All Intensive Purposes

An odd juxtaposition on the Op-Ed page of today's New York Times. David Brooks and Paul Krugman both use their columns to explain why the other side has been outthought in the war of ideas. Brooks argues that during their long spell in the wilderness, conservatives spent good time getting in touch with their deeper philosophy:

When modern conservatism became aware of itself, conservatives were so far out of power it wasn't even worth thinking about policy prescriptions. They argued about the order of the universe, and how the social order should reflect the moral order. Different factions looked back to different philosophers - Burke, Aquinas, Hayek, Hamilton, Jefferson - to define what a just society should look like.

Conservatives fell into the habit of being acutely conscious of their intellectual forebears and had big debates about public philosophy. That turned out to be important: nobody joins a movement because of admiration for its entitlement reform plan. People join up because they think that movement's views about human nature and society are true.

Krugman says that conservatives are underrepresented in the academy -- even in philosophy departments, one supposes -- because they prefer their ideology to what research tells us the world is like:

Scientific American may think that evolution is supported by mountains of evidence, but President Bush declares that "the jury is still out." Senator James Inhofe dismisses the vast body of research supporting the scientific consensus on climate change as a "gigantic hoax." And conservative pundits like George Will write approvingly about Michael Crichton's anti-environmentalist fantasies.

Think of the message this sends: today's Republican Party - increasingly dominated by people who believe truth should be determined by revelation, not research - doesn't respect science, or scholarship in general. It shouldn't be surprising that scholars have returned the favor by losing respect for the Republican Party.

Maybe conservatives are underrepresented in academia because they're all too busy thinking about the morality of the social order to excel in other fields?