The Dearth of Conservative Professors Explained

in Politics | February 20th, 2008

Lib­er­als out­num­ber con­ser­v­a­tives in the acad­e­my. That’s a known fact. What explains this diver­gence? Some have attrib­uted it to lib­er­als cre­at­ing a hos­tile envi­ron­ment for con­ser­v­a­tives. But new research calls that view into ques­tion and offers an intrigu­ing alter­na­tive expla­na­tion.

As described in The Chron­i­cle of High­er Edu­ca­tion, Matthew Woess­ner (a con­ser­v­a­tive aca­d­e­m­ic) and April Kel­ly-Woess­ner (a lib­er­al aca­d­e­m­ic) looked at sur­veys com­plet­ed by 15,569 col­lege seniors, and what an analy­sis of the data sug­gests is that “the per­son­al pri­or­i­ties of those on the left are more com­pat­i­ble with pur­su­ing a Ph.D.” “Lib­er­al­ism is more close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with a desire for excite­ment, an inter­est in cre­ative out­lets, and an aver­sion to a struc­tured work envi­ron­ment. Con­ser­v­a­tives express greater inter­est in finan­cial suc­cess and stronger desires to raise fam­i­lies. From this per­spec­tive, the ide­o­log­i­cal imbal­ance that per­me­ates much of acad­e­mia may be some­what intractable.” Or, put dif­fer­ent­ly, this imbal­ance may not be going away any time soon.

To delve fur­ther into their research, you can read their report online here.

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Don’t Forget to Vote

in Politics, Video - Politics/Society, YouTube | February 4th, 2008

If you’re a res­i­dent of a Super Tues­day state, we hope you can find some time to pull the lever tomor­row. Also, we hope you’ll for­give (at least) one more polit­i­cal post before Super Tues­day. What­ev­er your polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions, the video below is a com­pelling exam­ple of new media at work. Accord­ing to the New York Times’ polit­i­cal blog, the lead singer of the Black Eyed Peas round­ed up 30 or so celebri­ties and put togeth­er this video set to the sound­track of Barack Oba­ma’s con­ces­sion speech in New Hamp­shire. Because the group worked for free and edit­ed the video on their own, they turned the project around in two days. The effect is pow­er­ful (and the video is added to our YouTube Playlist). You can see Oba­ma’s orig­i­nal speech here.

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The Long Shadow of Henry Kissinger

in History, Politics | January 16th, 2008

Although he has­n’t served in gov­ern­ment for more than 30 years, Hen­ry Kissinger still exer­cis­es more pow­er inter­na­tion­al­ly than Jim­my Carter, George HW Bush and Bill Clin­ton com­bined. That’s a strong claim, and it comes from Pro­fes­sor Jere­mi Suri, who has a new book out on the for­mer Sec­re­tary of State. In a wide-rang­ing and fast mov­ing con­ver­sa­tion (MP3 — iTunes — Feed), Suri talks about Kissinger’s lega­cy and how his realpoli­tik for­eign pol­i­cy shapes Amer­i­can deci­sion mak­ing down to this very day.

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Open Sourcing Congress

in Current Affairs, Politics, Web/Tech | January 14th, 2008

The tru­ism goes that laws and sausages are the two things you don’t want to see being made. Nev­er­the­less, if more of us paid atten­tion to what our con­gres­sion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives are real­ly up to (and let them know when they screw up), we’d prob­a­bly be a lit­tle hap­pi­er with how the sys­tem works over­all. Two thirds of Amer­i­cans think we’re on the wrong track (if recent polls are to be believed), and with the pres­i­den­tial elec­tions com­ing up there’s no bet­ter time to start pay­ing atten­tion.

All that’s a long run-up to men­tion­ing a new web­site ini­tia­tive called Open Con­gress designed to help the aver­age cit­i­zen fig­ure out what the heck is going on in Wash­ing­ton. Track rep­re­sen­ta­tives and bills that you’re inter­est­ed in; inter­act with oth­er users who share your con­cerns; sort through data by issue or indus­try. It just got a lit­tle eas­i­er to make your vote count.

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Who Do We Vote For This Time Around? A Letter from Michael Moore

in Current Affairs, Film, Politics | January 2nd, 2008

The Iowa cau­cus is final­ly and mer­ci­ful­ly upon us. And right in time, film­mak­er Michael Moore has offered an analy­sis of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic field of can­di­dates. There’s much here that I don’t par­tic­u­lar­ly agree with here, but Moore makes two large claims that strike me as being fun­da­men­tal­ly (and regret­ful­ly) true:

  • The “Demo­c­ra­t­ic front-run­ners are a less-than-stel­lar group of can­di­dates, and … none of them are the slam dunk we wish they were.”
  • “For months I’ve been want­i­ng to ask the ques­tion, “Where are you, Al Gore?” You can only pol­ish that Oscar for so long. And the Nobel was decid­ed by Scan­di­na­vians! I don’t blame you for not want­i­ng to enter the viper pit again after you already won. But get­ting us to change out our incan­des­cent light bulbs for some irri­tat­ing flu­o­res­cent ones isn’t going to save the world. All it’s going to do is make us more agi­tat­ed and jumpy and feel­ing like once we get home we haven’t real­ly left the office.”

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A Conversation with Benazir Bhutto

in Current Affairs, Politics, Video - Politics/Society | December 29th, 2007

Again, no com­men­tary need­ed. Infor­ma­tive in many ways, Bhut­to’s talk was taped at the Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions in August. More info here.

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Nixon and Kissinger: Best of Allies and Rivals

in History, Politics | November 21st, 2007

nixon3.jpgRobert Dallek’s lat­est book recounts in plen­ti­ful detail (752 pages) the odd work­ing rela­tion­ship that exist­ed between Richard Nixon and Hen­ry Kissinger (Nixon’s nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er and, lat­er, sec­re­tary of state). They were part­ly allies, in many ways strong­ly depen­dent upon one anoth­er, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it came to mak­ing Amer­i­can for­eign pol­i­cy. But they also dis­trust­ed one anoth­er, some­times deeply, and they’d occa­sion­al­ly maneu­ver behind each oth­ers’ backs. Dallek’s book, Nixon and Kissinger: Part­ners in Pow­er, has just come out in paper­back, which brings us to this NPR inter­view with the author (iTunes — Feed — Web Site). Dallek, who has pre­vi­ous­ly writ­ten exten­sive­ly on Kennedy and John­son, gives a good inter­view that out­lines “Nixinger’s” sub­stan­tive accom­plish­ments and the many behind-the-scenes intrigues. Give a lis­ten.

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A Short History of Man, God, and Political Philosophy

in Current Affairs, Harvard, Politics | August 24th, 2007

In case you missed it, The New York Times pub­lished a lengthy arti­cle — The Pol­i­tics of God — last week­end which essen­tial­ly traces how the thought of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and oth­er major polit­i­cal philoso­phers gave us sec­u­lar pol­i­tics, and par­tic­u­lar­ly the sep­a­ra­tion of Church and State. They’re inno­va­tions with many upsides, but also the down­side that they put us at an intel­lec­tu­al dis­tance from entire regions where faith still gov­erns polit­i­cal affairs. This includes large swathes of the Mid­dle East and oth­er areas with­in the “Mus­lim orbit.” It’s a good piece to read if you’ve ever won­dered how phi­los­o­phy tan­gi­bly shapes our mod­ern world. Writ­ten by Mark Lil­la, a Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor, the high­ly-read­able arti­cle is adapt­ed from his new book, The Still­born God: Reli­gion, Pol­i­tics, and the Mod­ern West. Get the arti­cle here, and don’t for­get to sub­scribe to our feed.

Relat­ed Con­tent for Phi­los­o­phy Buffs:

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