Around the Web

• “We are only 50 percent of the way to knowing what trees really do for us,” says botanist Lester Rowntree in Jill Jonnes' article about the role of trees in the life of the city
• "I've never had colleagues in the sense that I do here," says Jonathan Lethem who's headed for liberal arts college bliss at Pomona (I wondered if he planned write a book that doesn't take place in New York but, alas, this article says his next book is set in Queens)
• I've made my picks for Slate's Oscar Pool game
• "By the time I got around to Vampire’s Kiss and then Bad Lieutenant and now this movie, Drive Angry and then also Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, I had realized that I’d developed my own style and process and school of acting which is called Nouveau Shamanic. That’s the new style of acting and at some point I’ll have to write a book.” -Nicholas Cage (!), quoted by Movieline

 

Born Back Ceaselessly Into the Past

Specifically about 1990...check out this awesome online version of "The Great Gatsby" game for the original Nintendo.

Why (Self-Identified) Conservatives Are Rare in Academe

At a recent social psychology conference, UVA Professor John Haidt made a familiar point about ideological diversity by asking conservatives and moderates in attendance to raise their hand. This exercise touches on an interesting, perennial question: why are so there so few conservatives in the academy?

Among “movement conservatives,” it is practically an article of faith that liberal bias discourages right-leaning students from pursuing careers in academia, particularly careers in the social sciences and humanities. But is this just right-wing paranoia, or worse, a politically-convenient way for conservatives to diminish the standing of potential ideological foes?

A working paper by sociologists Neil Gross and Ethan Fosse suggests that the widespread liberalism is largely the result of self-selection. The authors identify several characteristics that predispose one towards liberalism and find that they are disproportionately present amongst academics. Specifically, when compared with other Americans, professors:

- tend to have higher income and education levels
- are less likely to be theologically-conservative Protestants
- are more likely to be Jewish or non-religious
- are more tolerant of controversial ideas
- have a greater disparity between their income and educational levels

Gross and Fosse argue that the ubiquity of these liberal-friendly characteristics in the professorate has gradually resulted in academia being “typed” as a liberal profession, in much the same way nursing has been typed a “feminine” profession. They cite research by Amy Binder and others showing that conservative students (of all ability levels) are less likely to feel ideological kinship with their professors and thus are less likely to aspire to join academia.

To me, their argument sounds reasonable: if a top student thinks the private sector promotes innovation and raises living standards, he's probably more likely to accept its generally more lucrative and flexible offerings than one who frowns upon “big business." This probably holds true for undergrads and grad students alike. And the private sector isn't the only other option for cerebral conservatives.

For secular folks, the academe is one of relatively few fields where an individual can devote his or her professional energies to contemplating and propagating his or her conception of the “Truth.” Religious conservatives can also consider the clergy (there are roughly 500,000 members of the Protestant clergy in the US and about 25,000 philosophy professors, per the AP and the BLS, respectively) or any number of faith-based organizations. Conservative think tanks probably took an ideological bite out of academia early on, but by now I suspect their impact is canceled out by left-leaning think tanks. The Defense sector probably absorbs more conservative thinkers in the aggregate.

These factors seem to go a long way towards explaining the relative rarity of conservative academics, but political bias still plays a role in some cases. In some disciplines, influence will be harder to come by for those who don't take certain political views for granted. Likewise, at some institutions, conservatism is stigmatized and so challenging sensitive liberal shibboleths might open you up for professional or even personal criticism (I have Pat Moynihan in mind on this issue).

Of course, it's also worth remembering that "liberal" and "conservative" can be unstable terms in academia. Greg Mankiw, Andrew Bacevich, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and Francis Fukuyama could all be called conservatives and yet could all have different views on any given issue. Foreign policy and economic conservatives probably meet the least resistance in most disciplines. Likewise, the term liberal is similarly pretty expansive; it's just as likely to be used for a free trade-backing Clinton fan as it is for an avowed Marxist. Given their backgrounds, I'd wager most academics who identify as liberal in the US aren't that in favor of challenging the status quo.

 

Here's the working paper. Here's a NY Times article that does an okay job discussing it.
Some of this was adopted from a previously deleted blog post.

File Under: Reasons for Revolution

Apparently, in 2008, Goldman Sachs found a neat little trick for keeping those balance sheets tidy: just get rid of December altogether. Even more impressive, they managed to do so without giving up their holidays!

News to me.

"Chicago School" of 80's Cinema

In any genre, it's hard to make a movie that will age well, but it's particularly difficult to make a mainstream comedy that lasts. Some jokes lose relevance and Hollywood is by no means averse to recycling successful gags, characters, set-ups and plot devices. A few great movies can survive this borrowing (e.g. "This Is Spinal Tap"), while some good ones lose a bit of their luster (I think I would have enjoyed "Risky Business" more if I hadn't seen its premise copied and updated by "The Girl Next Door").

Now, I've heard the criticisms about 80s pop culture, but, in my view, the decade produced a remarkable number of mainstream comedies that stand the test of time. Flicks that come to mind include "Planes, Trains and Automobiles," "Farris Bueller's Day Off," "Trading Places," "The Blues Brothers" and of course, "Groundhog Day." One of the reasons I think these movies last is that they tend to couple sarcasm with an essentially optimistic view of the human spirit.

These movies were not generally heavy on political content, it would be a mistake to consider them to be totally sympatico with the "Morning in America" thing going on. The dean in "Animal House" (okay, technically 1979) is basically a Nixon figure. The protagonists in these movies are often savvy, worldly types given to making sarcastic jokes. You could maybe argue that these movies dealt with big issues superficially, but I have yet to see a PSA that hits me like the end of "Planes, Trains..." They aren't perfect or even that elegant, but I think these movies tend to hit on something resonant.

"Groundhog Day," in my view, is one of the best of this genre. Here's an interesting article that talks about how adherents of various religious traditions (Eastern and Western)  find echoes of their philosophies in the film.

Then again, maybe, as a Reagan baby, I'm just being sentimental...

* I used the term "Chicago School" because many of the people involved have Chicago ties (Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, the brothers Belushi, John Landis, John Hughes).  Even some of the relevant Canadians (John Candy, Dan Ackroyd) have ties to the Toronto satellite of Chicago's "Second City" troupe. This also has a useful connotation: the Midwestern and Canadian cultures are stereotyped as earnest. And for those keeping track, they also have strongly Progressive elements.