The Academic Elites: Enlightened or Deluded?

           Image: Dave Cutler

 The “intellectual” class of academic elites has a powerful role in policymaking in this country. Although they have no direct responsibility for practical affairs—little or no first-hand experience, they wield ideas and words to advocate their values. Since their ideals are circulated through university teaching, the press, the media, scholarly journals, etc., their influence is disproportionately strong. Members of the class might even suppose that their disproportionate influence is deserved—after all, they did have the highest grades and test scores. Indeed, the elite class often writes abstrusely, which, perhaps paradoxically, enhances their influence through a halo effect (“I don’t understand it so it must be right”). So, is the influence of the academic elites for the better or worse?

            Success as an academic depends almost entirely upon one’s ability to publish and to be cited by other scholars. The pressure on professors to publish de-emphasizes the importance of effective teaching and leads to prolixity. The requirement to publish frequently favors overly critical and negative viewpoints and disfavors support for the status quo and tradition. Publications in the social sciences, liberal arts, and legal studies are, in effect, nihilistic. This is the case because it is easier (and more appreciated) for scholars to criticize and point out weaknesses of current policies and theories (and those of other postulating academics) than it is to publish support of tradition or to adequately promote a positive theory (this problem is most prevalent in “critical theory,” which doesn’t even try to assert any positive theory to replace what it criticizes). The tone of academic writing is decidedly negative-- which gives an impression that things are worse than they really are.

A recent study found that the ratio of Democrats to Republicans among humanities professors is eight to one. Perhaps largely, this is the case because liberals self-select to become professors while elite conservatives tend to go into practice. However, the hard liberal slant certainly favors liberal academics and the propagation of liberal thought. Although the left slant of academia is doesn't seem to block conservatives from entering the career field, they have more hurdles to clear to establish themselves in the profession once they get there. Scholarly discourse unduly proceeds on a level of liberal assumptions and liberal groupthink.  Academics, in general, become more leftist through their career due to a desire (or necessity) to conform with other academics and to join the "cutting-edge" conversation, which often proceeds on egalitarian assumptions. Many professors benefit financially from liberal politics (e.g. high tuition, cheap and easy student loans, high government employee benefits, etcetera). Some scholarly journals even have, at one point or another, discriminated against conservative authors in choosing who to publish (e.g. here). As a result of all these facts, radical egalitarian thinking disproportionately and for no adequate reason influences culture and politics; especially through the most impressionable among us, e.g. college students and less-educated cable news watchers.

That said, academic thought has had many beneficial results (even in the liberal arts—the hard sciences and engineering have had tangibly good effects on life, aren’t ideologically as slanted, and are not the subject of this post). Academia has had a constructive effect, for example, in bringing about civil rights for racial minorities and women. I would argue that American professors have encouraged the improving tolerance worldwide and even to a more peaceful world. Academia also serves to counterbalance some of the excesses of a market driven economy (e.g. environmental concerns). However, the beneficial results of academic discourse in these areas during the past century, in my opinion, would have worked just as well without the scholarly disregard for tradition, religion, and moral absolutes.

It is my contention, however, that academia has contributed to increased decadence characterized by an erosion of self-restraint and moral traditions of our society. Although individual scholars profess moral codes and many indeed write for good causes, in practice and in the whole, scholarly discourse and university curriculum promotes the notion that moral truths are arbitrary and subjective unless confirmed by scientific evidence. It encourages moral relativism. In place of the pillar of Judeo-Christian morality of American history, academics build a vapid chamber that echoes “tolerance” (which is frequently conflated with “acceptance”—or else you’re a bigot) and  “do what you want as long as you don’t hurt anyone else.” As G.K. Chesterton points out, “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything.” Too many classes today are cynical towards American tradition and religion. For one example, I had a professor who smugly chided Christopher Columbus for not having discovered America and for instituting slavery then, that very class, cited Nietzsche and called him a "discerning" thinker. Why not mention that the Carib indians Columbus enslaved practiced cannibalism and that Nietzsche suffered severe depression throughout his life? Or that Columbus, a true underdog, overcame many obstacles to discover America? The bad should be put in perspective with the good. Today, we are supposed to applaud everyone's religious and moral beliefs (unless your Christian) and everyone's heritage (unless you have European blood). Such a view is skewed. Regardless of creed, culture, race, or socio-economic background, the good and the bad of history and our heritage should be taught on equal footing and in proper perspective.

Academia, as a whole, is failing to bring about enlightenment; it shames the only solution to the collective action problem: faith and morality. It has utterly failed to supplant Judeo-Christian ethics as a source of community good will, temperance, freedom, and wisdom in America. Abraham Lincoln observed, “The philosophy in the classroom in one generation is the philosophy of government in the next.” Academics are leaving students with a confused moral compass. They prepare students only to deconstruct (and disrespect) tradition and the current situation through Marxist, feminist, Freudian, and other critiques. Students are not taught prudence, gratitude, or morality. As the radical egalitarian and morally relativistic project of academia gains traction in politics and culture, Americans will need to trade in more liberties for safety and more collective virtue for equality and “tolerance.” If you ask me, the bargain is a poor one.

Individual academic elites are both enlightened and deluded. But, the incentives and structure of the tertiary education system are in trouble. They need to be reworked if we are to best progress towards a more virtuous society. Superior teaching is equally important as research and publication. Schools should accommodate faith and morality. The heritage and positive theories within subject matter areas (the good) should be emphasized with critiques of the past and present (the bad). Institutional diversity in schools should be encouraged by national policy. Critical thinking is good; but so is gratitude and prudence. We need to align the education incentive structure to continue reaping the benefits of critical thought without incurring the costs of academic nihilism. 

In Defense of Traditional Marriage

The world’s major cultural and religious traditions have historically understood marriage as having three components: (1) a comprehensive union of spouses—man and wife, (2) an orientation towards procreation and childrearing, and (3) moral norms of exclusivity, honor, and permanence.[i] This relationship is special and tremendously beneficial for society and individuals. This relationship has a name: marriage. Recognizing the unique and important benefits of this relationship, government used the name, marriage, in the law to furnish support and incentives in favor of that special relationship. Other relationships, like friendship, also benefit society. However, their benefits are not identical or co-extensive to those of marriage. In truth, cohabitation has some of the benefits of marriage, but not all; friendship has some of the benefits of marriage, but not all, etc. So, we give other relationships different names and fashion policies as a function of those similarities and differences. Family is the fundamental social unit and building block of a prosperous society and marriage is the foundation upon which the family rests.

            It is true that marriage has changed over time. Polygamy has been outlawed. Interracial marriage is legal. We no longer pay dowries or plan marriages in advance. However, all of these changes did not affect the fundamental definition of marriage and they had a sort of economic logic about them.

            Today, the special relationship of marriage is under attack. The law and the media condone the ideas that marriage can be less than a comprehensive union of spouses, that the procreative and childrearing orientation of marriage is immaterial, and that marriage need not be exclusive, respectful, or permanent. Since marriage is under attack, I find myself compelled to defend it from those who would seek to strip this special relationship of its rightful title: marriage. In this post, I will address some of the prominent forces corroding the strength of marriage in America and offer some solutions. 

A. No Fault Divorce

            Today, it is easier to get a divorce than it is to fire a manifestly poor teacher. Before the enactment of no fault divorce laws, getting a divorce was processed through the adversarial court system. A divorce could only be obtained through a showing of fault such as abuse, adultery, abandonment, felony, or other seriously culpable conduct. Many American legal professionals thought that too many people were perjuring themselves in open court to obtain a divorce.  Today, there might be less lying in court, but just as much in divorce proceedings. Advocates for no fault divorce feared that the legitimacy of the court was in danger. Many academics depicted struggling married couples as having the binary choice of living in “marital hell” or lying under oath to obtain a divorce. Obviously, there is another option left out of their arguments: fix what’s broken. In addition, advocates of no fault divorce argue that men are more likely to behave in marriage knowing their wife can break it off for any or no reason and that arbitrary decisions of courts would be avoided. No fault divorce advocates assured policymakers that the impact on families and children would be minimal. But, they were wrong.

            After a century of stable and low divorce rates, divorces increased drastically within a decade of enacting no fault divorce laws. Several studies and published papers support the consensus that no fault divorce was a major factor in the increasing divorce rates of the last decades. No fault divorce is frequently economically inefficient. Legal marriage can be terminated unilaterally at will, when he or she thinks it will benefit him or herself. Thus, unilateral divorces are frequently selfish and opportunistic. Unilateral divorces leave fathers unwillingly separated from their children and single mothers left in poverty. No fault divorce has increased female poverty rates (homemakers are most disadvantaged), the number of children being left unsupervised during the day, and the number of children being reared in single-parent homes.  The effects of divorce on children are straightforward and clearly visible in statistics. Children with divorced parents are more likely to have pathologies, more likely to be involved with crime, more likely to become pregnant as teenagers, less likely to perform well in school, and have less success financially later on in their lives. No fault divorce has undoubtedly increased the numbers of disadvantaged children in the United States.  

            Marriage is more than a contract. However, it is also a contract. Promises are made to be kept. Legal contracts are made to be enforced. No fault divorce makes the marriage contract effectively no contract at all. The notion that a mother could properly renounce her motherhood seems ridiculous to most people. A mother and her child are family. A mother is always responsible for caring for her child. Similarly, when a man and a woman marry, they form a new family and they make solemn covenants with one another. Spouses’ responsibilities to one another are equally permanent and important as the responsibilities of parents to their children. The law should give effect to the marriage promises and protect the unwilling partner. Marriage is a choice for which we should be permanently responsible.

            No fault divorce rests on the false assumption that marriage is only for lovers, a private matter, and not for parenthood or children. Barbara Dafoe Whitehead sums up the wide affects of no fault divorce:

Divorce is not simply a legal mechanism for dissolving marriage but a social and cultural force that opportunistically reproduces itself everywhere. A high divorce society is a society marked by growing division and separation in its social arrangements, a society of single mothers and vanquished fathers, of divided households and split parenting, of fractured parent-child bonds and fragmented families, of broken links between marriage and parenthood. The shift from a family world governed by the institution of marriage to one ruled by divorce has brought a steady weakening of primary human relationships and bonds. Men’s and women’s relationships are becoming more fleeting and unreliable. Children are losing their ties to their fathers. Even a mother’s love is not forever, as the growing number of throwaway kids suggests.

The divorce culture is at the root of numerous social ills—a society of individualists with less commitment and more selfishness. Too often, families are ripped apart for selfish, shortsighted, impatient, and shallow reasons. Indeed, since marriage is so easily broken off, courting couples need not take the decision as seriously as they should.

            The proper solution to the no fault divorce issue is to appropriately balance the government interests of relieving some of the suffering of marital failure with the more compelling interest of promoting marital stability. Divorce should not be achievable unilaterally without a showing of fault. Bilateral divorce should not be obtainable without mediation and counseling. In the absence of abuse, adultery, or felony, courts should inquire as to whether one or both parties have engaged in such misconduct as to permanently and seriously hinder the ability of the couple to function as a family. “It is not only large affairs, which produce trouble. The continuance of overbearing and vexatious petty treatment of one partner by another frequently is more serious in its disruptive character than would be larger differences, which would be discussed and settled.”[ii] The fines and punishments for perjury, collusion, and fraud should be severe.

B. Portrayals of “Marriage” and Romance in the Media

            Television shows, films, music, and pop literature are not all bad. The very presence of romantic themes in the media is not the problem. It is the message the media sends about romance and sex (and violence for that matter). Hollywood and the media industry too often condone one-night stands, shallow relationships, sex before marriage, immodesty, unrealistic romance, etc. Hollywood focuses disproportionately on youth and often promotes consumerism—fancy cars, expensive clothing, bling, etc. Vile pornography is a multibillion-dollar industry and is available to anyone at the click of a button; in fact, around a third of boys report it is their main source of sex education.  Reality shows are harmfully unreal. The celebrated lives of celebrities are disproportionately plagued by selfish romance and divorce. Certainly, Hollywood and the media industry too often corrode healthy and moral understandings of sex, procreation, marriage, family, and love.  

            Pornography must be regulated. Otherwise, I haven’t any thought out legal solutions to dispense with sponsorship of immorality in the media. Perhaps this can only be defeated by a change in consumer demand and by raising our voice.

C. Same-sex Marriage

            Marriage, as an institution, is about more than affection. Marriage is about preparing for and rearing children. Proponents of same-sex marriage are not oriented towards procreation and thus, the benefits of same-sex union are automatically not co-extensive and equal to those of traditional marriages. Those who seek to revise the definition of marriage frequently argue that same-sex marriage will have no effect on the strength of traditional marriage. Just like the past proponents of no fault divorce who made the same argument, they are wrong. No fault divorce and the media often promote the notion that marriage is all about affection. Same-sex marriage would add to that harmful advocacy. Affection is an emotion. Marriages based solely on emotion will be more instable (as emotions are) than marriages with an orientation towards childrearing. No man is an island. The law affects the public’s view of morality and is especially detrimental to the less educated, broken families, or otherwise disadvantaged demographic. As long as true marriage is supported by policy, love, knowledge, success, virtue, and strength will accumulate in families. Children deserve to be born into a stable marriage. Children born to married parents, who stay married, outperform their peers in every (or almost every) measurement of wellbeing and success. Extended families with low divorce rates are more cohesive and successful. When marriage is about parenthood as much as it is about affection, more children will be born into this advantageous situation. But, when marriage is based only on affection, there will be more divorce, less unified families, less responsible procreation, and more children disadvantaged by instability of their family—such will lead to higher crime rates, poorer educational outcomes, poorer economic productivity, etc.

            The Supreme Court recently granted certiorari to two cases dealing with same-sex marriage. Presumably, any justices who seek to declare same-sex marriage as a constitutional right will invoke the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clauses enacted in the Fourteenth Amendment: “[No] state [shall] deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Where the Equal Protection Clause or Due Process Clause is at issue, the courts will apply one of three levels of scrutiny: rational basis, intermediate scrutiny, or strict scrutiny (the latter two being “heightened scrutiny”). Under current jurisprudence, the Equal Protections Clause triggers heightened scrutiny when the government, through “prejudice,” differentiates people who are “insular” or “discrete” minorities unable to avail themselves of the political process. The “Substantive” Due Process Clause triggers heightened scrutiny where a “fundamental right” is denied a person.

            The current jurisprudence of “heightened scrutiny” is a result of judicial activism and sham judicial opinions. One of the fundamental objectives of the Constitution was to separate political powers between the three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. Where the executive and legislative branches’ powers overlap, the Constitution addresses it specifically (e.g. veto and overriding the veto). However, there is no overlap between the judicial and legislative. The prerogative of judges is to interpret the law as it is made by the legislature.  All legal instruments, including the Constitution, statutes, and contracts, are to be enforced as understood by the drafting parties.

            In truth, substantive due process is an oxymoron. Substantive and procedural rights are separate. Procedural rights constitute the right to a fair and speedy trial. The notion that the Due Process Clause has substantive rights—e.g. the right to marry, the right to contract, etc—has no basis in the language of the Constitution or the Clause’s pre-constitutional history. Judges can, almost without limit, declare anything they want to be a right according to their own political views so long as it can be associated, however tangentially, with some explicit right granted by the Constitution. Substantive due process, in addition, has an ignoble history. Judicial activist judges used it in Dred Scott (holding that slaveholders had a legal right to own their slaves perpetually), Lochner, and Roe v. Wade. Substantive due process should be discarded as the sham that it is. The most important precedent is the first one—the original understanding.  The Equal Protection Clause also allows judges nearly unlimited power to legislate according to their own politics by defining what is “prejudice” and what is a meaningful differentiation, what is morality and what is mere stereotype. It too should be discarded, according to original understanding, and only minorities specifically protected by the Constitution should incur judicial review (e.g. race, nationality, and religion).

            Even with the current jurisprudence, the people’s right to define marriage as applying only to a man and a woman is the better argument. Substantive due process is not at issue because the Court has never recognized a right of same-sex marriage. Equal Protection is not triggered because anyone can marry anyone of the opposite gender in good faith. The law applies equally to everyone. The Equal Protection Clause was intended to apply to race. Same-sex attraction is not genetically immutable (see identical twin studies and genetics studies). The Court may abandon judicial restraint and announce a novel “fundamental right” to marry as one wishes or they might contort the law to assert that it somehow discriminates against persons based on gender. In either case, the advocates of traditional marriage would have to prove that opposite-gender only marriage laws support either an important or compelling government interest and that the law must be narrowly tailored to accomplish that government purpose.

            I can think of no more compelling interest than supporting the strength of biological families in the United States. As the fundamental unit of society, strong families mean lower crime, better education, more productive economy, less poverty, healthier population, and even better national defense. Strong families are a much more compelling interest that diversity in higher education, which has been held to be a compelling interest. Perhaps the best argument against limiting marriage to a man and a woman is that it allows couples with no intention of having children to marry and enjoy the benefits of marriage. Thus, the law is overbroad. However, the law only needs to be narrowly tailored—it should not need to be the least restrictive means of accomplishing the government objective. Indeed, it would be administratively ineffectual to separate those who intend or will eventually intend to procreate and those who will not.

            Marriage should be defined in the law as having three components: (1) a comprehensive union of spouses—man and wife, (2) an orientation towards procreation and childrearing, and (3) moral norms of exclusivity, honor, and permanence. Gay marriage attacks the first and second components of the definition of marriage. Marriage is a legitimate legal distinction from same-sex unions because the benefits of traditional marriage are not co-extensive or identical to those of same-sex unions. Legislatures and voters should be able to make meaningful distinctions in the law to promote welfare, morality, national security, and health.

D. Diminishing Influence of Social Institutions and Government Policy

            As a society, we are becoming increasingly more individualist and less communitarian. The generally secular government is taking up roles traditionally filled by religion, charities, and family. Multigenerational families are becoming less cohesive. The family used to provide the safety net for Americans; now, the government takes that role.  The government has many pro-family policies. However, there are other policies antagonistic to motherhood and family (e.g. the “Mommy Tax” explained by Ann Crittenden—google it). City planning is such that people can live in the suburbs, drive their own car, and have no interpersonal contact except with the occasional sales associate.

E. Radical Feminism

            Feminism that seeks to establish equal opportunity and treatment for women in the law, politics, and the workplace has my wholehearted support. However, feminism that seeks to put career above motherhood, to depict man and woman as competing, and to characterize biological differences between men and women as inconsequential is extremely problematic for the family. Such notions are unfortunate. They are scientifically and politically incoherent. Fortunately, radical feminist thinking is losing ground and is increasingly viewed as an excess of the great benefits of the feminist movements of the last century.

            In conclusion, strengthening the traditional family is the most important objective of government. Family is the foundation of the nation. Marriage is the foundation of families. Laws that incentivize and advantage the traditional, conjugal marriage achieves the objective of strengthening families more effectively than any other government policy. Marriage is the word describing a relationship with (1) a comprehensive union of spouses—man and wife, (2) an orientation towards procreation and childrearing, and (3) moral norms of exclusivity, honor, and permanence.

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[i] See Sherif Girgis, Robert P. George, & Ryan T. Anderson, What is Marriage?, 34 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 245 (2011).

[ii] Owen v. Cohen, 19 Cal.2d 147 (1941).