These are fine practical suggestions for fostering viewpoint diversity. The key question for me is whether most academics actually want to be in departments in which their colleagues—who could be around for decades—disagree with them. There can be real differences between what people say in polls and what they believe or want in fact. I have seen departments spin apart or become the equivalent of silent, loveless marriages because of disagreements over inconsequential matters. I can only imagine the internecine warfare or quiet, passive-aggressive hostility that could be engendered by real ideological disagreement. Prerequisites for having departments in which there is genuine viewpoint diversity are faculty willingness to be challenged, healthy self-esteem, decent social skills, and mutual respect, which are, sadly, too often in short supply.
My 50 years in and around higher education as a faculty member, administrator, and accreditation evaluator have taught me that we are all cognitive misers. Diversity of perspective and opinion is an essential asset not an impediment to higher learning, but it takes work. As Glenn McNair observes, faculty flee substantive disagreements and regularly settle for the mediocrity of classroom monocultures. This problem is particularly acute at “private” schools that can claim immunity from judicial review of their interpretation of academic freedom or due process. I was dismissed for creating a survey to collect data about perceptions of hostile environments and judgments about academic freedom at a private liberal arts college. It included scenarios that revealed both faculty and administrative educational malpractice. ( https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/an-open-letter-to-lyle-d-roelofs-president-of-berea-college ) Ironically, my 20 years of experience at the Air Force Academy provided many more examples of substantive engagement and collegial disagreement than anything I observed or experienced at other colleges and universities over the last 20 years.
As a matter of principle (and to support the points made in the post), I wish I disagreed... but I found the pts made really interesting and provoking... that 29% stat not engaging with any that disagree is troubling. I have seen faculty cultures/dynamics across the spectrum...[from most open to least], healthy debate amongst where near-everything is on the table and open for debate (with "rules of engagement" when it gets heated), some topics are open, but others are not either because they have proven heated or perceived as a threat to become so, contentions are clear but certain topics are now avoided because they have gotten heated in the past (and all have retreated silently and sullenly to their perspectives), and ones so toxic that almost nothing real can be discussed/debated because there is so much tension or lack of experience in having real conversations... thanks so much for the article.
I'm all for adversarial collaborations, but don't think the disconnect between scholarly findings and what the average American might think is “absurd.” Public opinion doesn't determine scientific findings, and public opinion doesn't get a seat on the peer-review panel. Public accountability for universities is one thing, but epistemic accountability is quite another.
The fundamental problem occurs at the level of the departmental hiring committee. Picture a department in the humanities that has already a majority of extremely left activists. How did it get this way? It doesn’t matter what particular sub-disciplinary hole the department is trying to fill with a hire, you can be assured that the winning candidate will be an activist of some flavor. The ratchet turns in one direction only because the choice is heavily influenced by extraordinarily passionate people. Their commitment to justice, their identity, rides on the hiring decision their department makes. The only way out of this dilemma is to take the decision out of the hands of the department. I.e. let AI do the ranking of candidates based on academic fit and prior scholarship with that scholarship being judged solely by eg its commitment to fair engagement with ideas and data, avoidance of ad hominem arguments, etc . But of course that could never happen at any level within a contemporary university. It would require a committed board of regents who frankly acknowledge how broken academia has become.
This is an interesting idea, David. As you mention, though, it us highly unlikely to ever happen. In fact, in the system in which I work, AI has been forbidden from being a part of any faculty applicant review processes (as negotiated by the faculty union). Interestingly enough, it has not been forbidden for use in evaluating staff applicants. Hmm... might the double standards continue?
I think that the monoculture at some institutions is stronger than others, and in the last couple of decades, I have never personally experienced a monoculture which wasn't rooted in the justly criticized critical studies. In earlier times I have experienced the hyperrational-ism monoculture of the harder sciences, however recently even these disciplines are affected by the product of critical studies, even when the members of the discipline know it not.
It's obvious to the lay public that viewpoint diversity would reintegrate the viewpoints that critical studies explicitly worked to exclude. It's not so clear to me, however, that that's how such an effort would be handled inside the academy, in practice. Critical studies is always critical. When it runs out of primordial canon to challenge, it latches on to the earliest product of critical theorizing and dismantles that. This process can continue essentially forever. Right now, someone is complaining here on Substack, that a magic and occult sciences degree that a certain group had successfully created a few years ago, is now under attack. I do not get the impression that this program is an anthropology degree.
At the risk of generating an endless bureaucratic loop, I think it's worth asking, how are difference and breadth of opinion conceptualized? Personally, as we are curr in a Romantic phase, I would hope and in some ways expect that a reintegration of Rationalism is where all minds naturally tend. I think, however, that realistically, very few of those trained under high critical theory are equipped for that. They are however equipped to drive the cart farther down the critical studies road, and to sincerely consider that to be "viewpoint diversity". Any arguments for a different approach must be explicit and must be pursued with significant and tenacious effort.
These are fine practical suggestions for fostering viewpoint diversity. The key question for me is whether most academics actually want to be in departments in which their colleagues—who could be around for decades—disagree with them. There can be real differences between what people say in polls and what they believe or want in fact. I have seen departments spin apart or become the equivalent of silent, loveless marriages because of disagreements over inconsequential matters. I can only imagine the internecine warfare or quiet, passive-aggressive hostility that could be engendered by real ideological disagreement. Prerequisites for having departments in which there is genuine viewpoint diversity are faculty willingness to be challenged, healthy self-esteem, decent social skills, and mutual respect, which are, sadly, too often in short supply.
My 50 years in and around higher education as a faculty member, administrator, and accreditation evaluator have taught me that we are all cognitive misers. Diversity of perspective and opinion is an essential asset not an impediment to higher learning, but it takes work. As Glenn McNair observes, faculty flee substantive disagreements and regularly settle for the mediocrity of classroom monocultures. This problem is particularly acute at “private” schools that can claim immunity from judicial review of their interpretation of academic freedom or due process. I was dismissed for creating a survey to collect data about perceptions of hostile environments and judgments about academic freedom at a private liberal arts college. It included scenarios that revealed both faculty and administrative educational malpractice. ( https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/an-open-letter-to-lyle-d-roelofs-president-of-berea-college ) Ironically, my 20 years of experience at the Air Force Academy provided many more examples of substantive engagement and collegial disagreement than anything I observed or experienced at other colleges and universities over the last 20 years.
As a matter of principle (and to support the points made in the post), I wish I disagreed... but I found the pts made really interesting and provoking... that 29% stat not engaging with any that disagree is troubling. I have seen faculty cultures/dynamics across the spectrum...[from most open to least], healthy debate amongst where near-everything is on the table and open for debate (with "rules of engagement" when it gets heated), some topics are open, but others are not either because they have proven heated or perceived as a threat to become so, contentions are clear but certain topics are now avoided because they have gotten heated in the past (and all have retreated silently and sullenly to their perspectives), and ones so toxic that almost nothing real can be discussed/debated because there is so much tension or lack of experience in having real conversations... thanks so much for the article.
I'm all for adversarial collaborations, but don't think the disconnect between scholarly findings and what the average American might think is “absurd.” Public opinion doesn't determine scientific findings, and public opinion doesn't get a seat on the peer-review panel. Public accountability for universities is one thing, but epistemic accountability is quite another.
https://theliberaljew.substack.com/p/american-higher-education-should
The fundamental problem occurs at the level of the departmental hiring committee. Picture a department in the humanities that has already a majority of extremely left activists. How did it get this way? It doesn’t matter what particular sub-disciplinary hole the department is trying to fill with a hire, you can be assured that the winning candidate will be an activist of some flavor. The ratchet turns in one direction only because the choice is heavily influenced by extraordinarily passionate people. Their commitment to justice, their identity, rides on the hiring decision their department makes. The only way out of this dilemma is to take the decision out of the hands of the department. I.e. let AI do the ranking of candidates based on academic fit and prior scholarship with that scholarship being judged solely by eg its commitment to fair engagement with ideas and data, avoidance of ad hominem arguments, etc . But of course that could never happen at any level within a contemporary university. It would require a committed board of regents who frankly acknowledge how broken academia has become.
This is an interesting idea, David. As you mention, though, it us highly unlikely to ever happen. In fact, in the system in which I work, AI has been forbidden from being a part of any faculty applicant review processes (as negotiated by the faculty union). Interestingly enough, it has not been forbidden for use in evaluating staff applicants. Hmm... might the double standards continue?
I think that the monoculture at some institutions is stronger than others, and in the last couple of decades, I have never personally experienced a monoculture which wasn't rooted in the justly criticized critical studies. In earlier times I have experienced the hyperrational-ism monoculture of the harder sciences, however recently even these disciplines are affected by the product of critical studies, even when the members of the discipline know it not.
It's obvious to the lay public that viewpoint diversity would reintegrate the viewpoints that critical studies explicitly worked to exclude. It's not so clear to me, however, that that's how such an effort would be handled inside the academy, in practice. Critical studies is always critical. When it runs out of primordial canon to challenge, it latches on to the earliest product of critical theorizing and dismantles that. This process can continue essentially forever. Right now, someone is complaining here on Substack, that a magic and occult sciences degree that a certain group had successfully created a few years ago, is now under attack. I do not get the impression that this program is an anthropology degree.
At the risk of generating an endless bureaucratic loop, I think it's worth asking, how are difference and breadth of opinion conceptualized? Personally, as we are curr in a Romantic phase, I would hope and in some ways expect that a reintegration of Rationalism is where all minds naturally tend. I think, however, that realistically, very few of those trained under high critical theory are equipped for that. They are however equipped to drive the cart farther down the critical studies road, and to sincerely consider that to be "viewpoint diversity". Any arguments for a different approach must be explicit and must be pursued with significant and tenacious effort.