Academics keep left

Without detracting from the success of our tertiary institutions, there may be problems that flow from an ideological imbalance.

Think-tanks do not emerge in a vacuum - they are created to meet social and political demand. Because the majority of academics are left-wing, there is a dearth of conservative or liberal thought at universities.

This means that the community is forced to look elsewhere for ideas that challenge the dominant academic paradigm. Think-tanks provide these ideas, in an environment where conservative and liberal thought is encouraged.

The strong demand for alternative thinking highlights the problems that flow from ideological imbalance at our universities.

Look left

Left-wing and right-wing thinkers are not enemies. In fact, they are heavily dependent on one another for criticism and inspiration.

Randall Collins, a sociology professor at the University of California, has analysed the social conditions which precipitate major developments in philosophy. He observes that history’s most celebrated philosophers usually appear in pairs or trios, such as Heraclitus and Parmenides, or Mencius, Chuang-tzu and Hui Shih. Collins emphasises the role of rivalry:

Intellectual history is a conflict process. It is divergent factions that make it go. These factions attempt to make intellectual property out of ideas that have been produced in the past. They generate new ideas largely in opposition to the ideas of their rivals, sometimes by recombining these ideas. Strikingly new positions are produced largely by the negation of pre-existing positions, along the lines of greatest political rivalry.

Although a single political base may give rise to multiple threads of thought, there can be no doubt that political diversity feeds into intellectual diversity, especially when the object of study is history or politics. When intellectuals are exposed to radically different ideologies, they are encouraged to re-evaluate their understandings. They are confronted by weaknesses in their own theories and strengths in the theories of others. This creates an environment that is challenging and dynamic.

If a particular ideology is disproportionately dominant, there is a danger that its fundamental assumptions will go unchallenged. Without challenge, there is less impetus for change.

If left-wing thought is overwhelmingly accepted on university campuses, this will detract from intellectual rigour and could breed stagnation. Diversity encourages intellectual accountability; it is in the long-term interests of the Left to share university campuses with conservative academics.

Look right

In the United States, many conservative students complain that they are treated unfairly by left-wing academics.

Late last year, The Boston Globe reported an incident at Warren Community College in New Jersey. Rebecca Beach, the head of the campus chapter of “Young Americans for Freedom”, sent an email to an adjunct English instructor, advertising an up-coming talk by an Iraq War veteran in support of the war.