Great piece Paul, I believe I read the original piece a while ago. If the question were "are fewer professors troublemakers relative to other types of comparable professions?" I wouldn't know how to answer. One of the jobs of good journalism for instance is to be some kind of troublemaker, find out what individuals are doing that's bad in institutions of power and reporting on that. But if I surveyed the entire media landscape, I'd probably find the % of true troublemakers to be small. Many people are working their little beats and writing about new movies, football contracts, and new gadgets. And using the availability heuristic, there are many professors these days TRYING to be troublemakers and not being all that successful, and many professors who are doing run of the mill kinds of thinking and writing and teaching and getting put on lists. But relative to the sheer size of the profession, is that higher than journalists? Engineers? Not sure.
Thanks! Your response is fair enough. I made a guess about why troublemaking is discouraged among profs, but, yes, it assumes that we’re more timid than others in comparable professions, and maybe that’s wrong. Still, I do think career punishment for unpopular views is ONE cause of self-censorship in profs and even if it’s a minor cause (or even if the same punishment happens in other professions), I think it’s reasonable to want less of it.
I think the costs of hiring by departmental committee are great, including but not limited to this issue. I'm not quite sure if these costs outweigh the benefits. I just came back from Australia whereby hiring was more top down, at the "Dean" or above level whereby the department was simply advisory. Might be even worse!
Chomsky is an interesting case because he's a troublemaker both within his field and outside of it. And it's really the disappearance of the former -- a professor's willingness to challenge the dogmas of their field -- that I find most concerning. Whether they air their political grievances is their business. But where are the physicists who think that modern physics is fundamentally in error? Where are the psychologists who think we've fundamentally misunderstood the mind? Where are the revolutionaries -- the non-incrementalists -- pushing for paradigm shifts? Honestly, I think the only way to bring them back is to take a page from the Catholic Church and establish "devil's advocate" positions in every academic department. 20% of all academic hires should be hired on the understanding that their job is to tell the other 80% that they're doing it all wrong. And the P&T guidelines should specify that they are to be promoted exclusively on the basis of their success in that endeavor.
As a professor who is likewise married to a professor and mostly socializes with professors, I can say that there is a lot of black and white thinking among academics when it comes to the “correct” beliefs and ideas. People who don’t subscribe to the correct ideas are the “bad people” or even worse, the people who “vote against their own interests.”
Professors tend to be very far to the left, so even us moderates risk being ostracized for espousing otherwise normie mainstream beliefs about things like race, gender, crime, etc. This bleeds into academic research where people are not allowed to challenge underlying theoretical and methodological assumptions of people who study anything related to “systemic” inequality.
Moreover, professors tend to think everybody with a PhD agrees with them, so we casually make broad proclamations about how horrible Trump or Republicans generally are on “x” issue and assume that everyone agrees and no one feels alienated. And most professors do agree with such dogma. What does anyone have to gain by speaking out in defense of a minority position (in an academic setting) that colleagues have already decided is wrong and associated with being a bad person?
One problem with being a troublemaker is that you've got to deal with the fallout, which takes time, and it takes time away from the things we got into academe to do. It also helps to be thick-skinned, and by necessity our skin is only a little thick--as needed to deal with prickly colleagues, but not so much that we're indifferent to approval/disapproval.
A great many trouble-makers aren't being brave. Some of them are socially inept, and only understand they were making trouble after they have made it. It may be too late to back down then, pride among other things demanding that they stand by what they wrote or said. But even more trouble-makers delight in being outrageous/notorious/difficult/what-have-you. They are quite gleeful about it. Pissing people off is fun for these people.
Psychology has a few of its own Chomskys, creative and rebellious scholars who break disciplinary molds. Skinner rebelled against the nearly religious adoption of large group NHST research in his pursuit of functional behavior environment relationships in single participants. His classic research on schedules and stimulus control are easily replicated by students today in class demonstrations.
Heartlily agree on Chomsky. I learned a lot from him.
I learned about Manufacturing Consent too.....
To your point on being successful, a famous exchange between Andrew Marr (then a journalist at The Independent, later with the BBC) and Noam Chomsky came to mind.
It happened during a 1996 BBC interview (broadcast on The Big Idea).
Marr challenged Chomsky’s thesis from Manufacturing Consent — that mainstream journalists don’t usually self-censor CONSCIOUSLY, but internalize limits set by ownership, advertisers, and elite sources.
Chomsky replied:
“I’m sure you believe everything you’re saying. But what I’m saying is, if you believed something DIFFERENT, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.....!”
TLDR: How many Andrew Marr's UNCONSCIOUSLY manufacturing consent in Social Psych today, I wonder?
Neither your exposition nor Chomsky’s are mutually exclusive (you may have said that already). Not being a political theorist, I recognise the situations you describe in academia much more easily though. I have seen such situations often in the crossover world between academics and senior clinicians. Nice essay.
Here is a story I heard from a friend, which I will alter slightly to protect the innocent. A prestigious psychology professor signed an open letter in which psychologists condemned belief in innate sex differences. My friend knew that this professor believed such differences existed, and asked him why he signed the letter. He said that he expected everyone else in his department would sign it, so it would look really bad if he didn’t. My friend asked why he expected everyone else in his department to sign it, and he said “Probably for the same reason I did”.
haha! found the answer myself:"Several primary findings emerged from this research. There was little scientific consensus about the veracity of numerous controversial research conclusions; positive associations emerged between beliefs in the veracity of taboo conclusions and self-censorship; considerable fear, especially of social sanctions, was reported by psychology professors if they were to share their empirical beliefs openly; and moderate support was expressed for complete academic freedom and the prioritization of truth over social equity." That first part fascinates me: "there was little scientific consensus about the veracity of numerous controversial research conclusions."
Additionally, a lot of professors in the humanities and social sciences, although maybe less in psychology, believe that they are speaking out for the marginalized and the oppressed. They do not believe they are as privileged as they are. They identify as working class, are often unionized, and outside of elite institutions tend to have large chips on their shoulders due to a perceived disconnect between their level of education and their compensation and social status, which is quickly. They think they are speaking truth to power. They think they ARE being brave. I estimate that only a small fraction of faculty even hold “heterodox” beliefs they suppress. Instead, I think the overwhelming majority of professors (in certain disciplines) agree with far left dogma. People aren’t being silenced, they actually believe all of this. Less than 5 percent of political science professors are conservative (mostly among the oldest cohort), perhaps 15% are moderate Democrats, and the rest are progressive Democrats.
Great piece Paul, I believe I read the original piece a while ago. If the question were "are fewer professors troublemakers relative to other types of comparable professions?" I wouldn't know how to answer. One of the jobs of good journalism for instance is to be some kind of troublemaker, find out what individuals are doing that's bad in institutions of power and reporting on that. But if I surveyed the entire media landscape, I'd probably find the % of true troublemakers to be small. Many people are working their little beats and writing about new movies, football contracts, and new gadgets. And using the availability heuristic, there are many professors these days TRYING to be troublemakers and not being all that successful, and many professors who are doing run of the mill kinds of thinking and writing and teaching and getting put on lists. But relative to the sheer size of the profession, is that higher than journalists? Engineers? Not sure.
Thanks! Your response is fair enough. I made a guess about why troublemaking is discouraged among profs, but, yes, it assumes that we’re more timid than others in comparable professions, and maybe that’s wrong. Still, I do think career punishment for unpopular views is ONE cause of self-censorship in profs and even if it’s a minor cause (or even if the same punishment happens in other professions), I think it’s reasonable to want less of it.
I think the costs of hiring by departmental committee are great, including but not limited to this issue. I'm not quite sure if these costs outweigh the benefits. I just came back from Australia whereby hiring was more top down, at the "Dean" or above level whereby the department was simply advisory. Might be even worse!
Chomsky is an interesting case because he's a troublemaker both within his field and outside of it. And it's really the disappearance of the former -- a professor's willingness to challenge the dogmas of their field -- that I find most concerning. Whether they air their political grievances is their business. But where are the physicists who think that modern physics is fundamentally in error? Where are the psychologists who think we've fundamentally misunderstood the mind? Where are the revolutionaries -- the non-incrementalists -- pushing for paradigm shifts? Honestly, I think the only way to bring them back is to take a page from the Catholic Church and establish "devil's advocate" positions in every academic department. 20% of all academic hires should be hired on the understanding that their job is to tell the other 80% that they're doing it all wrong. And the P&T guidelines should specify that they are to be promoted exclusively on the basis of their success in that endeavor.
As a professor who is likewise married to a professor and mostly socializes with professors, I can say that there is a lot of black and white thinking among academics when it comes to the “correct” beliefs and ideas. People who don’t subscribe to the correct ideas are the “bad people” or even worse, the people who “vote against their own interests.”
Professors tend to be very far to the left, so even us moderates risk being ostracized for espousing otherwise normie mainstream beliefs about things like race, gender, crime, etc. This bleeds into academic research where people are not allowed to challenge underlying theoretical and methodological assumptions of people who study anything related to “systemic” inequality.
Moreover, professors tend to think everybody with a PhD agrees with them, so we casually make broad proclamations about how horrible Trump or Republicans generally are on “x” issue and assume that everyone agrees and no one feels alienated. And most professors do agree with such dogma. What does anyone have to gain by speaking out in defense of a minority position (in an academic setting) that colleagues have already decided is wrong and associated with being a bad person?
One problem with being a troublemaker is that you've got to deal with the fallout, which takes time, and it takes time away from the things we got into academe to do. It also helps to be thick-skinned, and by necessity our skin is only a little thick--as needed to deal with prickly colleagues, but not so much that we're indifferent to approval/disapproval.
A great many trouble-makers aren't being brave. Some of them are socially inept, and only understand they were making trouble after they have made it. It may be too late to back down then, pride among other things demanding that they stand by what they wrote or said. But even more trouble-makers delight in being outrageous/notorious/difficult/what-have-you. They are quite gleeful about it. Pissing people off is fun for these people.
Psychology has a few of its own Chomskys, creative and rebellious scholars who break disciplinary molds. Skinner rebelled against the nearly religious adoption of large group NHST research in his pursuit of functional behavior environment relationships in single participants. His classic research on schedules and stimulus control are easily replicated by students today in class demonstrations.
I recommend Tim Dillon's 'Nice Apartments are for Rats' for a good exploration of the submission point
Heartlily agree on Chomsky. I learned a lot from him.
I learned about Manufacturing Consent too.....
To your point on being successful, a famous exchange between Andrew Marr (then a journalist at The Independent, later with the BBC) and Noam Chomsky came to mind.
It happened during a 1996 BBC interview (broadcast on The Big Idea).
Marr challenged Chomsky’s thesis from Manufacturing Consent — that mainstream journalists don’t usually self-censor CONSCIOUSLY, but internalize limits set by ownership, advertisers, and elite sources.
Chomsky replied:
“I’m sure you believe everything you’re saying. But what I’m saying is, if you believed something DIFFERENT, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.....!”
TLDR: How many Andrew Marr's UNCONSCIOUSLY manufacturing consent in Social Psych today, I wonder?
Neither your exposition nor Chomsky’s are mutually exclusive (you may have said that already). Not being a political theorist, I recognise the situations you describe in academia much more easily though. I have seen such situations often in the crossover world between academics and senior clinicians. Nice essay.
The anecdote is in https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/23/can-things-be-both-popular-and-silenced/
Here is a story I heard from a friend, which I will alter slightly to protect the innocent. A prestigious psychology professor signed an open letter in which psychologists condemned belief in innate sex differences. My friend knew that this professor believed such differences existed, and asked him why he signed the letter. He said that he expected everyone else in his department would sign it, so it would look really bad if he didn’t. My friend asked why he expected everyone else in his department to sign it, and he said “Probably for the same reason I did”.
Found thanks to this fantastically powerful tool for semantic search of Scott's corpus: https://readscottalexander.com/
What about those taboos? in that paper, did they provide some research study that came to that conclusion for each of them?
haha! found the answer myself:"Several primary findings emerged from this research. There was little scientific consensus about the veracity of numerous controversial research conclusions; positive associations emerged between beliefs in the veracity of taboo conclusions and self-censorship; considerable fear, especially of social sanctions, was reported by psychology professors if they were to share their empirical beliefs openly; and moderate support was expressed for complete academic freedom and the prioritization of truth over social equity." That first part fascinates me: "there was little scientific consensus about the veracity of numerous controversial research conclusions."
Additionally, a lot of professors in the humanities and social sciences, although maybe less in psychology, believe that they are speaking out for the marginalized and the oppressed. They do not believe they are as privileged as they are. They identify as working class, are often unionized, and outside of elite institutions tend to have large chips on their shoulders due to a perceived disconnect between their level of education and their compensation and social status, which is quickly. They think they are speaking truth to power. They think they ARE being brave. I estimate that only a small fraction of faculty even hold “heterodox” beliefs they suppress. Instead, I think the overwhelming majority of professors (in certain disciplines) agree with far left dogma. People aren’t being silenced, they actually believe all of this. Less than 5 percent of political science professors are conservative (mostly among the oldest cohort), perhaps 15% are moderate Democrats, and the rest are progressive Democrats.