The Diploma Divide: How Education Shapes Our Political Landscape
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- Опубліковано 12 бер 2024
- With the changing 'diploma divide,' what does the new correlation between education and party affiliation tell us about American politics? Today, we're joined by the insightful Diana Mutz as we explore the intriguing shifts within the ideological landscape of higher education and its broader implications for American politics.
Universities, once beacons of diverse thought, appear now as battlegrounds of ideological conformity. In this episode of Heterodox Out Loud, we explore the complexities surrounding political tolerance and the evolving correlation between education and party affiliation, known as the "diploma divide." Join us as we seek to understand the consequences of democratic dialogue and free speech.
In This Episode:
The Ideological Shift in University Faculties
The Impact of Academic Environments on Students
Workplace Politics and Social Homogeneity
Political Polarization and the Public Sphere
Education's Role in Political Tolerance and Expression
Changing Support for Free Expression Among Political Groups
The Relationship Between Higher Education and Political Leadership
"The Diploma Divide" and Its Implications
About Diana:
Diana C. Mutz, Ph.D. holds the Samuel A. Stouffer Chair in Political Science and Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, where she also serves as Director of the Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics. She is also a Faculty Fellow at the HxA Center for Academic Pluralism (2023-24). Mutz has published many books and articles on public opinion, political psychology, and the media, focusing on how people are exposed to differing political perspectives. In 2021, she was inducted to the National Academy of Sciences. Research Topic: Hearing the Other Side in an Era of Mass Polarization.
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I knew something had really tipped in 2020... when teachers and parents in my neighborhood organized a childrens sidewalk chalk activity. Amongst a two block long stretch, a common repeated message was "silence is violence".
I really enjoyed listening to Dr. Mutz and it was helpful to get confirmation on a number of observations I have had over the years. It is disturbing that we are at a point where we will not hear what the other side has to say. And worse, where we often don't even let the other side speak at all. More than anything, it was gratifying to hear that, as an independent, I am more tolerant than members of the political parties.🙂 I look forward to seeing her new book that was mentioned "Hearing the Other Side in an Era of Mass Polarization" when it comes out.
Very pleased to hear from Diana Mutz.
Her 2006 book (Hearing the other Side) greatly helped broaden and inform my thinking, but so much has happened since. Careful and useful academic approach and presentation!
I read her prior book about the same time I read Bill Bishops " Big Sort" and could see problems ahead, but had no appreciation of magnitude.
Although being educated had been an invitation to tolerance, my experience at college while teaching for 15 years was that it leaned harder left every successive year and became increasingly intolerant. I spent 9 years as a parliamentarian for shared governance where things were civil but those who leaned left had most of the control and those who leaned right had to “fight harder” and seemed to feel at times ignored. Over the years I found myself becoming increasingly unimpressed with both sides of the aisle. I also became more strongly independent and socially became openly critical of both sides.
I take you to be saying that both sides have become more extreme, more polarized, more dogmatic (?). The impetus must be multifactorial, but which pressures do you think predominate?
@@Guy-Lewis I am not sure, but it seems to me many people are feeling desperate, are stressed, are busy, and are relying on notions they have not even thought through because they hope loyalty to their party is our only way to a meaningful future.
I agree --- your description of the mood du jour rings true. Why, though? I am old enough to have lived through the Cold War, widespread conflicts, and a series of recessions, but I don't recall people's being so despondent. It's as though young people are unaware that anything was ever difficult before they were born. Astonishingly, even though the internet presents us with autodidactic opportunities, algorithmic bubbles ensure that subgroups are locked into alternate
"realities".@@RobertWGreaves
Revolutions are fought by the out of power zealots
They have nothing to lose
@@Guy-Lewis why? I can’t pretend to know all the dynamics at work, but I can think of a few. There was a time when both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party had liberals and conservatives in the same party. There was also a time when there were only three major television networks. Then as cable became far more common, we started getting cable news organizations that leaned exclusively in one direction or the other. As a result, loyalty and news source habits became far more polarized. People are no longer listening to comments from both sides. They’re simply regurgitating the mantras that get little pushback.
I can give two major reasons why the academy has moved strongly to the left, neither of which complements academia. As a conservative Ph.D. student in English at the University of Virginia in the early 1980s, I welcomed exposure to Marxist readings of literature, which I found both ubiquitous and interesting. But while Marx was a pretty good sociologist, he was a very poor economist. I was intrigued by the possibility of reading literature with a countervailing neo-liberal economic perspective. Since the economics would be better grounded, the literary critique held promise to be at least as and probably more insightful than the Marxist critique that was so widely embraced. But it was entirely clear, even then, that I would not be able to publish literary criticism grounded in neoclassical economic theory because the overwhelmingly leftist reviewers would not accept articles written with market friendly "right-leaning" premises. It would be career suicide to focus my research on classically liberal criticism.
The second point is this. From the 1920s through the 1970s, faculty with communist or even socialist leanings were in danger of losing their jobs because the powers that be were likely to pressure administrators to dismiss leftist faculty. As the 60s radicals entered and totally captures academia during the 70s, 80s, and 90s, as it became much more perilous for a right-leaning speaker to come to campus than for a left-leaning speaker to do so, the left lost interest in protecting speech deemed offensive because it was no longer they who were out of the academic main stream. Once ensconced in power, leftists were all too happy to create speech codes and to exercise heckler vetoes that limited right-leaning discourse. In short, their advocacy of free speech proved to be no principled but tactical. Marcuse's advocacy of "repressive tolerance," tolerance only for "liberatory" words and ideas, e.g., politically correct expression let the cat out of the bag early on.
Is not education, it’s indoctrination
Very different
But has the same clothing and veneer
What about the truth? Was Marxist economics really completely inaccurate, if so, why were unions popular, and today why do many professional occupations belong to unions. Although a left-right difference exists, the effects of policy and practices should not be due to propaganda. Classical (neo) Liberalism is criticizable.
My observation: It flipped when organizations went overboard with affirmative action programs. The Caucasian majority felt very much left out. The election of president Obama was the nail in the coffin. Thank you.
I just opened a fortune cookie that says, “We find comfort among those who agree with us- and growth among those who don’t.” I add that if we crave only comfort, in the end we’ll get neither.
On why faculty is more progressive? A generation ago I got a PhD from an elite program and applied for many tenure positions in social science departments. I never got one, even though I was a finalist for 8 positions. Why? I was told by faculty for 5 of those jobs they were under pressure to hire a women. So, a generation ago they were selecting for women, most of whom shared their progressive viewpoints. Now a generation of professors have been selected for agreement with these illegal hiring processes in order to increase female or minority professoriate.
Colleges started selling out and giving ridiculous degrees to people who aren't very smart. So a college degree is not what it once was. The divide now has government on the democrat side and non government on the republican side. Non government sees little value in anything but a tech or stem degree. And government jobs often require advanced degrees including teaching. These degrees have turned perfunctory, their only value is government career advancement.
22:47 oh we see the cross cutting view
But we also see it’s bad and act accordingly
This academic analysis is still framing as if it’s educational institution and not a political engine
Academics mourn the loss of their cathedral
Denial is not a just a River in Egypt
The colleges are a not education any more and will be seen as obsolete within 10 years and irrelevant
19:48 are you sure it’s high quality information? Or just very refined indoctrination?
28:48 that’s the industrial level indoctrination of the modern university
Educated 5:56 or indoctrinated?
George Carlin said it's a big club your no in the ivy league
All these kinds of discussions coming from academia is why we will have a violent decade ahead
You solved nothing except create the violent backlash coming for all this bs
50:41
Do college demographic changes over the last 50 years provide any clues to correlation if not causation? Are the changes most pronounced around certain departments or specializations, and, if so, what do those departments have in common?