The Strange Apologetics of Our Academic Colleagues

Most folks can sympathize with me in recalling all too many conversations with colleagues that have strongly ideological or partisan leanings on issues that are open to social science and historical research. One is often astounded by the partisans’ ability to rationalize and engage in nearly Olympic level mental gymnastics in order to twist available empirical facts to their preconceived political leanings. Are these folks really this blinded by their partisan leanings? Are they actually aware of their difficulties and try to minimize them for some greater political good? Perhaps they are paid by lobbyists, think-tanks or the like (why should pundits get rich while we academics starve?). Where is the love of disinterested, reasoned examination of an issue in order to get to the truth, though it may disturb our partisan predilections? Thanks to recent research by Emory University specialists in brain imaging we may have more insight into what is going on with such folks and more importantly may have an important lesson to learn.

The imaging specialists, led by one Drew Western, examined a sample of Democratic and Republican partisans. They presented the loyalists with evidence which put their respective 2004 Presidential candidates (George Bush and John Kerry) in a questionable light. When subjects were faced with such information brain imaging was utilized to measure activity in the areas of the brain associated with emotions and logical processes. For the loyalists, brain activity in the sections associated with emotions was active while activity in the logical areas saw no increase in activity. Even more remarkable, once subjects came to a satisfying explanation for the conundrum, there was a sharp increase in reward areas of the brain akin to the response of addicts when they get a fix.

This article should do more than help us understand the strange apologetics of the committed libertarian economist, the dogmatic feminist sociologist or the ideologically driven Marxist history professor that we run into at committee meetings and university functions, or whose research we read in journals. It should warn us to the antithetical relationship of the properties of scholarship and ideological partisanship. It should also help us confront the claims of Marxists and feminists on the left along with the Straussians or evangelicals on the right that value-free and non-ideological scholarship is misguided.

There are ontological arguments to separate values and ideology from scholarship, such as the famous argument from David Hume that factual “Is” statements (what actually happened in history) cannot logically support normative “Ought” statements (an ideological point the researcher would like to see supported). There are also concerns about the practicality of holding up valuable empirically based historical research while trying to “scientifically” decide “Ought” issues. But the most important reason to strive for value-neutrality in one’s work is much more important, that in the words of legal scholar Karl Llewellyn “experience shows the intrusion of Ought-spectacles during the investigation of the facts make it very difficult to see what is being done.” Now we can establish that such is the case because when one allows one’s mind or research to be dominated by one’s ideological leanings one allows ones research or teaching to be dominated by emotion. Sadly, and ironically, I can imagine the oxymoronic partisan scholar I run into all too often reading this very message and engaging in the spinning search for an emotionally satisfying answer