Il dotto rincoglionito dalla politica. Perché è così frequente? E perché è quasi sempre di sinistra?
Left-Wing Bias: An Infantile Disorder of Contemporary Philosophy – When Reason Goes on Holiday: Philosophers in Politics – Neven Sesardic
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Argomenti trattati: perché il mondo accademico perdona le stupidaggini (se sono “di sinistra”) – il simula e dissimula dell’accademico di destra – l’ IQ dei “fascisti” e quello dei neri – perché tanto chiasso su Frege e il silenzio sui tanti comunisti (Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Badiou, Lukács, Bloch… Neurath, Russell, Wittgenstein, Lakatos, Cohen, Putnam, Davidson… – l’equivalenza tra destra e fascismo – ci vuole davvero un genio per giustificare certe pratiche ripugnante – le idiozie di Parfit: tutti i ricchi sono ladri – La raffica di idiozie di Jeremy Waldron sulla tortura – Hobbes sui dotti rincoglioniti: l’ignirante si accontenta di posizioni intermedie, il dotto più facilmente preda di radicalismi – la stupidità in politica, specie a sinistra, è gratificante e gratuita –
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Academic philosophy, like other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, has a notoriously strong leftist tilt (see, e.g., Gross 2013, 299; Maranto et al. 2009, 16, 22).
Note:IL BIAS DOCUMENTATO
Robert Nozick Loses His Nerve
the leftist extremists would be considered by a huge majority of their colleagues (who share their basic political opinion) as being (a) correct or almost correct; or (b) perhaps too radical but still “having their heart in the right place”; or (c) profoundly wrong but nevertheless not remotely as condemnable as the right-wing extremists.
Note:L’ESTREMISTA DI SINISTRA LADDOVE LA SINISTRA DOMINA
Since one has to communicate on a daily basis with colleagues in one’s discipline and find a basic modus vivendi with one’s professional peers, it is clear that in such a situation the pressure against the minority extremism would be enormous.
Note:MASCHERARE
According to a 2013–2014 study by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, the ratio of university professors who described themselves as politically “far left” vs. those on the “far right” was between 30 to 1 and 50 to 1 (Eagan et al. 2014, 112).
Note:NUMERI
A nice illustration of the effect of ideological majority pressure in philosophy is the case of Robert Nozick. He admitted that at one point he went along with the incorrect representation of his views just because he expected it would make his colleagues view him more favorably
Note:NOZICK AMMETTE: HO FALSATO IL MIO POSIZIONAMENTO POLITICO PER QUESTIONI DI “SOPRAVVIVENZA”
Those Dumb Conservatives
Sometimes the political imbalance in academia is attributed to a putative correlation between being a conservative and having low intelligence.
Note:A DESTRA IQ PIÚ BASSO
We try to hire the best, smartest people available. If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire.
Note:ROBERT BRANDON DIXIT
several non-philosopher commentators wondered whether Brandon would be willing to extend the same logic to another context where it would seem to apply with no less force.
Note:LA LOGICA DI BRANDON APPLICATA AI NERI: APRITI CIELO
A good illustration is the case of the philosopher Michael Levin, who in 1990 published a short letter in the Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association (62–63) in which he suggested this explanation for the low proportion of blacks in philosophy… Eighteen reactions were published, all of them negative, with some authors expressing strong disagreement and others condemning the APA for publishing Levin’s letter and calling it “racist propaganda.”…
Note:IL CASO LEVINE E LO SCANDALO SUSCITATO
A similar case (in which a prominent philosopher makes a late appearance) involves Frank Ellis, a former lecturer in Russian and Slavonic studies at the University of Leeds, who publicly expressed agreement with Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray’s claims, made in their controversy-generating book The Bell Curve (1994), about the black–white difference in intelligence and its social effects…The vice-chancellor of the university suspended him…
Note:LA SOSPENSIONE DEL PROF ELLIS: PARLARE DELLA DESTRA SI PUO’ MA DEI NERI NO
why should we have to work and study with racists and homophobes? The answer is: we should not (Times Higher Education Supplement, June 9, 2006).
Note:STEVEN FRENCH SU ELLIS MURRAY E HERRNTEIN… PAROLE ESEMPLARI
he is being “disciplined” solely because students found his views offensive, and thus a breach of the university’s obligation to promote “racial harmony”
Note:PUNITO PER RAGIONI DI ARMONIA
The Curious Case of Gottlob Frege
The most salient factor that makes Frege stand out from all those other philosophers discussed in this book, and might explain the asymmetry, is that he has been castigated for supporting what is regarded as an extreme right-wing view. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Frege states: “Unfortunately, his last years saw him become politically conservative and right-wing…Why is it deemed “unfortunate” that in his last years Frege became “politically conservative and right-wing”?…
Note:PERCHÈ TANTO CHIASSO SU FREGE E SILENZIO SU MOLTI ALTRI
Notice, again, that no one has used the word “distasteful” (let alone “very distasteful”) and no one has been “shocked” (let alone “deeply shocked”) nor “upset” (let alone “very, very upset”) over any of the aforementioned cases of leading philosophers publicly supporting murderous totalitarian regimes of the left.
Note:ASIMMETRIA PATENTE
Sluga (op. cit.) went further and claimed, also relying on Frege’s diary, that one of Frege’s “heroes” at the end of his life was Adolf Hitler.
FREGE FAN DI HITLER?... NON SCHERZIAMO
Agreeing with Hitler’s claim about a political disorientation in post-Bismarck Germany in no way implies support for Hitler’s politics, and certainly not “something close to admiration” for him.
Note:MA…
in contrast to Heidegger, who publicly supported the Nazi Party for years after it came to power and after its policies left no doubt about its true goals and methods, Frege was jotting notes in his private diary nine years before Hitler became the chancellor of Germany and more than one year before Mein Kampf was published.
Note:DIFFERENZE CON HEIDEGGER
Frege’s chief sin was anti-Semitism, but we should not forget that historically anti-Semitism has not been exclusively a right-wing phenomenon…“Like the left in France and Germany, the British left played a central role in the popular dissemination of anti-Semitism in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Britain” (Brustein 2003, 89; emphasis added)….
Note:L‘ANTISEMITISMO DI FREGE
What is perceived as a right-wing deviation is not easily forgiven in contemporary philosophy. In contrast, much worse left-wing sins are typically passed over and excused.
Note:SOLO SBALLARE A DESTRA E’ IMPERDONABILE
A good illustration of this bias is again Glover’s book Humanity (1999)…The part about Nazism has an entire chapter, titled “Philosophers,” in which Glover criticizes the political views of Heidegger and Frege as well as those of some obscure philosophers like Alfred Bäumler and Lothar Tirala. In contrast, Glover did not include a “Philosophers” chapter in the part about Stalinism and Maoism, although it would have been easy to produce a much longer list of well-known philosophers who had fallen under the spell of Communist totalitarianism. The names that come to mind include Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Badiou, Lukács, Bloch, and many others,… Neurath, Russell, Wittgenstein, Lakatos, Cohen, Putnam, Davidson… Yet that chapter remained unwritten, and Glover never explained why philosophers deserved a whole chapter in one case but not in the other….
Note:ESEMPIO DI ASIMMETRIA
Richard Rorty said in an interview for the Believer in 2003: “I think all that September 11 changed was to give the fascists a chance. The Republicans saw that if they could keep us in a state of perpetual war from now on . . . they could keep electing Republicans more or less forever.”… Elsewhere Rorty associated Republicans with Hitler and the Nazis:…
Note:ROTRY… FASCISTI=REPUBBLICANI
But who was Eldridge Cleaver? He emerged from prison in 1966 after spending nine years there for rape and assault with intent to murder. He then joined the Black Panthers and became a presidential candidate of the Peace and Freedom Party in 1968.
Note:IL CANDIDATO PRESIDENTE DEI FILOSOFI DI PRINCETON
campus newspapers of two Ivy League universities recommended to its readers that they vote for Cleaver rather than for any of the major presidential candidates. The Harvard Crimson advised that “one should vote to the left of the major three candidates—whether it be for Eugene McCarthy, Eldridge Cleaver, Dick Gregory, Fred Halstead (Socialist Worker), or Henning Blomen (Socialist Labor),” and that “in states like Massachusetts where no left wing candidates qualify for the ballot or for a legal write in, one should refuse to vote for the Presidency.” The Columbia Daily Spectator went even further and officially endorsed Cleaver.
Note:GIORNALI ACCADEMICI
According to studies of the political attitudes of American professors at the time, the proportion of the professors’ vote for the far-left candidates (including Cleaver) in the 1968 presidential election was about ten times higher than in the general population (Ladd & Lipset 1972, 44).
Note:QUANTIFICARE IL BIAS
And Then He Started to Cry . . .
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the philosophers’ ability to concoct seemingly good arguments even for rather implausible, or sometimes even preposterous, views.
Note:CI VUOLE UN GENIO PER GIUSTIFICARE CERTE PRATICHE
Living in a bubble and spending most of their time with politically like-minded leftist colleagues will cause even very clever people to start hyperbolizing the dangers and bad effects of right-wing politics
Note:LA SINDROME DELL’ACQUARIO
on LeiterReports.typepad.com, the most-visited philosophy blog on the Internet—which most philosophers check regularly to get professional news about their discipline (new hirings, changes in the expert ranking of top philosophy departments, professional gossip, etc.)—conservatives have been routinely referred to as “repugs,” “morally depraved,” “morally deranged,” “crackpots,” “lunatics,” “idiots,” “twits,” “nuts,” “slimy,” “stupid,” “crazies,” “villains,” “moral monsters,” “fools,” “fascistic psychopaths,” “Neanderthals,” “despicable Neanderthals,” “sociopaths,” “threats to humanity,” “morons,” “dishonest scumbags,” “right-wing slime artists,” “noxious right-wing creeps,” and “brainless fascist thugs.”
Note:LEITER
Consider the asymmetry: A single private email from Leiter, followed by a Twitter post, started this avalanche of outrage among hundreds of philosophers, but his years-long uncontrolled torrent of public insults directed at his conservative colleagues and Republicans was never seen as a problem.
Note:E QUANDO SU LEITER APPARE UN EMAIL ANOMALA CHE OFFENDE I “COMUNISTI” DEI DIPARTIMENTI DI FILOSOFIA…
Are All Rich People Thieves?
Consider first an interesting example involving Derek Parfit, one of the most influential living philosophers. It would be very hard to find an analytic thinker today who is held in higher regard.
Note:PARFIT... IL GURU
At the beginning of his talk Parfit says that according to William Godwin, if you walk past a beggar and you don’t give him your coins, you’re stealing; the money doesn’t belong to you, because the beggar needs it more than you, so you’re stealing (“Derek Parfit—Full Address,” YouTube, 8:15–8:39). Immediately after citing Godwin’s eccentric opinion that not giving to a beggar equals stealing from him, Parfit surprisingly goes on to agree with it enthusiastically: “Well, that is actually what I feel we rich people . . . in the world today are doing. We’re not entitled to our vast wealth.”
Note:CHI NON DONA RUBA
(1) It seems to me fairly clear that the great wealth that we rich people have isn’t in a moral sense ours to give. It’s legally ours, but it’s not morally ours. (2) I’m not entitled to my vast wealth compared with these two billion people in Africa. (3) There’s no way in which I’ve come to deserve it and they haven’t (ibid., 6:55–7:19).
Note:L’ARGOMENTO PER CUI I RICCHI RUBEREBBERO
The problem with Parfit’s logic is twofold. First, he provides no real evidence (let alone compelling evidence) for the sweeping assertion (3), and second, even if he did, (2) would still not follow.
Note:UN ARGOMENTO CHE FA ACQUA
such a radical approach to economic redistribution is almost unheard of. In terms of ordinary political taxonomy, it is best classified as belonging to the extreme fringe of the extreme left.
Note:RADICALISMO ESTREMO
Let the Massacre Begin!” Said the Ethicist
Another example is provided by the philosopher Jeremy Waldron… Waldron participated in the debate “Is Torture Ever Permissible?” at Columbia University on April 21, 2005…. he was inevitably asked about the notorious “ticking bomb scenario”: What would Waldron’s advice be if a nuclear device were planted in New York City and if the only way to save millions of innocent people from a certain and horrible death were to torture an arrested terrorist who knew the location of the bomb? He replied that the answer is clear: Since morality tells us there are certain things that must not be done under any conditions—and torture is one of those things—then it follows that in that kind of situation we should “take the hit” and let all these millions of people die…. He is saying that if he had to choose between (1) saving millions of lives in the only way possible, by applying rough treatment (say, waterboarding, which he regards as torture) to one of the organizers of the impending nuclear attack on New York, and (2) protecting the perpetrator from any mistreatment, with the result that millions of people would die, he would choose (2)….
Note:IL CASO JEREMY WALDRON: CHE MUOIANO MILIONI DI AMERICANI PIUTTOSTO CHE TORTURARE UN TERRORISTA
Excellently Wise and Excellently Foolish
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How was it possible that other extremely smart people managed to believe—despite all the evidence to the contrary—that, among other things, the existence of the Iron Curtain was to be blamed on the United States; that Enver Hoxha’s regime in Albania was great; that all rich people in the West are thieves; that those convicted in the Moscow show trials were guilty as charged; that an appropriate reaction to the collapse of Soviet Communism was “a feeling of loss”; that there was no reason to join the war against Hitler until June 22, 1941; and that the United States in the 1950s was as much a police state as Hitler’s Germany?
Note:IL DILEMMA PIU’ IN GENERALE: PERCHÈ I PIÙ INTELLIGENTI SONO ANCHE I PIÙ SCEMI QUANDO L’ARGOMENTO È POLITICO?
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For between true science, and erroneous doctrines, ignorance is in the middle. Natural sense and imagination are not subject to absurdity…In accordance with what Hobbes says, philosophers are also good both at becoming “excellently wise” (in their strictly philosophical area of specialization) and “excellently foolish” (in politics, as numerous examples in this book illustrate)….
Note:HOBBES: L’GNORANTE DI SOLITO ASSUME UNA POSIZIONE INTERMEDIA
Being foolish in philosophy is immediately followed by a heavy penalty (loss of reputation), but being foolish in politics often incurs no cost at all, assuming of course that the foolishness is of the leftist variety.
LA STUPIDITÀ IN POLITICA È GRATUITA
