1/Here is a paper about conservatives' distrust of universities: link.springer.com/article/10.100…
I think the paper's thesis is probably completely wrong, but the idea is still very interesting.
I think the paper's thesis is probably completely wrong, but the idea is still very interesting.
2/Here is the paper's abstract. Basically, the hypothesis is that conservatives are chiefly mad about left-leaning social science professors trying to influence public policy. 
3/Why do I think this thesis is probably wrong?
Because I doubt most conservatives have any idea what lefty social science profs are doing, either in their research (which few people read) or in their private lives.
Because I doubt most conservatives have any idea what lefty social science profs are doing, either in their research (which few people read) or in their private lives.
4/But it's interesting, because of the parallels with economics.
Many leftists have seen - and still see! - academic economics as a political enterprise devoted to supporting libertarian/free-market ideas and business interests.
Many leftists have seen - and still see! - academic economics as a political enterprise devoted to supporting libertarian/free-market ideas and business interests.
5/In the case of econ, few leftists knew much about the particulars of econ research, OR the political activities of academic economists.
It was pop economics, not academic econ or econ academics, that they were (often justifiably) reacting to.
amazon.com/Economism-Bad-…
It was pop economics, not academic econ or econ academics, that they were (often justifiably) reacting to.
amazon.com/Economism-Bad-…
6/Because of think tanks, pundits, and pop econ writing, people on the left saw (and sometimes still see) econ as an intellectual handmaiden of the Reagan/Thatcher revolution, and economists as a priestly caste devoted to shilling for that policy program.
7/In the same way, rightists and conservatives probably now see a lot of pop sociology in the media. They hear liberals throwing around terms like "privilege" and "structural racism" that sound like they came out of an academic paper.
8/Conservatives and rightists also see a (very selective) sampling of (usually fringe) social science and humanities papers via social media outlets like @RealPeerReview, which seem to confirm their worst fears about what social science does.
9/And they know that social science faculty tend to lean strongly to the left: heterodoxacademy.org/2015/09/14/bbs…
10/This combination of anecdotal and rigorous evidence has created a gestalt impression on the Right that social science is a locus of leftist ideas, energy, and bias - an intellectual handmaiden of the Social Justice movement.
11/This negative gestalt impression is clearly visible in the pronouncements of conservatives:
And friends on the Right send me links to lefty-sounding sociology and humanities papers all day long.
And friends on the Right send me links to lefty-sounding sociology and humanities papers all day long.
12/This is a very dangerous situation for our nation and our economy. Though the GOP shied away from it at the last minute, it came very close to attacking universities wholesale in the recent tax reform bill. bloomberg.com/view/articles/…
13/The Right simply feels that it has no other way of fighting back against the real or perceived flow of cultural-Left ideas that it thinks are flowing out of sociology/humanities departments.
14/The paper above is interesting not because it accurately diagnoses the CAUSE of conservative fear of social science, but because it suggests a way of addressing the problem without smashing our invaluable university system.
15/If university administrators and sociology/humanities departments were to explicitly and officially discourage the blending of activism and research, it wouldn't change much of substance...
16/...but it would send an important SIGNAL that academic institutions are still committed to objectivity. That universities are devoted to the advancement of knowledge rather than ideology.
