Robert — I have not read the Stein book, but your observations rang true. As one who lives in the “belly of the beast” as some conservatives believe, I have rarely been intentionally belittled or put down for my political views. And, on the few occasions when those who don’t know me have made obnoxious comments, I have taken great delight in watching them try to extricate themselves once they realize what they have said.

Having said that, I also rarely enter into political discussion with fellow academics, for a number of reasons. One is that many of them are just so — unknowingly — arrogant and condescending in their attitudes that I usually can’t be bothered. Another is that most of them so lack any basic understanding of what makes conservatives tick that I simply don’t have the patience to try and explain all the points they are wrong on. (It reminds of something said about a Kennedy conspiracy believer: If he spoke for 5 minutes, it would take an hour to undo all the mistakes and damages.)

The final, and main reason, I refrain from too many arguments is that so few academics actually understand the concept of philosophies and worldviews any more. Their subconscious reasoning seems to run something like: “I am a good and decent person and I believe X. Conservatives believe non-X. Therefore conservatives are not good and decent people.” So, the discussions, at least in my personal experience, seem to be more about morality than philosophy. It is very difficult, for example, to get most academics to understand that good and decent people can support policies that have indecent and bad results. And this inability to understand the nature of philosophical belief systems and varying world views, in short an inability to actually think, is far more deleterious to the academy than is its leftward bias. As one conservative professor noted in a recent interview, one of the reason so few college graduates can explain their left-political views is because they have never had to defend them intellectually.