Category: Analyses
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Two Cheers for Symbolic Capitalists
Starting in the interwar period (between World Wars I and II) and rapidly accelerating in the 1970s, there were shifts to the global economy that radically increased the influence of the “symbolic industries” – science and technology, education, media, law, consulting, administration, finance, non-profits, NGOs and advocacy organizations, and so forth. People who work in…
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We Have Never Been Woke: One Month to Launch!!!
It’s a little hard to believe, because it’s been nearly three and a half years since it was announced, but We Have Never Been Woke will be available for everyone to read in less than one month! I’ve got my hands on a physical copy, and it’s truly a thing of beauty. Hats off to…
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Academia’s Biggest Bias Isn’t Political or Ideological
In order to understand biases and exclusion in academe, it’s best to consider who comprises it. Professors, for instance, are overwhelmingly relatively affluent, urban and suburban whites who graduated with terminal degrees from the top programs in their fields. These kinds of folks don’t just dominate academia. They are the primary producers and consumers of most content produced in the “symbolic professions.”…
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Race to the Bottom: Both Parties Are Alienating Core Ethnic Blocs
Throughout the 2024 cycle, polling has suggested that Republicans are poised to do extraordinarily well with African Americans. Even with Harris at the top of the ticket, more than 1 out of 5 black voters say they support Donald Trump. Younger black voters seem especially open to casting ballots for the GOP. On its face,…
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With Kamala or Biden: Chaos is the Only Predictable Element of the 2024 Election Cycle
Since Joe Biden was taken off the ballot, things seem to be going well for Kamala Harris. She formally secured her presidential nomination from the Democratic National Committee with minimal fuss. Other party faithful quickly lined up behind her. Mainstream media outlets have offered overwhelming upbeat, glamorizing and uncritical coverage of Harris since her predecessor…
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The Absurd Spectacle at Columbia Occludes the Grim Realities of Gaza
To understand broad trends, it can often be helpful to dig into a particular case. With respect to the tumult over the encampments protesting the U.S. backed Israeli offensive in Gaza, it would be hard to find a more illuminating example than Columbia University. Here, we can clearly observe students’ sincere but contradictory concern for…
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We Have Never Been Woke: pre-orders now live
I am pleased to report that my first book, We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite, now has an official release date: October 8, 2024. Even better, hardcover editions are now available for preorder on Bookshop.org, Thriftbooks, Barnes & Noble, Amazon and through most other major retailers. You can also…
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Bill and Hillary Clinton Revolutionized U.S. Politics (Twice)
Joe Biden’s approval rating has been consistently underwater for most of his presidency. Although there has been a bit of improvement, the president continues to trail Trump in most swing states. Eager to turn around his fortunes, Biden has sought to enlist the Clintons into his reelection bid – starting with Hillary, who hosted a…
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It’s Easy to Misunderstand Antisemitism in America
According to many popular contemporary narratives, American society is rife with antisemitism. Institutions of higher learning are purportedly hotbeds of anti-Jewish animus, indoctrinating impressionable young people into a leftist ideology that paints Jews as extraordinarily privileged, Israelis as oppressors, Hamas as brave freedom fighters and Palestinians as blameless victims. Many people I deeply respect have embraced claims like these…
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Israel’s Campaign in Gaza is a Failure on Every Level. The U.S. Must Stop Enabling It.
On December 14th, CNN aired a devastating peek into life in the Gaza Strip. The dispatch, from Clarissa Ward, marked the first piece of independent reporting from Gaza by a Western journalist since October 7th (all other reports by Western correspondents to date have come from people embedded with the Israeli army who had to…
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Is Nikki Haley the Next Hillary Clinton?
The contemporary GOP base is increasingly comprised of Americans who perceive themselves to be the “losers” in the knowledge economy and who seem to feel distant and mistrustful of mainstream institutions. The party, and especially its insurgent movements – from the Obama-era tea party through the present day – are increasingly backed by small businesses…
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It’s the (Knowledge) Economy, Stupid
The biggest divide in American politics at present is not along the lines of socioeconomic status (SES), nor educational attainment, nor type (urban, suburban, small town, rural), nor gender – although these factors all serve as important proxies for the distinction that matters most. The key schism that lies at the heart of dysfunction within…
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New paper explores censorship and self-censorship in science
In a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, my co-authors and I explore the prevalence, causes and impacts of censorship and self-censorship in science. We find that censorship is driven heavily by scientists themselves and, although the consequences of censorship are often pernicious in practice, censors tend to be…
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If Truth Matters in the Conflict Between Israel and Gaza, Now’s the Time to Tell It.
On October 7, hundreds of Hamas fighters breached the boundaries dividing Israel and Gaza and committed atrocities against vulnerable populations. They targeted non-combatants hiding in shelters. Women. Old people. Children. Foreign nationals. They rampaged through Israel for more than a day before being driven back by Israeli forces. When it was over, 695 Israeli civilians…
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On Populism, Labor and Partisan Politics
On September 27th, the Republican Party will hold the second debate in their primary contest. The decisive frontrunner for the nomination, Donald Trump, has once again declined to participate. Instead, the former president will deliver a primetime campaign speech in Detroit to a purported audience of current and former members of the United Auto Workers…
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Education and Privilege Laundering
We’ve recently concluded another graduation season. The annual ritual wherein professors and deans, decked out in their wizard regalia, engage in a collective mystification of contemporary inequalities. By the end of the ceremony, diplomas in hand after four years of striving, graduates will come to believe they “deserve” the relatively comfortable jobs, above-average (dual) incomes,…
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One Lesson To Learn From Ted Kaczynski
Ted Kaczynski was recognized as a genius at an early age. He graduated high school at age 15, began attending Harvard at 16, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics at 20. Five years later, he had attained a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Michigan. The next fall, he began teaching at the University of…
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Contextualizing Ideological Gaps in Mental Illness and Well-Being
In a recent essay for Social Science & Medicine – Mental Health, epidemiologist Catherine Gimbrone and co-authors identified a significant gap in depressive attitudes between liberal and conservative teens. This gap was present in all years observed in the study (2005-2018). However, it grew significantly starting in 2012, as depressive affect unilaterally spiked among liberals.…
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The ‘Great Awokening’ Is Winding Down
Beginning in 2011, there was a rapid shift in the ways people associated with the knowledge economy talk about, and engage on, ‘social justice’ issues. Those who work in fields like tech, finance, education, journalism, arts, entertainment, design and consulting (and students who aspired to these professions) grew much more politically ‘radical’ over the…
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U.S. College Professors Do Not Well-Represent the Rest of America
Tenured and tenure-track college professors are drawn from a narrow and idiosyncratic slice of society. Many backgrounds and perspectives are dramatically underrepresented in the academy. This gulf between the ivory tower and the rest of society undermines knowledge production, pedagogy, and public trust in experts and scientific claims. A new study published in Nature Human Behavior argues that, at its current rate of change,…
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On Christian Nationalism and the ‘Religious Right’
In recent years, there has been growing scholarly and media focus on Christian nationalism. Google nGrams, a search engine that tracks word frequencies in books, show that the contemporary resurgence of interest in Christian nationalism seems to correspond with the 2016 election cycle. A search on Google Scholar produces roughly 7,000 results for scholarly works…
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The 2022 Midterms Results Should (But Won’t) Definitively Kill Disparaging Narratives About U.S. Voters
In the run-up to the 2022 midterms, a dominant narrative in mainstream media spaces was that Americans were on the cusp of throwing away democracy in order to save a few dollars on gas. Should Republicans lose, they would refuse to concede defeat. The legitimacy of the electoral results would be undermined by widespread conspiracy…
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Democrats Will Lose the House in 2022. It Probably Doesn’t Matter What They Do.
In the Abrahamic religions, there is a profound mystery in how to reconcile belief in free will with faith in divine providence. Similar mysteries lie at the heart of political science. For instance, over the past 45 years, every time there has been a change of party in the White House, the opposing party won…
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On Clarence Thomas, White Liberals and Racial Politics
There were six Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade this week. The majority opinion was authored by Justice Samuel Alito. However, in the aftermath of the ruling, there has been an intense and particular focus on a different justice: Clarence Thomas. This may have been in part a product of Thomas’…
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The Loneliest Americans
Jay Caspian Kang’s life story is both extraordinary and somewhat normal for families like his. That’s kind of the point. His parents’ family had roots in North Korea, although they fled to the South in the leadup and aftermath of what is known in America as the ‘Korean War.’ Upon getting married, and for very…
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Some Awkward Truths About the ‘Big Lie’
According to a number of polls and surveys, significant majorities of GOP-aligned voters seem to believe the ‘Big Lie’ that Trump was the rightful winner of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election and, consequently, the Biden Administration is illegitimate. Taking these data at face value, a growing chorus insists that we’re living in a ‘post-truth’…
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The Media’s ‘Great Awokening’ Preceded Trump and has Continued Uninterrupted Since He Was Deposed
Over the last five years, poll after poll has found that the GOP base has grown warmer towards Blacks, Hispanics, immigrants and Muslims. They’ve simultaneously become more skeptical of Christian nationalism. They’re now significantly more accepting of same sex marriage and non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ Americans. The rest of America has shifted even further in…
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Book Announcement: We Have Never Been Woke
I am thrilled to be able to officially announce that my book, We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite has been acquired by Princeton University Press and is slated for release on October 8, 2024. Huge shoutout to my agent, Andrew Stuart. Much love to PUP Executive Editor Meagan Levinson, who was…
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A Post-Religious America? I Wouldn’t Count on It.
In a recent essay for Interfaith America, I explored how Americans seem to be losing faith in organized religion. Looking at the overall U.S. trends in recent decades, the picture can indeed seem dire. For instance, this chart shows the share of Americans who are affiliated with a church, synagogue or mosque – a figure…
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African Americans Seem to be Losing Faith in Organized Religion… and the Democratic Party
Throughout the Qur’an, God charges people of faith “not just to be nice and avoid doing wrong in their personal lives, but instead, to support the good and prohibit or resist that which is incompatible with al-sharia (the Path). This mandate, which is repeated over and over again throughout the Qur’an (e.g. 3:110 & 114, 7:157, 9:71 & 112, 31:17), has two…
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College, Inequality and African Americans: Change and Continuity
At the turn of the 20th Century, WEB DuBois’ hoped a ‘Talented Tenth’ would eventually emerge from institutions of higher learning and leverage their social capital to lift up their peers. Putting social solidarity above their own interests, they would dedicate their efforts primarily to leading and empowering other people of color. Today, DuBois’ vision…
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On the January 6 Capitol Riots and ‘Teaching to the Moment’
In the aftermath of the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol, which left five people dead, and nearly derailed Congressional certification of the 2020 election results, many in higher ed have been wrestling with questions around what they can do to help mitigate the cultural and political crisis we find ourselves in, and how…
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Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth
In Science Fictions, psychologist Stuart Ritchie explores how the scientific enterprise systematically goes awry, and what can be done to right the ship. The book is focused on, essentially, the inverse of the problem that Heterodox Academy was created to solve. The key problem with science today, as Ritchie sees it, is not that there…
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Are Democrats Actually Capable of Learning from 2020?
The U.S. presidential races in 2000 and 2004 went for Republicans. In 2008 and 2012 went for Democrats. In 2016, for Republicans. In 2020, for Democrats again. Despite Democrats winning the presidential elections in 2008 and 2012, they saw historic losses in the midterms for 2010 and 2014. If we want to understand how we…
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On the ‘Great Awokening’ and Racial Realities
Is there anything of which one might say, ‘See this, it is new?’ Already it has existed for ages which were before us. There is no remembrance of earlier things; and also, of the later things which will occur, there will be for them no remembrance among those who come later still.” Ecclesiastes 1: 10-11…
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The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous
American liberals often charge that Christians seem unusually preoccupied (even obsessed) with sex and sexuality, and have a bunch of strange hang-ups about marriage and family structure. Conservatives, meanwhile, argue that the “traditional family” lies at the core of Western Civilization, and that weakening foundational norms around sex, marriage, and child-rearing would likely have destabilizing…
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Whatever Happened to the Obama Coalition?
In 2008, Barack Obama was widely described as having built a game-changing political coalition: young people, racial and ethnic minorities, educated professionals, urban and suburban voters. He was held to have built an innovative campaign infrastructure, leveraging big data and social media in an unprecedented way, increasing turnout and Democratic vote share with constituencies that…
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Religion and Politics in the Age of Trump
In a previous essay I demonstrated that Democrats have been consistently losing ground with both people of color and people of faith in virtually every midterm and general election cycle after 2008. Republicans, meanwhile, have seen consistent gains with many constituencies. What occurred in 2016, therefore, was not an aberration – but the culmination of…
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The Biden Administration Has a Weak Mandate
In his masterful book Tides of Consent,” political scientist James Stimson explains that voters usually put a party in power in order to realize moderate change in a particular direction. However, once in office, parties regularly overstep their mandate, going farther than the public wanted. Other times, parties fail to realize the reforms they were…
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Trump is Doing Surprisingly Well with Minority Voters. It Might Not Matter.
In 2016, Donald Trump got a lower share of the white vote than the previous Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, and white turnout was stagnant as compared to 2012. Trump was able to win nonetheless because he got a higher share of Black and Hispanic voters than his predecessor — up roughly 3 percentage points with…
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How Our Social Networks Shape Our Politics
An ambitious new project, the American National Social Network Survey, looks at the social networks of thousands of Americans over time, exploring how who people associate with affects their worldview. The project is sponsored by AEI and the Knight Foundation, carried out in partnership with NORC (who administer the General Social Survey). The latest report from the project,…
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Diversity is Important. Diversity-Related Training is Terrible.
In wake of George Floyd’s murder and the protests that followed, many colleges and universities have been rolling out new training requirements – often oriented towards reducing biases and encouraging people from high-status groups to ‘check their privilege.’ The explicit goal of these training programs is generally to help create a more positive and welcoming…
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Trump Voters Have Been Misunderstood All Along (Including By Trump)
Unprecedented numbers of Americans — including a growing share of Republicans and independents — recognize racial injustice as pervasive, support police reform and back the protests against police brutality. Apparently oblivious to this emerging consensus, Trump is trying to run a Nixon-style “law-and-order” campaign for the 2020 election. And it is killing him politically. Trump has seen a dramatic and…
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My Problem with the ‘Harper’s Letter’
On July 7th, Harper’s Magazine published “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate,” colloquially known as the “Harper’s Letter.” The collective statement was signed by more than 150 public luminaries, from prominent academics and journalists to bestselling authors. The signatories denounced a culture of repression, fear, and reprisal which they claim has overtaken many institutions of cultural…
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What about the ‘good apples’?
Isaac “Ike” Lambert was a decorated detective who had served more than 24 years in the Chicago Police Department. In 2017, an off-duty officer shot a teenager named Ricardo Hayes, who had autism and whose caregivers had reported him missing hours before. Some officers then tried to charge Hayes with assault on the basis of…
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Police in America Are Out of Control
Following the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent wave of protests nationwide (indeed, worldwide) against police brutality, Americans have witnessed video after video of cops assaulting unarmed demonstrators, and even complete bystanders unlucky enough to cross their path. In one striking case, police senselessly shoved a seventy-five-year-old man to the ground, causing blood to…
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Why Reflexivity is Important for Research and Activism
In a recent essay for Public Seminar, I explored Amy Cooper’s attempts to sic police on a black man for telling her to leash her dog. I argued that her actions should not be understood as novel or surprising, and explained how her likely (liberal) sociopolitical orientation may have contributed to how the confrontation played…
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‘Karen’ is a Democrat
Amy Cooper was asked to put her pet on a leash, in accordance with city ordinance. Rather than simply complying with the rules, Ms. Cooper tried to sic the police on the person who pointed out her violation – feigning to be in imminent danger from an ‘African American man.’ Fortunately, the man accused of…
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Who Defines What ‘Racist’ Means ?
One key insight of the “discursive turn” in social research is that how concepts are defined, and by whom, reveals a lot about power relations within a society or culture. These definitions are not just reflections of social dynamics, but can have important socio-political consequences downstream: they can help legitimize or delegitimize individuals, groups and…
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The Sacred Project of American Sociology
What is sociology “about?” According to the American Sociological Association (ASA), it is: “The study of society, a social science involving the study of the social lives of people, groups and societies; the study of our behavior as social beings, covering everything from the analysis of short contacts between anonymous individuals on the street to…
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Disposable Scholars
Crises, such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, often serve to clarify the state of the societies and institutions they impact – highlighting dynamics which have long been present but have previously gone unnoticed or underdiscussed. Higher ed is no exception. At colleges and universities nationwide, institutional responses to the coronavirus pandemic highlight just how much…
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The Crisis of Expertise
There has been a lot of talk in recent years about the “war on science” or the so-called “death of expertise.” However, according to the General Social Survey, there has been no radical decrease with respect to public trust in the scientific community per se. In fact, contemporary Americans have more trust in the scientific…
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What Coronavirus Reveals About the Lifestyles of the Professional-Managerial Class
In New York City and throughout the country, the professional-managerial class is hunkered down and making the best of a bad situation: working remotely, enjoying time with their families, making sure their children stay up on their schoolwork, finding ways to work out, exercising self-care, and catching up on all the shows they’ve wanted to…
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On Heterodox Academy and Effective Advocacy
I began working with Heterodox Academy in the fall of 2016, about a year after the group was formed. At that time, the organization (such as it was) was a handful of interesting people who met in Jon Haidt’s NYU office every week to talk about current events, ideas for blog posts and external publications,…