Half Hour of Heterodoxy

Latest Episodes:

Episode 29: Fabio Rojas, The Sociology of Activism Jul 17, 2018

Show notes

Fabio Rojas is a professor of sociology at Indiana University at Bloomington. He’s the author of From Black Power to Black Studies: How a Radical Social Movement and Theory for the Working Sociologist published by Columbia University Press. He blogs at Orgtheory.wordpress.com. 06:30 Understanding the rules of activism 08:13 Doing activist work that’s unsatisfying but important 11:18 Visiting Wellesley University’s Freedom Project 22:15 Is understanding necessary for effective activism? 26:34 Two new articles: a new survey of student activism; Defining scholarly roles

Episode 28: Robert Wright, Politics, Tribalism and Mindfulness Jun 29, 2018

Show notes

Robert Wright is a former senior editor at The New Republic, and he currently hosts The Wright Show. He’s also the author of several bestselling books on evolution and society. His latest book Is Why Buddhism Is True. Behind Bob’s Mindful Resistance Newsletter [0:00] Tribal tweets and popularity [5:28] Evaluating Heterodox Academy [16:00] The Google Memo [21:40] The intellectual dark web/Evolutionary psychology [25:25] Bob’s near-term plans [31:45] Mindfulness and De-Biasing Oneself [37:46]

Episode 27: Heather Heying, Life After Evergreen Jun 19, 2018

Show notes

0:00 The uniqueness of Evergreen State 5:42 Activities since leaving Evergreen 10:10 Economic privilege in academia 15:00 Safe space, identity politics, etc. 20:10 Why Evergreen needs a better president

Episode 26: John Inazu, Confident Pluralism Jun 05, 2018

Show notes

John Inazu is professor of law and religion at Washington University in St. Louis. His scholarship focuses on the First Amendment freedoms—specifically speech, assembly, and religion. His first book is about freedom of assembly. His second book, which we discuss, is Confident Pluralism: Surviving and Thriving Through Deep Difference. It was published in 2016 and a paperback edition with a new introduction comes out this year.

Episode 25: Arthur Sakamoto, Conventional Wisdom about Asian Americans May 15, 2018

Show notes

Arthur Sakamoto (@sakamoto_arthur), sociologist at Texas A&M, discusses three myths about Asian Americans. 0:00 The questionable claim of a high Hmong dropout rate 08:00 The poverty rate and wealth of Asians and non-Asians 14:01 Are Asians disadvantaged by living in costly neighborhoods? 20:10 Assimilation and the mobile labor market 23:40 Why do sociologists selectively talk about cost of living? 25:31 White privilege and the alleged bamboo ceiling

Episode 24: Caroline Mehl & Raffi Grinberg, The OpenMind Platform Apr 24, 2018

Show notes

Caroline Mehl and Raffi Grinberg direct the OpenMind Platform, an interactive tool to help individuals learn perspective taking and intellectual humility using principles from psychology. There are beta versions of Open Mind for use in corporations, organizations, and religious communities. You can check out Open Mind at openmindplatform.org and follow Open Mind on Twitter at openmindusa.

Episode 23: Richard Reeves, J.S. Mill and Liberalism Apr 09, 2018

Show notes

Show Notes My guest today is Richard Reeves. He’s a social and political commentator and he has written for the several newspapers and magazines in the US and the UK including the Guardian and The Atlantic. He has also written a biography of John Stuart Mill, John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand. Between 2010 and 2012, Richard was director of strategy to the UK’s Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. He has also served as director of Demos, the London-based political think-tank. He is currently a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brooking Institution in Washington DC. You can find out more about him at his website www.richardvreeves.com. We discuss All Minus One: John Stuart Mill's Ideas on Free Speech Illustrated, edited by Richard Reeves and Jonathan Haidt, with illustrations by Dave Cicirelli. Selected Quotes “The way that media and communications and societies have developed have not been in the direction that Mill hoped, which was bringing more and more heterodox opinions together in sort of daily productive dialogue, but actually more of a kind of fragmentation where people are able to choose their own media, choose their own messages and create echo chambers, within which we are not actually engaging with other people’s ideas. We’re not subjecting our own ideas to critical scrutiny and having that useful, productive exchange. What we’re doing instead is we’re retreating into mini tribes where we try to only engage people who already think what we think and just confirm what we think. Actually Dave [Cicirelli] said in one of our earlier conversations, he said everybody is looking for the website www.IToldYouIWasRight.com.” "The other bit of Mill’s argument has to be held in the same thought process as the argument for free speech which is that it’s a demand on us as citizens not to just sit passively and wait for someone to come along and argue with us, but it’s a duty of citizenship and a liberal democracy to seek disagreements, to seek those who disagree with us, to be testing our own ideas against others." Transcript This is a professional transcript but it may contain errors. Please do not quote it without verification by listening to the podcast. Chris Martin: My guest today is Richard Reeves. He’s a social and political commentator and he has written for several newspapers and magazines in both the US and the UK, including The Guardian and The Atlantic. He has also written a biography of John Stuart Mill and between 2010 and 2012, Richard was Director of Strategy to the UK’s Deputy Prime Minister. He has also served as Director of Demos, the London-based political think tank and he’s currently a senior fellow in economics studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC. You can find out more about him at his website www.RichardvReeves.com. So here is Richard Reeves. Welcome to the show. Richard Reeves: Hi. Thanks for having me. Chris Martin: It’s good to have you on. So you and Jonathan Haidt are about to release an edition of chapter two of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. It’s an edition called All Minus One and it’s illustrated. Tell me a bit about how this came about. Richard Reeves: Well, Jon, through his work at Heterodox Academy, his office had been doing a lot to try and kind of encourage this idea ...

Episode 22: David Frum, On Trumpocracy Mar 26, 2018

Show notes

Show Notes David Frum (@davidfrum) is a senior editor at the Atlantic Magazine and a frequent contributor at MSNBC. He is a former speechwriter for George W. Bush and is known for coining the phrase “axis of evil.” He has been a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributor at the National Review. He is the author of nine books including most recently Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic, which we discuss today. Selected Quote Chris Martin: How do you currently define conservatism? David Frum: Conservatism fundamentally is a habit of mind. It’s a mental disposition and it’s connected to the constitution of the individual mind. We also use the word “conservatism” to describe a particular ideology and what has happened in the United States in recent years is that definition has frozen, and what we now call “movement conservatism” is an anthology of policy solutions to the problems of the 1970s and 1980s. As it has become more obsolete, conservatives have lost interest in policy and what we now call conservatism has become a series of oppositional attitudes to what’s going on in the culture. I call them attitudes because they don’t really have content. Transcript This is a professional transcript but it may contain errors. Please do not quote it without verification. Chris Martin: My guest today is David Frum. He’s a senior editor at the Atlantic Magazine and a frequent contributor at MSNBC. He’s a former speechwriter for George W. Bush. and is known for coining the phrase “axis of evil.” He has been a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributor at the National Review. He And he is the author of nine books including most recently Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic, which we’ll discuss today. So here is David Frum. Chris Martin: Hi David. It’s great to have you on the show. David Frum: Thanks so much, Chris. Chris Martin: Before we get to your new book, which is why I invited you here, I would like to talk to you about the definition of conservatism in general. It’s something you’ve talked about in recent interviews. How do you currently define conservatism? David Frum: Look, conservatism fundamentally is a habit of mind. It’s a mental disposition and you’ve done work on this that it’s connected to the constitution of the individual brand. We also use the word “conservatism” to describe a particular ideology and what has happened in the United States in recent years is that definition has frozen and what we now call “movement conservatism”. It’s an anthology of policy solutions to the problems of the 1970s and 1980s. As it has become more obsolete, conservatives have lost interest in policy and what we now call conservatism has become a series of oppositional attitudes to what’s going on in the culture. I call them attitudes because they don’t really have content. There’s a perfect demonstration of this. You and I were talking over the weekend in which a Trump-North Korea summit has been first on, then off, then on again. At each of these somersaults, the people who call themselves conservatives have applauded the wisdom of precisely what the president and his administration are doing. First one way, then the exact opposite, then the first way again. That tells you there’s not a lot of policy content there.

Episode 21: Musa al-Gharbi, Social Research and Political Bias Mar 15, 2018

Show notes

Show Notes Musa al-Gharbi is a research associate at Heterodox Academy and a PhD student in sociology at Columbia University. He is a writer whose work has been featured in The New York Times, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, and several other venues. The topics of his research include terrorism, extremism, war, antiracism, and, more recently, U.S. political elections. Selected Quote So there’s this real problem where in order to move the needle on a lot of the social issues that progressives want to address, they just need to be able to engage with a far larger band of people than we’re training them to engage with. I mean even from the religious standpoint, most Americans are religious and most people, especially outside of the United States – again, if you’re talking about in developing nations, even more religious and in a different way than Western Europeans and Americans often are – and we’re just fundamentally not training social researchers to be able to speak in a religious language or even feel comfortable engaging with religious people or their narratives or frames of reference. Transcript This is a professional transcript but it may contain errors. Please do not quote it without verification. Chris Martin: My guest today is Musa al-Gharbi. He’s a researcher at Heterodox Academy. He’s a PhD student in Sociology at Columbia and he’s a writer whose work has not only been featured on our blog, but also in the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Atlantic and several other venues. The topics of his research range from terrorism to war to anti-racism and more recently, he has been writing about US political elections. You can find out more about him at his website musaalgharbi.com. So here is Musa al-Gharbi. Welcome to the show. Musa al-Gharbi: Yeah, thank you for having me. Chris Martin: We’re glad to have you on. On previous episodes, I’ve interviewed professors pretty much uniformly and you’re the first student to be in the interviewee’s chair on this show. I’m curious. Tell me a bit about how you as a graduate student decided to join Heterodox Academy. Musa al-Gharbi: I had kind of an unusual journey. I mean in academia in general but maybe the Heterodox Academy as well. So I started in community college and a lot of the concerns that we deal with at Heterodox Academy weren’t such a big deal there. I mean a lot of times at community colleges, you have much more diverse student bodies, even racially and ethnically, but definitely in terms of like socio-economic status and political orientation. But then when I went to University of Arizona, which is where I got my bachelor’s and my master’s degree, I noticed a big shift pretty immediately and it was mainly just that you would see almost all the professors were clearly aligned with the left -- and to the extent that they talked about sort of non-leftist views at all, a lot of the talk was very uncharitable. But usually they just excluded frameworks that were not affiliated with the left to begin with. I found that disturbing and irksome often because I myself come from a conservative community and family. I’m very familiar with conservative thought and I know that conservatives have a lot to add to many of these conversations and I felt like more diverse input would have enriched and enlivened a lot of these conversations. But still, I mean when I would hear things on the news about like safe spaces and trigger warnings and microaggressions and the like, I always thought that that was – like I didn’t think that any of that stuff was real or particularly salient to anyone’s universi...

Episode 20: Deb Mashek, HxA in 2018 Feb 27, 2018

Show notes

Show Notes Deb Mashek (@DebMashekHXA) is the new executive director of Heterodox Academy. She is currently professor of psychology at Harvey Mudd College, but will be leaving that position to serve full time as executive director. We talk about her career and her three priorities for 2018. Selected Quote "I regularly have students and colleagues swinging by for closed-door conversations where they say things like, 'There is this question I wanted to ask in class, or there’s an idea I wanted to raise in a meeting, but I didn’t feel comfortable with doing so because other people might tell me that I’m being ridiculous, or that it's an offensive question.' And that has a very chilling effect on inquiry and on the pursuit of knowledge." Transcript This is a professional transcript but it may contain errors. Please do not quote it without verification. Chris Martin: My guest today is Deb Mashek. She’s the new Executive Director of Heterodox Academy and this is her first appearance on our podcast. Deb also goes by Debra. I mentioned that if you want to search for her scholarly publications. She’s currently a tenured Professor of Psychology at Harvey Mudd College and despite being very happy with her job there, she has decided to leave and join us here at Heterodox Academy. You can follow her on Twitter, @DebMashekHxA. So here is Deb Mashek. Welcome to the show and welcome to Heterodox Academy. Debra Mashek: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here. Chris Martin: Well, thanks for joining us for this episode and congratulations on your appointment. So you’re currently a Professor of Psychology at Harvey Mudd. But you started out studying psychology, biology and women studies. So tell me a bit about how you got from there to where you are right now. Debra Mashek: Yeah. So I was an undergrad at Nebraska Wesleyan University where as you mentioned, I was studying bio-psychology and women studies and then from there, I moved on to Stony Brook University where I received my MA and my PhD in Social Psychology with an emphasis in quantitative methods and my expertise developed there in close relationships and I studied the self-expansion model. The idea there is that through relationships, we take on the resources, the identities and the perspectives of other people and then ultimately increase our own agency in the world through interpersonal connection. Since then I’ve applied that theoretical frame to the study of romantic relationships and incarcerated people, college students and also inter-institutional collaborations. So after Stony Brook, I went on for a three-year research fellowship at George Mason and then as you mentioned in 2005, made the move to Harvey Mudd College, which is a small liberal arts school in Claremont, California. We’re very STEM-focused and we’re one of the Claremont Colleges, which includes Pomona, Scripps, Pitzer, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Claremont Graduate University and Keck Graduate Institute. Chris Martin: So last year you applied to our director position at Heterodox Academy. What made you decide to do that? Debra Mashek: It’s a great question. So I’m at this job I absolutely love working with students and colleagues who just wow me every single day and I’m getting ready to leave it and so the question is, “Why in the world would I do such a thing?” and the answer has to do with I am worried about what I’m seeing in the broader landscape of higher ed. You know, given my relationships work,

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