LET THE hand-wringing begin. The conservatives are once again in "liberals-in-academia" crisis mode, spurred on this time by a recent study (covered in this paper) that Democrats outnumber Republicans about 6 to 1 on America's college campuses.
Conservative pundit George Will best summarized the sum and substance of all the whining in last week's Washington Post, where he wrote that "many campuses are intellectual versions of one-party nations." Yet the modern academy is far from a totalitarian state, and perhaps it is worth noting that in the marketplace of ideals, liberalism is winning by a landslide. Could it possibly be that there is some correlation between being a highly educated member of the academic community and identifying with the Democratic Party?
Such logic is all but an invitation to charges of elitism, particularly in our present political climate, where once- valued qualities such as intellect and nuance of thought are now derided as snobbery and "flip-flopping." But to cry elitism obscures the point. The issue is not the denial of respect or representation to those outside the ivory tower, but rather the notability of the fact that individuals who spend their lives immersed in facts, history and data subscribe overwhelmingly to the same ideology and action.
Furthermore, the phenomenon of expert opinion being at odds with the current conservative agenda, and the reactive phenomenon of dismissing expert opinion as elitist or out of touch, extends well beyond attitudes toward academia.
Take, for example, the Nobel Laureate economists (as well as literally hundreds of other economists) who took out an ad in last year's New York Times to call the Bush tax cuts "horrendous" before they passed, saying that the plan would "worsen the long-term budget outlook, adding to the nation's projected chronic deficits, and reducing the capacity of the government to finance Social Security, Medicare, and schools, health, and infrastructure." These individuals have received their honors because they are among the brightest economic minds alive, and their opinions, therefore, are certainly worth noting. Yet the Republicans in Congress not only gleefully rubber-stamped the economically disastrous package, but continue to push for more tax cuts, claiming that they know better how to fix the economy than the individuals who have won Nobel prizes for their familiarity with the topic.
The derision of experts whose well-informed opinions are at odds with the Bush administration's agenda doesn't end with economics, either. The now famous example springs to mind of former Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki, who forecasted that the Iraq war would require several hundred thousand troops back in February 2003, and was dismissed as a doubter and pessimist and retired amid the controversy. Shinseki, whose education at four military institutions as well as his two combat tours, countless military leadership positions and role as Commanding General of the United States Army Europe and a NATO Commander make him by all accounts an expert in his field, turned out to be quite correct in his estimations. But then again, he did teach English at the United States Military Academy for awhile, and it's common knowledge that those academic types are too liberal to be trusted.
The economy and Iraq are only two of the most egregious instances of how this administration and the congressional GOP majority's arrogance and disdain for education and experience are hurting our country, but on almost any other issue, from environmental policy to scientific research, this dismissive attitude prevails.
One of the greatest casualties of the reordering of America into red/blue polarization -- and of the subsequent electoral victory of the "reds" -- has been the visceral objection to all things scholarly. Be it the professor in the classroom, the economist in the newspaper or the general testifying before a Senate committee, the seasoned expert and the intellectual have become the enemy and the object of contempt. Those who lament the presence of liberal faculty are the same who have chosen a dangerous path for this nation, a path along which we have scorned the wise men, and are therefore left with only fools to follow.
Katie Cristol's column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at kcristol@cavalierdaily.com.
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