On this episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast we are joined by Michael Huemer, a professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is here to talk about political myths and why they are dangerous.

Political myths are factual claims which are believed by members of a political tribe that strongly support an element of that tribe’s ideology—yet they are demonstrably false or highly misleading.

Professor Huemer has written a book taking a look at how political myths operate among liberals in America titled, Progressive Myths, available on Amazon.

In his book, Huemer writes that:

“I think truth matters. Society cannot be reliably improved through lies, exaggerations, and misleading stories; it requires knowledge of the real, factual situation we face, in whatever area we seek to improve matters. . . To be clear, my problem is not that progressives have bad values, nor is it that I don’t like them or that they don’t belong to my tribe. My problem is that they are factually mistaken. They hold beliefs that objectively conflict with the way the world is in many respects; they misunderstand the current state of society, the causes of social problems, and the effects of social policies. This leads them to advocate policies and behaviors that worsen society and even undermine their own values.”

Political myths are a problem in America today, as people are more and more isolated in ideological silos and bombarded with questionable claims that feel right to their side and are shielded from information that might undermine those claims. We hope you enjoy our exploration of this problem!

For more, check us out at connorsinstitute.org.

Today’s Utterly Moderate podcast episode focuses on the positives and negatives of President Trump’s first 100 days in office in this his second term. We are joined by Jim Swift, a longtime Republican and senior editor at The Bulwark.

If you aren’t familiar with the work that they do over at The Bulwark, it is an online publication founded by longtime Republicans from the now-defunct Weekly Standard magazine. They aim to provide good faith, intelligent, center-right and center-left perspectives on the news of the day in the form of articles, newsletters, podcasts, and YouTube videos. Above all they aim to defend America’s democracy, put country over party, and oppose tribalism and polarization—just like us here at the Connors Institute at Shippensburg University.

Enjoy the conversation!

-------------

Episode audio: "Air Background Corporate" by REDCVT (Free Music Archive), "Please Listen Carefully" by Jahzzar (Free Music Archive), "Last Dance" by Jahzzar (Free Music Archive), and “Happy Trails (To You)” by the Riders in the Sky (used with artist’s permission)

This episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast deals with liberal bias in higher education and what to do about it, with a specific focus on the field of sociology.

According to Gallup, a strong majority (68%) of Americans believe that higher education is headed in the wrong direction. Barely more than a third (36%) of Americans express a high level of confidence in U.S. colleges and universities, down from 57% only a decade ago.

Americans give the following reasons for this low confidence: political agendas, wrong focus/teaching the wrong things, and cost/expenses.

Is this concern about “political agendas” warranted? Let’s first take a look at the politics of American professors.

In a 2016-2017 survey, UCLA researchers found a liberal-to-conservative (L:C) ratio of 5:1 among American college professors.

Other studies show a much larger gap. When Mitchell Langbert and Sean Stevens analyzed the voter registrations of college professors, for instance, they found a Democrat-to-Republican (D:R) ratio of 8:1. Among the same sample, they found the D:R political donor ratio to be a whopping 95:1.

A discrepancy between the public—American voters are about evenly split between Democrats and Republicans—and the professoriate is not a problem by itself. It becomes a problem if it impacts the teaching and research being done at American colleges.

On this count, it seems to have become a problem.

Many academics blur the line between activism and research, letting their leftist beliefs and values skew their work. This includes a number of big claims about systemic racism, police shootings, implicit bias, microaggressions, free markets, sexism, sex differences, transgender issues, single parenthood, IQ, and more. It is of course not the case that all or even most of the teaching and research happening on college campuses is corrupted by ideology. But far too many academics—perhaps most notably in fields in the humanities, social sciences, and education—make high-profile claims about social phenomena that go well beyond what the evidence will support, and these claims frequently align with leftwing ideologies. This can distort the public discourse, workplace practices, and social policy.

You can read a much deeper discussion of this in the book, The Poisoning of the American Mind, as well as the documentary of the same name.

On this podcast episode, we discuss liberal bias in higher education, why it is a problem, and what we might do about it. Enjoy!

-------------

-------------

Episode Audio:

• "Air Background Corporate" by REDCVT (Free Music Archive)
• "Please Listen Carefully" by Jahzzar (Free Music Archive)
• "Last Dance" by Jahzzar (Free Music Archive)
• “Happy Trails (To You)” by the Riders in the Sky (used with artist’s permission)