Many academics I see online are leftist whereas many laypeople I see online are right wing.
There are plenty of right wing academics but they are a minority. It probably varies by field too. In the core sciences that minority is probably the smallest and is greater in the humanities. My professor was a right wing scientist and we often clashed on values. I felt sorry for him at times because it would be his point of view Vs the entire research group. He is fundamentally a good person that can hold illogical and contradictory opinions that felt like they were emotionally based.
Current STEM researcher who also happened to have met a few academics on the right side of the political spectrum… I am very qualified to speak about this I hope. I’ll try to use as unbiased language as possible
First of all, you are correct. It is generally true that most academics are left-leaning (obligatory not all, but you get the point)
In general, higher education attainment is associated with being left-leaning: academia is known to have extreme levels of education attainment (many jobs require a PhD). On top of it, academic jobs reward intellectual curiosity, do not tend to pay super well, tend to heavily rely on governmental funding… all of these are traditionally more associated with the political left or left-leaning. Still, there very much are right-leaning academics, they just don’t tend to scream around a lot about it
There are notable exceptions however. Economics is quite famous for being politically balanced, although what economics treat as left/right-leaning might be a bit different from the general public. If I remember, business schools (yes there are business professors!) tend to be more right-leaning. This is a smaller field and a bit more anecdotal, but quite a few prominent meta-science researchers are right-wing nutjobs: the “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False” guy and the NIH director Bhattacharya guy are both COVID deniers
There are also fringe scientists as some others have mentioned, but most people within their fields don’t consider fringe scientists as part of the academia so to speak
There was an HIV denier at NIH in the 90s but no one remembers his name. There are plenty of right wing MDs and scientist in pharma.
Damn, I am right leaning but I do not deny COVID. Interesting though. I also noticed that in Computer Science too, there are a lot of right wing people, especially these days being pro-AI is often a symbol of being right wing.
First of all: you’re good! I think there are lots of centrist and right-leaning people in academia who are doing just fine; especially in the US lots of world-class unis are in deeply conservative areas too. Most of academia don’t discuss politics that much at all as long as one cares about science. I’d wager the political leaning bias is more from a population bias rather than systematic discrimination of any sort
I could imagine AI researchers being more right-leaning yeah. The stats I got were from personal anecdote and research being done about this a short while back… there might have been an update in the AI age
There are fewer right-wingers in academia, and they tend to work at schools with right-wing orientations. Turns out reality has a liberal bias.
what do you mean when you say “reality has a liberal bias”? I have heard another person saying that too but I did not get that.
It means most things hardline conservatives are angry or paranoid about are misperceptions, not realities. For example, most people who are different from you aren’t out to get you.
The reason that there are less ‘right wing’ people in academia is that academia usually involves research and understanding of the world and its systems and most ‘right wing’ opinions do not hold up to investigation. So, therefore, reality itself appears to have a liberal bias as opposed to admitting you’re wrong about anything.
That’s the root of it, basically.
For the record, I agree with the statement, for what it’s worth.
The meaning of that phrase about “liberal bias” is reflected in things like the rich exploiting the poor and polluting the earth, “liberal” viewpoint but true in reality. Or the rich manipulating elections and using the military to further imperialism, leftist “opinions” but verifiable in reality.
That’s the thing about right-wing populism. It relies on primitive instincts. It’s a baseline. It requires no effort.
Rich people are smarter, otherwise they wouln’t be rich. No don’t tax them, they worked so much harder than anyone else to get there! Taxing them will only punish the imaginative and the resourceful, while incentivising the lazy and the worthless. I blame the immigrants because they work harder and for less money, and it’s their fault that I also have to work harder for less! We need one more lane, that would relieve the traffic so much!
These takes always seem super OBVIOUS at first, and if you never bother revising them - you’ll just be stuck with them. The longer you live with them, the firmer you’ll latch onto them.
That’s why it’s so crucial for the rightwingers to dismantle the education system. They need you to be ignorant. Take things face-value.
Yeah I have seen it myself that many right wingers don’t like the education system and they would glorify “the past”.
In academia you are trained to not accept any claim without adequate evidence. Look at left wing claims vs. right wing ones and show me one that has better evidence on the right.
Being an academic means being open minded because when researching something, the outcome may be different from what you expected. In such cases do you concede that your initial theory was wrong or do you stubbornly continue to believe that you were right and keep trying to prove yourself correct?
I’m sure there are some academics who are right wing and some uneducated people who are left wing. But for the most part it is generally true that academics are more likely to be left wing. To put it rudely, stupid people generally believe right wing talking points. Right wing worldview is full of contradictions an uneducated beliefs. People who are curious and bother to educate themselves about the issues are generally more likely to be left wing. Than again, I am left wing so of course I’m going to be biased towards believing left wing views are smart
I initially was right but now am reconsidering that stance.
Reality has a left wing bias. They exist though and they’re infuriating.
Depends on what you call “academics”. If you mistake phrase shifter courses like “business administration”, “politics”, or “law” as academic, then yes.
Nah not that specifically. I meant like in social sciences and humanities (other fields are welcome but my main motive was these fields).
Social sciences and humanities are a classic leftist field. And MINT scientists are usually too smart to be right wingers.
what is MINT? I am in STEM but I adore the people in social sciences and humanities. Sadly, humanities is dying especially in my country. Barely anyone wants to read social sciences and humanities, as we are a developing country and also just want money
MINT Mathematics, Information science, Natural sciences, and Technology.
There are, but they often kicked out of academia pretty quickly because academic universties dont want to be associated with these people because it discredits the Universities reputation, by providing pseudoscientific beliefs.
J peterson, recently SABINE from youtube, you dint mentioned failed academics too, MDs like she claims she was “ousted from academia in germany, because shes a women” but it was actually are far right views(funded by friends of thiel), and then another one that claims " being a POC played a part why they are not “smart” enough for certian jobs, because they have tendancy towards not being intelligent.
so these people become “influencers” for the far right. when i was in CC, one of my gen bio prof told us that she had a student that was christian, and she was only giving answers on HW/tests as “GOD did it”. nevertheless, they had to drop out of COLLEGE.
if there was, they would have to constantly challenge the research, studies out there in academia that contradicts them. theres no way they stay in academia, and thier “own” research is based entirely on assumptions and outdated research.
It depends on the country, but there’s a self-preservation aspect to academics leaning left. In the USA especially but not exclusively a major right-wing policy point has been defunding academia and publicly-funded research in general. Unless you’re in a field that can reliably pull private funding, such as some branches of the oft-mentioned economics, voting and sharing right-wing talking points carries a major risk of getting your funding cut and leaving you without a job.
The causality could also be that those who see the value of studying something to gain a good understanding are simply more willing to spend money on furthering our understanding, and of course if you think science is valuable, you’re happy to take such a job and feel like you’re doing meaningful work. Those people would vote for parties that align with their existing worldview before they ever considered working for governmental grant money, and probably keep that belief regardless of it
In my country, there is barely any left wing.
It depends on the source of academia.
There are a lot of sources beyond universities that do research, including various public policy research institutes or think tanks. They have a spectrum of different ideologies, but a lot of them tend to go more conservative as a lot of them rely on private funding and rich people like having studies which back up their views. If you’re a leftist and need a patron to find your research, it is more likely you’re going to find a government patron than a private patron. If you’re a conservative, you’ll probably find more money in private organizations to perform your research.
They are fewer than those who lean left but they are there. And typically they tend more toward moderation that extremism. Quintessentially, they’re moderate to liberal conservatives. Often times you’ll find them more in business and economics related fields.
The main reason being that exposure typically gets a person to come out of their highly conservative nature and education as well to better understand how the world operates. It’s not a 100% thing as there are occasional reactionaries in positions of scientific note but they’re few.
There are many conservative universities and colleges in the US and all of the ones I know about are heavily tied to some religion.
- Liberty University is right wing as fuck and was founded by Jerry Fallwell. It was originally called Lynchburg Baptist university.
- Baylor is a right wing Baptist University
- Brigham Young University is right wing and part of the Mormon Church
- I suspect that other than the US Coast Guard Academy all Military academies and universities in the US are Right Wing as Fuck.
are u talking about their academics too or just the overall environment in those universities?
Both. Those all schools are all about their codes of conduct.
At Uni i sometimes wished for a rightwing person just to debate things. Everyone agreed on most issues,so there we’re rarely spicy debates.
For debate, I’d be willing to take a different position.
I do this sometimes on Lemmy. “I’m with you on Sony and disc games, but here are the arguments their lawyers would make about it…”
I get annoyed when someone posts a “side” I agree with, but uses a complete zero-thought, easily-defeated argument to defend it. A classic one is “If buying isn’t owning, then pirating isn’t stealing.”
Where I live, it is very rare to see left wing person. One of my classmate is so we just keep on debating on literally everything (I am kinda center-right) and it is the most fun thing I do in my university.
In my urban development class, someone said that clearing junkies out of the subway stations was a form of gentrification, which got nods and finger snaps from the class. I said that was the dumbest thing i ever heard,which got some tuts from everyone. The point is, it would have been interesting to hear her debate that point, make some arguments in favour,and then counter those from different perspectives,but the range wasn’t there.




