Some of those studies are suspect (e.g. most target social sciences, instead of a survey over all disciplines), but there does seem to be evidence that academics tend to lean left. For teachers at K-12 schools, this article cites a study about political bias, which found a smaller but still left leaning gap in political affiliation of teachers.

But the real question is whether that matters.

I grew up in a progressive state with largely progressive teachers and conservative parents. I considered myself conservative for many years (well into college, which was a private, conservative university), until several years after finishing school and I realized I really just wanted smaller, accountable government. Neither major party actually pushed for that, though both pushed for some aspect of what I wanted (Dems pushed for social policies like same sex marriage and legal marijuana, Reps pushed for lower taxes and spending caps).

Did my teachers influence my political views? Absolutely! But they didn't turn me into a progressive, they just gave me an alternative perspective from what I got at home. My most influential teacher was in 4th grade, who pushed hard for recycling and reuse (we has a class compost bin, mild consequences for improper waste disposal, etc). I'm no tree hugger, but I'm really careful about reducing waste. My parents cared about waste a lot too, but my teacher gave the perspective I needed to understand why it was so important (we had a guest speaker talk about aquifers, ground water poisoning, etc, among other things). We rarely talked about politics, but things adjacent to politics certainly did come up.

So I don't particularly care what my kids teachers' political views are, I just expect them to teach facts and help students draw their own conclusions. I personally consider myself a left leaning libertarian (in favor of a solid social safety net, loose social policies, balanced budgets, and low taxes), and that's a mix of my formal education and home life, as well as other interactions with interesting people.

Conservatives make the left-leaning academics thing into a big issue, but it's really not. The real issue is that teachers are underpaid, so we're not attracting a diverse enough set of teachers. My dad wanted to be a teacher (got a teaching degree and taught for a year), but the income wasn't enough so he went back and got a degree in engineering. That's a pretty serious problem, and it's especially bad in my (very conservative) area since most teachers are women who have husbands who have better paying jobs, which implies that teaching isn't a viable career for many. We're limiting our pool to people who are okay with a crappy salary.

That said, it's disingenuous to say that there's no political bias in schools. The studies indicate otherwise. However, it's a mostly unimportant detail.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's probably due to the inherent liberal bias of reality, if anything.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

More a leftist bias, IMO, but even more than that reality has an anti-conservative bias. Conservatives reject reality with ever fiber of their being to maintain their power.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's true that those with higher education are more likely to slant less, and academia is made up of people with a lot of education.

That's not the same as the existence of an "academic left". They're not an organized group with goals and opinions... You can divide any subset of the population however you want and label them a group, but that's just a set of people with shared traits.

You can study them, and maybe there's some interesting patterns in the data, but that "group" is individuals. They don't coordinate, they don't have meetings, they don't have an objective... They don't exist as a group

I broadly agree with your political goals. I also think we need to do things smaller and more locally, I think we should be as free as possible without imposing on the rights of others. But I've evolved more as I've learned more about economic systems and government - ultimately, I think size is the one true evil. Whenever we set up a way for people to collect power, it attracts the worst people and entrenches them... They then complete for more.

Also, the world economy is absurd and untenable - we print/create money through debt. That only works when you produce value with that loan, and that only works at scale when you have growth - and all available markets are approaching saturation. We can't maintain the growth rate to keep feeding the beast, and look around... Companies are cannibalizing themselves and sacrificing their future to keep up in the short term.

We need to figure something else out very soon, and we need to realign incentive structures to align with human needs. There's countless options and I've got some I prefer, but systematic change is a lot to explain in one post.

The modern Democratic party is neoliberal, it sounds like you're more of a leftist than a liberal - liberals seek progress through maintaining the system, and I think (like me) you don't see endless bureaucracy as a potential solution

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 1 points 9 months ago

those with higher education are more likely to slant less

And there are lots of ways to break this down. But I think it's interesting to look at one clear point of evidence: CEOs are much more likely to be Republican than Democrat. CEOs tend to be well educated (most have masters, many have PhDs).

I'm going to make a bit of a leap here, but it seems Republicans tend to believe experience has more value than formal education, hence why they're small business owners, CEOs, etc, whereas Democrats tend to put a lot of stock into formal education, hence why they're professors, scientists, etc.

So your average Democrat likely believes in the traditional lifestyle track: go to school, work hard, get promoted. Whereas your average Republican likely believes you need to be independent, build a network, and fight outside the "system" to get what you want. That's a pretty broad brush stroke, but I think it explains a lot of policy choices:

laws based on morals instead of public opinion
low taxes instead of more services
strong leadership instead of strong institutions

They're not an organized group

Sure, and the same goes for any other vaguely categorized group of people. I don't think anyone other than a few nutjobs are arguing that there's a big conspiracy, but when pretty much any group has a clear majority, you get problems.

ultimately, I think size is the one true evil

Absolutely.

I don't really care about the amount of money involved, I care more about the relative complexity of services being offered. Once a system reaches a certain level of complexity, it's easy to hide all manner of evils.

For example, I'd much rather have something like UBI/NIT than our current welfare system because the welfare system has way too many moving parts. UBI is a simple cash calculation, whereas food stamps, housing assistance, etc all have interested parties that want a carve-out. Look at all the Medicare supplement sellers that exist and tell me they don't have an interest in changing Medicare to benefit them...

I want a few, simple, transparent services that the public easily understands and that journalists can easily audit. Complexity breeds corruption.

it sounds like you're more of a leftist than a liberal

More of a libertarian/classical liberal (not the current US Libertarian Party, and certainly not what Republicans mean when they say "libertarian").

I believe in maximizing individual rights, free markets, and small, focused government. I think we need some very key reforms to encourage true competition, because special interests have eroded it for short term profit. A proper free market will self correct in most cases, and a small, effective government is there if it doesn't. This video is about traffic, but I think it can apply here too. Big government is like building a massive highway, where everyone gets the same, crappy experience, whereas a free market is like lots of competing streets that are highly optimized for their target market. People say they want the bigger roads (when all you have is a hammer...), but really the plethora of alternative (parallel) options is ultimately better for everyone.

I also very much believe in a strong social safety net. You can't truly improve yourself if you have to work two jobs just to keep a roof over your head.

So I'm not sure if that qualifies me as a leftist or not, I honestly don't know that people really mean when the say "leftist" or "far right." I believe in smaller governments, with more focus on local government. I'm excited about my city rolling out municipal fiber, but I'd vote against my state doing the same thing, because there's so much more risk of corruption at the state level.