Why Are Universities Dominated By the Left?
by Edward Feser
The hegemony of the Left over the universities is so overwhelming that not even Leftists deny it. Whether the institution is public or private, a community college or an Ivy League campus, you can with absolute confidence predict that the curriculum will be suffused with themes such as:
–capitalism is inherently unjust, dehumanizing, and impoverishing;
–socialism, whatever its practical failures, is motivated by the highest ideals and that its luminaries — especially Marx — have much to teach us; –globalization hurts the poor of the Third World;
–natural resources are being depleted at an alarming rate and that human industrial activity is an ever-increasing threat to “the environment”;
–most if not all psychological and behavioral differences between men and women are “socially constructed” and that male-female differences in income, representation in various professions, and the like are mostly the result of “sexism”;
–the pathologies of the underclass in the United States are due to racism and that the pathologies of the Third World are due to the lingering effects of colonialism;
–Western civilization is uniquely oppressive, especially to women and “people of color,” and that its products are spiritually inferior to those of non-Western cultures;
–traditional religious belief, especially of the Christian sort, rests on ignorance of modern scientific advances, cannot today be rationally justified, and persists on nothing more than wishful thinking;
–traditional moral scruples, especially regarding sex, also rest on superstition and ignorance and have no rational justification; and so on and on. READ MORE
{ 7 comments }
This also happens in Brazil. I study at two different universities and we can notice leftism in both of them.
I still have the issue. Shortly after September 11, 2001… my local rag (The Tacoma News Tribune) published this testimonial from an Evergreen State College scholar:
“It’s like my sociology teacher says: capitalism is the devil.”
He just “says” it.
Just another remark about Brazil’s situation: it’s even worst than in America. Simple example; in a discussion with friends about free-market the question of monopoly (as an agent of great evil) arose in the following argument of a guy that starts confessing to be an “ignorant” in economic affairs: “I can’t deny my ignorance in economic issues. But, without being ironic, I can’t understand how this system (free-market) by itself keep balanced in eternal competition without converging to a monopoly or a oligopoly”.
This is the kind of ideias that are subtlely carved in brazilian undergraduated students …
My theory on this phenomenon is a bit different. I think its becuase intellectuals are generally smart and knowledgeable, but not exceedingly so.
For example, if a smart person reads Marx, the exploitation theory will seem infallible, and the idea that a person can be productive by doing nothing more than owning capital absurd.
However, someone with a basic understanding of economic principles can see that this theory is demonstrably false. However, while most smart people have read Marx, few have read Bohm-Bawerk.
Another point relevant to this is the intellectuals obsession with high philosophical matters, as opposed to practical concerns. If he sees that socialism is economically disastrous, but the free market morally disastrous, he would be more likely than the rest to be concerned about the latter more than the former.
Another example are the evil things corporations and the rich do while wielding the power of governmental force. The intellectual will probably be more likely to notice this than the layman , but they may consider it a fault of business rather than government.
I agree with the author, especially on the terms of the “society as classroom” theory. Where “lefties” (described in the article as intellectuals)were mostly comprised of the bookworm nerdy type throughout their childhood school days. They then did not succeed as well socially as others and gravitated towards the more structured environment in which they did excel. Having grown up with this philosophy in mind, these “lefties” tend to favor an economy with more governmental control. To take this a step further I add that some of the extreme “intellectuals” have found comfortable niches in the higher education world (universities), where they feel safe in a structured environment and have the opportunity to reach America’s future leaders and thus make up for their own social disasters during adolescence.
Hayek also provided a theory in “The Road to Serfdom”: That during the scientific revolution of the late 19th and early 20th century, itellectuals in academia started to extrapolate what they had done in their narrow fields of study to the larger problems of the world: “If we can understand and control electricity and use it for our goals, why not society?”
The problem of course is that the trillions upon trillions of interactions and nth order effects in society are too complex to understand on a grand scale and even if they could be understood, the apparatus to control them would have to be as large as society itself.
Another theory of Hayek’s was that most academics in some way or another rely on government or the private diversion of productive funds to allow them to continue their work. Also, every one of these academics in their dedictated fields of course believes that if more money were to be dedicated to THEIR work that the world would be a better place (no Academic thinks his work is silly or useless, despite reality). Ideal socialist government promises to adequately fund ALL worthwhile endeavors (which said academic’s work is course in that category) without having to deal with the messy business of setting priorities.
Ultimately the real probloem is that academics do not live in the real world. This is why even academic socialists generally condemn real world socialism (Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, etc) because those imperfect examples are looked at as mis-application of principles as opposed to an invalid theory. Generally not having to follow their academic ideas into reality explains this disconnect.
I think Nick makes some very good points and his theory is probably true in many cases. I also think that the world in general is moving more towards the left. Does this leftward movement cause universities to be more dominated by the left or does the leftist teaching of university cause people opinions to become farther to the left? Another reason could be that the people who tend to be more towards the right are out in the real world with jobs and making a difference while the lefties are trying to teach there theories at the universities.
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