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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   32445 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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I had just been promoted, and BAU was less prestigious than my own university, so I thought the odds of me actually taking the BAU job if offered were low, but my academic friends and mentors all encouraged me to go along for the experience and to see if I fell in love with the BAU campus or faculty. And who knows, they might offer me so much I couldn't refuse.

This is a great example of how having other options, such as a current job you like, allows you to be more relaxed and treat the interview process as a two-way street to assure mutual fit. You then have greater latitude to do things like smoke-out any woke-scolds and Dolores Umbridges. With no other attractive options, one would have to play it more carefully. Beggars can’t be choosers. And with other attractive options, employers—like women—will often be more interested in you and work harder to compete for you.

the experience soured me considerably on US academia, and made me grateful that my corner of European academia seems to be working pretty well… the wider team gets on brilliantly, we pack out our rooms and the bars afterwards with a wide mix of academic staff, we routinely win huge grants to expand or collaborate, and my boss regularly talks about the importance of ideological diversity

"Best we can do is an icy, suffocating atmosphere where everyone’s a potential cop, talk-attendance is a zero-sum competition, after-hours drinks are a trap, and ‘ideological diversity’ is treated as a dog-whistle for wrong-think.”

my boss regularly talks about the importance of ideological diversity (he's confidentially told me that he fears our center-right government is looking to pick fights with academia over 'cancel culture', and he has been given a top mandate by university central to avoid anything that would give the press 'woke academia gone mad' headlines).

Unless I'm misunderstanding it, this sentence kind of amazes me. As an example of how much your current institution respects ideological diversity, you mention that the institution has deliberately fostered a chilling effect on speech where it's common knowledge that speech perceived as being too woke will be frowned upon by the higher-ups... and where those higher-ups are themselves acting as a result of a chilling effect deliberately created by the government to minimise the presence in academia of an ideology it does not like? And this seems to you like ideological diversity?

I mean, that makes sense if you define 'ideologically diverse' to mean 'friendly to right-wing viewpoints', but not if you have a more reasonable definition of what that should mean.

(i) In the main interview, when I asked why I wanted to work at BAU, I mentioned that it had a great record for academic free speech, including a very respectable FIRE ranking. I could see people looking flustered when I said this, and I was subsequently told that this was a strategic mistake, because 'academic freedom' would code to many faculty members as basically the right to say unpalatable non-progressive things (plus FIRE was not well regarded). I knew it was a risk, but as far as I was concerned, it was a good filter for the kind of people and environment I wanted to work with. Still, I was surprised that it went down so obviously badly. BAU is not Mount Holyoke or Harvard; it is a massive university with lots of blue collar and international students, so it wasn't antecedently clear to me how much progressive identarian authoritarianism would have seeped in.

I mean, you probably should have guessed that, yes. You probably shouldn't lead with "Hire me, I'll be a constant annoyance to you for years to come." The question of whether you can get hired despite viewpoints that might make them look bad, if you otherwise have a stellar resume, is distinct from the question of whether you can get hired with the opening pitch "I'm gonna make you look terrible in the press, k?"

(v) In my current job, I have lots of autonomy, as do people who report to me. For example, if someone says "I want to try to start a collaboration with University X in Argentina", then our default response is "Cool, how can we make that happen?" We also have lofty ambitions, and are constantly trying to find ways to expand or get more money (we have tripled the number of our grad students in the last 3 years, for example). This is despite being a pretty small organization within our university. By contrast, at BAU, when I made some more ambitious proposals for how BAU could foster collaboration or bring in new grants or spin-off new research centres, I was met with uncomprehending stares; the default view was "well that could be interesting I guess, but shouldn't you be focusing on traditional publications to boost your odds of getting tenure?" While that may be a realistic assessment of what would be in my interests working at BAU, again, it put me off working there.

Our offices may be grotty and dilapidated by comparison, but the wider team gets on brilliantly, we pack out our rooms and the bars afterwards with a wide mix of academic staff

I don't have much direct experience with US academia and how it compares to European academia, but this sounds reasonable to me, yes. When I meet Americans older than 50, they are always amazed that I go to the bar with people I work with all the time; they seem surprised that anyone anywhere in the world still does this.

you mention that the institution has deliberately fostered a chilling effect on speech where it's common knowledge that speech perceived as being too woke will be frowned upon by the higher-ups

Not the case at all. We have plenty of people working on projects that might be perceived as woke. The main thing we’re keen to avoid is accusations of cancel culture or right-leaning views being censored — that’s what I mean by bad headlines.

You probably shouldn't lead with "Hire me, I'll be a constant annoyance to you for years to come."

Why should this be a consequence of supporting academic freedom? I want to work in an institution with bold thinkers from across the political spectrum who feel confident exploring big controversial ideas. That used to be very much part of the mission statement in much of the humanities, and that’s why I wouldn’t be interested in working at an institution where academic speech was suppressed.

Not the case at all. We have plenty of people working on projects that might be perceived as woke. The main thing we’re keen to avoid is accusations of cancel culture or right-leaning views being censored — that’s what I mean by bad headlines.

So in particular, if you were interviewing for a position in front of a higher-up in the department and your first words to them indicated that you might be very likely, as a teacher, to say the kind of thing that would generate a "Woke Academia Gone Mad" headline, they might choose not to hire you?

(he's confidentially told me that he fears our center-right government is looking to pick fights with academia over 'cancel culture', and he has been given a top mandate by university central to avoid anything that would give the press 'woke academia gone mad' headlines)

It's working!

Yeah, honestly this is the kind of shit that makes me think that a vague center-right government can be an effective response to wokism; no crazy Trump-style radicals who will energise the left. Instead, practical people who can speak softly and carry a big stick. I say that reluctantly, because on economic issues I'm far closer to the dissident left (e.g. Freddie deBoer), but can't stand the progressive social nonsense.

It can be more than "vague centre-right". America is growing some smart-but-hard right wing doers. DeSantis is the obvious one, but not the only one. Then there's activists like Chris Rufo who can work through whatever politician has power.

I think your BAU and likely the particular department within the BAU is pretty unrepresentative. I'm a faculty member at a different BAU and it's really nothing like this at all.

I will second this comment. Comparing my actual personal experiences in what was supposed to be the most extreme possible environment to what I read on the internet is what made me completely distrust the "wokeness is taking over everything" narrative in the first place.

Same world, different screens? I don't know how to reconcile these two comments with my personal experience.

My spouse has been a tenured humanities faculty member at a BAU for 20 years, with several different stints across the country the decade before that. Between our own experience and that of dozens of friends in the academy, everything the OP wrote rang true to me, except the timeline at the conclusion (our institution is 5-10 years ahead of the OP's account).

I'd add that faculty social life is stultifying - it's not that you can't ever have real conversations with people about difficult topics, but it takes a long time to break through the suffocating blanket of conformity. Most social encounters start with progressive consensus-building about the issues of the day, and often can't move past that. It's worse if there are unfamiliar people in the group, or administrators.

These phenomena may not universal, but are, at a minimum, widespread. Above all, I'd love to know what your institutions are doing right that you don't see this.

We don't have so many examples, but on second thought maybe this is yet another example of academic experiences being dramatically different depending on which department you're in. Both you and the OP seem to mention experience with humanities departments, though I'm not sure where @Tomato is.

I'm in pure math and I've found that even with new people I can argue almost anything political as long as I tie it back to some common fundamental value and avoid saying certain poisoned words (the only annoying part is that "meritocracy" is both of these things at the same time). A lot of my stated policy preferences are extremely liberal, so maybe this gives me enough trust and legitimacy that people don't think I'm secretly hiding different values when I say something not in the consensus---I can argue that standardized tests are actually good for undergrad admissions and people do think I believe so for the "right" reasons. It helps a lot with the trust issue to point out examples where something exceptional is happening that changes your belief---I'll say I don't like the general GRE but undergrad admissions are different for this and this reason.

Now for some speculation on why there might be a difference between fields, I think it's pretty important that for mathematicians, their research area isn't really expected to give them any special insight into politics. If a liberal mathematician hears about a Trump supporting colleague, there's an easy out: "well, they're my friend so I know their heart is in the right place and I know they treat everyone in the department with equal respect, but they're just confused because of so and so biases. Anyways, none of us are really that good at thinking about politics anyways, remember the last time we talked to our friend in history/philosophy/etc.? Also, remember the Unabomber? That Serge Lang was an AIDS denialist? Trump-guy isn't really messing up so badly". For a humanist who's actually supposed to be an expert in people and culture, the out isn't so easy and the assumption might become that supporting Trump is a true implication of their values which therefore must be evil.

the only annoying part is that "meritocracy" is both of these things at the same time

I somehow missed this response, but two months later, I need to recognize what an excellent line this is.

Same world, different screens? I don't know how to reconcile these two comments with my personal experience.

Check the poster's username and history. They're a fish not noticing water.

This is not the kind of comment you can throw out without evidence. And if you do point it out with evidence, it should be done as lightly as possible in a non-antagonistic way.

You should know better.

That's unfair: atokenliberal's username is a wry commentary on the average orientation of The Motte, plus his/her posting history demonstrates both a solid degree of self-awareness and a reasonable theory of mind of his/her political opponents.

Out of interest, are you humanities or sciences? I didn't put this in the main post for vague OpSec reasons, but this particular post was a 75/25 split between a humanities department and a science department. I had separate meetings with the people in the science department, and they were lovely; much easier to get along with, not least because half of them were from outside the US (lots of East Asians, South Asians, and Eastern Europeans) and consequently less obsessed with tribal signaling. More generally, they seemed more interested in the content of my ideas than running me through procedure or testing for wrongthink. Sadly, I was told they had minimal influence on who got the job, given they were only paying a quarter of the salary, at best serving as a tiebreaker.

I think you'd need to unpack the details of that assertion if it is to carry much weight.

What is there to unpack? I don’t experience the things he claims to experience. Nobody I know does. Colleagues at my uni and other unis make fun of having to write a diversity statement for Berkeley, and that’s all I’ve ever heard about this stuff irl.

BAU is not Mount Holyoke or Harvard; it is a massive university with lots of blue collar and international students

I think you've misread the social fabric of America. I would have expected "large research university near a nice urban center on the West Coast" to be more progressive than Harvard. Harvard has the constraint of having to project a veneer of respectability. BAU is likely to be filled with exactly the kind of person that sees 50 Stalins-style activism as their ticket into the big leagues. They're also unlikely to experience much student or government pushback, unlike say, Auburn or Arkansas.

I think almost every university is going to be extremely woke, including Harvard. The only exceptions would be explicitly right wings ones like Hillsdale and maybe a handful of religious ones like BYU.

I mean, isn't it clear that mediocrity is at the origin of this activism? Havard can't afford to much mediocrity, at some point they have a reputation to hold. BAU, on the other hand...

spoiler: so far I haven't heard back, so I assume I didn't get it anyway

I'm (unfortunately) not surprised that mentioning FIRE probably tanked any chance you had right from the beginning. Yeah, FIRE is basically right-coded nowadays, and frankly I suspect it will suffer from the same sort of institutional capture in reverse that swallowed the ACLU. (That said, it's one of the few charities I still donate to.)

I first noticed "free speech" being treated as basically code for "right winger who wants to call people the n-word" back in the A+ "Freeze Peaches!" days, but it's still been shocking to me how many progressives now literally consider "free speech" or "academic freedom" to be a right-wing talking point.

Anecdotally, I feel like even in the tech industry I am seeing a lower quality of college graduates the last few years, though it's hard to say how much of that is them being put through too many woke hoops and how much was Covid laying waste to academic rigor and accountability.

Anecdotally, I feel like even in the tech industry I am seeing a lower quality of college graduates the last few years, though it's hard to say how much of that is them being put through too many woke hoops and how much was Covid laying waste to academic rigor and accountability.

Have you considered that you might have become more competent yourself, and thus those student look more ignorant in comparison? It could explain the phenomenon at least partly.

I'm (unfortunately) not surprised that mentioning FIRE probably tanked any chance you had right from the beginning. Yeah, FIRE is basically right-coded nowadays, and frankly I suspect it will suffer from the same sort of institutional capture in reverse that swallowed the ACLU. (That said, it's one of the few charities I still donate to.)

I doubt it will end up this way, if anything they seem more likely to swerve left. The impression in the dissident sphere is that they're controlled opposition already.

I doubt it will end up this way, if anything they seem more likely to swerve left. The impression in the dissident sphere is that they're controlled opposition already.

Why, because they still represent leftists being censored by conservatives too? Or do they think FIRE will stop representing right-wingers?

Because they seem focus on the most milquetoast and establishment-friendly dissidents out there.

The dissident sphere doesn't need to like it, but that is indeed the proper way to prosecute culture war.

I had that thought in the back of my head as well, but it's also natural for more spicy dissidents to feel left out, and expect the free speech warriors to unperson them the moment Jesse Signal is no longer considered a bigot.

They are correct to think so and that is not the proper way to prosecute the culture war. When the free speech left was at its height, they were defending literal Nazis.

Yes, well, 'feels over realz' isn't a sin found only among overly loud leftists. The 1950s' civil rights activists chose to defend Rosa Parks to defend, precisely because you want your case to be strong as can be.

They also chose to defend Nazis.

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