Professoriate’s Self-Proclaimed Neutrality

Accuracy in Academia | February 24, 2014 | Malcolm A. Kline

[Academiadotorg]

With a straight face, professors mostly tell you that they avoid advocacy. “The American Economic Association has never taken a position on any public-policy issue,” Beth McMurthie wrote in The Chronicle of Higher Education on February 21, 2014. “The American Political Science Association is thinking about becoming more active.”

“And some members of the American Studies Association are wishing their organization were less so. In academe, where every argument quickly finds a counterargument, the role of the disciplinary association in matters of public advocacy is a curious one. Recent, heated debates within the American Studies Association and Modern Language Association over Israel and academic freedom highlighted the risks that academics take when they weigh in on issues that go beyond their immediate concerns.”

“But, when, exactly, should academic groups speak up on matters of national, or international, concern? Science associations regularly speak out on public-policy issues that they deem relevant, like climate science and the teaching of evolution. In the humanities and social sciences, by contrast, the answer seems to vary by discipline.” Actually, it’s not the advocacy we mind so much but the accuracy, or rather, the lack thereof.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

IMHO American "conservatism" (scare quotes needed because American "conservatism" promotes freedom, which allows change and therefore is a strange form of "conservatism") is best defined by the famous Theodore Roosevelt "Man in the Arena" speech which says that performance is far above criticism. "Objective" journalists and "liberals" hold the contrasting view that nothing actually matters except PR.

"Objective" journalists differ from "liberals" only in that the former notionally wear a hat with a 'PRESS' tag sticking out of the headband. Otherwise the two are in full "go along and get along" mode with each other. The "objective" journalist and the "liberal" politician seek to arrogate to themselves "the credit" which TR said "belongs to the man in the arena" who "does actually try to do the deeds." I suppose that the saying "Them as can, does - them as can't, teaches" explains why academics are critics rather than doers - and thus are in full agreement with "liberal" politicians and "objective" journalists.