How much do politics matter?

[weeble]

But I hope you're kidding about fearing for your safety in any academic department

I wasn't referring to physical safety, although there are many college campuses (campuses as a whole, not departments) where GLBT students are frequently physically threatened and assaulted. In fact, I decided not to apply to a particular program because approximately 25% of GLBT students on campus had been physically threatened and more than 80% were afraid to be out because of this. I was referring more to feeling safe from discrimination - i.e. knowing I wouldn't be passed up for an assistantship because I was gay, or treated as a second class citizen, or unable to be "out."

I am more than happy to be challenged on how I research GLBT issues or to have my methodology critiqued or my point of view challenged. I'm fully prepared to go through my whole academic and professional career struggling to make my voice heard. I'm simply saying that some issues are so sensitive that for someone who is, for example, homophobic, that it might be difficult for them to critique my methodology without criticizing the subject I was researching. I'm not saying that is always the case, I'm just saying that it can happen.

[misterpat]

Have you decided?

Nah, I'm a funding alternate at both schools. I'm leaning towards Missouri, though, since it's an MA (they have a PhD program, but I'd need to apply for it) and it might make my life easier to try to get into a better school for PhD.

[ewurgler]

How are you going to research the New Right if you despise everyone you intend to study and have already drawn all your conclusions before starting the research? I was under the impression that sociology was a social science, and so invested in the dispassionate model of research. You say you suspect them of being "intellectually unethical," but believing that an entire group of people is unqualified to be in academia because they don't share your political views sounds pretty intellectually questionable to me.

How do people study the Nazis? Bad example, but still. Everyone comes into research with assumptions, and that is usually what makes them interested in the topic. I am planning to do qualitative research, so dispassionate model? To say that one can completely makes themselves objective--I don't buy it.

I do not hate an entire group of people, in fact the reason I want to study this is because this is the world I grew up in. My wanting to be in a graduate program that fosters the kind of intellectual and political rigor that is in line with my own understandings is in no way laziness or a refusal to be challenged. I love being challenged to think in new ways, but "should we give condoms to kids" is not political issue that challenges my thinking. What I meant is that I want to have some foundation of political views that are in line with mine so that I can move beyond mundane and superficial political debates and get into intense and highly abstract and theoretical ones. To assume that two people who share most political views cannot have challenging theoretical conversations is ridiculous.

The political issues I don't want to deal with in a graduate program are bullshit things like "should gays be allowed to marry?" "Should we teach intelligent design in schools?" and the like. Do you honestly think that disagreement on this is really going to challenge you intellectually? Not in my opinion. Lets move beyond these debates.

[peppermint.beatnik]

I think politics are unavoidable. This was certainly my experience in my MA department, and I hear similar things from friends at other schools.

I'm in reli studies, so this kind of thing comes up a lot. There was a grad student I shared an office with who studied Islam in Africa. They strongly disliked my friend, another grad student, because my friend studied a Christian group in an Islamic country in Africa.

Even worse, there was a notable divide between the "marrieds," as we called them, and the "unmarrieds." The whole thing was ridiculous, to tell you the truth, but these things just seem to happen.

As others have noted, there are departments that seem to be function around a dominant paradigm/ideology, though. Unless said ideology was my "thing," I would probably not go. On second thought, I probably wouldn't go to such a school at all.

[weeble]

The political issues I don't want to deal with in a graduate program are bullshit things like "should gays be allowed to marry?" "Should we teach intelligent design in schools?" and the like. Do you honestly think that disagreement on this is really going to challenge you intellectually? Not in my opinion. Lets move beyond these debates.

Ditto. Thanks for saying this.

[misterpat]

Ditto. Thanks for saying this.

:?

You mis-attributed ewurgler's quote to me. Not that I mind, really.

Though I do find the Intelligent Design debate extremely fascinating.

[ewurgler]

Though I do find the Intelligent Design debate extremely fascinating.

I too thinks it is super interesting in general, but not a debate I want to encounter within my graduate department

[technocat]

How do people study the Nazis? Bad example, but still. Everyone comes into research with assumptions, and that is usually what makes them interested in the topic. I am planning to do qualitative research, so dispassionate model? To say that one can completely makes themselves objective--I don't buy it.

I do not hate an entire group of people, in fact the reason I want to study this is because this is the world I grew up in. My wanting to be in a graduate program that fosters the kind of intellectual and political rigor that is in line with my own understandings is in no way laziness or a refusal to be challenged. I love being challenged to think in new ways, but "should we give condoms to kids" is not political issue that challenges my thinking. What I meant is that I want to have some foundation of political views that are in line with mine so that I can move beyond mundane and superficial political debates and get into intense and highly abstract and theoretical ones. To assume that two people who share most political views cannot have challenging theoretical conversations is ridiculous.

The political issues I don't want to deal with in a graduate program are bullshit things like "should gays be allowed to marry?" "Should we teach intelligent design in schools?" and the like. Do you honestly think that disagreement on this is really going to challenge you intellectually? Not in my opinion. Lets move beyond these debates.

People study the Nazis in a lot of different ways, but I think the best studies have been those which have taken them seriously, at the very least, and do not start from the dismissive premise that Nazism is simply "bullshit." If it were, it's unlikely that it would've motivated so many people or done so much damage. But Nazism requires very little explicit condemnation in American society now; everyone already agrees that it's some degree of bad, whereas the questions you dismiss as "bullshit" are live issues in our politics right now, and if you can't possibly imagine how a basically reasonable, upstanding American citizen just like you (assuming you are a citizen) can oppose gay marriage or support intelligent design, then I struggle to see how you can bring real insight to anyone else's understanding of such people.

I completely understand starting out with assumptions about one's research questions, but the assumption that you are studying morons or devils of some kind seems to stretch beyond such reasonable starting assumptions that, say, people are shaped by their social environments, or people seek validation from their peers. Moreover, while I also agree that one can learn much from the like-minded and you should not put yourself in an environment where departmental politics might interfere with your research, I'm not sure I see how it is that a faculty member's or fellow student's views on questions like gay marriage or intelligent design will undermine your work. Do people with these views have no place in academia? If If, even after your careful political screening of your department, a person with such views happens to find his way in, what would you do? It's possible that not every disagreement will challenge you intellectually, but do you think that "moving beyond these debates" will be best accomplished by ignoring and demeaning everyone who disagrees with you?

[thepoorstockinger]

When I was trying to decide where I was going I just straight up asked one of my potential supervisors about the politics of the place. It's important to me because:

a) I think politics decide what academic questions one will ask and how one will approach those questions.

I have every intention of being politically active on whatever campus I go to.

I am not expecting to walk onto a campus with my exact political beliefs (if anyone finds such a campus I would love to hear about it) but I do want to go somewhere where there is space for me to be open and active in my politics and where I can do the sort of scholarship I want to do without having to worry that when I piss someone off I won't have people who have my back. I certainly expect to have people challenge my ideas and I expected to be exposed to things political and academic which I had not experienced or thought of before. But I do want to be somewhere where my politics won't be a huge problem for me (even though I know I'm swimming against the current either way).

[ewurgler]

People study the Nazis in a lot of different ways, but I think the best studies have been those which have taken them seriously, at the very least, and do not start from the dismissive premise that Nazism is simply "bullshit." If it were, it's unlikely that it would've motivated so many people or done so much damage. But Nazism requires very little explicit condemnation in American society now; everyone already agrees that it's some degree of bad, whereas the questions you dismiss as "bullshit" are live issues in our politics right now, and if you can't possibly imagine how a basically reasonable, upstanding American citizen just like you (assuming you are a citizen) can oppose gay marriage or support intelligent design, then I struggle to see how you can bring real insight to anyone else's understanding of such people.

I completely understand starting out with assumptions about one's research questions, but the assumption that you are studying morons or devils of some kind seems to stretch beyond such reasonable starting assumptions that, say, people are shaped by their social environments, or people seek validation from their peers. Moreover, while I also agree that one can learn much from the like-minded and you should not put yourself in an environment where departmental politics might interfere with your research, I'm not sure I see how it is that a faculty member's or fellow student's views on questions like gay marriage or intelligent design will undermine your work. Do people with these views have no place in academia? If If, even after your careful political screening of your department, a person with such views happens to find his way in, what would you do? It's possible that not every disagreement will challenge you intellectually, but do you think that "moving beyond these debates" will be best accomplished by ignoring and demeaning everyone who disagrees with you?

I understand what you are trying to say, but you are making a lot of assumptions about how I view 'the new right' and how I would approach my research. I do not think they are devils or morons. Quite the opposite. I think they are well intentioned people who have been brought up in an epistemological tradition that has restricted political exploration. I say this with some authority because I grew up in this environment and am extremely familiar with it. What I want to do is not demean them or refuse to take them seriously, but begin to understand how and why these political beliefs are so staunchly adhered to and the boundaries of communities very much predicated on a foundation of social and economic conservatism. I do not intend to rip on their political beliefs, but figure out the ways in which they came into being with such strength and staying power.

With regards to whether or not "those people" have a place in academia--of course they can do whatever they want. What I was meaning to say is that it would be nearly impossible to do my (critical) research on the religious right with faculty/advisors who are constantly at odds with the fact that I am critical about these groups. I would get nothing done.

A question to you--because I disagree with a group's politics, am I not allowed to be critical and think and write critically about them? Are they above theoretical and critical reproach because they are "religious" and happen to be at odds with much academic literature? I think I am allowed to have no respect for their political views but still complete great field work and critical evaluation of them.

I am not a tactless mongrel who is going to bust into churches telling everyone they are stupid and expect them to talk to me about why they think evolution is crap. I want to do serious fieldwork to understand a group that is constantly mocked and poked fun at. I do not think my disagreeing with their political stances will prevent that from happening.

[technocat]

I understand what you are trying to say, but you are making a lot of assumptions about how I view 'the new right' and how I would approach my research. I do not think they are devils or morons. Quite the opposite. I think they are well intentioned people who have been brought up in an epistemological tradition that has restricted political exploration. I say this with some authority because I grew up in this environment and am extremely familiar with it. What I want to do is not demean them or refuse to take them seriously, but begin to understand how and why these political beliefs are so staunchly adhered to and the boundaries of communities very much predicated on a foundation of social and economic conservatism. I do not intend to rip on their political beliefs, but figure out the ways in which they came into being with such strength and staying power.

With regards to whether or not "those people" have a place in academia--of course they can do whatever they want. What I was meaning to say is that it would be nearly impossible to do my (critical) research on the religious right with faculty/advisors who are constantly at odds with the fact that I am critical about these groups. I would get nothing done.

A question to you--because I disagree with a group's politics, am I not allowed to be critical and think and write critically about them? Are they above theoretical and critical reproach because they are "religious" and happen to be at odds with much academic literature? I think I am allowed to have no respect for their political views but still complete great field work and critical evaluation of them.

I am not a tactless mongrel who is going to bust into churches telling everyone they are stupid and expect them to talk to me about why they think evolution is crap. I want to do serious fieldwork to understand a group that is constantly mocked and poked fun at. I do not think my disagreeing with their political stances will prevent that from happening.

My assumptions are based on how you have described your own views. You say that "it is really hard to believe that some of a certain political viewpoint would have the same academic and intellectual ethics I do" and "there is NO FUCKING WAY I could have a Regan lover in a ten mile radius of my dissertation" and that questions that somehow manage to substantially divide the American populace are really just "bullshit things." Perhaps you really are not this disdainful of conservatives, and you don't really think they are ethically depraved, but that is the attitude you convey when you articulate your position this way and use it to justify insulating yourself from views that conflict with yours. It's especially odd when you claim that one of the failings of the religious right is that it fosters an environment of "restricted political exploration"--isn't that precisely the kind of intellectual rigidity that would be encouraged if everyone was taught to "have no respect for" opposing views and only studied in places where the faculty and students all agreed with them politically?

I agree with what several posters on this thread have said about avoiding departments where politics may interfere with your research as much as I would agree with avoiding a department where no one studies what you're interested in. That's a practical consideration about where you can and can't do your intended work, and that may have been what the original poster was asking about. However, I don't see how it's necessarily true that because someone believes X, he cannot advise someone who believes Y, or that if you support gay marriage, you should avoid people who don't. That is a question of individual character, not politics or ideology. How a person responds to disagreement, how gracious he is to his students or colleagues, and whether he prioritizes his political views over research--these questions are more indicative of whether you stand to learn anything from him than how he cast his vote in 1980. The professor who is gracious in disagreement and who encourages good work that challenges his own would seem to be a greater asset than the narrow dogmatist whose stance on gay marriage coincides with yours.

Obviously, not all debate leads to reconciliation or enlarged views, or even to a new way of thinking about a question. But there are people who debate in good faith and those who don't in every political camp, and it seems to be that, in your academic capacity, it's more fruitful to both seek out and become one of those who do debate in good faith than to demean your opposition. Presumably, you want to be a professor eventually. Even if you successfully seal yourself off from opposing views in grad school, have you considered how you will respond to your future students if they profess their sympathy for "bullshit" views like intelligent design or for something else that flies in the face of what you believe? Will you deride them? Will you mark them down for it because you "have no respect for their political views"? What would be the ideal way to address such a situation?

To "be critical" encompasses a broad range of possible approaches, from reconsiderations of past scholarship to advocacy for one's political cause. The latter end of the spectrum strikes me as an activity that belongs in a PAC rather than a university.

[ewurgler]

Ok, this is clearly going nowhere.

Yes, I do not anticipate a good advisor/advisee relationship with someone who is complete opposite to me politically. You can extrapolate all you want about how I "treat" people of opposing views. No, I would not mark students down, no I would not deride them. When I talk about not respecting some political positions is not that I think they are stupid, but because I think they are unethical. Example: I do not respect the Pope's recent statement saying that condoms will make the AIDS epidemic in africa worse because they will promote a culture of promiscuity. I don't respect that view. That does not mean I hate the pope and have no respect for him in other ways. I just have no respect for that belief.

You assume that all of my academic ethics will be sacrificed for the promotion of my political views--give me some credit. This conversation was about graduate school and if departmental political culture matters. I said yes. I do not want to be a part of a department whose political beliefs are in opposition to mine/be trained in a tradition of conservatism. This in no way means I would insulate myself from other ideas.

Why do people study inequality? Oftentimes to figure out ways to make to end it. Would this scholar function well in a department that adheres to trickle-down economic theories? Doubtful.

Yes, my rhetorical "flourishes" were often jokes and exaggerations because this is a web forum, not a seminar. I stand by my opinion that for a lot of research, departmental political culture matters and determines how and in what ways your research will be supported.

[misterpat]

Ok, this is clearly going nowhere.

[Aubstopper]

regardless...

some like to fight the good fight against their opposers, some like to be in an environment in which they have all different povs floating around, and some like for their advisors to share their politics...and these preferences are subjective to each individual graduate student. Who cares if someone wants their povs to mesh and who cares if someone enjoys being in opposition? It's all about personal fit to a particular program...for some politics factor in more than others...it doesn't make one person less open-minded or their research flawed--it's a PERSONAL PREFERENCE!

who cares?!? none of you can judge the other on this subject any more than one can judge someone who prefers a school with a warmer climate...you don't see people jumping all over that person for being 'weather-biased' or for skipping out on all the great schools in freezing weather!

[synthla]

who cares?!? none of you can judge the other on this subject any more than one can judge someone who prefers a school with a warmer climate...you don't see people jumping all over that person for being 'weather-biased' or for skipping out on all the great schools in freezing weather!

actually I would give someone an even harder time for that, because that just exposes a complete lack of seriousness.

But really - I accept that ewurgler was probably being a bit hyperbolic in his/her original posts, but just because we're on a web forum doesn't mean that there can't be serious discussion, so to dismiss one's previous statements in that manner seems a little too easy. But whatever - personally, I come down on the side of diversity in perspective within a department being a valuable thing. Some would say that intellectual give and take within a context of mutual respect is the entire point of academia, so while it may be personal preference, if one avoids being exposed to other perspectives because it makes them uncomfortable or refuses to take viewpoints with which they disagree seriously, it's hard to take that person seriously him or herself.

[Aubstopper]

actually I would give someone an even harder time for that, because that just exposes a complete lack of seriousness.

But really - I accept that ewurgler was probably being a bit hyperbolic in his/her original posts, but just because we're on a web forum doesn't mean that there can't be serious discussion, so to dismiss one's previous statements in that manner seems a little too easy. But whatever - personally, I come down on the side of diversity in perspective within a department being a valuable thing. Some would say that intellectual give and take within a context of mutual respect is the entire point of academia, so while it may be personal preference, if one avoids being exposed to other perspectives because it makes them uncomfortable or refuses to take viewpoints with which they disagree seriously, it's hard to take that person seriously him or herself.

who cares? it's part of THEIR preference--it might not be part of yours or someone else's but people have different factors that are important to them in deciding where to go. As for diversity, political views are just one aspect of it. I happen to agree with the OP, since i have hit problems in my research due to conflicting political points of view...and in some of my classes i have had to amend some of my work for certain professors so to align with their pov (because it was common knowledge that he marks people down if they don't have his pov); however, I can see where you're coming from....though i still believe that it depends on the individual AND one's particular field of study.

[HisRoyalHighness]

Politics matters a HUGE amount in my field. It's one major reason I chose the school I'm going to over the other one which offered me admission. I think people who say politics don't matter in grad school are lying to themselves - at least in the field of IR politics are enormously important.