Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 229 posts

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#161

Post by mindcrime »

lake99 wrote: post #157
vowelless wrote: post #75

This has always confused me. There are some rich texts based on beautiful rigor on the side of the conservatives like freidman and Hayek. Goldwater also approaches things in a very principled manner. Arthur brooks' latest book is similar. On the other than, I have not come across any liberal text, yet, that makes a good convincing case for liberalism. I would love to get some recommendations. I'm interested in princi…

Your post confuses me, no offense intended. Friedman and Hayek called themselves liberals, not conservatives. The American progressive movement co-opted the word "liberalism". Before that, they called themselves "progressives". Is that what you're looking for? Todd8's comment below confuses me for the same reason. Rawls could be considered to be on the US-left. The other people he mentioned, except Gross and Levitt,…

Your post confuses me, no offense intended.

Hopefully vowelless won't take offense, because that's probably just a side-effect of how overloaded (and thus meaningless) words like "liberal" and "conservative" and "right" and "left" are in modern American politics. Modern "liberals" are more properly "progressives" (or something), the actual liberals are mostly people who call themselves "libertarian" and "conservatives" are split between the uneducated redneck snake handling fundamentalist types, and the more educated, "fiscally conservative, small government" types. And I'm sure somebody will shoot all sorts of holes in what I just said, which just furthers my point. It's hard to talk about any of this stuff, because we don't have a consistent lingo.

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#162

Post by unprepare »

newacct23 wrote: post #31
pron wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article defines highly educated as people with advanced degrees. They are not academics. I doubt anyone would classify the general population of all college graduates (i.e. from all colleges) in the US as highly educated.

>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 make up 1/3 of a percent of the US population

>1.68% of Americans have a Phd

If you mean medical doctors you should specify that, Doctors has a different meaning especially within the context of post graduate degree holders.

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#163

Post by wl »

rimantas wrote: post #109
gjulianm wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this comment to be borderline insulting, even when my political views are very liberal. Basically, what I read in your comment (maybe I'm misreading it) is that not having a liberal view means that the person does not understand the world, has an angry response, ignores the complexities of life and does not understand anything. So, instead of just trying to understand what do these people think, feel and fear…

Yes, religion in the same bucket (and largely responsible for the existence of the bucket itself). Why look for answers when they all are in THE BOOK? > A degree just gives you knowledge in a specific area, and > does not make anyone more intelligent just by having it. In many (most?) cases a degree also means that you became familiar and aquired skills needed for problems solving and answer finding. And even if raw…

> Why look for answers when they all are in THE BOOK?

That's hardly representative of most fundamentalist Christians, let alone religious people generally.

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#164

Post by harrumph »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #160
fab13n wrote: post #72

I'm an upper-middle class, over-educated professional expert, and I'm strongly liberal for selfish reasons: mostly, I want to live in a climate of social peace, and would prefer to be surrounded by people who foster a mood of solidarity and benevolence, rather than a cut-throat and ever-worsening competitive mindset. So sure, one way is to protect myself and those I love behind a gated community. But that's pretty mu…

You actually sound more like a social-democrat than a liberal. Liberals do not refer to property as a mere social construct.

" Liberals do not refer to property as a mere social construct."

Excellent point. Liberals are de facto capitalists.

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#165

Post by dragonwriter »

lake99 wrote: post #157
vowelless wrote: post #75

This has always confused me. There are some rich texts based on beautiful rigor on the side of the conservatives like freidman and Hayek. Goldwater also approaches things in a very principled manner. Arthur brooks' latest book is similar. On the other than, I have not come across any liberal text, yet, that makes a good convincing case for liberalism. I would love to get some recommendations. I'm interested in princi…

Your post confuses me, no offense intended. Friedman and Hayek called themselves liberals, not conservatives. The American progressive movement co-opted the word "liberalism". Before that, they called themselves "progressives". Is that what you're looking for? Todd8's comment below confuses me for the same reason. Rawls could be considered to be on the US-left. The other people he mentioned, except Gross and Levitt,…

> Friedman and Hayek called themselves liberals, not conservatives.

True.

> The American progressive movement co-opted the word "liberalism".

No, they didn't. For quite some time, the American left [0] (called "liberal" dominantly for some decades, some adopted the moniker "progressive" when it was perceived that the right had created bad associations with "liberal" a few decades ago, but with very little in common, in terms of ideas, with the older progressive movement, either in terms of substantive ideology, policy preference, or contemporary relative left-right position), right (usually called "conservative"), and libertarian political camps have all been dominated by, or at least significantly shaped by, ideas that trace back, in different ways, to 18th century liberalism and its struggles against 18th century conservatives. And all three have adherents who claim that their group is the proper heir to classical liberalism.

[0] relatively speaking, before anyone makes the common argument that by international standards, the US has virtually no left, with the major parties ranging from center-right (Democrats) to far right (Republicans).

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#166

Post by wl »

dragonwriter wrote: post #159
rimantas wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, religion in the same bucket (and largely responsible for the existence of the bucket itself). Why look for answers when they all are in THE BOOK? > A degree just gives you knowledge in a specific area, and > does not make anyone more intelligent just by having it. In many (most?) cases a degree also means that you became familiar and aquired skills needed for problems solving and answer finding. And even if raw…

> Yes, religion in the same bucket (and largely responsible for the existence of the bucket itself). Why look for answers when they all are in THE BOOK? Within Christianity (much less religion more generally), the idea that the answers are all "in the book" (the doctrine of sola scriptura ) is a doctrine of a distinct subset of the larger body of believers.

The doctrine of sola scriptura does not mean all the answers are in the Bible. It means that when it comes to issues of faith and morals, the Bible is authoritative above all else. The doctrine makes no claim that the Bible contains everything anyone would ever need to know.

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#167

Post by panglott »

lake99 wrote: post #157
vowelless wrote: post #75

This has always confused me. There are some rich texts based on beautiful rigor on the side of the conservatives like freidman and Hayek. Goldwater also approaches things in a very principled manner. Arthur brooks' latest book is similar. On the other than, I have not come across any liberal text, yet, that makes a good convincing case for liberalism. I would love to get some recommendations. I'm interested in princi…

Your post confuses me, no offense intended. Friedman and Hayek called themselves liberals, not conservatives. The American progressive movement co-opted the word "liberalism". Before that, they called themselves "progressives". Is that what you're looking for? Todd8's comment below confuses me for the same reason. Rawls could be considered to be on the US-left. The other people he mentioned, except Gross and Levitt,…

The semantic problem here is that there is near-uniform agreement on liberalism in America, when "liberalism" is properly defined as the belief in human liberty, moral equality, and democracy. Since virtually no-one (<5%) in American public life disagrees with philosophical liberalism, we just argue about different strains of liberalism that we call "liberalism", "conservatism", "libertarianism", &c.

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#168

Post by panglott »

todd8 wrote: post #126
vowelless wrote: post #75

This has always confused me. There are some rich texts based on beautiful rigor on the side of the conservatives like freidman and Hayek. Goldwater also approaches things in a very principled manner. Arthur brooks' latest book is similar. On the other than, I have not come across any liberal text, yet, that makes a good convincing case for liberalism. I would love to get some recommendations. I'm interested in princi…

A classic text on the philosophical underpinnings of (US) liberalism with regard to economic redistribution policies is A Theory of Justice by John Rawls, a renowned professor of philosophy at Harvard. After reading Rawls, I'd suggest maybe reading Robert Nozick's libertarian leaning Anarchy, State, and Utopia . Nozick was another distinguished philosopher from Harvard writing about the same time as Rawls. Nozick com…

John Rawls is of course the right answer here, but it seems odd that you cite Hayek, Nozick, Sowell, &c., who are all diametrically opposed.

The other one I'd recommend is John Stuart Mill.

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#169

Post by panglott »

newacct23 wrote: post #56
hellofunk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peopl…

I don't think social scientists are Marxist in perhaps the sense you understand it. Social scientists don't want to overthrow the bourgeosie so much as they interpret social systems through the machinery of gender, race, and social class. Gender, race, and social class are absolutely necessary to understand contemporary social structures.

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#170

Post by harrumph »

throwaway7312 wrote: post #139
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have also considered this question, my answer is that the party on the "right" will have a core mission of maintaining the power and wealth of the powerful and wealthy. This is, unsuprisingly, not a great vote winner for the masses. So around this core mission they need to build a platform, and so they pick the easiest way to attract voters to this cause up until the point when they get a majority that's able to ac…

You’re assuming poor American working class voters vote against their interests by voting conservative. Leaving aside the social issues for now and looking solely at economic ones, let’s ask the question whether that’s true to them in their own minds. The American liberal party (Democrats) brands itself as the party that’s going to help you out. It’ll leverage redistribution (taxes) to take money from rich people and…

"[The Democrats] get you stuff like free healthcare, free college, unemployment insurance, etc."

No offense, but there's something basic that is amiss with a formulation when two thirds of the examples given are political results that have never been delivered by Democrats and the last one, unemployment insurance, was only grudgingly produced under conditions of a) depression b) significant pressure from the socialists on the Democrats' left.

Post reply on HN