Some polling data suggest that the higher level of your education the more likely you are to be a political liberal. Ask Elizabeth Warren if that’s true in Massachusetts. Now the Boston Globe reports (scroll down past the evil eye!) that a study by Thomas Talhelm and co-authors shows reason to believe that socially liberal attitudes are associated with more analytical ways of thinking. That’s one thing we do in liberal education, help students develop analytical reasoning. Does that make them more socially liberal? Might it someday make them libertarians? And is there a price to be paid for such critical thinking -- a less “holistic” view of the world?
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Some polling data suggest that the higher level of your education the more likely you are to be a political liberal. Ask Elizabeth Warren if that’s true in Massachusetts. Now the Boston Globe reports (scroll down past the evil eye!) that a study by Thomas Talhelm and co-authors shows reason to believe that socially liberal attitudes are associated with more analytical ways of thinking. That’s one thing we do in liberal education, help students develop analytical reasoning. Does that make them more socially liberal? Might it someday make them libertarians? And is there a price to be paid for such critical thinking -- a less “holistic” view of the world?
2 Comments
Paul Woodruff
1/6/2015 12:45:03 am
Could it be that the judgments of liberals are more sensitive to particular evidence, while conservatives are more loyal to large theories that are more evidence-resistant? I am not sure what "analytic" and "holistic" mean in this context. But if these differences represent innate brain structures, then education cannot be blamed or praised for affecting people's political standpoints.
Bob Connor
1/7/2015 10:14:39 am
Thanks, Paul;I agree the terms are fuzzy but I wonder if communitarian colleagues, Charles Taylor or Alasdair MacIntyre for example, would latch on to the "holistic" idea and press against the emphasis we are now putting on critical thinking / analytical reasoning in undergraduate education.. How do you come down on this? Leave a Reply. |
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