Brian Leiter writes: "viewpoint diversity is irrelevant in serious academic disciplines" and "academic disciplines presuppose the unequal worth of different viewpoints, and the job of scholars is to assess those viewpoints, and discount the unworthy ones."

A few thoughts. 1/ This is fine as ideal theory. But what happens when a discipline--say sociology, gender studies, or philosophy--comes to be dominated by ideologues who regard as unworthy many moral, empirical, and political viewpoints that fall outside the narrow range of accepted views? 2/

“Over the past few decades, Americans have redefined “harm,” “abuse,” “neglect” and “trauma”…

This cultural shift has contributed to a new, nearly impossible standard for parenting…

We’ve held our own parents to unreachable standards, standards that deep down, maybe, we know we ourselves would struggle to meet.” “Today, parents still have obligations to their children. But it seems the children’s duties have become optional.”

“Here are my dozen suggestions for how Democrats might persuade my hand (and the hands of similarly-minded Americans) to gravitate toward the “D” on the 2028 ballot.”

“If your message only works when shouted, you won’t persuade me.” 1/ “If you reflexively ignore or reject what I say, you won’t persuade me.” 2/

1/ A college president recently wrote an op ed arguing that colleges need to be more honest with themselves.

The problem is the op ed isn't being honest, either: 2/ We get data showing that many faculty are willing to discriminate against conservatives and an admission that professors needlessly politicize their classes:

"Taken together, those survey results suggest that some of the most intense pressure to conform to political orthodoxy comes from within the academy."

This is true. The solution?

1/ Philosopher Joseph Heath on the five dogmas of DEI

1. Race Is A Social Construct
2. Stereotypes Are False
3. Racism Is Not Innate, But Learned
4. Majority Privilege Is Unjust
5. Racial Disparities Are Unjust (Per Se) 2/ "In every canonical use of the term, race is determined by ancestry, and ancestry is a straightforward biological concept."

There are relatively few defenses of immigration restrictions in the philosophy literature. Which is weird because every nation has them.

So most philosophers have little idea what the arguments could even be. And when they do finally encounter push back on open borders, their total self-confidence in a view that's never really been challenged and in a policy that's never been tried takes over. The usual response is just immediate dismissal or name-calling. One thing I like about this debate about immigration in this volume is that it shows how poorly the open borders positions holds up under scrutiny.

By the end, the defender of the "open borders" position has conceded that welfare would have to be restricted or limited for immigrants, they wouldn't be able to vote, and no men aged 18-34 would be allowed to migrate freely. Remarkable concessions for lovers of freedom.

global.oup.com/academic/produ…

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?”

"I attempt to explain why cultural preservation is important and, in particular, why it is important enough to justify immigration restrictions. As will become clear, this is an argument that is rarely made in philosophy." "Name anything of considerable value—beauty, courtesy, freedom, friendship, justice, knowledge, prosperity, security, “belonging”—and either it will be part of some culture or there will be cultural mechanisms such as institutions, dispositions, customs, and norms to protect and promote it."

Epistemologist wonders why Harris lost and suggests one big reason is that Republicans rely on "misinformation."

It cannot be understated how many PhDs cannot fathom the possibility that people disagree with them because they actually understand and reject their ideas. Meanwhile, this kind of "misinformation" is commonplace and few academics seem interested in using it to explain left-wing voting.

If you ask a different set of questions you'll find highly educated progressives giving wildly inaccurate answers.

https://x.com/kevinnbass/status/1855827870637019223

Keith Hankins and John Thrasher have a nice new paper drawing out Hume’s more conservative themes.

Hume’s four methodological principles for doing political philosophy: 🧵

journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.108… 1. Independence Thesis — Political theorizing can and should be done free from prior normative constraints (and, in particular, independently from the claims of moral theory).