Berkeley study links Reagan, Hitler

In a study that ponders the similarities between former President Ronald Reagan, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Rush Limbaugh, four American university researchers say they now have a better understanding of what makes political conservatives tick.

Underlying psychological motivations that mark conservatives are "fear and aggression, dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity; uncertainty avoidance; need for cognitive closure; and terror management," the researchers wrote in an article, "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition," recently published in the American Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin.

"From our perspective, these psychological factors are capable of contributing to the adoption of conservative ideological contents, either independently or in combination," they wrote, according to a press release issued by the University of California at Berkeley.

The researchers also contend left-wing ideologues such as Joseph Stalin and Fidel Castro "might be considered politically conservative in the context of the systems that they defended."

The study was conducted by Associate Professor Jack Glaser and visiting Professor Frank Sulloway of UC Berkeley, Associate Professor John Jost of Stanford University's Graduate School of Business and Professor Arie Kruglanski of the University of Maryland at College Park.

Glaser allowed that while conservatives are less "integratively complex" than others, "it doesn't mean that they're simple-minded."

Conservatives don't feel the need to jump through complex, intellectual hoops in order to understand or justify some of their positions, he said, according to the Berkeley news release.

"They are more comfortable seeing and stating things in black and white in ways that would make liberals squirm," Glaser explained.

The assistant professor of public policy said President George W. Bush's comments during a 2001 trip to Italy provide an example.

The Republican president told assembled world leaders, "I know what I believe, and I believe what I believe is right."

Glaser also noted Bush told a British reporter last year, "Look, my job isn't to nuance."

The Berkeley news release said the psychologists sought patterns among 88 samples, involving 22,818 participants, taken from journal articles, books, conference papers, speeches, interviews, judicial opinions and survey studies.

Consistent, common threads were found in 10 "meta-analytic calculations" performed on the material, Glaser said.

Berkeley's Sulloway said the research is the first of its kind, synthesizing vast amount of information to produce an "elegant and unifying explanation" for political conservatism under the rubric of "motivated social cognition."

This area of psychological study, the news release explained, "entails the tendency of people's attitudinal preferences on policy matters to be explained by individual needs based on personality, social interests or existential needs."

Noting most all belief systems develop in part to satisfy psychological needs, the researchers said their conclusions do not "mean that conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false, irrational, or unprincipled."

"In many cases, including mass politics, 'liberal' traits may be liabilities, and being intolerant of ambiguity, high on the need for closure, or low in cognitive complexity might be associated with such generally valued characteristics as personal commitment and unwavering loyalty," the researchers wrote.

However, the study showed, according to Glaser, liberals appear to have a higher tolerance for change than conservatives.

The conservatives' intolerance for ambiguity and need for closure can be seen, he said, in the current controversy over whether the Bush administration ignored intelligence information that discounted reports of Iraq's alleged purchase of nuclear material from Africa.

"For a variety of psychological reasons, then, right-wing populism may have more consistent appeal than left-wing populism, especially in times of potential crisis and instability," he said.

The researchers said the "terror management" tendency of conservatism is exemplified in post-Sept. 11 America, where many people appear to shun and even punish outsiders and those who threaten the status of cherished world views.

Likewise, they said, concerns with fear and threat can be linked to another key dimension of conservatism, an endorsement of inequality.

That view is reflected in the Indian caste system, South African apartheid and the conservative, segregationist politics of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, the researchers wrote.

A current example of conservatives' tendency to accept inequality, he said, can be seen in their policy positions toward "disadvantaged minorities" such as gays and lesbians.

A broad range of conservatives share a resistance to change and acceptance of inequality, the researchers said, linking Reagan, Hitler, Mussolini and talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

These men were all right-wing conservatives, the study said, because they preached a return to an idealized past and condoned inequality in some form.

Glaser conceded the research could be viewed as partisan because it focused on political conservatism, but he argued there is a vast amount of information about conservatism and little about liberalism.

The researchers acknowledged left-wing ideologues such as Stalin, Castro and Nikita Kruschev resisted change in the name of egalitarianism after they established power.

But these men, the study said, might be considered politically conservative in the context of the systems that they defended.

Stalin, for example, was concerned about defending and preserving the existing Soviet system.

Here's another Berkely article, since this one has already been posted.
Congress Weighs Anti-U.S. Biases At Key Colleges Columbia, NYU Cited in Testimony
by Timothy Starks
New York Sun
June 20, 2003

WASHINGTON — A House subcommittee yesterday held a public hearing to investigate whether anti-American views pervade federally funded international-studies programs on college campuses — including Columbia and New York University — and to get ideas for what, if anything, should be done about it.

The hearing came as Congress moves to renew the Higher Education Act, and as a key group of Senate Republicans considers whether Congress should intervene in an attempt to impose ideological balance on college campuses.

The House hearing raised questions about academic freedom and free speech. Much of the debate revolved around the question of how much of what is being taught is undermining American foreign policy. Specifically, the hearing examined Title VI of the Higher Education Act, which funds international studies programs.

The chief critic of the programs at the hearing, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanley Kurtz, singled out two New York institutions that he said fostered anti-American sentiment: Columbia University, the employer of Professor Edward Said, whom Mr.Kurtz said was the founding father of anti-Americanism in international studies programs, and the Hagop Kevorkian Center of the New York University,for its Web site, which features essays critical of American foreign policy after September 11, 2001.

Mr. Kurtz, also a contributing editor to National Review Online, said "the ruling intellectual paradigm in academic area studies" is Mr. Said's "post-colonial theory," which holds that instability in the Middle East can be blamed on Western meddling. Mr. Said, in the 1978 work "Orientalism," "equated professors who support American foreign policy with the 19 th century European intellectuals who propped up racist colonial empires," Mr. Kurtz said.

He blamed those views for a boycott by international studies associations of the National Security Education Program, which enlists students into national security-related agencies after graduation in exchange for support for their foreign language studies.

Mr. Kurtz also highlighted a series of critical essays on the Kevorkian Center's Web site, one of which criticizes America's "murderous sanctions on Iraq." Columbia University, the Kevorkian Center and Mr. Said did not respond to requests for comment from The New York Sun.

The university officials who defended the programs said Mr. Kurtz was taking a narrow view, and that he had many of his facts wrong. Middle East Studies Centers make up only about $4 million of the $86.2 million in programs funded by Title IV, a lobbyist for the American Council on Education, Terry Hartle, said. Mr. Hartle's organization represents 1,800 universities, but he testified yesterday on behalf of more than 30 higher education associations.

Mr. Kurtz was also using a small number of examples to illustrate a point, Mr. Hartle said.

Mr. Said's theory "reached its apex of popularity more than a decade ago and has been waning ever since," Mr. Hartle said. "Indeed, historians and political scientists rarely find this theory useful."

The director of the Center for International Studies at Duke University, Gilbert Merkx, said he collaborates with national security agencies and he was elected co-chairman of the Title VI National Resource Centers group — a symbol of their moderation.

Mr. Kurtz skirmished with the university officials when Mr.Merkx said he was unaware of any boycott of the National Security Education Program, and when Mr. Hartle said he was taking a narrow view by focusing on Middle East Studies programs — Mr. Hartle said post-colonial theory was "dominant" in South Asian Studies programs and elsewhere.

Mr. Kurtz pressed the lawmakers to take action. "Free speech is not an entitlement to a government subsidy,"Mr. Kurtz said. "And unless steps are taken to balance university faculties with members who both support and oppose American foreign policy, the very purpose of free speech and academic freedom will have been defeated."

Under questioning by members of the House subcommittee,the university representatives rejected Mr. Kurtz's suggestion that the government create a permanent oversight board to monitor bias.

"It's difficult to determine whether that would work," Mr. Hartle said. "It could tilt one way or the other depending on who was in the ideological saddle at the time."

Mr. Hartle said a visit by the Department of Education to any university where claims of bias were made, followed by the compilation of a report, would be a better model. Mr. Kurtz dismissed that as ineffectual. He also suggested a reduction in funds to get the attention of universities.

When the lawmakers left the hearing, one, Rep. Timothy Ryan, a Democrat of Ohio, praised America as a country where even programs critical of the government could get government funding. He took the most visible interest in the debate, vigorously questioning the witnesses. The subcommittee's ranking Democrat, Rep. Ruben Hinojosa of Texas, took the opposite approach: He completely ignored the "Questions of Bias" aspect of a hearing entitled "International Programs in Higher Education and Questions of Bias," instead asking questions about ethnic diversity within those programs. Afterward, he declined to say what he thought of the bias debate.

The lawmaker who chaired the hearing, Rep. Phil Gingrey, a Republican from Georgia, said afterwards that he came to no conclusions about the level of anti-American sentiment on campus. The committee and its staff would get together and discuss possible legislative action, he said.

The question of bias in the academy has been raised more than once this year by Congress. In a meeting this March with Jewish activists to discuss anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias on campus, Senator Santorum of Pennsylvania and other lawmakers discussed the possibility of offering an amendment to the Higher Education Act reauthorization making ideological diversity a component of federal funding on par with gender diversity.

This item is available on the Campus Watch website, at http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/726

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