Do college-educated people become liberal or conservative?

When it comes to moral and religious issues, does a college education create open-minded and tolerant citizens, or citizens who are aligned with their often-liberal college professors?

In politics, do Americans follow their internal moral compass, or are they highly influenced by academics and popular culture?

Those questions are prompted by a recent Intercollegiate Studies Institute survey titled "The Shaping of the American Mind." The report says college graduates likely favor same-sex marriage and abortion on demand, and are less likely to favor prayer in public schools or believe the Bible is the word of God.

While those findings won't surprise anyone attuned to the nation's political trends, the reason "why" does say a lot about independent thinking in American culture.

The ISI's survey of 2,508 U.S. adults shows that graduating from college "does not significantly impact a person's views on economic issues," nor does it significantly influence a person's "civic knowledge" — their understanding of American history, government or foreign affairs.

But it does conclude that a college degree tends to result in a more liberal political outlook. Greater "civic knowledge," however, tends to result in a more conservative political stance and influences thinking on several hot-button topics.

Elaine Englehardt, distinguished professor of ethics at Utah Valley University, has taught thousands of students about the wide continuum of thought on moral issues.

Because Utah Valley is one of the most highly conservative areas of the country, she said, "Many of our students come to the university with a very strong political point of view. We ask them to read a variety of sources on political topics like business ethics, abortion, war and nuclear war and to understand that there are numerous points of view."

She said education has long threatened a sector of the population, noting "Socrates died for that," after Greek rulers decided he was corrupting the youth of Athens by teaching them theories that didn't align with prevailing beliefs.

At UVU, "we don't encourage them to change their point of view, just to be well-educated on the issues. When someone asks a student their view on abortion, for instance, the student should be able to say more than 'I'm against it just because.' They should be able to give a reasonable argument that would defend their point of view." That's the essence of education, she said.

Paul Mero, director of The Sutherland Institute, said he was not surprised by the report's findings, "that if a kid goes to college, they become more selfish, more cynical and more secular. I graduated from BYU and I would say that about the Y., too."

Because his focus is not academics but the "civic knowledge" the ISI report claims is increasingly rare among Americans, Mero said Sutherland's focus is "trying to get rid of the cynicism," that results, in part, from academic circles.

Sutherland fosters "truly open dialogue" and provides "a safe haven for people of all opinions to come together and say what they want to say."

"We're trying to get away from the selfish and cynical attitude that the only legitimate opinion is a secular opinion. Everyone has basis for their opinion, whether it's religious or not, and that's all good and legitimate."

While Mero supports the Socratic method in higher education, "I don't think the cynicism that exists in most universities today is Socratic. It's demeaning, it's il-liberal and it's narrow."

Englehardt said ethics education provides a broad understanding of issues some students would not otherwise consider.

"I do hope by the time their education is finished, that students will have looked at a lot of national issues very seriously and understand there are many complexities."

Many LDS students come to the school with no understanding that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints allows abortion — after deep personal prayer and consultation with church leaders — but only in cases of rape, incest, severe deformity or concern for the life of the mother, she said.

"Evangelicals and Catholics don't allow it for any reason, but the LDS Church does allow it, and they are beat up for that. … That's what many protesters at LDS General Conference are there for."

Englehardt referenced the current production of "Twelve Angry Men," at Pioneer Memorial Theater as a laudable example of "how critical thinking can change absolutism," when the actors who are initially ready to convict a man quickly end up acquitting him based on a lengthy discussion from different perspectives.

She said that kind of broad discussion is healthy in a democratic society and is encouraged at UVU. "I'm proud of these students. Those who are very conservative are given every bit as much respect as students in the middle and students who are liberal in their thinking. I think they feel very safe expressing their views in classroom discussions."

Mero agreed a variety of perspectives are healthy in a free society, but the "ignorance of government functions" among young people in particular is troubling. "I'm not sure they're learning or even care about it. … Younger folks seem to have a harder time understanding how this works in a free society. They're more selfish and they don't think about the hard work a free society takes."

Because many students don't have an understanding of American history or democratic principles, "when we're dealing with citizens one-on-one (in regular civics seminars) it's a different experience than junior citizens sitting in college class, isolated and subjected to the ideological whims of the professor and held captive through grading systems as to what they're supposed to believe or not," he said.

From his reading, the report examines "who is really literate: college professors and college kids, or those who make education a lifelong learning experience and who are actually participating civically in their own communities."

How I Became A Conservative

Written By : John Hawkins January 14, 2012

I often get the impression that liberals don’t have the foggiest understanding of how people become conservative. Maybe they believe radio talk show hosts hypnotize their listeners with the sound of their voice or Richard Mellon Scaife pays us all $5 a week under the table to vote Republican, but that’s not how it actually happens. While I can’t speak for every conservative, I can tell you how I became a right-winger.

To begin with, I was never terribly political in high school, which is probably the case for most teenagers. However, were you to guess which way I was going to end up leaning back in those days, you might have very well guessed liberal. Like most of my friends, I was a big fan of gangster rap like the Geto Boys & NWA along with the politicized message of Public Enemy & the obscene Luke Skyywalker & the Too Live Crew. That sort of music was standard fare for me when I was a kid. Some of my heroes as a teenager included Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, & Satchel Page, all of whom I admired in part because they achieved so much despite racism. I was also deeply affected by reading Malcolm X’s biography — although in a different way than John Walker Lindh. The book impressed upon me how important it was to try to make a difference in your life and how big of an impact one man can have, even a man like Malcolm X, who was a dope using punk in prison before he became an impact player in the Civil Rights movement. That book started to get me interested in politics, but it wasn’t until I went to college that I started to truly form my views.

Of course, I still had a head full of mush when I arrived on campus. I had minimal knowledge of American history, economics, and even what was going on politically in the world thanks to the mediocre high school education I had received. But, I did know I was interested in doing “something political.” So I started reading political books, listening to what my professors had to say, and talking politics with my friends who in retrospect, knew as little as I did about what was going on.

But even then, there were two lenses I viewed every political proposal through — pragmatism & did the idea make America better or worse off? At the time, it seemed to me that the first question that should be asked about every program, every idea was quite simply — will this work? If the idea didn’t work, then it was a bad idea, no matter how noble the intentions were of the person who proposed it. Next, I thought you had to consider the implications of the policy; did it make our country stronger or weaker? If it made our country weaker, then it was something I opposed.

Unfortunately for the left, practicality was not their strong point. As an example of what I mean, let me take you back to a class I took my sophomore year called “War, Peace, Justice and Human Survival.” The professors were ultra-libs of the sort you rarely find anywhere other than on college campuses, peace rallies, or on the pages of ultra left-wing mags like Counterpunch. Our professors explained to us very earnestly that we should get rid of our military and use non-violent resistance to protect ourselves from other nations. The professors talked about why they were pacifists, how right & moral their position was, & all the wonderful things we could do with the money we put into the military. They talked about the whole concept as if it were the greatest idea since the Wright Brothers decided to build a plane. Meanwhile, I was wondering what happened when Cuba’s military starting looting Florida and gang raping the women? What were people supposed to do then? Invite the Cubans in for soup, call them “brother,” and try to show them that we’re “human beings too?� Suppose they don’t care that we’re nice people, what’s our back-up plan?

Even in my political infancy, that was the core difference that I perceived between conservatives and liberals. As I saw it, conservatism was based on finding practical solutions that were chosen primarily because they worked and made America a better place to live. On the other hand, I believed the left’s ideas had more to do with what they thought was �nice� or �mean� than whether their proposals actually worked in the real world & strengthened our country.

As I�ve gotten older and my views have matured, I�ve found that those first conclusions I reached continue to be in large part true and those early discussions I had with my professors still seem to be apropos metaphors for most of the wars of ideas I see between the left and right today. Sure, political maneuvering, different factions within the left and right, religious issues, and social mores cloud some of the issues. But at their root, most of the ideological battles being fought today consist of right-wingers who are in one form or another crying, �This is practical & it�s good for America,� vs. left-wingers replying with some variant of, �That�s mean,� or �We should do this because it�s nice.� Maybe that�s not how everyone sees it, but it’s how I see it, and that is what turned me down the “right” path.

Is America Becoming More Conservative? Why?

By Barry Ritholtz - February 16th, 2012, 9:00PM

Why has the economic crisis deepened America’s conservative drift? The trend towards the hard right is most pronounced in the least well off, least educated, most blue collar, most economically hard-hit states.

Why?

It is a fascinating glimpse into the Human (or is it American?) Psyche — and I am very curious about it:

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Consider these fascinating bullet points from Gallup:

• Conservative states are considerably more religious than liberal-leaning states. And, this correlation between religion is increasing

• Conservative states are also less educated than liberal ones; This correlation between conservative affiliation and education (percent of adults who are college graduates) is also substantially higher than before.

• States with more conservatives are less diverse.

• Conservative political affiliation is highly negatively correlated with the percent of the population that are immigrants or gay and lesbian.

• There is no correlation to race or ethnicity, however, whether measured as percent white, percent black, or percent Hispanic (Fascinating).

• Conservative political affiliation is strongly correlated with percentage of a state’s workforce in blue-collar occupations;

• Conservative political affiliation is highly negatively correlated with proportion of workforce engaged in knowledge-based professional and creative work.

• States with more conservatives are considerably less affluent than those with more liberals.

• Conservative political affiliation is highly negatively correlated with state income levels and even more so with average hourly earnings.