Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

Penderyn said:
Educated people look at the incredible mess humanity has made of the world, and when they first observe it, want to change it. The system gradually rots and corrupts them, drugs them up to forget what they are, so they end up conservative. History is about the failure to achieve socialism, so that the species is unlikely to survive.
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Just herd your goats that are roaming your streets, America hating pende*o.

Why aren’t you living in the Socialist paradise of Venezuela, or the Communist workers’ paradise of Cuba, or China or Russia?
 
Micawber said:
IN 1979, in a short book called “The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class,” the sociologist Alvin Gouldner took up a question then being vigorously debated by social analysts: Did the student movements of the 1960s signal that the highly educated were on their way to becoming a major political force in American society?

Dr. Gouldner’s answer was yes. As a man of the left, he had mixed feelings about this development, since he thought the intelligentsia might be tempted to put its own interests ahead of the marginalized groups for whom it often claimed to speak.

Today, with an ideological gap widening along educational lines in the United States, Dr. Gouldner’s arguments are worth revisiting. Now that so many people go to college, Americans with bachelor’s degrees no longer constitute an educational elite. But the most highly educated Americans — those who have attended graduate or professional school — are starting to come together as a political bloc.

Last month, the Pew Research Center released a study showing that nearly a third of those who went to graduate or professional school have “down the line” liberal views on social, economic and environmental matters, whereas this is true for just one in 10 Americans generally. An additional quarter of postgrads have mostly liberal views. These numbers reflect drastic change: While professionals have been in the Democratic column for a while, in 1994 only 7 percent of postgrads held consistently liberal political opinions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/opinion/why-are-the-highly-educated-so-liberal.html

Dr. Gouldner’s “new class” wasn’t exactly the contemporary intelligentsia, with its Washington policy analysts, New York editors and Bay Area biotech researchers. But it was close. Dr. Gouldner observed changes in the American occupational structure that he thought were altering the balance of power among social classes. As he saw it, beginning in the early 20th century, increasing complexity in science, technology, economic affairs and government meant that the “old” moneyed class no longer had the expertise to directly manage the work process or steer the ship of state.

Members of the old class turned to scientists, engineers, managers, human relations specialists, economists and other professionals for help. As these experts multiplied, they realized the extent of their collective power. They demanded fitting levels of pay and status and insisted on professional autonomy. A “new class” was born, neither owner nor worker.

A distinguishing feature of this new class, according to Dr. Gouldner, was the way it spoke and argued. Steeped in science and expert knowledge, it embraced a “culture of critical discourse.” Evidence and logic were valued; appeals to traditional sources of authority were not. Members of the new class raised their children in such a culture. And it was these children, allergic to authoritarian values, who as young adults were at the center of the student revolts, finding common ground with disaffected “humanistic” intellectuals bent on changing the world.

Dr. Gouldner assumed that as the student radicals aged and entered the work force, they would retain their leftist sympathies. But he conceded that they might also work to shore up their privileges. He characterized the new class as the great hope of the left in a period when the American labor movement was in decline, yet also as flawed.

The Pew study doesn’t necessarily vindicate Dr. Gouldner’s entire theory. But it does indicate that the most highly educated professionals are coming to form, if not a new class, at least a reliably liberal political grouping.
While there’s ample evidence of the professional class using its economic and educational capital to preserve its advantages — think of the clustering of professionals into exclusive neighborhoods, or the early immersion of professional-class children into a world of literacy, art and science — its move left is evident even on questions of economic redistribution. My own analysis of data from the General Social Survey shows that in recent decades, as class inequality has increased, Americans who hold advanced degrees have grown more supportive of government efforts to reduce income differences, whether through changes to taxes or strengthening the welfare system.

On this issue, the views of the highly educated are now similar to those of groups with much lower levels of education, who have a real material stake in reducing inequalities. Even higher-income advanced degree holders have become more redistributionist, if less so than others.

What explains the consolidation of the highly educated into a liberal bloc? The growing number of women with advanced degrees is part of it, as well-educated women tend to be especially left-leaning. Equally important is the Republican Party’s move to the right since the 1980s — at odds with the social liberalism that has long characterized the well educated — alongside the perception that conservatives are anti-intellectual, hostile to science and at war with the university.

This phenomenon is mostly a boon for the Democratic Party. While only 10 percent of American adults hold advanced degrees, that number is expected to rise. The group is active politically and influential.

But Dr. Gouldner’s new-class theory should alert Democrats to a lurking danger. It is probably right that something like a culture of critical discourse can be found in the workplaces and households and in the publications read by Americans who have attended graduate or professional school. The challenge for the Democrats moving forward will be to develop appeals to voters that resonate not just with this important constituency, but also with other crucial groups in the Democratic coalition. Some of the draw of Donald Trump for white working-class male voters, for example, is that he does not speak in a culture of critical discourse. Indeed, he mocks that culture, tapping into class resentments.

The Democrats may find they need to give up a little of their wonkiness if they want resounding victories. It’s not in their long-term interest to be too much what Pat Buchanan once referred to as “the party of the Ph.D.s.”

Neil Gross, a professor of sociology at Colby College, is the author of “Why Are Professors Liberal and Why Do Conservatives Care?”
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Elitist "INDOCTRINATION"...…..the left has dumbed down the population so much even a moron thinks he's a genius. ;) Some of the most stupid (lack of common sense) people I have encountered have a PhD attacked to their moniker...… Education does not equate to intelligence....education is but TRAINING. Anyone can be trained to think that an error is the correct answer (if they have no common sense and the ability to independently reason with logic).

Hint: Anyone that is actually intelligent does not have to parrot and paste articles in an attempt to demonstrate his/her intelligence.....the ID is easily exposed in the current state of communication used.....what we have is an individual attempting to identify and seek accolade from a group he/she assumes is intelligent.

Reality: Most college grads can read and comprehend no better than someone with an actual 8th grade education. A person with real intelligence never talks down to anyone....if he/she wishes to communicate they speak "to" not "at" someone on the same level as the person being addressed.

The real question? Why are all liberals pompous ass buffoons...that thrive on and seek accolade? :bigthink:

Reality: America was built by people with little more than a high school education....yet void of formal education they turned out to be Geniuses. The false premise you presented? Education = Intelligence and IQ. Question? Just how many individuals can the world use with a degree in SOCIAL JUSTICE?
 
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Micawber said:
Don't get me started.:rolleyes:
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Our brother-in-law is conservative... very, very conservative. So is his wife. He has a masters in history. She has a BS in communications. They are from and have always lived in conservative, rural communities. He's around 50 now, and laid off (again). He has complained for years that he could never get a teaching job because schools and colleges are "too liberal and won't hire a conservative." We've always wondered how an interviewer would know your political POV unless you tell them.

IMO a person's political preference has more to do with upbringing and location than it does the major in college or the choice of employment field.
 
Ron Mars said:
I took the EIT the weekend before senior finals ... hardest test I have ever taken ... the PE was a breeze compared to that 8 hour marathon.
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The EIT busted my balls. I brought in a box of books and my trusty HP41-CV (which did me nothing for fundamentals). The first thing I did was count the number of questions to figure out roughly how much time allotted for each. I was doing slightly better than with about 30 minutes left, then turned to a last section that I had failed to count up in the beginning. That began a mad rush to complete the test as fast as possible. Incredibly, I passed. I celebrated by selling several books like statics, dynamics...
 
ThatOwlWoman said:
Our brother-in-law is conservative... very, very conservative. So is his wife. He has a masters in history. She has a BS in communications. They are from and have always lived in conservative, rural communities. He's around 50 now, and laid off (again). He has complained for years that he could never get a teaching job because schools and colleges are "too liberal and won't hire a conservative." We've always wondered how an interviewer would know your political POV unless you tell them.

IMO a person's political preference has more to do with upbringing and location than it does the major in college or the choice of employment field.
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History is a dead-end degree. They don't even teach it at the grade school level anymore. Instead they teach "social studies".

You don't know how to tell a person's political view without asking specifically? All you have to do is read what they published. It's funny how you pretend that politics doesn't come into play when school administrators interview potential employees.
 
Dark Soul said:
Liberals don't understand basic economics. They think that the rich take from the poor.
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No - liberalism is the normal ideology of capitalism, whereas conservatism normally stands for the landowning interest, feudalism, slavery or whatever. It is socialists who point out the obvious fact that the value of a commodity derives from the necessary work needed to produce it, a large part of which is stolen by those who produce nothing, the capitalists. Modern American Republicanism is a quite normal development of capitalism-in-crisis, anti-democratic fascism, which aims to drug or terrify the mugs into obedience, as you know.
 
Penderyn said:
No - liberalism is the normal ideology of capitalism, whereas conservatism normally stands for the landowning interest, feudalism, slavery or whatever. It is socialists who point out the obvious fact that the value of a commodity derives from the necessary work needed to produce it, a large part of which is stolen by those who produce nothing, the capitalists. Modern American Republicanism is a quite normal development of capitalism-in-crisis, anti-democratic fascism, which aims to drug or terrify the mugs into obedience, as you know.
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Head on down to the Socialist paradise of Venezuela, America hating cabron. Bring food.
 
Penderyn said:
No - liberalism is the normal ideology of capitalism, whereas conservatism normally stands for the landowning interest, feudalism, slavery or whatever. It is socialists who point out the obvious fact that the value of a commodity derives from the necessary work needed to produce it, a large part of which is stolen by those who produce nothing, the capitalists. Modern American Republicanism is a quite normal development of capitalism-in-crisis, anti-democratic fascism, which aims to drug or terrify the mugs into obedience, as you know.
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Yet THE HISTORICAL WORLD has never witnessed a successful SOCIALIST NATION. Things that make you go...…….HUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!! And no the Scandinavian nations are not socialist nations....they are based upon FREE MARKET capitalism....that taxes the hell out of their small demography of working stiffs.

You want a current example of modern socialism in action? Look no further than the nation of Venezuela. In the United States look to the Blue States like California and NY......both on the verge of bankruptcy even through they have collected more taxes than any other states in the UNION. If socialism is so great...…..why the demand from these states to fellow collective states (the United States of America) to bail their asses out of economic disaster? Yet you want the entire Nation modeled after these great unsuccessful failed examples? One national emergency and these socialist states are crying like babies for handouts.
 
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Ralph said:
Yet THE HISTORICAL WORLD has never witnessed a successful SOCIALIST NATION. Things that make you go...…….HUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!
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As you very well know, your killers get to work whenever anyone tries. Grow up, and stop quacking silly propaganda.
 
Dark Soul said:
The EIT busted my balls. I brought in a box of books and my trusty HP41-CV (which did me nothing for fundamentals). The first thing I did was count the number of questions to figure out roughly how much time allotted for each. I was doing slightly better than with about 30 minutes left, then turned to a last section that I had failed to count up in the beginning. That began a mad rush to complete the test as fast as possible. Incredibly, I passed. I celebrated by selling several books like statics, dynamics...
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I had to wait for about 2 weeks to find out if I passed. Didn't even have to open the envelope.

If you failed they sent you an application to retake along with the notice letter ... so if the envelope was thin you passed ... if thick you failed ... luckily mine was thin.
 
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