{"id":1480,"date":"2016-04-08T21:50:04","date_gmt":"2016-04-09T01:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1480"},"modified":"2016-04-08T21:50:04","modified_gmt":"2016-04-09T01:50:04","slug":"groupthink-in-academia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/04\/groupthink-in-academia.html","title":{"rendered":"Groupthink in Academia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em><\/a> recently featured an article lamenting the lack of \u201cdiversity\u201d in my discipline. Philosophy, so goes the article, just hasn\u2019t been welcoming toward minorities and women.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, such enlightened departments as that found at Penn State University have endeavored to \u201cdecolonize the canon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, academia isn\u2019t in the least bit interested in promoting the only diversity that can, or should, mean something in an institution of \u201chigher learning<\/em>.\u201d Its equation of \u201cdiversity\u201d with gender and racial representation is part of the problem.<\/p>\n

Indeed\u2014and I say this as someone who is an academic who happened to have grown up in a lower-middle class neighborhood in Trenton, NJ\u2014there exists far more intellectual diversity at the corner bar than can be found in your average college or university.<\/p>\n

Not only does the data confirm the endless anecdotal evidence that legions of academic dissidents like myself have acquired over the years. The data reveals that academics are moving even further <\/em>to the left. <\/em><\/p>\n

The most recent study available was conducted by the University of California. Its findings were released a little more than three years ago in the November of 2012 issue of Inside Higher Education<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n

The study identifies five ideological or political categories: \u201cfar left,\u201d \u201cliberal,\u201d \u201cmiddle of the road,\u201d \u201cconservative,\u201d and, finally, \u201cfar right.\u201d What it finds is that faculty of all ranks from both universities and colleges, institutions that are private and public, large and small, religious and non-religious, self-identified as \u201cfar left\u201d to a significantly greater extent than they had just three years earlier: In 2008, 8.8% so self-identified. In 2011, that number had risen to 12.4%.<\/p>\n

In glaring contrast, those who self-identified as \u201cfar right\u201d dropped <\/em>from\u2014wait for it\u20140.7% to 0.4%.<\/p>\n

However, these numbers alone grossly understate <\/em>the hegemonic rule of leftist thought among faculty on college campuses, for the same study found that the number of self-identified \u201cliberals\u201d increased <\/em>from 47.0% to 50.3%<\/em>. Meanwhile, those in \u201cthe middle of the road\u201d fell <\/em>from 28.4% to 25.4%.<\/p>\n

As for self-conceived \u201cconservatives,\u201d they too dropped<\/em> off from 15.2% to 11.5%.<\/p>\n

Even at private Catholic and other Christian colleges and universities, \u201cconservatives\u201d and those on the \u201cfar right\u201d constitute a tiny minority.<\/p>\n

Only 0.3% of the faculty of Catholic institutions locate themselves on the \u201cfar right,\u201d compared to 7.8% who identify with the \u201cfar left,\u201d and only 13.3% self-identify as \u201cconservative,\u201d compared to 48.0%<\/em> who self-identify as \u201cliberal.\u201d<\/p>\n

At private non-Catholic Christian institutions, \u201cconservatives\u201d have a stronger showing than in any other sector. Yet even here <\/em>they constitute only 23.0% of faculty. On the other hand, \u201cliberals\u201d compose 40.0%<\/em> of faculty.<\/p>\n

And with 7.4% of the faculty identifying as \u201cfar left,\u201d the latter has much more of a presence at these private Christian institutions than one would be inclined to think. At any rate, the \u201cfar left\u201d has a vastly stronger presence on such campuses than does the \u201cfar right,\u201d with which only 0.6% of faculty relates.<\/p>\n

Writing for Inside Higher Ed, <\/em>Scott Jaschik notes that the leftward trends among faculty have persisted for a long time. George Mason University economics professor, Daniel B. Klein, along with Charlotta Stern, note that in 1972, the ratio of Democrat to Republican in humanities and liberal arts departments was about four-to-one. Today, it is more than eight-to-one. Why?<\/p>\n

According to Klein and Stern, academia has the characteristic \u201cantecedent conditions\u201d and \u201csymptoms\u201d of the phenomenon known as \u201cgroupthink<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Academics tend to constitute an \u201cinsular\u201d and (ideologically) \u201chomogenous\u201d group that, as such, is self-perpetuating, for academics, presiding as they do over decisions pertaining to who will and won\u2019t be permitted to join their insiders\u2019 club, are disposed to admit those who think like themselves.<\/p>\n

Moreover, academics labor under the \u201cillusion of invulnerability\u201d and they share a \u201cbelief in the inherent morality of the group\u201d to which they belong. However, \u201cheightened uniformity makes the group overconfident.\u201d Consequently, \u201cmembers take their ideas to greater extremes\u201d but, \u201cfacing less testing and challenge,\u201d their \u201chabits of thought become more foolhardy and close-minded.\u201d<\/p>\n

This closed-mindedness is solidified via \u201ccollective rationalizations.\u201d The authors explain: \u201cAcademic professions develop elaborate scholastic dogmas to justify the omission of challenging or intractable ideas.\u201d Thus, words like \u201c\u2018normative,\u2019 \u2018ideological,\u2019 or \u2018advocacy\u2019\u201d are used to sweepingly dismiss viewpoints that depart from the mentality of the herd.<\/p>\n

Klein and Stern cite Irving Janis, a scholar of groupthink, who remarks that the \u201creliance on consensual validation\u201d tends to \u201creplace individual critical thinking and reality-testing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another sign that academics have succumbed to groupthink is their propensity to indulge in \u201cstereotypes of Out-Groups.\u201d Again, Klein and Stern allude to Janis: \u201cOne of the symptoms of groupthink is the members\u2019 persistence in conveying to each other the clich\u00e9 and oversimplified images of political enemies embodied in long-standing ideological stereotypes.\u201d Left-leaning academics, as anyone who has spent any amount of time around them can attest, are guilty as sin in this regard: critics are summarily disregarded as \u201cconservatives\u201d or \u201cright-wingers\u201d who, in turn, are associated with the likes of Bill O\u2019Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, George W. Bush, and so forth.<\/p>\n

Conservative and classical liberal thinkers<\/em>\u2014like, say, Russell Kirk, F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Michael Oakeshott, and Edmund Burke\u2014are rarely, if ever, considered.<\/p>\n

\u201cSelf-censorship\u201d and \u201cdirect pressure on dissenters\u201d are two other \u201csymptoms\u201d of groupthink\u2014and the academic world exemplifies them in spades.<\/p>\n

Self-censorship leads to \u201cpreference falsification\u201d as academics that disagree with the consensus, rather than express their views, choose instead to go along to get along. Those who dare to step out of line are coerced, in so many ways, to conform. \u201cAs the group\u2019s beliefs become more defective [questionable], the group becomes more sensitive to tension, more intolerant of would-be challengers and miscreants.\u201d Klein and Stern add: \u201cThis development leads to tighter vetting and expulsion, more uniformity, more intellectual deterioration, and more intolerance.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is not toward women and minorities that philosophy and other fields in the humanities are unwelcoming but, rather, those who refuse to endorse leftist groupthink.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently featured an article lamenting the lack of \u201cdiversity\u201d in my discipline. Philosophy, so goes the article, just hasn\u2019t been welcoming toward minorities and women. Thankfully, such enlightened departments as that found at Penn State University have endeavored to \u201cdecolonize the canon.\u201d Of course, academia isn\u2019t in the least bit…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nGroupthink in Academia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/04\/groupthink-in-academia.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Groupthink in Academia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Chronicle of Higher Education recently featured an article lamenting the lack of \u201cdiversity\u201d in my discipline. 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