Academic Conformism is the road to "1984."

The world is filled with conformism and groupthink.  Most people do not wish to think for themselves.  Thinking for oneself is dangerous, requires effort and often leads to rejection by the herd of one's peers.

The profession of arms, the intelligence business, the civil service bureaucracy, the wondrous world of groups like the League of Women Voters, Rotary Club as well as the empire of the thinktanks are all rotten with this sickness, an illness which leads inevitably to stereotyped and unrealistic thinking, thinking that does not reflect reality.

The worst locus of this mentally crippling phenomenon is the world of the academics.  I have served on a number of boards that awarded Ph.D  and post doctoral grants.  I was on the Fulbright Fellowship federal board.  I was on the HF Guggenheim program and executive  boards for a long time.  Those are two examples of my exposure to the individual and collective academic minds.

As a class of people I find them unimpressive. The credentialing exercise in acquiring a doctorate is basically a nepotistic process of sucking up to elders and a crutch for ego support as well as an entrance ticket for various hierarchies, among them the world of the academy. The process of degree acquisition itself requires sponsorship by esteemed academics who recommend candidates who do not stray very far from the corpus of known work in whichever narrow field is involved.   The endorsements from RESPECTED  academics are often decisive in the award of grants.

This process is continued throughout a career in academic research.  PEER REVIEW is the sine qua non for acceptance of a "paper," invitation to career making conferences, or to the Holy of Holies, TENURE.

This life experience  forms and creates CONFORMISTS, people who instinctively boot-lick their fellows in a search for the "Good Doggy" moments that make up their lives.  These people are for sale.  Their price may not be money, but they are still for sale.  They want to be accepted as members of their group.  Dissent leads to expulsion or effective rejection from the group. 

This mentality renders doubtful any assertion that a large group of academics supports any stated conclusion.  As a species academics will say or do anything to be included in their caste.

This makes them inherently dangerous.  They will support any party or parties, of any political inclination if that  group has the money, and the potential or actual power to maintain the academics as a tribe.  pl

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformity

Comments

[A. Pols]

Climate change: "scientific consensus"

[doug]

Sir,

That is the nature of tribes and humans are very tribal. At least most of them. Fortunately, there are outliers. I was recently reading "Political Tribes" which was written by a couple who are both law professors that examines this.

Take global warming (aka the rebranded climate change). Good luck getting grants to do any skeptical research. This highly complex subject which posits human impact is a perfect example of tribal bias.

My success in the private sector comes from consistent questioning what I wanted to be true to prevent suboptimal design decisions.

I also instinctively dislike groups that have some idealized view of "What is to be done?"

As Groucho said: "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member"

[J]

Reminds one of the Borg, doesn't it?

The 'isms' had it, be it Nazism, Fascism, Communism, Totalitarianism, Elitism all demand conformity and adherence to group think. If one does not co-tow to whichever 'ism' is at play, those outside their group think are persecuted, ostracized, jailed, and executed all because they defy their conformity demands, and defy allegiance to them.

One world, one religion, one government, one Borg. all lead down the same road to -- Orwell's 1984.

[Factotum]

David Halberstam: The Best and the Brightest. (Reminder how the heck we got into Vietnam, when the best and the brightest were serving as presidential advisors.)

Also good Halberstam re-read: The Powers that Be - when the conservative media controlled the levers of power; not the uber-liberal one we experience today.

[fotokemist]

Col.,

You nailed it. Just as spontaneous natural processes tend toward disorder, human activity seems to tend toward corruption. Keep up the good work.

[J]

Colonel

What do you think about this one

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/federal-court-oks-virginia-redistricting-plan/2019/02/14/2c2832a0-3090-11e9-813a-0ab2f17e305b_story.html

[J]

Appears that NYC's Michael Bloomberg bought Virginia politics

https://www.nraila.org/articles/20191125/bloomberg-bought-virginia-legislators-introduce-confiscatory-gun-ban

[J]

Virginia rural areas are rushing to protect themselves from the leftist Democrats legislation against them

https://www.virginiamercury.com/2019/11/20/were-going-to-have-to-defend-ourselves-after-democratic-victories-rural-virginia-counties-rush-to-declare-themselves-gun-sanctuaries/

[turcopolier]

J

One more indication that Virginia is gone forever into the Blue group.

[Babak Makkinejad]

If you are mediocre, in any place, you will prosper since you are not a threat to anyone.

If you are a genious, you will propser as you are untouchable by the ocean of mediocrity.

If you are brilliant, but not genious, you will not prosper.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Happy is the man who has no imagination, for he is saved, as the Medieval Christians believed.

[Vegetius]

How long ago was your last academic experience? My understanding is that in the liberal arts it has basically become a long struggle session. Basically if you are a straight white male you keep your head down and think in secret, like Winston Smith.

The answer to a lot of this is simple: end all federal funding to any public institution any part of which has speech codes more restrictive than settled law with regard to the First Amendment.

Trump could have done this his first day in office, and he actually tweeted about it once. But no.

[wtofd]

Nassim Taleb, of Black Swan fame, talks about this phenomenon in Skin in the Game. He also writes convincingly, if briefly, about the radical Sunni threat and Americans confusing the Shia as the global threat. Worthwhile.

[artemesia]

Gotta laugh or you'll cry
Talk about group-think:
First comment: 12:58 pm
Second comment: 1:01 pm
Third comment: 1:22 pm

24 minutes and WE HAVE A WINNER: "Nazism & Fascism are . . ."

Gee Mr. Wilson, what stunningly independent thinking. How 'thinking-outside-the-History-Channel-box"ish.

[Patrick Armstrong]

The best description of a PhD that I can think of came from a tailor. He had learned his trade in Germany and, when he was ready to become a master, the local guild gave him a task -- to make a morning suit from start to finish, every bit done by him. Then they tore it apart checking everything and decided that he had the ability to be ranked as a master tailor. That's all a PhD thesis is: proof that you can do the whole research and writing thing.
However, I believe that of late it has more and more become an exercise in showing that you are a loyal acolyte of whatever school your supervisor belongs to. I conclude this from younger PhDs I met at work.
Mine dates, BTW, from 1976 and I am amused to see (everything's on the Net these days) that there has been a (modest) uptick in demand. But an exercise that, when I started work for the govt, probably got me more starting money and gave a useful title in a military-dominated world where everyone had a title. "Doctor" being impressive enough but usefully vague.
All irrelevant these days and no relation, BTW, to Russia (Just as well since most Russia/Soviet teachers in the English-speaking world seem to hate Russia and all that it has ever done.)

[Patrick Armstrong]

Requirements, IMO are 1) a certain amount of intelligence but not all that much 2) some luck (your supervisor shouldn't die, someone else shouldn't beat you to it, your examiners shouldn't take a scunner to you or your supervisor) 3, and probably most important, sitzfleisch: the ability to nail your bum to the chair and plow through it. And, also important, to know when to stop.

(an absurdly long process in N American it seems, years and years and years. I got mine in the UK -- write the thesis and that's it)

[Terence Gore]

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/attack-on-1619-project-socialists/

Dreher's article on the 1619 project of the NY TIMES where there is an effort to re frame the history of the US in the context of slavery. He quotes World Socialist Web Site's view on the 'movement'. From the WSWS editorial

"Despite the pretense of establishing the United States’ “true” foundation, the 1619 Project is a politically motivated falsification of history. Its aim is to create a historical narrative that legitimizes the effort of the Democratic Party to construct an electoral coalition based on the prioritizing of personal “identities”—i.e., gender, sexual preference, ethnicity, and, above all, race."

Dreher picks out a part of an interview that relates to the new academic conformity

"The reflection of identity politics in the curriculum is the primacy of cultural history. There was a time, a long, long time ago, when a “diverse history faculty” meant that you had an economic historian, a political historian, a social historian, a historian of the American Revolution, of the Civil War, and so on. And now a diverse history faculty means a women’s historian, a gay historian, a Chinese-American historian, a Latino historian. So it’s a completely different kind of diversity.

On a global scale the benefit of this has been tremendous. We have more—and we should have more—African history, Latin American history, Asian history, than we ever have. Within US history it has produced narrow faculties in which everybody is basically writing the same thing. And so you don’t bump into the economic historian at the mailbox and say “Is it true that all the wealth came from slavery,” and have them say, “that’s ridiculous,” and explain why it can’t be true."

Those who control the past...

[Diana C]

I'm not sure I agree with you about the Medieval Christians having no imagination. Chaucer's pilgrims were all interesting characters. Perhaps they weren't all brilliant or virtuous, but they were, as Chaucer created them, all INDIVIDUALS.

I try not to make judgments about medieval Muslims. I simply have had not chance to learn much about them; so I try not to lump them all together in my mind.

[Diana C]

I am sad to agree with the points made in this post.

I find it a little frightening to think about what might happen to our country if academia continues on this course.

However, as a person who dropped out of a doctoral program because it just wasn't in me to interpret all assigned readings as a Marxist or a totally wacky feminist who feels men and women might not be of the same species, I just decided not to get a doctorate and dropped out of the program. I've been happier for it.

Later, I watched as friends, family members, and their various friends and family members who realized the absolute worthlessness of public education nowadays in NEA controlled schools turned to home schooling, charter schools, and various other alternate ways of providing an actual education for their children.

I've met many of the children of these parents and am often quite pleased with the fact that for the most part they are individuals who can speak and think freely and are happy to be finding their way in the world doing what they want to do.

I hope more and more parents like these young people's parents break away from the public NEA option. There are many very good choices for educating our children to become real individual people who contribute in their individual ways to a vial economy and society.

I am counting on God, Who is Good and Loving to make this current state of affairs temporary in the long lifetime of this world. I give it to God, as they say, and I do not mourn my not ever getting that doctorate--a dream I had as a young girl. Not having it doesn't mean I can't still read and study and think on my own.

[Babak Makkinejad]

After 1200, Muslims ran out of steam, encouraged & advised by their so-called Thinkers to conform the Law and thus guarantee their After Life. What is more important: Knowledge or Faith? Athens or zJerusalem? If your innovation causes you to go astray, discard it.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Liberal Arts education has been made available to the masses: they do not understand it, appreciate, need it, or can even use it. A very small percentage of mankind is suited for that kind of education. It is almost criminal negligence to have expanded it so much.

[Babak Makkinejad]

See here please for an example

https://youtu.be/uRIKJCKWla4

[Mathias Alexander]

I expect group think works out fine for hunter-gatherers.

[Paul Robinson]

Much of what I write could well be considered 'non-conformist', but I've never encountered any problems in academia because of it. In fact, being a professor gives one the security which makes one confident enough to be non-conformist. Sweeping generalizations are unhelpful.

[turcopolier]

Paul Robinson

No. Sweeping generalizations are quite helpful because they express opinions about behavior in general. As for you, you may have tenure but if you start saying things like, "Bigfoot is real," you will find yourself largely ostracized. Actually academics prefer extremely narrow foci for studies because the possibility of conflict among them is thereby reduced,