Academia, Journalism, and Politics

Abstract

For three decades I have been interested in the area where the academic world meets the world of journalism and the world of politics. On several occasions I have had the opportunity to study how political opinions are passed off as science or scholarship. Some people have said—or “charged”!—that I am “politically motivated.” Of course I am politically motivated! But in what sense? I define “politics” to mean in the broad sense how society is organized, how one deals with social organizations, our relationship to government, how we arrive at decisions affecting the country and the world, the way ideas and information are disseminated in the media, the role of education, the way ideas are taught in schools and the universities, how information is processed (by the press, by individuals, by the educational system, by the government, etc.). I understand politics in that broad sense, and in that sense I am politically motivated. But my concern for politics does not mean that I support some faction, or some wing over another wing, say the left wing over the right wing; or that I support some “ism” ideology such as socialism, communism, or capitalism. I totally reject such factionalism.