Steve Teles: preference

Transcript context

…That became a book. And in that book, in the introduction you mentioned that you had three conservatives on your dissertation committee, yet you would not yourself be considered a conservative. What is it that so early on made you weird in that way? How did that come to pass? Well, I think I always was attracted to things I didn’t agree with. I remember, people often have an experience in college where they first pick up, or in high school where they first pick up Ayn Rand and then they’re like, “Oh, this is it. I figured it out.” I first picked up Ayn Rand and thought it was awful but wanted to know why and wanted to argue with it. So I was attracted to people who had these ideas and I wanted to have it out and I wanted to figure it out rather than just dismiss ideas like that. And so, I think, that’s one of the reasons I was attracted to going to a graduate program where I would study with conservatives. And I figured, I already know a lot about what liberals think. And that’s why I’ve spent most of my time listening to conservatives disproportionately. My media diet is from conservatives because I feel like I can write all the liberal op-eds I want so I don’t really need to consume that. And do you have this, maybe “contrarian” isn’t the right word, but I’ll use that word as a fill-in, contrarian streak in all spheres of life? So the music you listen to, the foods you eat, the ski lodges you decide to… [laughter] To visit when you have vacation, or is it really just in your political and philosophical thought?…

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