A striking feature of arguments about "viewpoint diversity" is that the assumed range of viewpoints is that of the US population as a whole, at least as regards social and economic issues. )I don't see anyone, claiming, for example that universities should hire more anarchists.) This version of viewpoint diversity used to be advanced in relation to issues like evolution, where it has largely been abandoned and climate science, where it is certainly in retreat.
But even with respect to social and economic issues, the idea that there is a specifically American range of viewpoints that deserve respect doesn't stand up to even momentary scrutiny. It's entirely appropriate that people who have never been near a university should vote in a democracy, but why should their views on the appropriate content of curriculums and research programs be given any weight.
It takes something that's an actually interesting question--say, for example, why different *disciplines* within the academy or other professions in the wider society should have measurably different political affiliations or alignments--and flattens it into a dully weaponized cudgel that is (on brand) also utterly insincere, since the underlying proposition is a kind of political Harrison Bergeron, where all workplaces and all social institutions must somehow be made utterly, flatly equal to the popular vote count in a national election. As you say, the people making that argument don't really mean to look in the mirror anyway--they only mean "where there are fewer conservatives (as defined by us) there must be more", never "where there is not enough of a *range* of thought, more would be better". You aren't going to hear the complainants about viewpoint diversity insist that there must be more radical anti-capitalists working as petroleum geologists or that car dealerships are lacking in liberals on the sales floor.
I think, for a school with as "liberal" a reputation as Swarthmore, the primary role of professors that I had was to ground my beliefs. If I found myself to be skeptical of an idea or proposition based on a gut feeling, my professors challenged me to support that gut feeling. The result was that I probably, if anything, moved to the right politically. Meanwhile, some of my classmates who came from more right-leaning assumptions inevitably shifted quite a bit to the left, in all likelihood for the same reasons-- doctrinaire right wing views don't stand up to scrutiny very well.
Interestingly, if anything, my professors in political science, where I majored, probably conveyed the least of their personal ideology of any of the non-STEM professors that I had-- I still don't have a clear sense of where many of them aligned politically, and even professors with well-known ideologies didn't tend to foist them upon students; aside from the occasional quip about "demon-crats," Jim Kurth was hardly pushing a dogma, and was quite popular despite being quite a bit out of alignment ideologically from his students.
I think the primary lesson that I got from my time in college was not that professors "indoctrinate" students-- rather it was that reality has a persistent liberal bias. It didn't turn anyone into a Marxist-- Marx was taught in the philosophy department, not the economics department-- in reality, it seemed to turn Marxists and Hayekians alike into... adherents of Paul Krugman.
I gather you recognize a sketch here of a particular person. :) And yes, not a dogma: this is why I mention affect. There are folks who have strong views but a quizzical and indirect affect and that provokes one form of response; folks who have a thunder-and-lightning affect but who are quite uncommitted, and that structures another kind of response.
And I really do think--I really do--that when you teach about the world with some honesty and wonder, that has no preset political intention or outcome in terms of what students do in response.
I suspected that this was the professor you were alluding to, but I wasn't positive. I will say that I didn't find him intimidating; I don't think most of my classmates did either. Though there was certainly quite a bit of bombast to his presentation.
I do also recall quite well that Mark Kuperberg, who was a terrific teacher but much less of a showman, would make occasional somewhat political quips. In particular, he wasn't super impressed at the Dow 36,000 guy, who he taught at Swarthmore a decade or two before I was there. And I do recall a couple of rather more conservative leaning underclassmen remarking that Kuperberg's macroeconomics class had "converted" them, though there wasn't much conversion to speak of-- he was a quite conventional and mainstream economist. Which is what brought to mind the "reality has a liberal bias" observation-- there was nothing bombastic about the presentation or even controversial about the content-- the understated logic is what stuck. On the other hand, the first professor, who was quite bombastic and quite conservative, didn't seem to be doing much "converting"-- the heavily left-leaning student body greatly enjoyed his class, but I don't think many of us came out of it as Huntingtonians.
I think it's less about ideology and more about performativity--e.g., that there are professors in any institution where you just sit back and watch the show, which can be spectacular, but that as a student you don't index your political convictions against the performance; whereas with a professor whose pedagogy is about dialogue inside a classroom that is set aside from the world, you might be defining and transforming your own sense of commitment or affiliation (perhaps not always visibly so in the eyes of the professor).
A striking feature of arguments about "viewpoint diversity" is that the assumed range of viewpoints is that of the US population as a whole, at least as regards social and economic issues. )I don't see anyone, claiming, for example that universities should hire more anarchists.) This version of viewpoint diversity used to be advanced in relation to issues like evolution, where it has largely been abandoned and climate science, where it is certainly in retreat.
But even with respect to social and economic issues, the idea that there is a specifically American range of viewpoints that deserve respect doesn't stand up to even momentary scrutiny. It's entirely appropriate that people who have never been near a university should vote in a democracy, but why should their views on the appropriate content of curriculums and research programs be given any weight.
It takes something that's an actually interesting question--say, for example, why different *disciplines* within the academy or other professions in the wider society should have measurably different political affiliations or alignments--and flattens it into a dully weaponized cudgel that is (on brand) also utterly insincere, since the underlying proposition is a kind of political Harrison Bergeron, where all workplaces and all social institutions must somehow be made utterly, flatly equal to the popular vote count in a national election. As you say, the people making that argument don't really mean to look in the mirror anyway--they only mean "where there are fewer conservatives (as defined by us) there must be more", never "where there is not enough of a *range* of thought, more would be better". You aren't going to hear the complainants about viewpoint diversity insist that there must be more radical anti-capitalists working as petroleum geologists or that car dealerships are lacking in liberals on the sales floor.
I think, for a school with as "liberal" a reputation as Swarthmore, the primary role of professors that I had was to ground my beliefs. If I found myself to be skeptical of an idea or proposition based on a gut feeling, my professors challenged me to support that gut feeling. The result was that I probably, if anything, moved to the right politically. Meanwhile, some of my classmates who came from more right-leaning assumptions inevitably shifted quite a bit to the left, in all likelihood for the same reasons-- doctrinaire right wing views don't stand up to scrutiny very well.
Interestingly, if anything, my professors in political science, where I majored, probably conveyed the least of their personal ideology of any of the non-STEM professors that I had-- I still don't have a clear sense of where many of them aligned politically, and even professors with well-known ideologies didn't tend to foist them upon students; aside from the occasional quip about "demon-crats," Jim Kurth was hardly pushing a dogma, and was quite popular despite being quite a bit out of alignment ideologically from his students.
I think the primary lesson that I got from my time in college was not that professors "indoctrinate" students-- rather it was that reality has a persistent liberal bias. It didn't turn anyone into a Marxist-- Marx was taught in the philosophy department, not the economics department-- in reality, it seemed to turn Marxists and Hayekians alike into... adherents of Paul Krugman.
I gather you recognize a sketch here of a particular person. :) And yes, not a dogma: this is why I mention affect. There are folks who have strong views but a quizzical and indirect affect and that provokes one form of response; folks who have a thunder-and-lightning affect but who are quite uncommitted, and that structures another kind of response.
And I really do think--I really do--that when you teach about the world with some honesty and wonder, that has no preset political intention or outcome in terms of what students do in response.
I suspected that this was the professor you were alluding to, but I wasn't positive. I will say that I didn't find him intimidating; I don't think most of my classmates did either. Though there was certainly quite a bit of bombast to his presentation.
I do also recall quite well that Mark Kuperberg, who was a terrific teacher but much less of a showman, would make occasional somewhat political quips. In particular, he wasn't super impressed at the Dow 36,000 guy, who he taught at Swarthmore a decade or two before I was there. And I do recall a couple of rather more conservative leaning underclassmen remarking that Kuperberg's macroeconomics class had "converted" them, though there wasn't much conversion to speak of-- he was a quite conventional and mainstream economist. Which is what brought to mind the "reality has a liberal bias" observation-- there was nothing bombastic about the presentation or even controversial about the content-- the understated logic is what stuck. On the other hand, the first professor, who was quite bombastic and quite conservative, didn't seem to be doing much "converting"-- the heavily left-leaning student body greatly enjoyed his class, but I don't think many of us came out of it as Huntingtonians.
I think it's less about ideology and more about performativity--e.g., that there are professors in any institution where you just sit back and watch the show, which can be spectacular, but that as a student you don't index your political convictions against the performance; whereas with a professor whose pedagogy is about dialogue inside a classroom that is set aside from the world, you might be defining and transforming your own sense of commitment or affiliation (perhaps not always visibly so in the eyes of the professor).