Another Journey into Heterodoxy

The Heterodox Social Sciences Conference

Photo by Copernico on Unsplash

It turns out that “heterodoxy” is catching on, internationally.

The Centre for Heterodox Social Sciences at the University of Buckingham in Britain just finished its first conference, June 5-7. Organized by political scientist Eric Kaufmann, Director of the Centre, the conference brought together scholars, public intellectuals, and activists in the cause of “heterodoxy” from multiple countries. From a distance, and judging from its program, the conference was thematically compelling and well-organized to elevate the discussion of “heterodoxy” in academia, to address the monocultures of many social science (and humanities) disciplines, and to propose ways of moving forward for faculty and students to become more truth-aspirational and evidence-based in scholarship, teaching, and learning.

Many will know of Eric Kaufmann’s own research on the politics of the academy, and especially of his very data-informed and theory-building studies of the origins of “wokeness” (he has taught an entire online course on the subject), on generational changes in social and political attitudes, especially in the Anglosphere, on the sacralization of identities in society, on demographic changes and ethnopolitics, and of censorship and suppression of disfavored ideas in the social sciences. He founded the Centre for Heterodox Social Sciences specifically to address some of the major gaps in disciplinary studies on fraught topics and to take up “heterodox” viewpoints and inquiry as the Heterodox Academy itself has done in the past decade. Kaufmann’s purpose is also to address academic and intellectual freedom within higher education, but focused specifically on the social sciences, with a wider range of unexplored topics and research agendas.

The conference program itself is revealing. It showed the conference organizers’ attempts to create a very wide umbrella for “heterodox” viewpoints. I was especially gratified to see such classic and philosophical liberals as Yascha Mounk and Steven Pinker included, along with Musa al-Gharbi, whose work on the sociology of elite cultures in higher ed, and elsewhere, has provoked many useful discussions and illuminated many intuitions for those uncomfortable with monocultural organizations.

Other notable speakers are doing fascinating and significant work in their home disciplines with wider import for “heterodoxy”: Cory Clark on the care/harm moral foundation in research and scholarship in the sciences (with important gender distinctions); April Bleske-Rechak, on the fraught topic of race and gender differences in Advanced Placement Exam participation and performance; Claire Lehmann, on reclaiming liberal feminism; Nathan Honeycutt, on self-censorship in the academy; and Luke Conway, on Islamophobia in western societies and empirical approaches to testing its reality. In general, the program, as viewed through the lens of its themes and chosen speakers, ranged widely in proposing countercultural, and therefore, “heterodox” perspectives often missing in the too-often monocultural higher ed landscape across English-speaking countries.

However, the broad ambit imagined for “heterodoxy” included some voices that are less empirical and scholarly, and more ideological—which exists in tension with the conference’s announced goal of creating a non-politicized approach to reforming social sciences, and the academy in general. Such voices included Batya Ungar-Sargon, a journalist who more often writes only as a Trump-supporting activist and enthusiast for President Trump’s many actions during recent months that affect higher education in harmful ways, and fly in the face of academic and intellectual freedom, according to many higher education leaders.

Other voices that test the limits of truth-aspiring “heterodoxy” include Gad Saad, whose frequently invoked “woke mind virus” is the basis for an entire book on “parasitic ideas”. This notion is an unsound approach to studying wokeness as somehow a biological phenomenon, even metaphorically—a trope used frequently by Elon Musk on (x). More compelling explanations for “wokeness” are as a tribally-motivated, reputational drive, as discussed by al-Gharbi; by philosopher Dan Williams, and by behavioral economist Lionel Page, who both point to social, reputational, and coalitional incentives for belief formation and signaling as the more cogent explanation for the rise of “wokeness”—and other belief systems and coalitions, including populisms of various types.

The most important signal that the conference sent about anti-wokeness, however, appears to be the inclusion of conservative activist Chris Rufo, whose entire agenda is now about using the power of the state (the U.S. federal government, state governments) to overturn what he sees as the liberal hegemony of the academy, without considering academic and intellectual freedom and the agency of disciplinary scholars themselves whose teaching and research are at the heart of the academic enterprise. Rufo’s previous work has exposed excesses of “woke progressivism” in multiple contexts, and in that way is useful. His proposed measures of using governmental power to force changes, however, undermine the very spirit of scholarship and open-mindedness that “heterodoxy”, as a concept for independent, empirical, provisional, and truth-seeking inquiry, is presumably about.

Moral certitude, attributed accurately to the woke Left, has now found a new home on the populist or Postliberal Right. Its champions like Rufo and some others on the program, who often write and speak more as ideologues and proselytizers than as empirical questioners and searchers for truth, complicate the entire concept of “heterodoxy” that is not truth-aspirational and evidence-based. This dichotomy should provoke new questions:

• Is anti-wokeness, presumably associated with “heterodoxy”, becoming its own orthodoxy? What can be done to guard against tendencies toward this inverted orthodoxy?

• Can authoritarian measures used by governments force a “balance” in viewpoint and political diversity in the academy?

• Is it possible to be totally non-political and non-ideological within the broad ambit of “heterodoxy”? Aren’t some values important, such as ones aligned with philosophical liberalism and Enlightenment principles of truth-seeking, testing of hypotheses through better adhering to the scientific method, and openness to new evidence? Is Rauch’s The Constitution of Knowledge and its core idea of “liberal science” for truth-testing useful as an underpinning flexible framework freed from the strictures of politics and ideology?

In addition, the conference theme of moving into a new “Post-Progressivism” era in the academy, with many new areas for inquiry in the social sciences, is laudable, but may become one-sided. The overarching impetus behind the conference was about the political and ideological capture of higher ed institutions by “progressivism” and “wokeness”, and while that is a generally accurate description of too many institutions, too many disciplines, and too many scholarly agendas and teaching practices, it does not describe the totality of a very complex higher education landscape even at this point, especially in the United States.

There is recurring evidence of self-censorship in the academy, and the larger societal challenge of preference falsification, that suggests a more complex reality for viewpoints, even if often hidden—these are challenges to be met not by administrative fiat from federal or state levels, but organically, by faculty and others themselves, through such initiatives as the Heterodox Academy’s Campus Communities initiative, through initiatives such as the Constructive Dialogue Institute, The Discussion Project, Deliberative Dialogue Centers and activities, the Pluralist Lab, and the Dignity Index (especially for ties with a larger public), and through renewed faculty leadership on campuses to advance academic freedom and scholarly integrity in their disciplines.

I have some final questions based on the Centre’s ongoing investigations and the theme of the conference itself:

Is “Post-Progressivism” the best descriptor for an aspirational new era in social sciences, and in the academy in general? The illiberalism of the woke/Progressive Left is well-established among those dedicated to disciplinary integrity, and following sound methodologies and epistemic norms. Is this “Post-Progressivism” model for thinking of reforming higher education now missing the larger sociopolitical force of illiberalism of the Right, via its current authoritarian-populist surge, that threatens the integrity of the academy itself through coercion, defunding of research, and a new set of ideological mandates? Is there the possibility that a particular strain of “heterodoxy” may become aligned with Postliberalism in an attempt to transcend “Post-Progressivism,” and create a new orthodoxy that gives up epistemic norms of open societies?

The Centre’s drive for a new empirical agenda for social sciences is clear, for reforming the academy from within. Surely the “other half” of a new heterodox agenda transcends internal reform and seeks coalitions with other epistemic institutions to promote academic pluralism, freedom of thought and expression, viewpoint diversity that adheres to epistemic norms and not ideological agendas, and aims for a collective intellectual humility that advances a renewed scholarship that benefits society as a whole.

In general, this Heterodox Social Sciences conference marks a major milestone in fuller consideration of “heterodoxy” in the academy, and should advance discussions, research agendas, publishing opportunities, and better disciplinary conferences because of clearer thinking about viewpoint-diverse scholarship, and through the professional connections developed for those dedicated to a “better heterodoxy.”

Addendum / Note

This conference ended with a consideration of a draft “Buckingham Manifesto” for moving into a new era of “Post-Progressivism” in the social sciences. The Manifesto itself was debated, from all accounts, at the conference itself, and will be published soon, and should be of great interest to those considering how “heterodoxy” is evolving.