Wayward Movements

I find it fascinating to look for trends in different facets of life. I develop my own theories on human behavior and cycles, development and things of that nature. One of the patterns that it seems many college students are interested in or at least seem to be aware of is the conservative-liberal continuum. Generally the conversations concerning that continuum have to do with what type of people tend to be conservative or liberal, is there a certain point in life when someone moves in one direction or another, does that change stick, etc. The one trend that I always noticed had to do with a person's stance based on intelligence. This is not to say that I thought all conservatives were stupid and all liberals were smart. I thought, mostly, that conservatives tend to be ill-informed and liberals tend to be overly informed. Conservatives tend to to embrace stubbornness while liberals tend to embrace ambiguity. Conservatives tend to not ask enough questions while liberals ask too many questions. Overall, I was always of the mind that conservatives were surface level, unwilling to dive deeper while liberals would dive down to depths so great that they'd never find their way out again.

Being more academically minded, I chose the liberal side more often; I'd rather not remain surface level, and though I run the risk of falling down the rabbit hole, I'll take my chances looking deeper. And for the most part, my observations proved to be true. The more practically minded/less academic department of theology on campus was much more conservative, very surface level, and overall frustrating to me in my pursuit of graduation. The biblical studies department, much more academically minded, was more liberal but almost seemed to have a better grasp on the world. The problem was that the Biblical studies department also left me very close to leaving Christianity. Theology, with an even tempered mix of practicality and academics, seemed to be middle of the road, but at that time I still thought it leaned a little to the liberal side. Not a bad thing, merely an observation. What I concluded from that experience and experiences in other classes is that the more academically minded, and perhaps more book-smart people were more liberal because they knew more from their studies.

What has surprised me is what I've noticed since graduation. Many of the professors who I thought to be liberal are actually either middle of the road leaning right or pretty much conservative, and the professors who are liberal are not looking at the facts as fully as they could be. Amazingly enough, Princeton's seminary helped me realize that a bit. I was surprised at how middle of the road many of the professors seem to be. I was expecting to see a lot of very liberal professors, or simply expecting all the professors to be liberal, and I was a bit shocked to find that wasn't the case.

Perhaps it is more an indication of my bias, but I'm noticing that the really respectable scholars, the ones who tend to lead their areas of study tend to be a little more on the conservative side. That's not to say they're super conservative; I think they're much more middle-of-the-road. And obviously I have a lot more to learn and need to expand my experience. But I find that trend interesting. At least, it's interesting to me.