First they excommunicated the conservatives. Then they expelled the moderates. Then they removed the moderate leftists. At Quillette Uri Harris asks the question “Are the Social Sciences Undergoing a Purity Spiral?”:
A couple of years ago, six social scientists published a paper describing a disquieting occurrence in academic psychology: the loss of almost all its political diversity. As Jonathan Haidt, one of the authors of the paper, wrote in a commentary:
Before the 1990s, academic psychology only LEANED left. Liberals and Democrats outnumbered Conservatives and Republican by 4 to 1 or less. But as the “greatest generation†retired in the 1990s and was replaced by baby boomers, the ratio skyrocketed to something more like 12 to 1. In just 20 years. Few psychologists realize just how quickly or completely the field has become a political monoculture.
It seems to me that ship had sailed before most of the people alive today were born. It was true when I was in college a half century ago and I can’t even imagine what it’s like now. Those many years ago I sat in on one Intro to Sociology class in which the prof said “People become psychologists to come to an understanding of their own psychological problems. People become sociologists to come to an understanding of their own sociological problems. That’s why all sociologists are Jews or black.”
If that’s the case, why do people become economists?
There is no evidence of an excommunication of which I am aware. It is a shame that conservatives didn’t have the courage to stand up for what they believe. That, plus I really don’t think those are fields that really attract them anyway.
Steve
For more than half a century the dissertation topics in the social sciences that can receive approval have had that effect. You’re aware of it now. The linked post itself gives an example of another mechanism by which the social sciences have become an increasingly narrow political monoculture.
For goodness sake, steve, the verbatim quote I presented in the body of the post is evidence.
You need a new email group, steve.
A pity, fields prone to the subjective over interpretations always benefits from multiple viewpoints to avoid Lysenkoism.
I’ll just say that Harris is conflating liberals and the left.
Liberals are politically irrelevant now. Any who remain are over 80 years old. Oldtimers like Fritz Mondale. What remain are progressives (center left) and the hard left.
The quote in the body is not evidence of excommunication. If that really existed it should be pretty easy to find evidence. Paper trails for people who were kicked out. I think the much more likely scenario is the one at the end of your cited piece. Conservatives left as the fields just weren’t of interest to them. They were also unwilling to fight for what they believed. (Remember that being openly gay was unheard of not that long ago and advocating for gay issues would have meant losing your job. Some people had to show some courage.) However, they probably did reach a tipping point where it is just assumed that you will be on the left.
Steve
Steve,
Strange to hear you make this argument, particularly since it is, at best, incomplete in other contexts in which it is used.
Yes, blacks don’t really want to live in those neighborhoods anyway and if women just tried hard enough there would be more women doctors.
OT, but an article I think might be of general interest to you, Dave:
http://time.com/4838672/where-did-americas-summer-jobs-go/
Students, work visas, employment opportunities…
Thanks, I’d read it. It touches on things I’ve mentioned here from time to time.
I sometimes wonder if people understand the implications of 35 year olds taking a job for the first times in their lives.
Could be they write sociological articles from a “post-work” standpoint.