Historical revisionism - ideology trumps scholarship

A depressing article about his dissertation from Jack Morgan Jones. I accept it's a one-sided piece but it sets out how a simple proposal to look at something that fascinates the author became a piece of boilerplate leftist nonsense. The idea of students having real autonomy in study is undermined, the article is worth a read for that alone, but worse it shines a light on leftist revisionism:

I meet with my dissertation supervisor for the first time. She insists that the Soviet Union during the 1930s and 1940s was not totalitarian, and that using totalitarianism as an analytical framework has long since been dismantled by revisionist scholarship.

That's right folks, all those years you've been labouring under the misconception that Finer's definition of totalitarianism applied (in spades) to the Soviet Union of the 1930s. Jack goes on:

My supervisor seems peculiarly determined to render it obsolete. She firmly advises me against making totalitarianism the focus of my dissertation. She makes her case with emphatic certainty—the scholarship on this matter, she tells me, is settled. She is so dismissive that I begin to feel foolish for having even proposed it.

The scholarship is settled! So much for the spirit of enquiry, the joy of research - 1930s Russia wasn't totalitarian! I'm guessing Jack's supervisor and her pals see the Soviet Union of Stalin, with its gulags, state sponsored starvation, pogroms, murders, intrusive secret police and atmosphere of fear, as some sort of cuddly bear that we've all misunderstood. Seems to me that ideology is trumping scholarship here.

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Quote of the day - on conservatives in academia

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From Jonathan Haidt's review on political diversity (or rather its absence) in social psychology:

Conservative graduate students and assistant professors are behaving rationally when they keep their political identities hidden, and when they avoid voicing the dissenting opinions that could be of such great benefit to the field. Moderate and libertarian students may be suffering the same fate.

I asked a while back why there are so few right-wing sociologists (effectively none - although there are a couple of libertarian sorts). It's good to see some real academic confirmation of this as a problem, that having some colleagues who don't automatically blame society's ills on capitalism or neo-liberalism might be a good thing.

Nothing will change though. Most universities will remain hostile places for anyone who wants to explore society from a conservative perspective.

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I am an economist!

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In a (less successful) attempt to repeat the 1981 letter from 364 economists that didn't change Sir Geoffrey Howe's policy, a letter from 52 'economists' was sent to The Observer criticising George Osborne's economic policies. However, it is now clear that most of the 'economists' weren't economists but from other academic disciplines.

...only 15 of the 52 signatories were actually practising mainstream economists, with many more experts in subjects such as organisational studies, social policy theory, culture and media.

On the basis of this discovery - and being the holder of a BA in South East Asian Studies (including several modules of development economics) and an MSc in Urban Regeneration - featuring a dissertation testing the New Economics Foundation's LM3 multiplier model - I am now inclined to call myself an economist.

Except I'm not, of course!

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Policy-based evidence making (or How Government is killing science with help from academics)

If I hear the phrase “evidence-based policy making” drop from the lips of a Labour minister or one of their bureaucratic lickspittles I shall scream. Labour came to power puffing this idea – and then ignored any evidence that got in the way of its mission.

But it’s worse – Labour’s academic apologists use bad research to support the Government’s case on education, on crime and on terrorism. Instead of a proper scientific enquiry these “researchers” use qualitative methods – mostly gathering the opinions of a few experts and presenting that as research – to arrive at “evidence”.

I completed a Master of Science degree that – had I so chosen – could have been gained without any quantitative analysis. (I hasten to add that I chose to do proper research).

This is not evidence it is opinion

The social sciences are dominated by innumerate people who even dream up cod intellectual justifications of their make-believe approach to enquiry. Nothing wrong with opinion guys - but it is not evidence.

So I am grateful for the Heresiarch coining the term:

Policy-based evidence making

It sums up everything wrong with the way we conduct government, train our future governors and sideline scientific enquiry.