One would think from pundits that Hollywood actors, news reporters,
and university professors are overwhelmingly liberal.

Is this actually supported by data?  If so, why might this be the
case?
Conversely, are there elements of American society overwhelmingly
conservative?

I have no personal view on this, one way or the other.  Just curious
as to why certain groups, formed for occupational (not political)
reasons, might semi-uniformly lean in the same direction.

While all comments (even from rabid polemicists and extremist nuts)
are encouraged, I would especially appreciate
data-based/research-based comments.

Thank you.  ron

Hello Nronronronro,

Thanks a lot for giving me the chance to repost my comment made
earlier.

Before I start with what I already assembled, I want to add some
information for your question wether or not there are elements of
American society which are overwhelmingly conservative. Also, I found
some more statistical data that might interest you.


-------------

American Institutions Survey Reference Files
http://www.uta.fi/FAST/US2/REF/usclass.html
"Sociologists, for instance, are mostly politically liberal while
economists are mostly conservative, they said."


The Red and the Blue: The Cultural and Political Divide in America
http://www.uncommonknowledge.org/01-02/637.html

Michael Barone, Senior Writer for U.S. News and World Report, says: 

"And what I could see is that the Democrats had made significant gains
in those major metropolitan areas especially the seven largest in the
country, that have a quarter of the population. Those are culturally
the more liberal parts, less conventionally religious. The Republicans
had made corresponding though somewhat lesser gains in rural,
non-metropolitan areas. And so that the end result of those two
movements in the opposite direction is the deadlock we see between the
red states and the blue states in November of 2000."

Ruy Teixeira, Fellow at the Century Foundation:

"The Democrats have become the party of the most economically advanced
parts of the country, what we call, in my new book with John Judis,
ideopolises. If you look at the counties in the United States that are
part of these ideopolises, if you compare the Reagan election in the
1980 to the 2000 election, almost all of the shift into the Democratic
column since 1980 comes in these ideopolises as the most economically
advanced areas."


Also see following document:

Political Polarization and Income Inequality [PDF]
http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/RESEARCH/conferences/collective/11262002.pdf

Other documents like this state that the correlation between income
and political polarization is low.


Following interesting page argues that there might be more than a
one-dimensional comparison needed:

Ideology (by Prof. Bryan Caplan)
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/e849/pf9.htm
"What is the dimension? Empirically, U.S. political opinion "fits"
well on the liberal-conservative or left-right spectrum. (...) On a
deep level, this spectrum may not make a great deal of sense.
Libertarians, for example, often argue that there are really two
dimensions - personal freedom and economic freedom:
1. Libertarians - pro-personal, pro-economic
2. Populists - anti-personal, anti-economic
3. Liberals - pro-personal, anti-economic
4. Conservatives - anti-personal, pro-economic"

The text goes on saying that education and ideology are close to
unrelated, but that in "a multiple regression framework, there is a
tendency for income to make people more conservative and education to
make people more liberal." But that there also is an "Ideology
Education Interaction":

"Ideology and education interact in an interesting way.  Despite their
slight correlation, ideology*education has more predictive power than
ideology alone. (...) Simple explanation: The higher your education
level, the more likely you are to know what your ideology says about a
given topic.  For someone with a grade-school education, "liberal" is
just a word; for a Ph.D., it is an integrated worldview."

Also, take a look at tables 1b and 1c on the "Conditional Probability
of Being a Democrat/Republican" at the bottom of the page. The tables
separate by age, job security, income, race, gender, and other
factors.


-------------


And this is the information I found for you earlier:
 
Why are things changing 
http://www.oaoa.com/columns/bill090802.htm 
"Here are some of the reported stats from the polling of professors: 
- University professors are exceptionally liberal ... (of those) who
voted in the 2000 election, 84 percent voted for Al Gore, 6 percent
for Ralph Nader and only 9 percent for George Bush.
- And when these professors were asked to name the very best president
of the last 40 years, Clinton came in first with 26 percent ...
Kennedy second with 17 percent, LBJ third with 15 percent, Carter
fourth with 13 percent, and Ronald Reagan finished last with an
abysmal 4 percent.
- And while only 34 percent of the nation professes itself to be
Democrat, 57 percent of professors declare themselves to be Democrat"

(I cross-checked this information on other sites.)

 
Here's some analysis on the subject: 
 
Book Review: The Smell of Sawdust (by Richard J. Mouw, 2000) 
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Fields/3076/tsos.html 
"As an aside, why is it that so many intellectuals are politically
liberal, that academic advancement and recognition normally involves
moving leftward politically? It almost seems as if the more they
'know,' the further leftward they go! I suppose this is partly due to
the immense peer pressure applied by predominantly left-leaning
academics and intellectuals. Since advancement involves being
recognized by peers, it is essential to play to their likings."
 
 
And: 
 
The Secret to the Suicidal Liberal Mind (by Jack Wheeler, Freedom
Research Foundation, 2002)
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/1/20/231252.shtml 
"Envy-mongering has always been and continues to be the underlying
strategy of all variants of the political Left, such as the Democratic
Party. (...)
 
This is also why Hollywood is so liberal. The vast amounts of money
movie stars make is so grossly disproportionate to the effort it took
them to make it that they feel it is unearned. So they apologize for
it. The liberal's strategy is to apologize for his success in order to
appease the envious.
 
Liberalism is thus not a political ideology or set of beliefs. It is
an envy-deflection device, a psychological strategy to avoid being
envied."

-------------


I hope it helps, and thanks again!

 
Search terms: 
research political liberal group profession 
"research indicates" liberal "by profession" 
"university professors are * liberal" 
"actors are * liberal" 
"intellectuals are * liberal" 
"hollywood is * liberal" 
"hollywood is * liberal" "survey OR poll OR research"

Additional search terms:
american society "mostly conservative"
political view correlates to income liberal
"correlation between income" democrats

Thanks, again!   Top-notch.  I appreciate it.  ron

Since you eagerly invite all comments, I'll proffer the following:

Your question reminded me of what Ghandi said when asked his view on
Western civilisation.
He replied: "I think it would be a good idea."

:-)

Thanks, xarqi!

I wouldn't put Hollywood actors exactly in with the intelligencia
crowd.  Casting notices aren't called "cattle calls" for nothing.  You
would be surprised at just how many popular "spokespeople" for a
variety of political issues and other causes have never even finished
high school.

Don't get me wrong, there are some very well educated people on the
screen, but it is their rarity that makes them so noteworthy.

digsalot---thx!

What's really needed would be a survey on political views grouped by
profession, which I could not find. However I could dig up the
following data (which I then cross-checked on other sites):

Why are things changing
http://www.oaoa.com/columns/bill090802.htm
"Here are some of the reported stats from the polling of professors:
- University professors are exceptionally liberal ... (of those) who
voted in the 2000 election, 84 percent voted for Al Gore, 6 percent
for Ralph Nader and only 9 percent for George Bush.
- And when these professors were asked to name the very best president
of the last 40 years, Clinton came in first with 26 percent ...
Kennedy second with 17 percent, LBJ third with 15 percent, Carter
fourth with 13 percent, and Ronald Reagan finished last with an
abysmal 4 percent.
- And while only 34 percent of the nation professes itself to be
Democrat, 57 percent of professors declare themselves to be Democrat"


Here's some analysis on the subject:

Book Review: The Smell of Sawdust (by Richard J. Mouw, 2000)
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Fields/3076/tsos.html
"As an aside, why is it that so many intellectuals are politically
liberal, that academic advancement and recognition normally involves
moving leftward politically? It almost seems as if the more they
'know,' the further leftward they go! I suppose this is partly due to
the immense peer pressure applied by predominantly left-leaning
academics and intellectuals. Since advancement involves being
recognized by peers, it is essential to play to their likings."


And:

The Secret to the Suicidal Liberal Mind (by Jack Wheeler, Freedom
Research Foundation, 2002)
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/1/20/231252.shtml
"Envy-mongering has always been and continues to be the underlying
strategy of all variants of the political Left, such as the Democratic
Party. (...)

This is also why Hollywood is so liberal. The vast amounts of money
movie stars make is so grossly disproportionate to the effort it took
them to make it that they feel it is unearned. So they apologize for
it. The liberal's strategy is to apologize for his success in order to
appease the envious.

Liberalism is thus not a political ideology or set of beliefs. It is
an envy-deflection device, a psychological strategy to avoid being
envied."


Search terms:
research political liberal group profession
"research indicates" liberal "by profession"
"university professors are * liberal"
"actors are * liberal"
"intellectuals are * liberal"
"hollywood is * liberal"
"hollywood is * liberal" "survey OR poll OR research"

I am probably being impertinent here as I am Australian and in
Australia, but here goes anyway. The local equivalant of the Hollywood
set is also very much "liberal" leaning as you call it.  Actors here
have supported the centre left political party closest aligned to your
democrats for many years. Reasons are that liberal/ leftish political
parties/ governments are much more likely to support the arts and
hence the acting profession than conservative governments. For
instance as soon as our "democrats" got in power here they immediately
gave tax concesions to those people investing in the movie industry.
the conservatives would never offer such incentives to aparticular
group like that. Possibly your democrats similarly favour the arts.

Although it probably isn't necessary to point this out, any "study"
that pretends to measure "liberalism" simply by recounting party
preference reflects not the political position of its subjects, but
instead reflects the partisanship and bias of its sponsors. It simply
isn't honest to declare that anybody who identifies more with the
Democrats than with the Republicans is "liberal".

j_philipp...thanks!    Please post your comment as an answer so I can
pay you.  I know it's not much, but at least it's something. Thanks
again! ron

johnfrommelbourne---that is a terrific point.  I never thought about
that angle.  Thanks!

expertlaw---I always appreciate your crystalline distinctions.  Thx,
as always.

ron

Perhaps the reason is phrases such as liberal arts and liberal
education. These date back a century or more when typical liberal
views were quite different. I think liberalism is largely sustained by
this heritage of long ago. It is easier to get good refernces as an
instuctor and a few other fields, if you express liberal views.
Exceptions would be business, medical, military, engineering and
technical instructors who are only about half liberal and/or Democrat.
Newer disciplines tend to be more consevative.
 Many liberals believe it is OK to lie for a "good cause" which means
even fellow liberals can't believe anything another liberal says
unless they have good reason to believe it so. As a Non-liberal I am
amazed that well educated people continue to support Socialism, big
government and micro managing which have failed badly with rare
exceptions for 5 decades in the USA. I am also amazed that many
liberals, are increasing the danger to their own sons in the USA and
British military by givig Saddam hope that the liberals will shortly
force GW Bush to abandon the liberation of Iraq. Terrorists, free
loders and criminals are also encourged by liberal rhetoric.    Neil

Various polls have indicated that journalists tend to be more liberal
than the population as a whole.
http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cache:ZVmQSznMsEcC:www.ucg.org/articles/gn40/profile.html+poll+journalists+god+liberal+democratic&hl=es&ie=UTF-8

Thanks, neilzero, for your views.  ron

Wow, mvguy!  That's more data per square inch than I've read in a long
time.  Thanks for the numbers.  I appreciate your taking time to
comment.  ron

and thanks for the thanks nronro...... on the "different angle" as you
put it.
Your mate Neil is a bit of a worry though. I think he would charge to
take an old lady across the street in heavy traffic rather than allow
the event to be
"socialised" into a mutually co-operative  benefit for both. Perhaps
he may like to contemplate that the higher the educated, ( and by
implication the more intelligent)the more likley one is to vote
Democrat/ Social Democrat.
 

 JFM

An interesting article on the issue:

Robert Nozick, Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?
http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/cpr-20n1-1.html

Thanks, John from Melbourne---good-humored as always !

Also, many thanks to rait----I have always been a Nozick fan, though
his recent book, Invariances, was a little too Einsteinian and not
enough libertarian.  :-)

I will read the article you recommended ASAP.  Thanks again!  I
appreciate it.
ron