Liberals in the Academy

[Pamphilia]

You don't really believe that students addled on free sex and frat parties will embrace a political ideology that frowns on free sex and frat parties, do you?

Conservatism and conservatives don't necessarily "frown" on "sex and frat parties," especially in the context of college.* I went to an undergrad with a relatively conservative Southern tradition and a relatively high number of neo-con and conservative students. The university being a traditionally Southern school and all, we had a HUGE Greek community. Anecdotally, I can tell you that almost all of the extremely conservative students I knew were Greek. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any conservatives I knew who weren't. They'd have wild frat parties and get wasted and have lots of drunken sex, etc. Frat parties don't exactly tend to be bastions of political liberalism. Let's not forget that even W was a drunken frat boy in his day!

Also, this "free sex" that's so rampant on college campuses...? Are we at Berkeley in 1969? A lot of people have a lot of sex, yes, but it's not exactly Woodstock. I'm not trying to be snarky, just figure out what "free sex" means in the context of this thread.

*I think we need to distinguish between political conservatism and religious conservatism. There's a big difference, despite the way things have been looking in the Republican party since the '90s.

[barbarian]

There's some intrinsic things about academia that I think select for liberals, or promote liberalism.

1. It's not the highest-paying field in the world.

That's going to select for people who don't put the highest priority on money.

2. It's creative work, done on a fairly free time schedule.

That means that you aren't earning your pay on a 9-to-5 job. That changes your attitude to money. You're less likely to think "I earned every penny of this with my own drudgery." You're more likely to feel lucky (rather than justified) to be paid for playing with your brain. Since productivity waxes and wanes, you're also more likely to feel undeserving some of the time. There's a more tenuous relationship between effort and pay; and I think that makes us less likely to resent taxes.

3. Respect for authority is built in.

It's school. For a long time, into our late twenties, we work for teachers. Then we are teachers. People who like that setup tend not to be either very anti-authoritarian, or very much in favor of arbitrary authority; if you've spent your life admiring good teachers then your ideal is a thoughtful and considerate authority.

4. The pen is mightier than the sword.

To be an academic, you have to believe that persuasive writing is worthwhile, compared to physical force or economic clout.

The thing is, whenever I meet a conservative who's a die-hard academic, complete with the academic personality, I find myself liking him or her. They tend to be either libertarians or religious conservatives. Mainly, conservative academics agree with liberal academics on point 4, which is why we get along. I think I would have trouble getting along with anyone who didn't see the value of reasonable debate.

[Yang]

I think I will be in the minority as a "liberal" academic in business.

[wordslinger]

1. "Children, there is a time and place for everything, and that place is college." (Thanks Matt and Trey!) And I think that's a commonly held belief, politics aside.

2. Discussing "Marxism" as though it is a political system does not actually make tons of sense. Marxism might be an economic system or a literary perspective, among its many faces, but it's not really a system of government like democracy, monarchy, or republic.

3. I'll cop to my liberalism. I think it's hard to be a teacher at any level without buying into the "we're all in this together" aspect of liberalism. That being said, I know many teachers, both college and secondary, who identify as conservative while still making socially conscious decisions in the classroom. Ack! Liberalism and conservatism are such tricky and elusive labels. It makes this convo quite challenging.

[gsams]

Hmmmm....

Not sure how you would classify me. I am a registered Republican. I usually vote for the GOP locally, but I did vote for Obama. Genereally, neither party pleases me much. I would not vote for the current GOP as its social agenda terrifies me. I am socially VERY liberal and fiscally pretty conservative. I think the government should just let people be and stay out of it. However, I am also, as a professor referred to me, "a flaming health care liberal". That's what I do my research on. I don't fit anywhere.

I grew up in a house divided. Dad (banker) is a GOP member. Mom (engineering) is a liberal democrat.