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Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

nytimes.com

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Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#51

Post by Sir_Substance »

flashman wrote: post #30
random_upvoter wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the real answer is closer to "it's easy to be tolerant and broad-minded if you don't feel threatened". You're answer boils down to "because liberals are right and the others are wrong". But there isn't really such a thing as a wrong political opinion. People's political choices are based on their experience of the world. The whole premise of democracy is that if you take the mean of everybody's personal exper…

> You're answer boils down to "because liberals are right and the others are wrong" I disagree. I read the OP's answer as, "The more education you have, the more you're prepared to accept the possibility that you're wrong." This leads to a greater acceptance of viewpoints (or at least the right to hold them) which you don't necessarily agree with, which is basically liberalism in a nutshell.

>"The more education you have, the more you're prepared to accept the possibility that you're wrong."

I've never met or seen anyone who self-identifies with a specific political label who was willing to accept they might be wrong.

That includes liberals. To be honest, the inability to consider alternative viewpoints is an attribute I associate strongly with liberals in particular.

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#52

Post by 13years »

tempestn wrote: post #14
raverbashing wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However it seems the majority of anti-vaxxers are liberals

The fact that most highly educated are liberal doesn't imply that most liberals are highly educated. I would guess (and hope) that most anti-vaxers are not highly educated, liberal or not.

Yet Silicon Valley has been noted as having disproportionately low vaccination rates.

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/closer-look-silicon-valleys-dis...

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#53

Post by drexel »

zxcvcxz wrote: post #33

Just like to point out the members of the T9 lean libertarian. https://web.archive.org/web/20150226234712/http://www.triple... T9 (Triple 9) is a high IQ society similar to Mensa, but which only accepts members whose IQ is in the .999 percentile. It's a non-scientific poll, but in my experience while lots of my college friends were liberal, lots of my professors and the smartest people I know lean libertarian.

Also the more economics courses you take, the more likely you are to vote GOP:

https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff...

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#54

Post by brbsix »

blowski wrote: post #18

And I guess the converse question which has vexed socialists for decades - why do so many of the poor vote for centre-right, business-friendly parties? For example, why did so many working class people vote for Thatcher in UK in the 1980s? Why are they not massively in favour of Jeremy Corbyn right now? I'm not saying it's irrational. But sometimes it's odd to hear people who need the government to subsidise their mi…

I vote in accordance with my principles, even if it is against my immediate self-interest. Perhaps they are doing the same.

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#55

Post by petewailes »

gaius wrote: post #28
petewailes wrote: post #3

Pithy answer: because you aren't going to be afraid of something when you understand that it's not something you need to fear. When you have a simple world view, nuance is always going to escape you. An educated person can understand that the world isn't simple, which will lead to a more liberal view, as liberal views tend to be based on the assumption that angry, narrow world view responses aren't a good thing. Some…

because you aren't going to be afraid of something when you understand that it's not something you need to fear Such as a highly educated media worker, has no fear of the factory closing because the company has found somewhere with lower taxes and relaxed pollution laws? This is the appeal of Trump: he is the only candidate who doesn't want to send his demographics jobs offshore. It absolutely makes perfect sense for…

Or maybe the factory closing is a net benefit long term. Was losing millions of jobs in the farming sector a bad thing? Or the automation of the glass industry in the 1930's and 1940's that increased production and cleaned up emissions? Is the move to driverless vehicles and what that'll do to the logistics industry bad?

There's lots of examples of people losing jobs. That's sad for the individual, but long term it's generally good for the country. It'd be easy to say no to those forms of progress that hurt workers, but it'd be the wrong decision in the long run.

No-one said making the right choice has to be victimless, or that the wrong one has to be hard.

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#56

Post by newacct23 »

hellofunk wrote: post #50
newacct23 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The article defines highly educated as people with advanced degrees. They are not academics Definition from article: >But the most highly educated Americans — those who have attended graduate or professional school — are starting to come together as a political bloc. Doctors make up 1/3 of a percent of the US population (they don't necessarily have Phds) http://www.wisegeek.org/what-percent-of-the-us-population-do..…

Doctors are also among the highest-paid members of American society and, along with wealthy financial professionals, you will typically find them siding more with the Republican Party often out of concern for their tax bracket.

I modified my main post with some more evidence in support of my theory which I'm posting here so you can see it as a response.

Professors in humanities that identify as Republican range from 6 to 11 percent.

Social Sciences 7 and 9 percent

2% of English professors are Republican.

Meanwhile 18% of social scientists are Marxists.

This evidence leads me to believe that Academics self select to be liberal and that people with a conservative mindset do not find academia appealing for whatever reason. The reason I rule it has little to do with intelligence of the groups is the prevalence of Marxism amongst academics. Intelligent people that use evidence to reason about their beliefs wouldn't be Marxist.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confessio...

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#57

Post by blowski »

unlinker wrote: post #44
blowski wrote: post #18

And I guess the converse question which has vexed socialists for decades - why do so many of the poor vote for centre-right, business-friendly parties? For example, why did so many working class people vote for Thatcher in UK in the 1980s? Why are they not massively in favour of Jeremy Corbyn right now? I'm not saying it's irrational. But sometimes it's odd to hear people who need the government to subsidise their mi…

I guess they found out liberal economical policies lead to unemployment, and the poor loathe unemployment. By the way Corbyn is a very bad example. He's a walking train wreck.

Your comment about Corbyn is essentially tautology - he's unelectable because he's unelectable. Why? Why don't the working class want a leader who's promising to end policies which continue to hit the working class the hardest?

And why do the poor loathe unemployment? Why don't they loathe being poor more than being unemployed? Working minimum wage on zero-hour contracts means they're still poor.

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#58

Post by blowski »

brbsix wrote: post #54
blowski wrote: post #18

And I guess the converse question which has vexed socialists for decades - why do so many of the poor vote for centre-right, business-friendly parties? For example, why did so many working class people vote for Thatcher in UK in the 1980s? Why are they not massively in favour of Jeremy Corbyn right now? I'm not saying it's irrational. But sometimes it's odd to hear people who need the government to subsidise their mi…

I vote in accordance with my principles, even if it is against my immediate self-interest. Perhaps they are doing the same.

Why do you have those principles?

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#59

Post by ZeroGravitas »

gaius wrote: post #28
petewailes wrote: post #3

Pithy answer: because you aren't going to be afraid of something when you understand that it's not something you need to fear. When you have a simple world view, nuance is always going to escape you. An educated person can understand that the world isn't simple, which will lead to a more liberal view, as liberal views tend to be based on the assumption that angry, narrow world view responses aren't a good thing. Some…

because you aren't going to be afraid of something when you understand that it's not something you need to fear Such as a highly educated media worker, has no fear of the factory closing because the company has found somewhere with lower taxes and relaxed pollution laws? This is the appeal of Trump: he is the only candidate who doesn't want to send his demographics jobs offshore. It absolutely makes perfect sense for…

> he is the only candidate who doesn't want to send his demographics jobs offshore

Or at least he'll say that.

Whether he'll a) change his mind the next day, b) have any feasible plan to implement this, c) whether it's actually a net-positive for his demographic, d) whether he supports a bunch of other things that will hurt this demographic are all less clear.

I mean this is a man who manufactures stuff in China himself (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-admits-gear-made...).

Why not just increase sales tax and then give it to American union members if buying votes by subsidising them is a good strategy? It's basically the same thing, but it seems a lot less "American" to be honest about it.

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