Disconnect between the clerisy and everyone else

Thinking about the anarchists and ideologues drawn to protests and who then serve as a catalyst for riots, as exemplified by Ferguson, Missouri, it made me wonder about the numbers.

There are a number of Gramscian memes and apostles for post colonial theory, postmodernism, critical theory and third wave feminism who seem to be strongly represented among the fringe groups drawn to protests. Their memes circulate in the press - oppression, relativism, moral ambiguity, patriarchy, systemic racism, endemic racism, etc. Their numbers would seem to be tiny and yet their cultural magnaphone appears to be huge. The question is in part prompted by the disconnect between the events and the popular view. 85% of the population, in the case of Ferguson, believe that justice was served and that the decision not to indict was the correct one. 15% think otherwise and spill into the press and into the street with their fervent conviction that there has been a social injustice.

But are there 15% Gramscian advocates out there? Is there that many people who believe in post colonial theory, postmodernism, critical theory and third wave feminism? Particularly given that all those ideologies have their foundations in a Marxist-Hegelian view of the world and that the US has never been particularly receptive to those ideologies.

I can't find any solid data on how many people consider themselves to be post colonial theorists, postmodernists in philosophy, believers in critical theory and third-wave feminists. What about some even ball-park figures?

With feminism, perhaps we can work with a couple of well-known pieces of data related to the feminist paradox. The paradox is that only 20% of the American population identify themselves as feminists whereas 90% support the equality of women in law and in terms of opportunity. This paradox is likely rooted in the multitudinous and highly divergent strands of feminism. A common delineation is the distinction between first wave feminists (equality before the law and voting), second wave feminists (equality of opportunity) and third wave feminism (equality of outcomes; with a particular focus on race, gender, class, LGBT, and multiculturalism). I think the resolution to the paradox is that most people accept waves one and two but reject the third wave and its various manifestations. think that the term feminism is now associated with the third-wave and that is why, though they support equality before the law and of opportunity, most people reject the appellation of feminist.

If all that is true, then you can rough out a number for how many people consider themselves third-wave feminists (who are steeped in post colonial theory, postmodernism, critical theory). Third wave feminist almost by definition have to be among those who do accept the term of feminist. If there is the same distribution with feminists as among the general population, then most of those self-identifying as feminist are likely to be first and second wave feminists. That means that at most only 2% (20% X 10%) of the population might identify themselves as third-wave feminists.

Another way to get a cut on it is to look at the number of people who graduate with degrees in sociology, anthropology, gender studies, journalism and education - all fields particularly prone to Gramscian memes. Field of Bachelor’s Degree in the United States: 2009 from the US Census gives a first order of magnitude etsimate but isn't really granular enough. The associated items in the Census are Education(7.7 million), Social Science (4.4 million), Communications including journalism (2 million). The total then is 14.1 million of the US population in degree fields particularly prone to Gramscian memes. If you cut the number in half to allow for extraneous fields caught up in the Census numbers (such as economics and political science), you end up with roughly 7 million out of 310 million population or about 2%. I suspect that that is still a gross overestimate. The National Women's Studies Association only has 2,000 members and even the older and much larger American Association of University Women (which would include many who are first or second wave rather than third wave) is only 150,000. Together, those would indicate .05% of the population potentially subscribing to third wave feminist theory.

This high estimate for third wave feminism also captures ethnic studies, post colonial theory, etc. owing to the breadth of the Census definitions.

So at most, about about 0.05% - 2% of the population have degrees that would predispose them to the Gramscian memes associated with post colonial theory, postmodernism, critical theory and third wave feminism.

Perhaps a different way to look at it is by seeing how important the issues associated with Social Justice are to the population. You don't have to have a degree to care. Gallup has a running list of issues deemed most important by the public. This is an open-ended question where respondents can answer however they might wish.

(Double click to enlarge or use the link above to go to the original)

For the issues most closely tied to the Social Justice movement, relatively small percentages of the population see them as critical issues.

Poverty/Hunger and Homelessness - 4%
Gap between rich and poor - 2%
Welfare - 2%
Race relations/Racism - 1%
Gay rights issues - 1%
Abortion - < 0.5%

This is not fully illuminating because the question asks the respondents to identify the most important issues confronting the nation. For many respondents, an issue might be important but not rise to the level of most important.

Pew Research provides some insight to this issue. They ask their participants which of a list of 20 policy issues are most important to them from a voting perspective. Most are very tactical to people's lives such as strengthening the nation's economy (top vote getter at 80%). There are few topics that come close to Social Justice concerns other than the bottom two on the list, Dealing With Global Warming (29%) and Dealing With Global Trade Issues (28%).

Gallup has some additional insight on a couple of these items. Only 1% regard race relations as an important issue. Perhaps it is because 70% of the public (both blacks and whites) see race relations as somewhat or very good.

Which leaves something of a mystery. If there are relatively few Social Justice Warriors (0.05-2.0%) and Social Justice Warrior concerns do not sit high on most people's most important concerns (0.5-4% identifying SJW issues as important), then why is there so much attention paid to these issues?

I don't know. Perhaps all the public surveys are wrong, but I rather doubt that.

My best guess is two-fold. 1) America is a very tolerant and generous country consistently far-exceeding other countries in individual generosity (both time and money) where there are identifiable victims be it volunteering for Habitat for Humanity building projects, giving money for foreign disaster relief or staffing food kitchens. While Americans may not support SJW agendas (and especially their proposed solutions), they do have, I belief an affinity for and desire to help those that seen as the deserving poor or who are victims of acts of god or events beyond their control. 2) I suspect that a disproportionate percentage of SJW end up in NGOs, government agencies, the media, and academia providing a platform for message dissemination for out of proportion to the numbers of people who are actually interested in Social Justice.

Even with those platforms, the effectiveness is somewhat marginal judging by Zimmerman and Ferguson and comparable events where the data exists to measure sentiment. For most of these type issues, despite the media platform, advocacy, and persistent messaging, only 15% of the population ends up subscribing to the SJW interpretation of things.