Thread by @BrandonWarmke

One symptom of what’s wrong with American higher education is how bad *people with PhDs* are at thinking and talking about the political Right.

They might have a PhD, but they haven’t learned much about the political ideas they don’t like.

Three thoughts:

1. Many academics will simply admit they have no idea what conservatism is. “What even is conservatism? You mean Rush Limbaugh/Donald Trump? Why would students need to learn that?”

Imagine a crowd of PhDs asking “What even is liberalism, you mean like Rachel Maddow? Who needs to learn that?”

2. Many just think of everyone on the “right” as just one big undifferentiated blob: Burke, Oakeshott, Maistre, and Scruton (if these names are known at all) are all of a piece with Ayn Rand, Nozick, Hayek, Margaret Thatcher, Donald Trump, Joseph McCarthy, Franco, and Fox News. It’s one bad team, connected via one shadowy network.

Understanding politics on Left requires careful distinctions and nuance: it’s important to distinguish the 8 varieties of Marxism and 13 shades of democratic socialism. The Right? Just a blob.

3. Many have just two categories to associate with conservatives: reactionary and fascist.

“Reactionary” is typically just used to refer to people who don’t like whatever the Left happens to be on about at the moment.

“Fascist” is typically just used to refer to anyone who values patriotism and feels attached to a place and way of life.

I don’t know how to fix this. I’ve seen lots of syllabi from faculty and grad students over the years, from all kinds of institutions. There’s little interest in exposing students to “bad ideas,” at least with much charity.

Instructors don’t want to “platform” these ideas. And they certainly don’t want to risk students coming to believe them.

One final point: “Democrats’ understanding of Republicans actually gets worse with every additional degree they earn.”

Democrats *without* high school diplomas do much better than PhDs. The current education system simply isn’t helping.