The Root Cause of Academic Groupthink

[Ptarmigan]

The Root Cause of Academic Groupthink
https://realclearwire.com/articles/2024/01/08/the_root_cause_of_academic_groupthink_1003644.html

The shroud is coming off elite academia and America is not pleased with what it’s seeing. Its leaders have told us that genocidal antisemitism is too complex to recognize and that plagiarism is a problem for students, perhaps for junior faculty, but not for the president of Harvard. DEI policies elevated demographic considerations far above merit at our most prestigious institutions.

How did this happen? What can be done to fix it?

Those are tough questions. Major institutions don’t become corrupt overnight. The process is long, slow, and methodical. The solutions go far beyond the removal of a few high-profile officials. In academia, the egregious examples that gain sudden visibility are merely manifestations of a corrupt core.

That corrupt core stems from the inherent difficulty of assessing the quality of knowledge work. Suppose that there are multiple competing theories to explain some phenomenon—freakish weather, persistent crime, disparate outcomes, reactions to a vaccine, the variance of election results from poll predictions, etc. How can anyone know which theory to believe?

Most people turn to one of two heuristics. The first is personal, and few people like to admit it openly: They accept whichever theory comes closest to what they’d like to believe. The second is societal, and most people who advocate it do so with pride: They ask the experts.

Academia has deep rot problems.

Who gets the job? The candidate whose work flatters you and your colleague? Or the candidate who’s shown that you’ve dedicated your career to nonsense? Now ask the question about climate change instead of phlogiston. Then ask it about DEI. The answer is always the same. Experts who’ve staked their careers and prestige on the validity of a theory will always hire, promote, and reward those who burnish that theory.

The net result is a reinforcement of orthodox thinking and a field committed to moving further along whatever path it was already taking. I’ve termed this phenomenon “incremental outrageousness.” It defines the basic incentive structure of academia—and of our entire credentialed class.

It is very slow to change as academia likes to cling to things.

[FlaGator]

The corruption of thought in academia is a cancer and like all cancers the best way to treat it is to remove it.

[Drafe Hoblin]

The corruption of thought in academia is a cancer and like all cancers the best way to treat it is to remove it.

That called-for removing hot co-eds.  (In the beatnick-era.)  Wasn't gonna happen. 

Those were the days when college-professors began seeking to be hip by drinking & partying with students.  A rash of cult of personalities sprang-up on campuses everywhere.  Mad Magazine was heavy into satirizing 'professional students' by 1959, emphasizing the traditionally naive ideologies of mostly-female teens being an attractive pander-magnet for frustrated faculty who lacked the balls to succeed in the working world.

Sex is the root cause of the root cause of academic groupthink.

[Old n Grumpy]

Tenure is also a bad thing, it makes it hard to get rid of bad people and it gives those who have it a sense of invulnerability like professional bureaucrats in the goobermint.

Like our government the whole system is corrupt and needs to be flushed out.

With all the money available to students the schools are taking advantage of that and are more focused on indoctrination than education.

[RonE]

Tenure is also a bad thing, it makes it hard to get rid of bad people and it gives those who have it a sense of invulnerability like professional bureaucrats in the goobermint.

Absolutely!!!
Perform in the field you studied and were hired for. Because you may be educated in chemistry, English, etc. doesn't mean you know shit about foreign policy, social justice, or politics in general. Do your job or lose it! You know like the rest of the adults.

[FreeBorn]

I am finding this thread hilarious in its irony. The Vietnam era anti war hippies have grown up. They slogged out of the muddy fields of Yasgur's farm and infiltrated the manicured lawns of the Ivy League on a mission. They strove forth with a mantra to change America from within by corrupting its young skulls full of mush as the force of Leftist academia to be reckoned with, comrade. If they couldn't change America with protest in the streets then they would raise America's children to be good little Soviets and thereby triumph! Alas now it seems they have forgotten the part about "never trust anyone over 30" and have in fact themselves become the very establishment of conservatism which they so despised. LOL! Delicious.