more likely" means.

The blog post still makes the very important point that no one cares about
beliefs when hiring. If one so chooses to be a bad teacher and teach things
that are flat out wrong, well, that just makes firing them justified based on
incompetence.

I think the NYTimes article is begging the question; if you ask _why_ there
are fewer conservatives/evangelicals/fundamentalists in the universities, one
possible answer is that they are self-selecting, _not_ that they're being
discriminated against.

~~~
ikeboy
How do you know that? Very little evidence is offered. The other side is
quoting studies about bias in hiring, and the reply is basically "we would
never do that, trust us".

Edit: re self-selection, two points:

1\. If the self selection occurs at the student levels (i.e. professors are
hostile to conservatives which causes them to drop out of academia before they
get to the teaching level) this is still bad.

2\. Even if it's entirely self selected, it's still a diversity problem.

~~~
npsimons
> 1\. If the self selection occurs at the student levels (i.e. professors are
> hostile to conservatives which causes them to drop out of academia before
> they get to the teaching level) this is still bad.

Not necessarily; if someone realizes that their basic beliefs are incompatible
with the basic tenets of an institution, that saves everyone time in the long
run.

And I'd like to see some evidence, _any_ evidence of professors being hostile
to conservatives. And no, "God's not Dead" doesn't count. That's such a
persecution complex strawman.

> 2\. Even if it's entirely self selected, it's still a diversity problem.

There's diversity and there is pandering to vox populi and anti-
intellectualism. The first is good, the second is not, and quite frankly, the
face of modern conservatism in America has been anti-intellectual for quite
some time.

And hey, Kristoff seems to have misrepresented the data!

[https://medium.com/@ginasue/the-lie-of-liberal-
intolerance-o...](https://medium.com/@ginasue/the-lie-of-liberal-intolerance-
on-campus-6ba4c67ea8e0#.de9ylal06)

Surprised, I am not.

~~~
hsod
I don't see anything in that essay that supports any but a _very_ broad
interpretation of the phrase "misrepresented the data". I see a bunch of
innuendo and odd stats like this one:

> Of professors who say that they are religious, fully 19% of them can be
> classified as “traditionalists,” which would include evangelical Christians
> (which in Kristof’s NYT op-ed were presented as a maligned minority, not
> part of the solid 1-in-5 religious professors who are traditionalists found
> by the survey).

One in five _religious_ professors are traditionalists. So what?

------
ankushnarula
(The actual problem is nicely highlighted in this article's most popular
Reader Picks comments)

There is a popular narrative about what it means to be conservative, liberal,
progressive, etc. This narrative is a small simple band in a vastly complex
spectrum of views. Unfortunately, we have come to the point where the
narrative is being echoed so much that it's impossible to have a conversation
framed outside the popular narrative.

We have all been trained and self-trained to pigeonhole each other based on
these meaningless labels to either a) dismiss each other or b) rally together
to dismiss the "other".

The one thing that we can't do is suspend our emotional biases and sincerely
listen to alternate narratives.

------
ZeroGravitas
I don't live in the USA, could someone briefly explain why an evangelical
Christian would fit in less well at a university than a religious person of
other faiths?

Is it related to their religion, their conservatism, or something else?

~~~
headcanon
Currently it is because a large part of the Republican party consists of what
we call the "religious right", a group that seeks to make political change
based on what they believe to be religious truth, or morality. Ted Cruz was
the arbiter of this ideology in the Republican primaries, until he dropped out
last week. While this group does not represent the entire party, they are
definitely the most vocal, and many liberals conflate that group with the rest
of the party as a whole. This belief is not helped by the fact that many
"core" republican platforms come from religious conservatives, like outlawing
gay marriage and abortion.

Many people who belong to the academic community consider these people to be a
bunch of uneducated backwater hicks who do not belong in intellectual
conversations based on logical thought. So when an intellectual states that
they are an evangelical christian, many consider them to be flawed in some
capacity, and thus have nothing of substance to contribute.

EDIT: to add to that, evangelical christians tend to embrace a literal
translation of the bible; in that the world was created in literally seven
days, and that every human is descended from Adam and Eve, a story which in
its literal translation is of course not supported by science. So when a
person who professes to follow science also professes to be a member of this
faith, it can seem paradoxical to many.

~~~
mwfunk
To the person that asked the question, headcanon's first paragraph is pretty
much right on and answers the question. The downvotes likely came from the
tribalism expressed in the second paragraph ("uneducated backwater hicks").
American politics are way too polarized. IMO that polarization comes from two
sources: (1) demagogues like Cruz and Trump who lure people in by convincing
them that they are the "true" Americans, and making them believe that
everything would be so much better were it not for the pernicious influence of
some other group (Democrats/scientists/LGBT
folks/academics/Muslims/Mexicans/etc.). The very best fuel for this fire is
(2), being denigrated by people who self-identify as one of those groups that
the demagogues are trying to make them scared of.

Like, imagine some perfectly decent person who has lived all his life in some
small town in Nebraska, who isn't very educated but also isn't a terrible
person who goes around looking for excuses to hate people. Rural voters are
statistically more religious and more conservative, so he probably has extra
peer pressure to be like that himself, but at the same time is a little
creeped out by people like Cruz who seem to be trying to convince him that
atheist non-white city dwellers think that him and his family and friends are
subhuman, and are trying to take away his rights and his livelihood. So he's
on the fence, until one day he stumbles across someone complaining about
"uneducated backwater hicks", at which point he decides that Cruz might be
right after all, because clearly these college-educated urban strangers really
do hate him and his friends and relatives.

It's a vicious circle that's only broken when people just suck it up and take
the high road, but it feels like there's just never quite enough people
willing to do that to make a difference. It's easy to judge less educated or
less successful people, and I'm sure it feels really cathartic to do so.
Especially when many of those people are being used as pawns by demagogues who
are actively trying to roll back civilization. It's much harder to turn the
other cheek and try to find common ground with them. Sadly that's the only way
the trend towards cultural polarization is ever going to reverse, because
neither side is going anyplace.

~~~
headcanon
I probably should have tossed "uneducated backwater hicks" in quotes - I was
attempting to speak from what I perceive to be the left-wing point of view.
But you are right, the social tribalism is driving a lot of this. I live in a
very liberal university town, and many people seem to see republicans this
way.

------
brooklyndavs
“I am the equivalent of someone who was gay in Mississippi in 1950,”

Oh give me a F*ing break. You CHOOSE to be a conservative. You aren't born a
conservative and face true harassment, discrimination, and death threats
because of it. Oh, right thats what YOU would do to someone who is gay
probably now if you could get away with it.

You are being passed for jobs in academia partly because academia deals in
truths and evangelical Christians usually have a world view lacking in many
truths. Personally, yeah I would pass you for an academic job if I found out
you were an evangelical christian. How can I trust you to know truths in your
profession when you believe in complete nonsense like the earth began 2,000
years ago and that evolution doesn't exist. How can I trust you NOT to
evangelize in the classroom? Isn't that the whole point of being an
evangelical Christian?

Get over it. Religious extremism in ALL FORMS is a cancer and needs to be
eliminated from society. Join the rest of the modern world or be further
relegated to the edge as you so rightfully deserve to be.

~~~
orasis
Why does choice matter? I could choose to indulge my fabulous side and cross
dress, but the social rejection wouldn't be any less painful.

Yes, choices do have consequences, but social exclusion based on those choices
can still be critiqued.

~~~
brooklyndavs
>I could choose to indulge my fabulous side and cross dress

Well, personally, I would say you are born with a fabulous side so you are
just being true to yourself. Congrats and have fun!

> Yes, choices do have consequences, but social exclusion based on those
> choices can still be critiqued.

The problem is you are making a choice not only to believe in something
completely void of fact (you can be ignorant if you want to be I guess) but
you are also making a choice that HARMS society as a whole. When a person's
choice guides them to discriminate a whole group of people based on some
stories written a few thousands of years ago thats a choice that deserves to
be critiqued. If your choice guides the people you vote for to be anti-science
yeah, that choice deserves to be ridiculed.

~~~
teacup50
Just consider, for a moment, what you're doing in that last paragraph.

------
pessimizer
If we didn't discriminate against the type of conservative religious people
who believe in using the power of institutions to advance their religious
goals, women, homosexuals, and religious minorities would have a tougher time
than they already do. Christianity in this article is a red herring, because
I'm sure that conservative fundamentalist Muslims face the same
discrimination, and so would conservative evangelical astrologers, if you
could find any.

What religious people seem to be angry about is the lack of symmetry - that
they are judged for discriminating against reasonable people. The lack of
symmetry is due to the fact that the universities being discussed are intended
to be institutions of reason. There are other universities for people who
believe in every sort of invisible world, which do not hesitate to
discriminate openly, and fight for their right to do so.

~~~
teacup50
As a thought experiment, what happens if your liberal non-religious
individuals start advancing goals that result in discrimination, because they
do not value intellectual diversity?

------
scarface74
No. I would not hire anyone in a science department who professed a belief of
a 6000 year old earth or that didn't "believe in" evolution. I wouldn't vote
for anyone who thought that the U.S. should be run based on the bible.

No I'm not an atheist but I am against anti-intellectualism.

~~~
teacup50
And yet, Colleges have no problem hiring individuals that believe some pretty
scientifically unfounded things, as long as what they believe falls in line
with the orthodoxy.

------
rbcgerard
I think the article is on point, but what makes it a little hard is simply the
nomenclature "conservative" vs "progressive" or "liberal" is this just
shorthand for republican or democrat, or about actual political belief systems

------
curun1r
Given that evangelical is synonymous with believing something that is
demonstrably false, I don't see why we should be clamoring to include such
people among those that will shape the way future generations think. Just
because US Republicans are underrepresented or discriminated against does not
mean that universities are not doing a good job of maintaining a diverse
faculty. It could be argued (and has, many times over) that the spectrum
between the Marxist and American Democratic parties is much more
representative of the rest of the world's liberal-to-conservative spectrum
than would be the US definition of liberal and conservative. Additionally, I
would expect libertarians to be much better represented among faculty since
their ideology is, at least, logically consistent and doesn't contain the
hate/discrimination endemic to the Republican platform.

I think Republicans need to face the fact that they just nominated someone
who's entire platform lacks even basic critical thought. Even if you put aside
how odious and xenophobic what Trump has proposed, it's basically impossible
to implement any of it anyways and anyone with an ounce of critical reasoning
skills would easily realize that. And the one area where colleges cannot
compromise on the faculty is in the area of critical reasoning skills. More
than anything else, the purpose of a college education is to learn critical
reasoning skills.

~~~
drumdance
Trump is not an evangelical. His popularity is more about frustration with
career politicians than policy.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Trump is not an evangelical.

GP didn't say (or imply) that Trump is an evangelical; there was an
implication in that post that lack of critical reasoning, which is a trait GP
also ascribes to evangelicals, among the Republican electorate was a factor in
Trump's success, though.

