Many academics I see online are leftist whereas many laypeople I see online are right wing.
There are plenty of right wing academics but they are a minority. It probably varies by field too. In the core sciences that minority is probably the smallest and is greater in the humanities. My professor was a right wing scientist and we often clashed on values. I felt sorry for him at times because it would be his point of view Vs the entire research group. He is fundamentally a good person that can hold illogical and contradictory opinions that felt like they were emotionally based.
In academia you are trained to not accept any claim without adequate evidence. Look at left wing claims vs. right wing ones and show me one that has better evidence on the right.
There are fewer right-wingers in academia, and they tend to work at schools with right-wing orientations. Turns out reality has a liberal bias.
what do you mean when you say “reality has a liberal bias”? I have heard another person saying that too but I did not get that.
It means most things hardline conservatives are angry or paranoid about are misperceptions, not realities. For example, most people who are different from you aren’t out to get you.
The reason that there are less ‘right wing’ people in academia is that academia usually involves research and understanding of the world and its systems and most ‘right wing’ opinions do not hold up to investigation. So, therefore, reality itself appears to have a liberal bias as opposed to admitting you’re wrong about anything.
That’s the root of it, basically.
For the record, I agree with the statement, for what it’s worth.
Current STEM researcher who also happened to have met a few academics on the right side of the political spectrum… I am very qualified to speak about this I hope. I’ll try to use as unbiased language as possible
First of all, you are correct. It is generally true that most academics are left-leaning (obligatory not all, but you get the point)
In general, higher education attainment is associated with being left-leaning: academia is known to have extreme levels of education attainment (many jobs require a PhD). On top of it, academic jobs reward intellectual curiosity, do not tend to pay super well, tend to heavily rely on governmental funding… all of these are traditionally more associated with the political left or left-leaning. Still, there very much are right-leaning academics, they just don’t tend to scream around a lot about it
There are notable exceptions however. Economics is quite famous for being politically balanced, although what economics treat as left/right-leaning might be a bit different from the general public. If I remember, business schools (yes there are business professors!) tend to be more right-leaning. This is a smaller field and a bit more anecdotal, but quite a few prominent meta-science researchers are right-wing nutjobs: the “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False” guy and the NIH director Bhattacharya guy are both COVID deniers
There are also fringe scientists as some others have mentioned, but most people within their fields don’t consider fringe scientists as part of the academia so to speak
There was an HIV denier at NIH in the 90s but no one remembers his name. There are plenty of right wing MDs and scientist in pharma.
Damn, I am right leaning but I do not deny COVID. Interesting though. I also noticed that in Computer Science too, there are a lot of right wing people, especially these days being pro-AI is often a symbol of being right wing.
First of all: you’re good! I think there are lots of centrist and right-leaning people in academia who are doing just fine; especially in the US lots of world-class unis are in deeply conservative areas too. Most of academia don’t discuss politics that much at all as long as one cares about science. I’d wager the political leaning bias is more from a population bias rather than systematic discrimination of any sort
I could imagine AI researchers being more right-leaning yeah. The stats I got were from personal anecdote and research being done about this a short while back… there might have been an update in the AI age
I’m sure there are some academics who are right wing and some uneducated people who are left wing. But for the most part it is generally true that academics are more likely to be left wing. To put it rudely, stupid people generally believe right wing talking points. Right wing worldview is full of contradictions an uneducated beliefs. People who are curious and bother to educate themselves about the issues are generally more likely to be left wing. Than again, I am left wing so of course I’m going to be biased towards believing left wing views are smart
I initially was right but now am reconsidering that stance.
I know a right wing guy who has a PhD, speaks 5 different languages and is an immigrant. He says that you can tell which immigrants are terrorists by just looking at them and everyone who looks like that should be arrested.
I know another right wing guy who has a PhD in Informatics and owns 20 houses in Amsterdam. He doesn’t see the problem. People can just move somewhere else.
Both of them don’t just have PhDs, they work as academics, one in Berlin the other in Amsterdam.
They exist, but the problem is reality has a liberal bias and academics tend to follow the evidence.
what is liberal bias
It operates in many ways. One way is looking at outcomes. For instance, compare abstinence-only to more comprehensive sex-ed and look at what happens to teen pregnancy rates. Reality would favor the liberal policy.
Conservative policy does not care about outcomes, it just cares about preserving the hierarchy, which is why conservatives have to work overtime to discount academics.
Go to any school of economics, comp sci faculty, school of business and dare i say biology and you’ll find a lot of em. They tend to be less vocal. Historians too.
In my experience Biology not as much, but maybe that differs by country.
Historians you say? What decade i wonder…
i’m not sure what you mean. of what generation?
I think they’re referring to the observed propensity for those who are “really into” world war II history to be right-wing, so 1930s-1940s-ish. This obviously isn’t ubiquitous, but having a particular interest in the second world war has definitely taken on a reputation.
Anecdotally, playing Paradox’s grand strategy games, Hearts of Iron has more noticeable fascists, or at least players who near-exclusively play fascist nations “because it’s just so interesting”. I have some cousins who mostly play fascist Germany.
I play Deep Rock Galactic, a game where you’re a dwarf in space and are enslaved by a dystopian mining corporation with no hopes of escape. The game is a survival horror mission thing where you go into mines, shoot the hostile wild life and get minerals so the mining corporation can profit. I wonder what that says about me…
I wrote a reply earlier but my app was being futzy and it looks like it didn’t send. Apologies if this double-posts.
I wasn’t making an absolutist statement on folks’ tastes in games (or any media). I don’t believe that most Hearts of Iron players are fascists any more than I believe that most Crusader Kings players want to bang their sisters and play eugenics, or that Factorio players want to terraform an alien planet into a concrete and steel wasteland and kill all native life.
You don’t need to be a fascist to enjoy playing as a historical “bad guy”, but, especially as it concerns real-world politics then and now, media centered or themed around the time during which fascism evolved will naturally attract a greater audience of that leaning than media that doesn’t. I personally have a greater interest in the mid 19th-mid 20th centuries than many other points in history due to the rapid sociological, political, and technological advancements of the era – particularly labor theory and uprisings – so I get drawn to games like Victoria for those systems.
heh yeah, was just making a joke.
I’ve definitely seen several examples of the stereotypes you pointed out in your previous post, too, so no argument here.
The 1800s must have definitely been a wild ride. Interesting study case too. New forms of mass media running wild, automation generating a handful of people unimaginable wealth. Yep yep. Definitely worth looking into.
Thanks for taking the time to share. :)
Being an academic means being open minded because when researching something, the outcome may be different from what you expected. In such cases do you concede that your initial theory was wrong or do you stubbornly continue to believe that you were right and keep trying to prove yourself correct?
You can find stats showing that support for the Conservatives falls in Canada as education rises. So depending on region and definition, it’s not just you.
That being said, that doesn’t mean there are zero. Jordan Peterson as a famous example.
“A moron with higher education is still a moron.”
see Jordan Peterson.
Depends on what you call “academics”. If you mistake phrase shifter courses like “business administration”, “politics”, or “law” as academic, then yes.
Nah not that specifically. I meant like in social sciences and humanities (other fields are welcome but my main motive was these fields).
Social sciences and humanities are a classic leftist field. And MINT scientists are usually too smart to be right wingers.
what is MINT? I am in STEM but I adore the people in social sciences and humanities. Sadly, humanities is dying especially in my country. Barely anyone wants to read social sciences and humanities, as we are a developing country and also just want money
MINT Mathematics, Information science, Natural sciences, and Technology.
Unaware. Go into accounting to find a bunch.
I got a book on Principles of Accountings from two professors in BYU (kinda old book though) and it sounded way capitalist from its starting pages.
They are fewer than those who lean left but they are there. And typically they tend more toward moderation that extremism. Quintessentially, they’re moderate to liberal conservatives. Often times you’ll find them more in business and economics related fields.
The main reason being that exposure typically gets a person to come out of their highly conservative nature and education as well to better understand how the world operates. It’s not a 100% thing as there are occasional reactionaries in positions of scientific note but they’re few.
Right-wingers care about money and power, the smart ones go into business
I think most of right wing is based on populist politicians. Left does not seem to me doing that much populist politics as many right wing people do. The target audience I think for them are the uneducated or not so much educated people who want a messianic figure to save them.
Probably people who are curious and want to learn how the universe really is, who climb to the highest levels of Perry’s scheme of cognition, who use Sagan’s baloney detection kit, rather than supernatural and unfalsifiable excuses, to understand the cosmos. It’s part of the scientific method and great to learn new things, not mistakes but data for next experiment, and big claims require big proof, like defending a thesis should require. We are all waves of one ocean made of stardust, observing the universe, conscious elements billions of years old. DNA that survived all the extinctions so far, on the one habitable planet, and nothing to rescue us, but human cooperation.
If you want faith, it must allow room for doubt and mystery, rather than twisted to demand certainty and remain in Perry’s low levels overall. They could study the neurochemical ways high-control groups hook people and keep them with unhealthy shame/blame/guilt, threat of exile, conditional belonging, solution for invented problem, punish/reward cycles, and maybe choose to escape. Good luck!
