A matter of degree, part 2

 In my last post, I said that score on an index of "intellectual" tastes was associated with greater support for the left candidates (Gore or Nader) in the 2000 election, even after controlling for education.  The survey also had a lot of questions relating to politics.  I selected 20 of them, a combination of concrete issues (like laws on abortion) and general views that are commonly seen in left/right terms (like whether the growing number of newcomers threatens traditional American customs and values).  I controlled for a number of standard demographic variables plus education and "intellectual" tastes.  The estimated effect of intellectual tastes was in a liberal direction for 19 of the 20, and the estimate for education was in a liberal direction for 16 of 20.  By and large, the education and intellectual estimates were parallel--if one was large, so was the other.  I'm not sure if they are completely parallel, but that's the tendency. Going back to the question that started me on this, this suggests that there is a continuum, not a contrast between "elite" colleges and the rest of society--people who are more interested in school or do better in school tend to be drawn to liberal political views.  That is, I'd expect that students at flagship state universities are more liberal than those at second-tier state universities, and that honors students at a given university are more liberal than average students.  

Turning to specific questions, the association is stronger for "social" than "economic" issues--in fact, it's near zero for the (few) economic issues.  That's no surprise, but there are also substantial differences among the social issues.  The effects are strong for civil liberties, what you could call "cosmopolitanism" (acceptance of immigrants and concern with other nations), and opposition to racial discrimination.  Those are also in line with previous results on the effects of education.  But there was another pattern which I hadn't seen discussed before:  more educated/intellectual people were substantially more likely to disagree with the statements that racial discrimination was rare, and that "poor people have become more dependent on government programs."  I think those questions have something in common--they involve blame, or suggesting that people are responsible for their misfortune.  That goes along with something I have argued before:  that educated people have become less confident of their moral superiority.  In that sense, contemporary critiques of "meritocracy" have it backwards. 

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]