Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Academic Groupthink

Pejman Yousefzadeh at Pejmanesque makes some predictions about the recent evidence (as if we needed more) of the lack of intellectual diversity in Academia:

...instead of admitting that there may be a wee bit of a problem here, we will instead hear the defenders of the academic status quo make the following tiring arguments:

-Republicans want to be businesspeople, and only Democrats care enough to give up money to educate young minds and engage in a life of scholarly contemplation (and get cushy tenured positions in the process!);

-There are plenty of Republicans in engineering schools, music schools, medical schools and other schools that don't involve the social sciences and where ideology does not make the least bit of difference; and

-Republicans are stupid.

Watch. These arguments will be made as surely as night follows day.


Can't say I disagree with him. Using a variety of strategies and rationalization to protect the group from negative information is one of the main symptoms of groupthink.

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