Diversity of the Mind(econlog.econlib.org)
econlog.econlib.org
Diversity of the Mind
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/01/diversity_of_th.html
34 comments
Is this really presenting a fair picture? Really, if I had two candidates who were identical and the only differentiating factor I had was that one liked Candy Crush and the other one played Age of Empires, I don't think I'd take it to a coinflip. I like Age of Empires more than I like Candy Crush.
I suppose this is the same type of insidious discrimination that happens because, for instance, people feel like a woman wouldn't be a good "culture" fit in a predominantly male dev team. My preference is however to work with people that have similar interests to me, but it is a preference very low on my list of co-worker traits. How low would it have to be before I'd answer I'm not at least "somewhat" biased based on the Candy Crush/AoE schism? I'm not sure, but honestly if two identical twins walked into my office with identical everything and one wore an ugly sweater I'd hire the one without. Unless the ugly sweater was really funny.
I'm not sure if the wording of the question here could be better, or I'm just discriminatory.
I suppose this is the same type of insidious discrimination that happens because, for instance, people feel like a woman wouldn't be a good "culture" fit in a predominantly male dev team. My preference is however to work with people that have similar interests to me, but it is a preference very low on my list of co-worker traits. How low would it have to be before I'd answer I'm not at least "somewhat" biased based on the Candy Crush/AoE schism? I'm not sure, but honestly if two identical twins walked into my office with identical everything and one wore an ugly sweater I'd hire the one without. Unless the ugly sweater was really funny.
I'm not sure if the wording of the question here could be better, or I'm just discriminatory.
You're being discriminatory in a sense, but then being discriminatory is normal. It's just what people do, and the large-scale consequences can be trivial or important depending on any number of things. Whether or not it's worth intervening through policy (or simply through culture or collective intent) varies case by case, but I think there's a case to be made here.
But why? What tangible impact has it had on conservatives?
The issue is that theories start with liberal values and assumptions and conservative ideas aren't fairly evaluated.
This creates blind spots in the field. There are examples in the draft paper.
Moreover it taints policy recommendations and causes Republicans to distrust calls for "evidence based policy".
Read the draft paper linked in the article. [http://journals.cambridge.org/images/fileUpload/documents/Du...]
This creates blind spots in the field. There are examples in the draft paper.
Moreover it taints policy recommendations and causes Republicans to distrust calls for "evidence based policy".
Read the draft paper linked in the article. [http://journals.cambridge.org/images/fileUpload/documents/Du...]
I think considering the massive policy advantages - if not the total lockdown - given to conservative ideas in government, especially in economics and banking, that's not quite the problem it might seem to be.
The real problem with left-wing academia is that it has been persuaded to believe that ritualised criticisms of conservative public policy are a substitute for political influence. The academic left has almost exactly no political influence at this time.
As for evidence-based policy - when conservatives stop promoting frankly kooky positions like climate change denial or an insistence that raising the minimum wage kills jobs it's going to be easier to accept that conservatives have an interest in evidence-based rational policy.
The real problem with left-wing academia is that it has been persuaded to believe that ritualised criticisms of conservative public policy are a substitute for political influence. The academic left has almost exactly no political influence at this time.
As for evidence-based policy - when conservatives stop promoting frankly kooky positions like climate change denial or an insistence that raising the minimum wage kills jobs it's going to be easier to accept that conservatives have an interest in evidence-based rational policy.
You can't get a senior job at the DOE without a PhD in Education, and you can't get an PhD Education without publishing a thesis the academic left supports...
At least in education the academic left has had a complete stranglehold on policy for 50+ years.
Saying that conservatives have a total lockdown on policy is just silly.
The deeper problem that Haidt is found is that people on the left can't actually answer a survey as a conservative would. Libertarians and conservatives can answer surveys as a liberal would when asked to, but liberals are too insular and only have a caricature of conservatives in their mind.
Your statement about economics and banking illustrates that. Wall St has power and influence in DC because it has a lot of money, not because it has ideological support from conservatives.
At least in education the academic left has had a complete stranglehold on policy for 50+ years.
Saying that conservatives have a total lockdown on policy is just silly.
The deeper problem that Haidt is found is that people on the left can't actually answer a survey as a conservative would. Libertarians and conservatives can answer surveys as a liberal would when asked to, but liberals are too insular and only have a caricature of conservatives in their mind.
Your statement about economics and banking illustrates that. Wall St has power and influence in DC because it has a lot of money, not because it has ideological support from conservatives.
Below is an excerpt from an interview on James Miller's fight for tenure at Smith College and an excerpt from the paper discussed. Note that Dr. Miller is an economist and as such is much closer to the mainstream of his discipline than a hypothetical conservative social psychologist.
If you want another unambiguous case of politically motivated violation of academic freedom look at this case study of Linda S. Gottfredson's experience at the University of Delaware. She had to fight for six years. She's a psychologist in a field that's less homogeneous than social psychology.
Lessons in academic freedom as lived experience Linda S. Gottfredson * School of Education, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/2009academicfr...
Conservative Professor Fights Smith's Tenure Decision · 31 May 2003
O'REILLY: In the "Personal Story" segment tonight, James Miller, who teaches economics at Smith College in Massachusetts, was up for tenure this year, but he didn't get it.
Miller says the reason is he's a conservative Republican. And the college grievance committee agrees he wasn't treated fairly, saying "the rationale for their votes included consideration of matters that infringed on the candidate's right to academic freedom."
Joining us now from Boston is Professor Miller, who is the author of the book, "Game Theory at Work." All right, so you succeeded in convincing the hierarchy at Smith College that you were, indeed, denied tenure because of your political beliefs, which is supposed to be against every academic tenet in this country. But I find it hard to believe that a college as prestigious as Smith, they would punish you because you were a conservative. Am I naive?
JAMES MILLER, SMITH COLLEGE ASST. PROF.: Well, I think the problem is that there are so few conservatives and Republicans at most American colleges, including Smith, that when, you know, they read something written by a conservative, it just seems crazy to them. So I don't think the people who are punishing me for being a conservative thought they were violating my academic freedom. They thought they were keeping out someone who has this utterly crazy beliefs from teaching and corrupting their students.
In the social sciences and humanities, however, there is a stronger imbalance. For instance, recent surveys find that 58 - 66 percent of social science professors in the United States identify as liberals, while only 5 - 8 percent identify as conservatives, and that self-identified Democrats outnumber Republicans by ratios of at least 8 to 1 (Gross & Simmons, 2007; Klein & Stern, 2009; Rothman & Lichter, 2008). A similar situation is found in the humanities where surveys find that 52 - 77 percent of humanities professors identify as liberals, while only 4 - 8 percent identify as conservatives, and that self-identified Democrats outnumber Republicans by ratios of at least 5:1 (Gross & Simmons, 2007; Rothman & Lichter, 2008). In psychology the imbalance is slightly stronger: 84 percent identify as liberal while only 8 percent identify as conservative (Gross & Simmons, 2007; Rothman & Lichter, 2008). That is a ratio of 10.5 to 1. In the United States as a whole, the ratio of liberals to conservatives is roughly 1 to 2 (Gallup, 2010).
If you want another unambiguous case of politically motivated violation of academic freedom look at this case study of Linda S. Gottfredson's experience at the University of Delaware. She had to fight for six years. She's a psychologist in a field that's less homogeneous than social psychology.
Lessons in academic freedom as lived experience Linda S. Gottfredson * School of Education, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/2009academicfr...
Conservative Professor Fights Smith's Tenure Decision · 31 May 2003
O'REILLY: In the "Personal Story" segment tonight, James Miller, who teaches economics at Smith College in Massachusetts, was up for tenure this year, but he didn't get it.
Miller says the reason is he's a conservative Republican. And the college grievance committee agrees he wasn't treated fairly, saying "the rationale for their votes included consideration of matters that infringed on the candidate's right to academic freedom."
Joining us now from Boston is Professor Miller, who is the author of the book, "Game Theory at Work." All right, so you succeeded in convincing the hierarchy at Smith College that you were, indeed, denied tenure because of your political beliefs, which is supposed to be against every academic tenet in this country. But I find it hard to believe that a college as prestigious as Smith, they would punish you because you were a conservative. Am I naive?
JAMES MILLER, SMITH COLLEGE ASST. PROF.: Well, I think the problem is that there are so few conservatives and Republicans at most American colleges, including Smith, that when, you know, they read something written by a conservative, it just seems crazy to them. So I don't think the people who are punishing me for being a conservative thought they were violating my academic freedom. They thought they were keeping out someone who has this utterly crazy beliefs from teaching and corrupting their students.
In the social sciences and humanities, however, there is a stronger imbalance. For instance, recent surveys find that 58 - 66 percent of social science professors in the United States identify as liberals, while only 5 - 8 percent identify as conservatives, and that self-identified Democrats outnumber Republicans by ratios of at least 8 to 1 (Gross & Simmons, 2007; Klein & Stern, 2009; Rothman & Lichter, 2008). A similar situation is found in the humanities where surveys find that 52 - 77 percent of humanities professors identify as liberals, while only 4 - 8 percent identify as conservatives, and that self-identified Democrats outnumber Republicans by ratios of at least 5:1 (Gross & Simmons, 2007; Rothman & Lichter, 2008). In psychology the imbalance is slightly stronger: 84 percent identify as liberal while only 8 percent identify as conservative (Gross & Simmons, 2007; Rothman & Lichter, 2008). That is a ratio of 10.5 to 1. In the United States as a whole, the ratio of liberals to conservatives is roughly 1 to 2 (Gallup, 2010).
Personally, I wouldn't call this an unambiguous case since the dean reached an out-of-court settlement. Have I misunderstood this article? In the opening paragraphs there is unambiguous personal support for the professor in question. Could it be that the content of the research here was more the cause of concern than the political inclination of the researchers?
Most of the numbers you quote are fairly consistent with how postgraduate degree holders vote. In 2012 postgrads were democrat by 13 points and in 2008 by 18. Can we identify what the cause or effect is here?
My question really is what tangible problems do these numbers create for republicans? Are their incomes lower? Are they less socially mobile? Are they murdered more? By what quantifiable metric are they disadvantaged?
Most of the numbers you quote are fairly consistent with how postgraduate degree holders vote. In 2012 postgrads were democrat by 13 points and in 2008 by 18. Can we identify what the cause or effect is here?
My question really is what tangible problems do these numbers create for republicans? Are their incomes lower? Are they less socially mobile? Are they murdered more? By what quantifiable metric are they disadvantaged?
An out of court settlement very strongly suggests they thought they'd lose if it went to court. Separating the political inclinations of researchers and the political implications of their research is a fool's errand in any case. If the departments would have been happy with getting them to research more ideologically congenial things instead that would have just as bad. Suppressing research because you don't like its results is not truth seeking.
There is a very large difference between 68-32 and 98-2. The first is the vote among postgrad holders in 2008, the second the liberal-conservative gap among social psychology postgrads.
I do not care about Republicans. I care about the truth. If social psychology and other academic disciplines are overwhelmingly liberal they will be less likely to approach the truth because of a lack of viewpoint diversity.
There is a very large difference between 68-32 and 98-2. The first is the vote among postgrad holders in 2008, the second the liberal-conservative gap among social psychology postgrads.
I do not care about Republicans. I care about the truth. If social psychology and other academic disciplines are overwhelmingly liberal they will be less likely to approach the truth because of a lack of viewpoint diversity.
Sure, an out of court settlement suggests a losing judgement, but the article suggests this was probably due to some poor comments the dean made to the press. What I'm proposing is that this didn't exactly come out as a clear judgement that says there was political discrimination going on.
I also believe that diversity is important, but I feel like diversity in this case isn't that important. Take for instance my earlier preference for AoE over Candy Crush. Is there a reason why I should look to create a diverse distribution of Candy Crush/AoE players in my workplace?
Similarly, what is it about this distribution in academia that gives it a particularly quantifiable effect on Republicans? Is there evidence of an effect? Why aren't we talking about third-party candidates or non-voters?
What evidence is there that a lack of diversity in political views in social psychology leads to a lack of truth in that discipline?
I also believe that diversity is important, but I feel like diversity in this case isn't that important. Take for instance my earlier preference for AoE over Candy Crush. Is there a reason why I should look to create a diverse distribution of Candy Crush/AoE players in my workplace?
Similarly, what is it about this distribution in academia that gives it a particularly quantifiable effect on Republicans? Is there evidence of an effect? Why aren't we talking about third-party candidates or non-voters?
What evidence is there that a lack of diversity in political views in social psychology leads to a lack of truth in that discipline?
So if the dean had been more circumspect they'd have gotten away with it? This would not make me feel better about applying for grad school if I was a conservative.
As to your last three paragraphs I suggest reading the journal article. If you want to continue the discussion after doing that feel free.
As to your last three paragraphs I suggest reading the journal article. If you want to continue the discussion after doing that feel free.
There was no evidence-driven judgement in favor of there being political discrimination in this case.
Perhaps I was being confusing, so I'll try again: What quantifiable evidence (not anecdotal, not hearsay, "may be" or implication) is there that this ratio of liberals to conservatives is an indicator of negative outcomes for conservatives?
Perhaps I was being confusing, so I'll try again: What quantifiable evidence (not anecdotal, not hearsay, "may be" or implication) is there that this ratio of liberals to conservatives is an indicator of negative outcomes for conservatives?
Are you discussing the Miller or Gottfredson case? I think the fact that I know of two cases of people dealing with really severe difficulties in getting tenure by osmosis, without seeking them out speaks to their commonness.
I think we may be speaking at cross purposes. I care about this because ideological diversity leads to a greater diversity of viewpoints, which makes it more likely that the hypothesis will be examined from a number of viewpoints, so any flaws are more likely to be discovered. This is a social psychology result that has held up to replication.
What do you mean by negative outcomes for conservatives? I would have thought that denying one tenure for one's political opinions would be a pretty negative outcome for any academic.
I think we may be speaking at cross purposes. I care about this because ideological diversity leads to a greater diversity of viewpoints, which makes it more likely that the hypothesis will be examined from a number of viewpoints, so any flaws are more likely to be discovered. This is a social psychology result that has held up to replication.
What do you mean by negative outcomes for conservatives? I would have thought that denying one tenure for one's political opinions would be a pretty negative outcome for any academic.
This would be more interesting if they had teased apart more informative axes of belief instead of categorizing people along the uninformative liberal vs. conservative spectrum of US politics. Do social psychologists believe that the class structure of society is meritocratic or unjust? Do they believe that racial discrimination plays a significant factor in social success? Do they believe that it's the appropriate role of government to remedy potential injustices? Do they want their country to be ruled according to religious traditions?
I don't come away with a clear sense of what "conservative" means to the respondents, and it's possible to imagine some definitions which are very healthily at odds with the skeptical/questioning mindset of academics.
I don't come away with a clear sense of what "conservative" means to the respondents, and it's possible to imagine some definitions which are very healthily at odds with the skeptical/questioning mindset of academics.
No, it really wouldn't be more interesting. Does it matter precisely what "liberalism" is when 98% of the current grad students identify themselves as such? Do you really think you're going to be able to slice and dice words until this isn't a problem anymore, in the face of such a percentage? We're not talking 55%/45%, where the question of exactly what the borders are might be an interesting question. We're not even talking the overwhelming dominance of 80/20%. We're talking effective monoculture. It defies belief that this is just the error bars talking. And especially so for social scientists... are they really the people you want to accuse of being unclear on the meanings of the words "liberal" and "conservative" in some context? Betcha they could go on about the distinction for a great deal longer and with a great deal more precision than either of us!
> Does it matter precisely what "liberalism" is when 98% of the current grad students identify themselves as such?
Nothing in the source indicates that. There is a claim -- which cites a personal communication with no identified methodological basis -- that 2% identify as conservative (given a set of options that, from the parallel listing of the numbers from a broader population, appears to be liberal/moderate/conservative, and so which does not, even if accepted as ironclad, support a 98% liberal conclusion -- and further, the subsample size of "graduates and postdocs", and therefore the error margins of that group, are not identified.) But, in any case, yes, it matters what it means (and, particularly, whether it means the same thing to all the people with that self-identification) if you are interested in whether there is diversity of ideology rather than diversity of ideological identity labels. It is a fairly massive error to assume that those mean the same thing.
> Do you really think you're going to be able to slice and dice words until this isn't a problem anymore, in the face of such a percentage?
If it doesn't mean even roughly the same thing to the various people, what a large advantage in self-identification may tell you is that "liberal" is a popular label, without telling you that the label has any shared meaning which is itself overwhelmingly popular.
> It defies belief that this is just the error bars talking.
That would only be true if we had the size of the relevant subsamples and thus could have any idea of the size of the error bars, all we have is the full sample of 292, but that includes more than just the subgroup with 2% conservative identification for which you have invalidly assumed a 98% liberal identification.
> And especially so for social scientists... are they really the people you want to accuse of being unclear on the meanings of the words "liberal" and "conservative" in some context?
As someone with a degree in political science, I am quite aware that those terms have lots of different meanings even in the context of political ideology, which is why -- when actual substantive ideology rather than ideological identity is studied (and the "liberal" and "conservative" labels are used in the study), the actual operationalizations used of "liberal" and "conservative" are radically different between different studies.
Nothing in the source indicates that. There is a claim -- which cites a personal communication with no identified methodological basis -- that 2% identify as conservative (given a set of options that, from the parallel listing of the numbers from a broader population, appears to be liberal/moderate/conservative, and so which does not, even if accepted as ironclad, support a 98% liberal conclusion -- and further, the subsample size of "graduates and postdocs", and therefore the error margins of that group, are not identified.) But, in any case, yes, it matters what it means (and, particularly, whether it means the same thing to all the people with that self-identification) if you are interested in whether there is diversity of ideology rather than diversity of ideological identity labels. It is a fairly massive error to assume that those mean the same thing.
> Do you really think you're going to be able to slice and dice words until this isn't a problem anymore, in the face of such a percentage?
If it doesn't mean even roughly the same thing to the various people, what a large advantage in self-identification may tell you is that "liberal" is a popular label, without telling you that the label has any shared meaning which is itself overwhelmingly popular.
> It defies belief that this is just the error bars talking.
That would only be true if we had the size of the relevant subsamples and thus could have any idea of the size of the error bars, all we have is the full sample of 292, but that includes more than just the subgroup with 2% conservative identification for which you have invalidly assumed a 98% liberal identification.
> And especially so for social scientists... are they really the people you want to accuse of being unclear on the meanings of the words "liberal" and "conservative" in some context?
As someone with a degree in political science, I am quite aware that those terms have lots of different meanings even in the context of political ideology, which is why -- when actual substantive ideology rather than ideological identity is studied (and the "liberal" and "conservative" labels are used in the study), the actual operationalizations used of "liberal" and "conservative" are radically different between different studies.
Additionally, it would have been interesting to hear where the respondents fall on the moral matrices, of which Haidt --who is leveling the assertion that conservatives are less common-- is a proponent.
For those who haven't heard of Haidt's ideas, I highly recommend checking out his book The Righteous Mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion.
For those who haven't heard of Haidt's ideas, I highly recommend checking out his book The Righteous Mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion.
Yeah, there's a lot of variation in those terms, even just within the US.
In the political sphere: conservative = extreme right wing (Republicans); liberal = moderate right wing (Democrats).
In universities, I imagine it's a lot more complicated. A weak rule of thumb might be conservative = obviously pro-capitalist/racist/patriarchy; liberal = professional/managerial class? But it's complicated with von Humboldt conservatives and classical liberals.
(Disclaimer: I tend to ignore most flamewars contrasting conservatives vs. liberals, so I may be uninformed. Because it's like Coke vs. Pepsi. I find critiques of liberals from leftists interesting though.)
In the political sphere: conservative = extreme right wing (Republicans); liberal = moderate right wing (Democrats).
In universities, I imagine it's a lot more complicated. A weak rule of thumb might be conservative = obviously pro-capitalist/racist/patriarchy; liberal = professional/managerial class? But it's complicated with von Humboldt conservatives and classical liberals.
(Disclaimer: I tend to ignore most flamewars contrasting conservatives vs. liberals, so I may be uninformed. Because it's like Coke vs. Pepsi. I find critiques of liberals from leftists interesting though.)
Jonathan Haidt, one of the authors of the paper, has a page on "Post-partisan social psychology" with a 2011 presentation of his on the subject and various responses/debates.
http://people.stern.nyu.edu/jhaidt/postpartisan.html
http://people.stern.nyu.edu/jhaidt/postpartisan.html
For purposes of understanding this article, does anyone know anything about the author, Bryan Caplan?
The website is the Library of Economics and Liberty and is funded by The Liberty Fund,[1]. In my brief review they appear to advocate for modern libertarian ideology. Does anyone know more about them?
At least, this seems to be political advocacy and not scholarly analysis. (I'm not criticizing it; just trying to understand what I'm reading.)
[1] http://www.libertyfund.org/
The website is the Library of Economics and Liberty and is funded by The Liberty Fund,[1]. In my brief review they appear to advocate for modern libertarian ideology. Does anyone know more about them?
At least, this seems to be political advocacy and not scholarly analysis. (I'm not criticizing it; just trying to understand what I'm reading.)
[1] http://www.libertyfund.org/
He's a Professor of Economics at GMU, and is probably one of the top 10 most popular econ bloggers on the web.
If you want the scholarly version, skip the blog post and click through to the original paper (which was discussed on HN previously but I can't find the thread).
Page 26 of the paper does cite a study showing that libertarians have higher SAT scores, but that's probably not the only reason Caplan blogged it.
Page 26 of the paper does cite a study showing that libertarians have higher SAT scores, but that's probably not the only reason Caplan blogged it.
The Liberty Fund doesn't engage in political advocacy. They primarily (re)publish literature important to classical liberalism and the moral case for liberty (and history and law, etc). They also put on occasional conferences, and they maintain online libraries.
How is that not political advocacy?
If a Socialist site 'republished literature important to classical Socialism and the moral case for social equality' would you not consider it a political entity?
If a Socialist site 'republished literature important to classical Socialism and the moral case for social equality' would you not consider it a political entity?
I wonder what other disciplines are this badly skewed. Theology maybe?
Liberal/moderate/conservative is an outdated distinction that is no longer useful to anyone but demagogues.
When 98% of your subjects fall into one side of your division, it doesn't mean that there's not enough diversity. It means that your division is meaningless.
People who would pick "liberal" when presented with the three choices above are by no means a homogeneous group, especially since the questionnaire didn't offer an "other" choice. Anarchists, communists, socialists, social democrats, feminists, postmodernists, and even some libertarians might pick "liberal" since the alternatives are even further from their true beliefs.
Curiously, conservatives seem to be the ones who are always worried about "ideological imbalance", whereas most of the rest don't really care. It boils down to this weird idea that conservatism should account for roughly (and preferably more than) 50% of our mindshare, with all the other ideologies (conveniently lumped together under the label "liberalism") accounting for the other 50%. But that's just wrong, because there are more than two ideologies in this world. It's like dividing the world into "those who do X" and "those who don't", for any given X, and demanding that both groups be roughly equal.
The wiki page for "political ideologies" lists a dozen major ideologies with hundreds of subdivisions. Should they all get equal mindshare?
When 98% of your subjects fall into one side of your division, it doesn't mean that there's not enough diversity. It means that your division is meaningless.
People who would pick "liberal" when presented with the three choices above are by no means a homogeneous group, especially since the questionnaire didn't offer an "other" choice. Anarchists, communists, socialists, social democrats, feminists, postmodernists, and even some libertarians might pick "liberal" since the alternatives are even further from their true beliefs.
Curiously, conservatives seem to be the ones who are always worried about "ideological imbalance", whereas most of the rest don't really care. It boils down to this weird idea that conservatism should account for roughly (and preferably more than) 50% of our mindshare, with all the other ideologies (conveniently lumped together under the label "liberalism") accounting for the other 50%. But that's just wrong, because there are more than two ideologies in this world. It's like dividing the world into "those who do X" and "those who don't", for any given X, and demanding that both groups be roughly equal.
The wiki page for "political ideologies" lists a dozen major ideologies with hundreds of subdivisions. Should they all get equal mindshare?
Since the cultural turn of the 1970s, liberals have focused on cultural change as a way of achieving justice. They assumed that people conform to dominant social norms which they learn about through the media and through others in society. So the operating hypothesis is that, if you create the impression that (for example) racial equality is the dominant social norm through consistent and uniform expression of those views and the suppression of racist norms, then racism will disappear as people start to conform to those new values. (This is in contrast to the prior Marxist-influenced social science which assumed that culture mainly reflects economic realities, and you can't make racism just disappear while keeping the same economic conditions.)
Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and one of the co-authors of the paper. His work theorizes five foundations of morality—basically, ways of assessing the moral value of an act: harm, fairness, respect for authority, loyalty to one's group and purity/sanctity. The impact of the cultural turn shows up in his research. He found that conservatives tend to use all five foundations, while liberals only use the first two. Obviously for liberals, the remaining three are associated with patriarchal authority, nationalism and religious oppression.
So, he's not just demanding equal representation of political ideologies. It seems that Haidt believes that the dominance of liberalism among social psychologists is harmful to the field because it is associated with a strategy of cultural change which obliges liberals to avoid lines of research into these other foundations of morality.
Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and one of the co-authors of the paper. His work theorizes five foundations of morality—basically, ways of assessing the moral value of an act: harm, fairness, respect for authority, loyalty to one's group and purity/sanctity. The impact of the cultural turn shows up in his research. He found that conservatives tend to use all five foundations, while liberals only use the first two. Obviously for liberals, the remaining three are associated with patriarchal authority, nationalism and religious oppression.
So, he's not just demanding equal representation of political ideologies. It seems that Haidt believes that the dominance of liberalism among social psychologists is harmful to the field because it is associated with a strategy of cultural change which obliges liberals to avoid lines of research into these other foundations of morality.
The group that you call "liberals" is spread out across the political spectrum, from the center to the far left. Some are authoritarian, others are libertarian and even anarchist. They do not present any unified front; in fact, there's so much disagreement among "liberals" that they would never consider themselves to be a single group unless forced to choose among a very small set of labels.
I agree with the authors that homogeneity can be bad for a field, but I don't think this can be fixed by increasing the mindshare of conservatism. There are plenty of people who would pick "liberal" on a "liberal or conservative?" questionnair and still devote their lives to researching, for example, people's relationship with authority. Not personally believing it to be a matter of morality might even help the researcher become more objective.
I agree with the authors that homogeneity can be bad for a field, but I don't think this can be fixed by increasing the mindshare of conservatism. There are plenty of people who would pick "liberal" on a "liberal or conservative?" questionnair and still devote their lives to researching, for example, people's relationship with authority. Not personally believing it to be a matter of morality might even help the researcher become more objective.
But liberals' political views aren't relevant here. What matters for Haidt is that irrespective of their true politics, people who identify as liberal tend to be hostile to 3 of the moral foundations.
I'm not saying his approach is right, just that his ultimate goal is not political diversity as such. I agree that there are other approaches to correcting bias, and the fact that he doesn't even consider those makes me think something else is going on. Liberals tend to believe that morality is a product of reason. Haidt thinks it comes from innate dispositions or intuitions, which I think is closer to a conservative viewpoint.
I'm not saying his approach is right, just that his ultimate goal is not political diversity as such. I agree that there are other approaches to correcting bias, and the fact that he doesn't even consider those makes me think something else is going on. Liberals tend to believe that morality is a product of reason. Haidt thinks it comes from innate dispositions or intuitions, which I think is closer to a conservative viewpoint.
> But liberals' political views aren't relevant here.
How does one justify a sweeping generalization about some group of people while totally ignoring diversity within that group? "I don't care what they truly believe, but methinks they believe that three of my six (not five) moral foundations are unimportant." doesn't sound particularly convincing.
> I'm not saying his approach is right, just that his ultimate goal is not political diversity as such.
That's exactly what I was trying to point out in the GGGP comment. This is little more than a conservative political agenda wrapped in the language of diversity. Yes, some people emphasize some of the "foundations" more than others. But unless Haidt can convince us that we ought to take all of them seriously, his views are utterly uninteresting in the context of ethics.
When religious people demand that creationism be taught at school "for balance", most HNers can easily see through their thinly veiled political agenda. But when a conservative and/or libertarian guy makes an argument that has an identical logical structure, anyone who dares to disagree gets downvoted into oblivion. Funny, but I guess that's exactly how political biases work IRL.
How does one justify a sweeping generalization about some group of people while totally ignoring diversity within that group? "I don't care what they truly believe, but methinks they believe that three of my six (not five) moral foundations are unimportant." doesn't sound particularly convincing.
> I'm not saying his approach is right, just that his ultimate goal is not political diversity as such.
That's exactly what I was trying to point out in the GGGP comment. This is little more than a conservative political agenda wrapped in the language of diversity. Yes, some people emphasize some of the "foundations" more than others. But unless Haidt can convince us that we ought to take all of them seriously, his views are utterly uninteresting in the context of ethics.
When religious people demand that creationism be taught at school "for balance", most HNers can easily see through their thinly veiled political agenda. But when a conservative and/or libertarian guy makes an argument that has an identical logical structure, anyone who dares to disagree gets downvoted into oblivion. Funny, but I guess that's exactly how political biases work IRL.
Real talk: if someone describes themselves as conservative (in US political parlance) they are probably (not certainly, but probably) more selfish and more likely to have either factually incorrect or morally indefensible views on e.g climate change and social issues. I'd probably avoid hiring them too.
Professions which require intellect but which aren't well-remunerated are typically stacked with "liberals", yes – because smart, non-greedy people tend to be liberals. (Yes, this is an assumption for which I only have a lifetime of anecdotal evidence. No, the fact that there exist smart, non-greedy conservatives and dumb greedy liberals is not a counterargument).
(FWIW, I wasn't going to post this, as I didn't want to stir up a hornet's nest. But then I read http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-05/stiglitz-blocked-fr... and got angry again.)
Professions which require intellect but which aren't well-remunerated are typically stacked with "liberals", yes – because smart, non-greedy people tend to be liberals. (Yes, this is an assumption for which I only have a lifetime of anecdotal evidence. No, the fact that there exist smart, non-greedy conservatives and dumb greedy liberals is not a counterargument).
(FWIW, I wasn't going to post this, as I didn't want to stir up a hornet's nest. But then I read http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-05/stiglitz-blocked-fr... and got angry again.)
[1] http://yoelinbar.net/papers/political_diversity.pdf