Introducing the Centre for Heterodox Social Science

This is my inaugural Substack article. It also marks the early days of my new Centre for Heterodox Social Science at the University of Buckingham. I will be using this platform mainly to discuss and showcase my ideas, research, media, teaching and outreach, and – as the Centre expands – that of the Centre’s researchers more broadly. I do not envision charging for this, as I am fortunate enough to have a salaried position.

The launch of the Centre last week was a great success, with over 80 people including many well-known politicians, journalists, think tank heads and academics. Niall Ferguson, Matt Goodwin and University of Buckingham Vice-Chancellor James Tooley and Legatum Institute Director Radomir Tylecote gave commanding performances. Everyone I heard from came away inspired and convinced by our mission.

As I wrote here, and explained in my presentation at the launch of the Centre, the social sciences and humanities have been skewed for decades because of the dominance of the left among the professoriate (and, to a lesser degree, students). This imbalance has worsened since the mid-1960s, from around 3:1 left v. right to around 10:1 today). At top research universities the slant is much greater: Harvard’s faculty is 82:1 liberal to conservative and the Liberal Arts colleges are arguably worse.

This is exacerbated by the nature of society’s taboos – around race, gender and sexuality – which amplify the power of cultural leftists who wield these taboos. Indeed, the power of the anti-racist taboo in explaining our moral order and the trajectory of our culture is the central theme of my new book (out May 14 in US, June 6 in UK), called Taboo (titled The Third Awokening in the US).

The idea of woke – the sacralization of historically marginalized race, gender and sexual minorities – stems from the sacredness created by taboos around these identities which emerged from the 1960s. Lacking boundaries, these were stretched by what Cass Sunstein terms opprobrium entrepreneurs on the cultural left to permeate many aspects of society. The academy is the original laboratory of the woke movement, so it is vital that we work to reimagine the first part of society to be corrupted by this belief system.

The net result of a progressive monoculture energized by identity taboos is that the entire academic truth-seeking enterprise has been thrown out of balance. Important topics such as ‘positive sociology’ – thinking about ways of advancing positive human happiness – have been neglected, as have questions of social cohesion, beauty and excellence.

Meanwhile left-coded questions such as stratification, gender, race, inequality, power or the rise of right-wing populism are badly skewed by orthodoxies and red lines which prevent the free exchange of ideas while squeezing out viewpoint diversity. In fact there are very few parts of the soft social sciences and humanities that are not affected to at least some degree by taboos and politicization. And this is even without mentioning the radical left takeover of numerous journals and departments.

These incentives mean that those seeking to counter the narrative do not get published, funded, promoted or socially included. They may even, like Roland Fryer, Kathleen Stock or Arthur Sakamoto, be socially ostracized or ruthlessly targeted by mob behaviour. This distorts the basis of what Jonathan Rauch of the Brookings Institution terms our ‘truth-based order’ in journalism, law and academia.

Is sex really not binary? Were Canada’s indigenous residential schools actually guilty of genocide? Are unarmed black men targeted by police in America? Is human behaviour really all socially constructed, independent of biology? It is simply not possible for the academy in its current state to deliver the truth in these and many other realms. Even the few honest papers that squeak through will tend to be deliberately overlooked while accurate researchers downplay unorthodox results in order to be published. A whole series of subtle tricks are used to disguise political discrimination.

While scholarship should focus on all topics, responding to intellectual gaps as well as the priorities of society, those parts of the academic hill that are well-skied do not need further attention. Rather it is the off-piste subjects and vantage points that must be explored. This is why the Centre for Heterodox Social Science will focus mainly on contentious research.

Small numbers can have a massive effect. Most papers in the humanities are never cited, and the majority in the social sciences are rarely read. In order to have an impact, we have to amplify forbidden knowledge, focusing on getting timely, regular, readable, rigorous work into the public realm. As a small Centre focusing on excellence and reach, we must leverage our small output to have an outsized impact on knowledge and the public conversation. To the point that the intelligent centre and centre-left will want to engage with our findings – and hopefully one day take heed from the strength of our results to open their departments up to other viewpoints - even if only a little!

The goal of the new Centre, and of my new open online course on Woke: the Origins, Dynamics and Implications of an Elite Ideology, is to form the kernel of an alternative social science in Britain, the only non-progressive social sciences centre in the country, within a university which is the only one committed to truth and freedom above ‘social justice’ of 181 institutions.

I envision the centre as part of a larger trans-Atlantic (or even global) ecosystem, which is beginning to coalesce. New journals like the Journal of Open Inquiry in Behavioural Science, funders such as the Institute for Humane Studies, universities such as the University of Austin, conservative or classical liberal think tanks, as well as long-form media outlets like Quillette can help rebalance our knowledge-production system.

The Centre will act as a node in this network, a one-stop shop which links countercultural academics and networks together. Our website has links not only to our research and teaching, but to related academics and networks. These are links we will continue to deepen and extend. We are also looking to partner in urgent non-academic areas such as the need to develop politically neutral K-12 school curricula or employee training. One of our Associate Fellows, Luke Martin, is a teacher.

I encourage those of you who are interested in this project to get involved, either by taking the course on Woke (or others that we develop) or by making a donation to our Centre to pay for research or new staff (though this will become self-sustaining as they develop teaching). You can read more about us on our new website. I’ll be reporting on what’s going on a regular basis through this outlet.

Together, we must begin the herculean work of restoring balance to the state of knowledge in the social sciences and humanities. The fate of the wider western world ultimately depends on a healthy knowledge production system. The anti-intellectual woke movement began on campus, and, by shutting down debate and the pursuit of truth, is responsible for exacerbating a whole range of problems, from crime and border control to education and homelessness. The anti-elite resentment and mistrust of institutions it has stoked weakens the West in the face of authoritarian regimes like Russia, Iran or China.

Ours is an urgent task. A cultural form of socialism is warping the minds of younger generations to the point that most prioritize ‘social justice’ over classical liberal values like truth and free speech. If we do nothing to restore our meaning-making order and institutions to health, we will have only ourselves to blame.