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In Disciplined Minds (a book certainly worth reading, but take with a heavy grain of salt), Jeff Schmidt made an observation about highly educated people and their political tendencies that made me stop and rethink my own personal views.

He believes that while highly educated people are usually considered to be liberal, they are, in practice, a lot more conservative than they seem. Most are usually only liberal when it comes to personal viewpoints on social issues, viewpoints which have little social impact. Many professions which are usually seen as left-leaning, like university professors, are in fact very conservative when it comes to beliefs and values that they act upon in the workplace.



That sounds like an interesting book. Does he come at the problem from a left-wing or right-wing perspective?

In my experience, academic leftism is seen as more of a social obligation than a set of deeply-held beliefs. (There are, of course, many exceptions).

This, of course, is one of the reasons that I hate to socialise with my fellow academics.




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