Half Hour of Heterodoxy

Latest Episodes:

Episode 39: A.J. Jacobs, Richard Davies & Jim Meigs, On Gratitude Nov 15, 2018

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A special Thanksgiving episode about gratitude featuring journalist, author, and lecturer A. J. Jacobs, whose book Thanks A Thousand: A Gratitude Journey was published this Monday. His other books include The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to become the Smartest Person in the World, and My Life as an Experiment: One Man’s Humble Quest to Improve Himself. This episode has three co-hosts: Deb Mashek, executive director of Heterodox Academy -- alongside Richard Davies and Jim Meigs, journalists and co-hosts of the podcast How Do We Fix It?. See the full list of episodes of Half Hour of Heterodoxy >> Transcript A transcript will be published shortly.

Episode 38: Lucía Martínez Valdivia, Unifying and Divisive Identities Nov 14, 2018

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An interview with Lucia Martinez Valdivia, assistant professor of English and Humanities at Reed College. Chris talks to Lucía about how to use and misuse the concept of identity. We’ll discuss how people have multiple identities that go beyond what a college typically asks students to focus on. And Lucía explains how the identity of student or learner can unify the students on a college campus. Timeline 0:00 Intro and the humanities course 9:17 A hierarchical identity vs. many identities per person 12:40 Evolution, genes, and the sociology of health 15:36 The “diversity quota” and diversity as a commodity 20:10 What to do if a student feels excluded 24:56 A course on happiness Links * Lucía on Twitter * Transcript of a lecture by Lucía to incoming students about the study of the humanities * Professors Like Me Can't Stay Silent About This Extremist Moment, Washington Post op-ed by Lucía * Humanities 110 at Reed College ... See the full list of episodes of Half Hour of Heterodoxy >> Transcript Here is a transcript of the episode.

Episode 37: Charlotta Stern, Gender Sociology’s Problems Oct 30, 2018

Show notes

When sociologists explain why men and women have different careers, different interests, and different priorities, they rely on socialization as an explanation. But is that explanation complete? I talk to sociologist Charlotta Stern about this question.

Episode 36: Julie Wronski, How Authoritarianism Divides the Democratic Party Oct 15, 2018

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Show Notes In today’s episode, Chris talks to Julie Wronski, professor of political science at the University of Mississippi. In a new paper, she and her coauthors show a difference between the average authoritarianism of Bernie Sanders voters and Hillary Clinton voters. Most of us know how to identify authoritarian leaders, but in today’s interview Julie explains how to define authoritarianism among voters, and why her findings matter to people outside political science. Timeline 0:00 Intro 3:05 Why do people associate authoritarianism with conservatives? 6:00 Why is authoritarianism dividing parties now? 13:00 Bob Altemeyer's method of measuring authoritarianism 17:10 The right-wing measure vs. child-rearing measure of authoritarianism 25:18 Why is this relevant to other academics? Article Wronski, Julie et al. (2018). "A Tale of Two Democrats: How Authoritarianism Divides the Democratic Party." Journal of Politics 80(4): 1384- 1388. Books Altemeyer, Enemies of Freedom Stenner, The Authoritarian Dynamic Heatherington & Weiler, Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics; Heatherington & Weiler, Prius or Pickup: How the Answers to Four Simple Questions Explain America's Great Divide ... See the full list of episodes of Half Hour of Heterodoxy >> Transcript This is a transcript of this episode.

Episode 35: Jeff Jones & David Askenazi, Free Expression at U.S. Universities Oct 01, 2018

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Show Notes Do college students think that freedom of speech is important? Do they think their campus climate supports free expression? And do they believe First Amendment freedoms are secure in today’s America? To answer these questions, the Knight Foundation and Gallup conducted two surveys of college students in America. The surveys were conducted in 2016 and 2017, so they also reveal which attitudes changed between these consecutive years. Heterodox Academy is now hosting this dataset. This episode features David Askenazi of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and Jeff Jones of Gallup, who explain the survey results. Timeline 1:00 Theoretical vs. practical support for free expression 5:10 Support for violence and shouting down speakers 9:00 More people are saying the climate deters speech 12:20 What groups can speak freely? 14:10 Why Knight sponsored this survey 18:50 The superiority of the sampling method Survey Reports Knight Foundation: Free Speech on Campus: New Perspectives Emerge From Gallup/Knight Student Survey Gallup Foundation: College Students Say Campus Climate Deters Speech Gallup/ Knight Survey Codebook and Data: Codebook FAQ Excel CSV R (raw CSV) SAS SPSS Stata ... See the full list of episodes of Half Hour of Heterodoxy >> Transcript This is a transcript of this episode.

Episode 34: Greg Lukianoff & Jon Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind Sep 17, 2018

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Show Notes A discussion of The Coddling of the American Mind, just published this month, with the authors Greg Lukianoff and Jon Haidt. Greg Lukianoff is director of Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). Jon Haidt is a founder of Heterodox Academy and professor of ethical leadership at NYU's Stern school. Timeline The history behind the Coddling article 1:59 Greg's battle with depression 6:15 Nietzsche or Stoic views of pain 9:00 The untruth of good and evil people 12:20 Is no one truly evil? 18:16 Solutions 20:09 Is Jon hopeful? 24:20 Books and Article Mentioned In This Episode: The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jon Haidt The Worry Cure: Seven Steps to Stop Worry from Stopping You by Robert Leahy Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David Burns Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder by Nassim Taleb The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity by Kwame Anthony Appiah Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations by Amy Chua People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil by M. Scott Peck Does Our Cultural Obsession With Safety Spell the Downfall of Democracy? by Thomas Chatterton Williams ... See the full list of episodes of Half Hour of Heterodoxy >> Transcript This is a transcript of this episode.

Episode 33: Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works Sep 06, 2018

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Show Notes Jason Stanley is Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. He formerly specialized in the philosophy of language, but has recently changes his focus to populism and politics, with his books How Propaganda Works, published in 2015, and How Fascism Works, which hits bookstores this month. The chapters of the book, each describing a characteristic of fascism are: 1. The Mythic Past 2. Propaganda 3. Anti-Intellectualism 4. Unreality 5. Hierarchy 6. Victimhood 7. Law and Order 8. Sexual Anxiety 9. Sodom and Gomorrah 10. Arbeit Macht Frei What sets Jason's book apart from books by Albright, Snyder, etc? 1:05 Differentiating Fascism from totalitarianism 3:02 Why are some democracies strong? 6:22 A critique of John Stuart Mill 12:00 Linguistics is like behavioral economics 16:12 Race and politics 17:54 What can professors do? 26:05 ... See the full list of episodes of Half Hour of Heterodoxy >> Transcript This is a transcript of this episode.

Episode 32: Robert Quinn, Scholars at Risk Network Aug 29, 2018

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Show Notes Robert Quinn is the executive director of Scholars at Risk Network, which helps protect and relocate members of higher education communities whose freedom and security are threatened in their home countries. Since the founding of Scholars at Risk in 2000, SAR has assisted over 1000 scholars through temporary research and teaching visits. You can join the network here. You can find out more about Scholars at Risk at www.scholarsatrisk.org and on Twitter at @ScholarsAtRisk. Rob's MOOC is Dangerous Questions: Why Academic Freedom Matters. You can other interviews with Rob at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. Quote: "We’ve been developing curricula, workshops. We have a MOOC on academic freedom. It’s called "Dangerous Questions: Why Academic Freedom Matters"... hosted on the Future Learn platform. So we ran it as a test in June. We had over 1000 participants from over – I think it was 90 countries. The comments were really amazing because there’s a real tendency – and I think this is one of the big problems in getting people to understand academic freedom and why it matters is the real tendency to see this through a hyper local lens. That this is just about our domestic politics. Where our work is, no. If you go to the layer underneath that, this is about what are the rules for sharing and testing ideas in society. How do we have a space where we can agree that you don’t win by having the most force? That you don’t win by being able to shout down or intimidate or imprison the people who have different ideas. So the MOOC was really interesting to see people from different religious backgrounds, national backgrounds, educational institutions, countries, wrestle with case examples and to see how they related that to incidents from their own countries." Subjects: The values promotion work of Scholars at Risk 6:22 Dangerous Questions, a MOOC on Academic Freedom 7:00 Dealing with trolls 9:55 What is higher education for? 13:25 A human rights lens on universities 18:22 Why Rob is optimistic but not naïve 20:32 ... See the full list of episodes of Half Hour of Heterodoxy >> Transcript This is a transcript of this episode.

Episode 31: Jessica Good, The Ups and Downs of Multiculturalism Aug 15, 2018

Show notes

Show Notes Jessica Good is a social psychologist at Davidson College. She received her PhD in social psychology from Rutgers University and has taught at Davidson since 2011. Her research focuses on stereotyping and discrimination. I invited her to the show to talk about her new paper on multiculturalism, a contentious topic in the political world and academia. Her new paper is called Valuing Differences and Reinforcing Them: Multiculturalism Increases Race Essentialism. Her coauthors on this paper are Leigh Wilton, who's the first author, and Evan Apfelbaum. The paper itself is not in the public domain but here's an article in Pacific Standard that summarizes the paper. What is multiculturalism? [0:00] Challenges of implementing polyculturalism [08:15] Belonging in science and math courses [12:34] What do people want to get out of confrontations? [14:45] Power differentials and confrontations [18:26] Avoiding the words "sexist" and "racist" [19:57] See the full list of episodes of Half Hour of Heterodoxy >> Transcript This is a transcript of this episode.

Episode 30: Rick Mehta, Free Expression in Canadian Universities Jul 30, 2018

Show notes

Show Notes Rick Mehta (@RickRMehta) is a professor of psychology at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada. His research focuses on the mechanisms involved in decision making. He has recently begun to study viewpoint diversity in universities and Canadian psychology departments specifically. His talk Free Speech in Universities: Threats and Opportunities covers the philosophy and psychology of free expression. The Canadian state of affairs [0:00] Rick’s big talk on free speech [3:52] Drug dealers are more open than professors [9:07] The bullshit receptivity scale [13:12] Consequences for Rick’s heterodoxy [17:06] Continuing research on decision making [23:25] See the full list of episodes of Half Hour of Heterodoxy >> Selected Quote Rick Mehta: After I did my talk at ideacity Conference held in Toronto a couple of weeks ago, a filmmaker came up to me, a Canadian documentary filmmaker and she said she had no trouble in the past getting drug dealers to appear before her camera and speak about their experiences. But that she was having difficulty getting professors—tenured professors—to appear before a camera. So they said that if they did, they would be willing to speak but it was on the condition of having anonymity. Transcript This is a professional transcript but it may contain errors. Please verify its accuracy by listening to the episode. Transcript of Episode 30: Rick Mehta on Free Expression in Canadian Universities.

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