A long but very interesting article on the fall of Larry Summers by James Piereson, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Piereson frames Summers’ dismissal as Harvard president as “the triumph of the diversity faction” in the academy—particularly within the arts and sciences.
Because Piereson’s pieces touches on a number of issues I’ve been writing on over the last several weeks, I’m going to quote from it at length. From “Harvard Lays an Egg”:
When the late Allan Bloom visited the Harvard campus some years ago to deliver a speech on his bestselling book The Closing of the American Mind, he began his remarks with the salutation, “Fellow Elitists,” a takeoff on Franklin Roosevelt’s address years earlier to the nativist Daughters of the American Revolution which he introduced with the words, “Fellow Immigrants.” Bloom was having some fun at the expense of Harvard’s students and faculty, all of whom had competed mightily to gain entrance to one of the most selective and prestigious colleges in the world, only to turn around once there to adopt a posture of thoughtless egalitarianism. He was also making the deeper point that higher education ought to involve the pursuit of excellence rather than of vulgar equality or “diversity.”
Bloom’s indictment came to mind with the news of the forced resignation of Lawrence Summers from the presidency of Harvard University. Summers, perhaps in a somewhat ham-fisted style, had tried to make the case for excellence at Harvard but generated furious resistance and opposition in the process. His ouster speaks volumes about the anti-intellectualism that is engulfing Harvard and others of our great academic institutions.
Summers’s resignation, to be sure, came as no surprise. The announcement even seemed anticlimactic in view of the battle that had been waged against him for more than a year by activists on the arts and sciences faculty. Given this strife, it was perhaps inevitable that members of the Harvard Corporation, the university’s governing body, would sooner
or later ask him to step aside. His term in office, which began with such promise, thus ended prematurely after just five years, the shortest of any presidential tenure at Harvard in more than a century. […][…] the end of the Summers presidency marks a sad day for higher education. Despite all the talk about his abrasive personality and headstrong management style, Summers was a casualty of the left-wing ideological standards erected by Harvard’s arts and sciences faculty. The historian Bernard DeVoto wrote decades ago that the Harvard he knew was “a republic within the Republic, a church that cuts across the churches, a class drawn from all classes.” That ideal now seems far beyond our reach. The Harvard on display during the Summers ordeal resembles more a mad collection of petty interests pushing and pulling on one another for money, position, and advantage.
There are certainly many lessons to be learned from this debacle, but two immediately stand out: first, that our major academic institutions are run by their faculties, not by trustees or students, or by donors or alumni; and, second, that the activist members of faculties will not accept from presidents (or deans or provosts) any contradiction of cherished ideological assumptions, most of which revolve around the magical word “diversity.”
[My emphases]
I’ve discussed my complaints with the diversity agenda on a number of occasions, but the best introduction to the inherent anti-individualism (and so anti-“Americanism”) that underpins the modern “diversity” movement comes from Peter Wood, a Professor of Anthropology at Boston University, whose book, Diversity: The Invention of a Concept, remains the seminal critique of the diversiphiles. You can read the first chapter—which spells out Wood’s entire thesis, here.
But back to Piereson and the Summers dismissal:
Presidents at other institutions, and administrators harboring aspirations for advancement to presidential posts, are bound to take note of Summers’s downfall, and will certainly take steps to avoid a similar fate.
Summers was appointed in 2001, the 27th in a line of presidents that stretches back to Harvard’s founding in 1636. He came to the post with a reputation as something of a wunderkind in the fields of economics and finance […] By 45 he had served as chief economist of the World Bank, undersecretary of the treasury for international affairs, and, finally, secretary of the treasury in the Clinton administration. His impressive record, however, was accompanied by a reputation for brashness and blunt-speaking that many warned would lead to trouble in academe, where sensitivity and consultation trump just about every other virtue.
[My emphases]
Chew on that for a bit, why don’t you: blunt speaking (candor? honesty? impassioned defense of ideals?) leads to trouble in academe. Instead, “sensitivity,” or, to use the more loaded word, “tolerance”—the primary directive being to hurt no feelings (unless the feelings are those of the ruling / oppressor class, who by definition can’t be materially injured, given their position of social power)—is the new ideal. Which leads, almost invariably, to an insulated cult of homogeneity, where disagreement is discouraged because, well, it can be so very unpleasant. “Consultation,” in the sense Piereson uses it here, is akin to the UN (and European) idea of consensus: gone are the days of defiant individualism (at least, pre-tenure); instead, departments—particularly in the Humanities—are run on group agreements that have the effect of officially watering down the beliefs of intellectual outliers.
Summers’s appointment was initially hailed as a sign that Harvard wished to renew a tradition of having as its president an educational visionary who might be a reformer in Cambridge but also a national spokesman for the ideals of higher education. His arrival on campus was thus something of a slap at Neil Rudenstine, his publicly diffident predecessor, who had himself run afoul of important faculty interests with the suggestion that Harvard should amend its ancient financial rule of “every tub on its own bottom” […]
The thought that Summers might be the modern day equivalent of nationally influential presidents like Charles William Eliot (1869-1909) or James Bryant Conant (1933-53) was perhaps naive in view of the changes of the past half-century—in particular the emergence of an assertive and highly politicized faculty. Nevertheless, Summers gave it a good try. In an early address,he laid out an ambitious (and admirable) agenda for strengthening undergraduate education, recruiting outstanding young scholars who might begin to replace a rapidly aging tenured faculty, and turning Harvard into an institution that tolerates a spectrum of controversial ideas. Summers, moreover, made clear early and often that he was devoted to a meritocratic ideal that required the recruitment of the best scholars in the world. Yet he may not have fully realized that such a commitment put him on a collision course with parts of the faculty just as fully committed to an egalitarian conception of the university.
[My emphases]
Again, this is a key component of the wars with the academy: the progressive position, as I’ve often outlined, is tied to an idea of egalitarianism that promotes equality of outcome—a position that is fundamentally at odds with a meritocratic system that tends to reward those who take advantage of the classical liberal ideal of equality of opportunity. The difference between the two lines of thought is quite obvious: radical egalitarianism is a form of enforced social engineering that promotes an ends-justifying-the-means rationale for social organization—with the ends already ideologically predetermined as a ostentatious show of “diversity,” the criterion for representation (and that’s what such a system truly is, selected representation) being some attribute like color or gender, that, from the standpoint of academics, is both superficial and anti-intellectual. And to measure the success of its social engineering, radical egalitarians within the progressivist movement use proportionality as a marker for success—the idea being that the university (or a business, or a particular vocation) should “mirror” society in those same superficial ways.
Equality of opportunity, on the other hand—though it has suffered in the past (and will always suffer to some degree) from the inability to establish an absolutely level playing field—is still, nevertheless, the very American ideal that an individual, through hard work, can, if given the opportunity, succeed at anything. Or at the very least, s/he can attempt to succeed, and either do so or not largely on the strenght of personal commitment and drive.
Stanley Fish and others have critiqued this notion of equality of opportunity—“fairness” and “merit,” they say, are themselves loaded constructs that benefit those in power (and of course, to a degree, the critics are correct). But noting that there are potential inequalities between individuals does not justify a complete revision of western liberalism to promote a system that would reduce us to our group attributes, then distribute us evenly, so that social engineers and academic elites can point to the resultant cultural Crayola box and proclaim “equality” has been reached.
Such is a perversion of what has made this country strong—namely, that true diversity lies in the ideas of the individuals who hold them. That our universities have rejected such true diversity for the kind that looks good in recruitment brochures is a sad testament to (what I hope is) the temporary triumph of pernicious progressivism (with its collectivist roots) over the power of individualism, which regards color and gender as important only insofar as they can add to the diversity of ideas in a given academic community.
To think that by virtue of “blackness,” say, or by virtue of being a female, one is “representative” of a particular set of ideological beliefs is to engage in the worst type of stereotyping. But somehow, our university systems—through the “diversity” movement—have turned such a loathsome practice into a showy sign of righteousness and enlightenment.
Up is down. Black is white. McMillan is wife.
Summers’s background as a political appointee in Washington may have been poor preparation for a modern college president. He would have learned there that just about every position taken generates adversaries from the opposition party but also allies from one’s own. As a Democrat, moreover, he would have also seen that opposition came generally from conservatives. The world of national politics encourages disagreement, debate, and opposition as instruments of effective policy. None of these lessons applied at Harvard, where a controversial position would generate nothing but opposition, important disagreements were suppressed or ruled out of bounds, and the political spectrum was distorted far to the left. He had been used to operating as a liberal, but now found himself on unfamiliar ground as a moderate or-heaven forbid!—a conservative.
Summers’s major sin in the eyes of the liberal and left-wing faculty was his insensitivity to the diversity regime that has taken over at Harvard and just about every other major institution in the country.This regime is propped up by mythical presumptions, the major one being that the United States has been guilty of oppressing or otherwise holding back various groups, especially blacks, women, homosexuals, American Indians, people of Hispanic origin, and others who make up perhaps 75 percent of our population. These groups, so the argument goes, are owed special consideration on the campus by virtue of their victimization, which means in practice that no one is allowed to question their oppressed status, their claims to special consideration, or their privilege to complain about any institutional practice that they find inconvenient.
Regular readers will note in this my frequent critique of identity politics, which—by handing over complete control of the narrative of their condition to the group in question, leads to particularly aggressive (and often, let’s be honest, quite pragmatic, given the reading of the social climate) victim politics. And once the group has decided on its official narrative, only those who count as “authentic” are allowed to offer criticism—and “authenticity,” happily, is defined by agreement with the official narrative.
Not only does this shield identity groups from outside critique. But it is further protected by the demands of the “tolerance” culture that has been constructed to insulate it.
That is, not only are the opinions of those not in the group inauthentic—but the very voicing of those critiques is considered bad form at best, and, at worst, worthy of censure, dismissal, or some sort of “reeducation” campaign (like sensitivity training).
Free speech? That’s great and all—but for purposes of “sensitivity,” it is often these days restricted to bubbles or “zones” on campus where, say, one can argue, in a 10’x10’ zone, that race-based affirmative action is essentially a racist answer to addressing racism.
Not quite what the Enlightenment thinkers had in mind, I don’t think.
The diversity industry that has grown up around the campus asserts (without any evidence) that a departure from proportional representation in any field or department is, ipso facto, evidence of discrimination. This is why there exist preferential hiring practices for women and minority groups on every campus, and various scholarship programs, publications, study centers, and curricular offerings designed specifically for every designated group. All have created their own advocacy groups to press their claims, […] Most intelligent people understand that these practices have been carried beyond the point of absurdity but have no idea how to rein them in. Summers, as it turned out, endorsed the diversity regime in the abstract (otherwise he could never have been hired) but, given his simultaneous belief in excellence, could not help but take steps or make comments that contradicted it.
Summers’s transgressions began shortly after he took office, when he challenged Cornel West, a member of the Afro-American Studies Department, to pay more attention to scholarship than to making recordings of rap music […] Yet West took offense, as did others on the faculty, on the grounds that Summers had been racially insensitive and had no right to chastise a member of the faculty about his research. For his pains, West was inundated with handsome offers from other institutions, and shortly headed off to Princeton.
Summers next gained public attention by observing that efforts to force the university to divest investments from companies doing business with Israel were, as he said, “anti-Semitic in their effect if not in their intent.” Critics on the faculty denounced this accurate statement as “inflammatory”—while ignoring the inflammatory actions that had provoked it. Summers later spoke warmly about the American military, expressed support for our soldiers in the field, and called for the return of ROTC to the campus—all of which further inflamed left-wing elements on the faculty.
Then, early last year, Summers dropped the bomb that would lead directly to his ouster. Speaking at a research conference on the subject “Diversifying the Science and Engineering Workforce,” he suggested, citing research literature, that the paucity of female professors in fields like physics, astronomy, and mathematics was due less to discrimination and more to career choices, the unwillingness to put in “80 hour weeks” and differences in “aptitude” between the sexes. He called for more research on the subject, though his critics on the faculty, outraged by the suggestion that there might be deep differences between men and women, insisted that it was wrong for the president to call for research on a subject about which they had made up their minds.
[My emphases]
That last bit nails the irony perfectly: the problem was not so much that Summers raised the issue that females and males are different (hell, we’ve heard feminists describe the differences between males and females in similar terms in their willingness to distinguish between “horizontal” and “vertical” thinking), it’s that 1) as a man(in power), he had no right to do such, and, 2) women’s aptitude cannot be distinguished from men’s aptitude if it implies some “difference” or “deficiency” (often socially driven) that shows “poorly” on women. The only legitimate examination of such differences should show that any advantages men have enjoyed are the product of a system that has favored them.
In other words, innate differences exist, only never to the detriment of females, no matter the circumstances.
But Summers’ remarks were not valuative; and in fact, it was only the decision by a few feminists, initially, to take them as such, that allowed his remarks to take on the patina of misogynistic accusation.
Nevermind that the university is precisely the place to raise such questions. Or rather, that it should be. Instead, today’s university Humanities departments are places where ideas are already settled, and all that remains for the faculty to do is to teach these settled narratives, reinforce their “truth,” and defend them against those with the temerity to challenge any of the structural precepts (or integral narrative components) that animate these orthodoxies.
Summers’s remarks, which lasted forty minutes, were a broadside, from the point of view of an economist, against the central premises of the diversity ideology. Many factors other than discrimination, he said, account for group disparities in various occupations, and it is impossible to engineer representational equality in a marketplace in which people are constantly making independent choices as to how to allocate time and money. Summers’s assessment was obviously true, but it was also one that left-wing faculty members, particularly feminists, did not wish to hear. The fallout from these remarks is vivid evidence that, of all the victim groups on campus, the feminists wield by far the greatest influence.
To paraphrase: Summers promoted a classical liberal view; on university campuses today, such foundation views are often treated as heretical.
It is unfortunate that in response to heated criticisms Summers chose to apologize for his remarks instead of defending them on intellectual grounds. Within a week, he issued an abject apology. “I deeply regret the impact of my comments,” he said, “and apologize for not having weighed them more carefully.” He went on to say that he regretted sending an “unintended signal” that might discourage talented women from pursuing careers in science. Summers was obviously in internal conflict over the diversity issue, one day attacking its central presumptions while the next apologizing for having so offended key groups on campus.
The episode was a boon for the feminist groups, so much so that one suspects they worked overtime to keep the controversy alive in order to extract maximum concessions from their mortally wounded president. Soon, Summers appointed historian Drew Faust to head an initiative to improve the status of women in the university. She remarked at the time that Summers’s talk had created “a moment of enormous possibility” for women on the campus. Next a new “deanship of diversity” was created to advise the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on issues of importance to women and minorities. Then, a few months later, Summers announced an initiative to spend $50 million over the next decade to increase the number of women on Harvard’s faculty.
And it was at that point that Harvard lost support from classical liberals and conservatives. Weighing his options, he chose to try to appease and hope the controversy would pass. But such is not the way it is when identity groups smell blood in the water. Instead, they press harder for more concessions (which they would likely call something else, like, for instance, “compensations” for years of institutionalized mistreatment), and then they continue to bleed the retreating offender until he is forced into abject humiliation.
In a similar situation, Bill Bennett, after his radio remarks involving abortion of black babies and crime—and despite rebukes from the White House and conservatives like Bill Kristol—refused to back down from what he knew to be politicized attacks from both his ideological enemies and those identity groups who were hoping to wring from his statements publicity and perhaps social concessions. They called for his job, demanded him apologize, etc.
But Bennett held his ground—continuing to argue the intellectual integrity of his statements and placing them in their proper context—and for his troubles, he received a lot of support, and ultimately weathered the controversy. This, it seems to me, is precisely the way to combat these types of witch hunts: pushback intellectually, and defend your statements if you believe in their integrity and coherence.
Until we begin doing so, we’ll be cowed into making apologies we don’t mean to people or groups who don’t deserve them. Such is the power of the conditioning we’ve received in this country—through years of schooling and a culture of PC “tolerance”—that our greatest fear is to be labeled racist or homophobic or misogynistic, which is a most powerful weapon against intellectualism, inasmuch as it is able to put the apostate to PC orthodoxy on the defensive, and so forestall substantive debate.
Summers was plainly working overtime to make amends to those whom he had offended, though it would have been better if he had stood his ground. He might not thereby have saved his job, but he at least would have opened the way for a genuine debate over diversity, which will no doubt be driven underground once more in the wake of this episode.
The apologies and concessions did Summers little good, for the advocates of diversity on campus will tolerate nothing less than wholehearted endorsement of their aims. The uproar led to three tumultuous meetings of the arts and sciences faculty in which Summers was denounced for his remarks about women and science, for his (alleged) imperious management style, and for his violation of the norms of the campus “community”—this last a code word for speaking contrary to the diversity regime. In the last of these meetings, last March, the faculty passed an unprecedented resolution of “no confidence” by a vote of 218 to 185. As Professor Alan Dershowitz has pointed out, the resolution originally contained an explanatory note (later removed) that justified the action in terms of the president’s “ongoing convictions about the capacities and rights not only of women but also of African Americans, third-world nations, gay people, and colonized peoples.” This note, as Dershowitz concludes, made it clear that Summers’s main fault in the eyes of the faculty was that he was not sympathetic to the diversity agenda. No matter how often he apologized, Summers could not remove the stain he had acquired in the eyes of his adversaries. His apologies and concessions, meanwhile, discouraged erstwhile supporters.
Over the past several months, Summers operated more or less defensively, guarding his public comments, occasionally making light of his mistakes, and hoping that ill-feeling among the faculty would subside so that the university could get on with its business. It was an idle wish. The angry recriminations surfaced again a few weeks ago after Summers forced out William Kirby, the popular dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, apparently for failure to advance the president’s goals for reforming the general education curriculum. The arts and sciences faculty called another meeting to consider a second vote of no confidence. At this point, members of the Harvard Corporation, particularly Robert Rubin, a Summers supporter and his predecessor as secretary of the treasury, began to canvass faculty members about the depth of their opposition. This, to Summers, must have appeared an obvious sign that he had lost the support of the Corporation. Given the capitulation of the university’s governing body, he had little choice but to resign or to be fired.
There are some, both on and off the campus, who will now look to the Harvard Corporation as a source of level-headed guidance for the institution. The Corporation, established by the original charter of the college, is a seven-member governing board consisting of five self-appointed “fellows” plus the president and treasurer of the institution. Yet those who look to this secretive body for leadership are likely to be disappointed, for it is plain that the members of the Corporation greased the skids for Summers’s fall, taking their cues from disgruntled members of the arts and sciences faculty and failing to consult with students or with deans and faculty members in the various professional schools.
One explanation for its unhelpful role in this fiasco is that the Corporation itself seems fully committed to the diversity regime that drove Summers from office. There are two liberal Democrats on the panel, Robert Rubin and Robert Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute in Washington, both of whom are policy wonks in the Summers mold. There appears to be a “feminist” seat on the board, currently occupied by Nannerl Keohane, formerly president of Wellesley and later of Duke, who replaced Hanna Holborn Gray, retired president of the University of Chicago.
It also appears that there is a “black” seat on the Corporation, which was occupied until late last year by Conrad K. Harper, a New York lawyer, who resigned in protest against statements Summers had made about women and minorities. He was replaced recently by Patricia King, Georgetown University law professor and wife of the left-wing author Roger Wilkins. King is a feminist activist who in 1991 testified against confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. More recently she was one of the signers of a petition at Georgetown calling on Congress “to repeal the disgraceful Solomon amendment” (which requires universities to permit military recruiters on campus or lose federal funding) and reaffirming the faculty’s opposition to military recruiting on campus. King, who takes her post in the spring, seems an unlikely ally for any president in the Summers mold.
The membership of the Corporation, in other words, runs the gamut of political opinion from A to B, from liberal Democrat to left-wing Democrat, and seeks to represent the same groups as are active on the arts and sciences faculty. It stands to reason that they would be willing to force out their president.
And this, more than anything, speaks to the intellectual homogeneity and hive-mindedness driving the contemporary “progressive” university.
Liberals react to such suggestions with sneers—and in fact, leftwing bloggers routinely link to my opinions on these matters, not in an attempt to dispute the factual nature of the claims, but to suggest that I have some ax to grind, given my position as a “failed academic”. They try to ironize away what is a clear crisis in the diversity of ideas on college campuses—despite overwhelming evidence that universities skew politically to the left (and, in the case of the Humanities, to the liberal/progressive/socialist left).
This seems odd, coming from those who claim the intellectual high ground and are always going on about nuance, but then, I suppose expecting them to examine their assumptions rather than to engage in knee-jerk protections of them, is asking a bit too much. After all, it’s easier to call someone a wingnut and try to destroy his credibility than it is to put in the work of defeating the arguments he makes.
Piereson concludes:
Nevertheless, important positive elements emerged from the Harvard crisis. Summers was ousted through an arrangement between the Corporation and the arts and sciences faculty, but he maintained strong support from the deans of the professional schools, including David Ellwood of the Kennedy School, Elena Kagan of the law school, and Jay Light of the business school. Many alumni and important donors to the university could not understand why a president with Summers’s credentials should be driven out on the basis of the charges made by his faculty adversaries.
Harvard’s students, moreover, in a poll conducted by the Harvard Crimson, supported Summers by a ratio of 3 to 1. Many noted that they liked Summers, saw him frequently on the campus, and felt that he was an effective leader for the institution. The Crimson itself editorialized in favor of Summers, opposed his ouster, and said that the university was the loser by his departure. It should be noted that the most comprehensive and reliable reporting on this entire episode came not from the Boston Globe or the New York Times, but from the part-time student editors of the Crimson. The younger generation may not buy into the diversity mythology as their professors do.
Indeed, perhaps today’s students, along with others who believe in liberal education, can take heart from the words of the late historian Richard Hofstadter. Speaking at commencement exercises at Columbia University in 1968 shortly after student radicals shut down the institution, he said, “A university is not a service station. Neither is it a political society, nor a meeting place for political societies. With all its limitations and failures, and they are invariably many, it is the best and most benign side of our society insofar as that society aims to cherish the human mind.” He went on to say that the university is “a center of free inquiry and criticism-a thing not to be sacrificed for anything else.” We have gone a long way toward sacrificing it, but out of the wreckage of this sad affair we may begin to see a way back.
Let’s hope so. But it will take a mini-revolution, one that either changes the very nature of how higher education is structured and offered, or else a generational shift in prevailing attitudes among faculty members —one that is made all the more difficult by the self-sustaining practice of hirings and promotion.
Which is why I’ve been arguing that, in order to win the ideological war against our enemies abroad, we must first win the ideological and rhetorical war against the anti-liberalism masquerading as “progress” here at home.
Jeff,
I’m curious as to what you would say is the key idea that underlies the progressive movement. Rather than attacking the ideas in the top of the structure, what is the idea that must be defeated in order to collapse its philosophy?
It really is amazing. The guy that attempts to move power away from academic decisionmaking and towards administrative branches of the university is resisted. This resistance, in turn, is referred to as anti-intellectualism. This is the faux intellect that rules. The intellect that sees ID as science, that sees the introduction of mysticism into science as scientific because it teaches ‘the [imagined] controversy.’ That sees challenges to a leader’s shallow thoughts as anti-thought.
Isn’t this how its always been, or always should have been? Isn’t that an essential part of academic freedom? And isn’t summer’s attempt uproot this, to introduce the powerful, meddling CEO type into the academic setting what got him (rightfully) booted?
It is sad to see such a great institution as Harvard fall
jeff, you have only scratched the surface.
Summers was actually deposed in an identity politics war.
from this.
Interestingly, the no confidence vote was first proposed by Lorand Matory, an anthropology and african studies professer who reportedly teaches voodoo as part of his curriculum (anecdotal from a friend at harvard).
Perhaps Dr. Matory was unwilling to have his research “monitored”.
lol.
tw: zombies, as in identity politics zombies.
Ardsgaine,
Jeff has frequently discussed the key ideas underlining the ‘progressive’ movement on this site and done so very well.
Perhaps you missed this paragraph above,
Identity politics being one of the cornerstones of today’s so-called progressive thinking.
Jeff,
Some awesome posts of late.
Ever the prig, actus once more rallies to the defence of proper thought. That someone posited an idea that conflicts with “propriety” is evidence of “shallow thought”.
You’re more Victorian than any Victorian ever was, actus. What a pity you’re incapable of realizing it.
from the blurb i linked on Matory–
crazy delicious, huh?
The evidence of shallow thought is the conflict with ‘propriety’? What the hell are you talking about? Why are you putting propriety in quotes when I didn’t say that?
The guy was a bad manager. He can go on having his opinions and publishing them elsewhere, but not at least he’s not going to be a bad boss to a group of people that have a say in who their boss is. We should all be so lucky.
Jeff,
Some of Summer’s comments place the university on a collisiion course betweeen two fundamental points of view.One is that the search for truth is the primary mission of the university.The other ,that some tuths are so devastating they must be suppressed at all costs.(Of course the latter can’t be verbalized,but it’s there.)
Tim,
I don’t see how anyone could consider identity politics to be the fundamental idea of progressivism. There are layers of thought underlying and supporting the idea that society is divided into competing interest groups. It’s not the starting point, it’s the end point.
If you want to take down a tree, you don’t start with the branches, you go for the trunk. If you want to defeat an army, you have to destroy its base of operations. If we can’t identify the fundamentals of progressivism, then how can we destroy it?
I have my own ideas about what those fundamentals are, but I was curious as to how Jeff would respond.
TW: Another way of putting the question is: Who is the Father of the Progressive movement?
If I may take a stab at your question, Ardsgaine, I think the key issue is “equality of result.”
It forces the full-throated opposition to a pure meritocracy, because meritorious individuals might happen to be distributed “wrongly,” relative to whatever ideal “result” you want to see.
Victim politics is only a part of that.
A critique of this approach: it seems that the victimologists no longer are satisfied with “equality of result,” but want to achieve actual dominance. So we have a chicken-and-egg problem.
I’ve noted time and again that I believe, on a deep logic level, the problem comes from the turn away from intentionalism. It is essentially a linguistic and hermeneutic failing—an unmooring of meaning’s center (or a misunderstanding of that center)—that has insinuated itself into the culture.
Hmmm.
Summary: Courage is it’s own reward.
Double Secret Summary: Academia is the state of univerals and endless PMS.
It’s my impression that many hated Summers from the moment his appointment was announced. He was perceived–even before he began–as too arrogant, too abrasive, and too conservative. His early tussle with West was a hot-button issue that only consolidated that point of view, and after that those who despised him were just waiting for the smoking gun. His speech about women in science (which, if one actually reads it, made some very low-key, tentative points in a hesitant and very respectful way) was merely the spark that lit the fire in a room already filled with fuel.
See this.
I don’t think that the institution of Harvard has any much importance in the modern world. The people at Harvard certainly do, or at least some of them do.
It is time that we recognize the thinkers, not the buildings where they have offices. If there’s much to be learned from the explosion of blogs it’s that we no longer need a traditional, structured Academia to give us access to the world of ideas and opinions, or even to provide for a system of peer review.
One must ask, really, whether the Academe as we know it isn’t simply an artifact of a paper world. In the Information Age, what purpose does it really serve? Does it REALLY exist for any reason other than to perpetuate its existence?
Isn’t the presetnt practice of identity politics simply the result of losing all competitive value in real markets?
“Progressive” originally meant new ideas, brave new visions, daring departures from accepted social norms.
Universal sufferage, voting rights, labor law reform, workplace safety, enivironmental safeguards in industry – those have come to pass, and our nation is better because those movements succeeded. We tried wealth redistribution on a huge scale (and still have substantial holdovers today) for two decades. That didn’t work – and the market place adjusted the scope of government theft down.
Those successful movements/causes/agendas share a common thread in that the benefits of their success are universal. There’s no greater benefit to any race or economic strata or ethnicity or sex associated with clean air and drinkable water or equal pay for equal work.
What were once real and prevalent injustices are now carefully worded passages in history books – carefully worded so as to avoid acknowledging that the wrongs have been, for the most part, righted, and done so through a process of principled representative government and time.
What’s an activist to do once the Big Challenges are substantially addressed? Someone of George Washington’s caliber would go back to Mt. Vernon and get back to farming. What’s left of America’s self-styled progressives went the other way. They went to Harvard, politics, and entertainment, and a thousand other institutions where performance has evolved firmly behind conformity as a job prerequisite.
Watching the left attempt to sell Tin Lizzies in an age of Dusenbergs has its low moments, I agree. But I don’t think that the “narrative” is a lock for anyone, anymore – not with the information and communication assets at almost anyone’s fingertips.
As long as our electoral system is free, fair, and mostly fraud free the wisdom of the village will make itself heard. In the affairs of our society, volume and packaging of media may intimidate but election results and market choices are better measures of where the people put their hope, if not faith.
The battle over the narrative is going to cost us, yes; as a nation we are still divided over whether we are or not really in a war. The enemy siezes on our befuddlement and will eventually overstep, convinced by reading our papers and watching our TV that that state will continue.
We will pay in lives for the dishonesty and selfish political opportunism of our “reality based” folks. They can’t help themselves; sadly, neither can the Islamists, and the worst consequences of those two agendas are going to intersect sooner rather than later.
Practicioners of today’s identity politics preach to a demographic that contracts every time a member takes personal responsibility for their own happiness. It’s that simple. Once you abandon being a helpless victim all you need or want is a clear field on which to pursue your dreams.
That’s a universal, too, by the way.
TW = “summer”. Summer can’t come fast enough.
I find it somewhat ironic that as a professor of management, my field of research is organizations, yet I work in an organization whose structure has not fundamentally changed in several hundred years…
It is also ironic that those champions of “equality of outcome” are so picky about who they will extend that equality to…
Ignore all this end of history bullshit, of course.
Late Progressive-ism = neo-Jacobinism?
Or does Internet = Gutenberg’s printing press,
and
haughty universities = Late Medieval Church?
There must have been some Pope in that era who was forced out of office because he was insufficiently ultra-Catholic.
The danger for Harvard of course is that some other institution can seize the position of the most prestigious University in the Nation, with the best scholars, most original research, best teaching, and best educated graduates, with the best network.
The Diversity Agenda conflicts completely with the Professional Schools which aim to put their Law, Business, Medical schools etc first above other schools at other institutions, and therefore require both well trained students graduating and the best and most original scholarship and teaching.
Since these Professional Schools make up the cash cows of operations, and the main funding for donors, Harvard is at risk.
Actus I will spell it out for you: The PC and Multi-Culti agenda that rewards Cornell West’s “scholarship” of appearing in Rap Videos and Matrix movies is directly in conflict with alums who donate money and professional students who’s fees cover operating costs and make up the influential alumni network.
If Harvard loses these two parts of it’s core then it can fall down to Brown or Wellesly levels of prestige/status; and many departments will have to be cut or eliminated.
Faculty are acting as rentiers when the continued health of Harvard depends on it’s status as the Nation’s #1 university. Already other challengers loom: NYU, Stanford, U of Chicago, Virginia, Texas, etc.
I find it ironic that a man who operated quite successfully in a VERY important job: Treasury Secretary was undone by petty and stupid PC politics of the far left. Anyone thinking of Harvard vs. Stanford is likely to go to the latter since the PC politics by definition interferes with getting the job done.
Actus –
I didn’t say there are no challenges left. I may have been imprecise in that I expected readers to associate “Big Challenges” (capitalized) with the subjects mentioned previously in my post.
I’ll go out on a limb, though, and guess that you and I disagree by a wide swathe of landscape on how “solved” my previously stipulated Big Challenges really are.
I see western civilization bumping up against Islamist barbarism (with the mix being leavened by the existence of cold-war holdouts like Chinese communism, random dictatorships elsewhere, and the possible collapse of democracy in Europe) as the big problem right now. People who line up to see plays about vaginas or pay to have their kids taught by Cornell West or think that Hugo Chavez is the hot… stuff for progressive government don’t figure in any solution I can see to that problem, so I leave them to their own opinions.
It’s a free country. Still.
TW = “meet”. Some roads may be miles long, but still never meet.
So, what you’re saying is CREAM, Cash Rules Everything Around Me? That’s true academic freedom: the academy bowing down to law, doctors and business.
Nice and overly extended discussion on what non-university-worried Americans would reduce to “Summer was a p-ssy.”
The danger for Harvard of course is that some other institution can seize the position of the most prestigious University in the Nation, with the best scholars, most original research, …
The … Agenda conflicts completely with the Professional Schools which aim to put their Law, Business, Medical schools etc first …
Sort of like the relative decline of the high Church as Protestant competitors arose.
Or maybe not. Aren’t most of the Professional Schools also very pee cee? And Camille Paglia insists that arts and humanities scholarship is in decline almost everywhere in Western academia.
…
<i>Faculty are acting as rentiers
The rich, lecherous Late Medieval monasteries and nunneries …
when the continued health of Harvard depends on it’s status as the Nation’s #1 university. Already other challengers loom: NYU, Stanford, U of Chicago, Virginia, Texas, etc.
So some brand names decline, while others gain market share. Ivied Coke versus Pepsis out there in the boonies. No big deal.
In regard to the CREAM hypothesis: don’t you wonder how many U’s have taken big donations from Muslim donors?
Never overlook the obvious and Occam’s razor and all that …
Actus, in the end it’s the Golden Rule—them as has the gold make the rules.
The cynical comment’s real application is that those who actually provide the support for any given activity will, ultimately, control the activity—whether or not such control was intended by either party. The “support” involved need not be money, but the way our society is arranged it usually is.
Neither Government funds, customer (“student”) payments, nor alumni contributions simply fall from the sky. They are given by people or organizations with agendas of their own. If alumni decide that Dear Old Alma Mater is no longer representative of their hopes and ideals they will cease giving, or apply political pressure to acquire control over use of the funds. If students decide that the institution no longer serves their needs, they can go elsewhere and take their tuitions and fees with them. And, as has been declared by the Supreme Court, Federal funds do in fact come with strings attached. The strings are long and loose, but it’s rather like my hyperactive Lab: eventually the end of the chain is reached, and the jerk can be traumatic.
The professoriat has concluded that its support comes free from the air, and that it can organize itself as it sees fit, with contempt for all others. Whether or not that contempt is justified is irrelevant. They have made a wrong assumption: their support does not simply appear on (their) demand, it comes from others who are not complimented or pleased by the contempt. They have their heads up, running full tilt while baying at full volume. Soon or late the chain will go taut.
Regards,
Ric
If students decide that the institution no longer serves their needs, they can go elsewhere and take their tuitions and fees with them.
No salvation outside the Church.
Only the Church can sell indulgences.
David Davenport –
It is a big deal.
In late 1943, General Eisenhower went to a secret base in England to witness a demonstration of the new Pershing tank. In the side by side trials conducted that day, the Pershing was demonstrably superior in every measure to the Sherman. The new tank had firepower capable of fighting any German tank on at least equal terms and its armor was thicker and better sloped than that of the Sherman. The model of Pershing on display was a production version – factories were tooled up and there were already 250 Pershings in inventory.
The question was asked: “Do you want to take delivery of Pershings as part of your plan for the invasion of the continent?”. He declined.
There were many reasonable reasons to do that. Increased logistical loads for spares, time to retrain crews and maintenance personnel, possible undetected teething problems in a new weapon… but Eisenhower’s own statement in his autobiography was that the troops were used to the Sherman, and his strategy didn’t foresee pitched tank on tank battles.
What was the result? Well, the Sherman went on to be a symbol of the liberation of Europe. They were present on every battlefield and their crews fought courageously. The maintenance battalions of the armored divisions earned almost mythical status as miracle workers in keeping the tanks up, and repairing damaged tanks to return to the front.
At what cost? In terms of battlefield casualties, only German U-Boat sailors and kamikaze pilots suffered higher percntages of killed in action than did Sherman crews. The lifespan of a U.S. tank in france during 1944 was reckoned at between five and seven firings of its main gun (military planners adopted the low velocity 75mm main gun because it would last 1500 rounds between rebarrelings, vice 500 rounds for a weapon that would like, kill a German Panther or Tiger from the front); most tanks were returned to action three to five times after being knocked out on the battlefield. If the tank didn’t burn, or take a hit in the turret ring, a day or two with a welding torch took care of the damage and a hose and scrub brush took care of the crew.
The point I am taking too long to make is that sometimes a clearly better product is not embraced soon enough, for whatever good reasons, and the costs of missing the opportunity become monstrous. We are used to moonbats. They are an accepted part of the cultural scenery. That doesn’t mean we can continue to take them for granted.
The government has more clout than endowments as far as university receipts are concerned; too bad that so much of current government would be in Hollywood if given the choice.
Decadence and inertia; we don’t have the time to adust that we think we do.
TW = “higher”. Just what has Harvard got to do with “higher” eduction?
Interesting you should point that out, Dave. My own thoughts were more in the line of “nobility”—a “patent of nobility” is really a license for the noble to take resources from the common pool at whim. Wouldn’t it have been interesting if, in the case involving recruiters, someone had argued that receiving funds from the public purse while ignoring the allied restrictions or requirements was unconstitutional, not on free speech or spending clause grounds, but as a violation of Article I, Section 9, the sentence that says “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States”?
Because that’s what actus, the professoriat in general, and the rest of the “smart party” are angling for: patents of nobility. Their acumen and existential goodness entitle them to it.
Regards,
Ric
diversity is code for advancement based on membership in groups, and not based on individual merit.
it is fundamentally a collectivist/socialist idea/strategy.
enterprises designed/managed/executed by persons advanced by membership in group – and not merit – will ALWAYS do worse than enterprises d/m/e by persons chosen because fo their merit in a competitive market.
another reason why socialism is the road to serfdom.
serfdom = servitude/poverty.
Let the counter-revolution begin in Cherry Creek.
Science and other enlightenment values are on the attack from theocrats. We’re writing into our laws and constitutions amendments which aim to destroy and frustrate gay and umarried relationships, and lastly, we’re laying the groundwork for an economic policy for greater and greater inherited plutocracy. And thats just at home.
Oh I doubt that. I think very few places will actually risk shutdowns of entire schools and research centers just to prevent the military recruiters from discriminating against their law students with on campus resources.
And that, is where the academic freedom is today.
The Law of Unintended Consequences is a sonofabitch, actus. Among other things, the harder you try to evade it, the more rigorously it is enforced.
Night, all.
Regards,
Ric
actus.
actus, actus, actus.
I must have missed the move to declare pi=3 as an amendment.
If I were gay and wanted to protect my interests in a long term relationship, I think I’d get a contract written up that would define financial, parental, and survivorship responsibilities, and grant power of attorney to my partner sufficient to cover medical visitiation and treatment decisions in case of my incapacity due to injury or illness. Further, I’d file my taxes as a partnership.
That’s what my brother does. I don’t know the details, but since he’s a lawyer, living with his partner (domestic partner – not the same firm) who’s also a lawyer, I guess it works.
Cumbersome? Frustrating? He took steps under the laws we live under, and has everything but the happy thoughts of certain religous sects or mere traditionalists on his side. And in ten years, he might be able to actually “marry”. If he and others of like mind can swing the polity to the idea.
Mention Bush in his house and the carpet bursts into flame. But he’s living in the here and now, and wastes only liesure moments frothing about the Coming Republican Theocracy and End of Enlightenment other such bullshit.
It’s a free country. Still.
TW = “public”. As a public service, all snark was deleted from the draft of the above post.
And my point is people are busy writing up constitutional amednments which would frustrate that. Ie, taking the already cumbersome status quo and making it worse.
Science and other enlightenment values are on the attack from theocrats.
Name the theocrat who said: “I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.”
If you can name him, you will have discovered the man who is responsible for the decline of the Enlightenment, the insanity of the post-modernists and the resurgence of religion.
Nahh. They all just want to ‘teach the controversy’ of knowledge.
Alex, “Who is Ayatollah Khomeini?”
Just a guess.
“Nahh. They all just want to ‘teach the controversy’ of knowledge.”
If you hadn’t already purged the liberals, this wouldn’t threaten you.
Yes. All those liberals, purged from science.
Not fiery enough for Ruhollah “Everything good comes from the shadow of the sword” Khomeneini, I think. No, having read Ardsgaine for a little while, I’m gonna put my money on Kant.
TW: “close”. Jeff, are you planning on sharing your breakthrough AI work with the computer-science community any time soon? Or maybe it’s actually a clairvoyance module; we’ll see what Ardsgaine says.
I’m very disappointed to read the comments of your supposedly intelligent readers who can go no farther than to start throwing stones at ‘the liberals’ and ‘the leftwing’ as is typical of the ignorant when confronted with the construct of a false dichotomy.
Your reference to Summers almost sounds identical to descriptions of John Bolt, change a word or two.
Surely you recognize that issues of inclusion and progressive-ism are not always polarized to extremes. Unfortunately, it sure reads like an Us versus Them piece. Those pesky progressives and us rightminded anti-progress people. Perhaps there is a something of a middle ground existing in limbo where merit is the order of the day, with a keen eye sensitive toward the issue of diversity. Nah. Such honesty and goodness would be vilified by the rabble of “each side.”
There is a moment when your post mentions innate differences between genders (and not roles) and it swerves dangerously close to allowing some readers to conclude innate differences between the races, as well. Partly because that point is not specifically addressed, but mostly because they choose to see it. I suspect such an interpretation regarding diversity was the furthest from your mind.
When I read your text on identity politics being a contributor to the demise of free speech, I am glad to see someone defending Ward Churchill from the homogenous “America rules and fuck the a-rabs!” crowd currently able to scream the loudest in the ongoing push-n-shove to be the stern authority on the magical teevee.
I, for one, would be very interested to learn more in a future post about what specific examples of ideas you believe are missing from the academic world. I suppose we all have different experiences, but I found no dirth of ideas at the University of Washington. Yes, that place. Famed for it’s Red Square and nearby statue of Lenin. A place of anarchosyndicalists and socialist progressives. I might not have agreed with a plurality of students, but even in this (perceived) intellectually hostile environment I found a wealth of ideas and was able to locate a freethinking enclave of interesting folks with which to argue and agree in good spirit. I never saw a lack of ideas there. (But I could probably point out such at Bob Jones University, for example.) Maybe you’ll expound on this point in detail in a future issue.
I am very much in agreement with your conclusion that an intellectual victory against foreign enemies begins with a clean-up at home. While the progressives are most certainly a worthy target for examination and clarification (and, if need be, correction), but it is painfully obvious that the immediate priority is the clear and present danger of fascism. To deny it would be putting out one’s own eyes.
I’m not sure I understand what the “gotcha” you’re trying to run in your post is, Romerician.
Simple bona fide check, you have read Mr. Goldstein’s past writings on this issue, right?
I mean, it rubs me the wrong way to make the easy shot, but YOUR post reads like a myopic cherrypicking of Mr. Goldstein’s opinions, a setting up of close-minded shadow-conservatives, whose kneejerk intolerance of this, that, and the other you then proceed to valiantly scold.
Maybe it is because I have been playing FAR too much Phoenix Wright into the wee hours here… but I’m just not seeing what sort of hard-hitting thesis you had there that was backed up with reasonable evidence. It “came close” to hinting at differences between races? Come on… I begin to wonder if Mr. Goldstein’s writing skills stem from choosing opponents who cannot poke holes in his posts worthy of note.
Again, though, all this bluster might be because, in the late hour, I missed the sentence in your post that really hammered your point home, but, heck, I reread it twice… I dunno…
Hrrrm, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is polluting my mind…
Okay, here I am in the downright uncomfortable position of accusing you of being either willfully disengenuous, ridiculously incompetent, or just plain reading the wrong post from the wrong blog yet still commenting here. I don’t LIKE to do any of those until seeing more than one post of the offender. I ask you, back up this apparently RIDICULOUS claim.
Though, I hold even less faith in your good faith when I see these excerpts…
AHEM AHEM AHEM… I don’t think I overstep my bounds here in saying that you spent multiple portions of your post in musing about a false dichotomy of your own.
While I don’t like to judge a man on his first post, I will say that you are NOT off to a good start…
(N.B.: In above post, though it should have been purely reflexive, all bolding was mine.)
Well, actually just rightists will do for the most part, actus, they don’t have to be theocrats. The Bush admin is at war with science, cites: the schiavo effect, Deutsch’s appointment at NASA, proposed ID in schools, ESCR funding, the “bioethics” council.
Leftist academe is also at war with with science, cites: hbd denial, sex differential denial, the promotion of pseudo-sciences like climatology, women’s studies and afro-american studies.
Science will win out in the end.
“And still it moves…”– Galileo
Oh, oh!!
How could i forget Bush’s laughable proposed human cloning/chimera ban? lol.
The Bush admin has terrible science advisors. Biotech is a subset of nanotech, and Bush is pimping nanotech while trying to supress biotech. Idiots. Can’t be done.
Here’s an example of rightside bias against science.
How many here know that there was no cloning involved in the so-called Hwang Cloning Scandal? They were using SCNT(somatic cell nuclear transfer) on unfertilized oocytes to attempt to make cheap, efficent and plentiful synthetic adult stem cell lines.
But the villagers with pitchforks and torches will lose out this time. The rule of law has far advanced since the Pythagoreans and the Alchemists.
Science will triumph inspite of us.
Bing! Bing!
Closer than close.
TW: Thanks for playing.
Prediction: ”dirth” will not appear as a TW.
Then again, this is Jeff G.’s site, so I could be wrong.
What with all that power they have.
Who confuses the humanities with science?
another example of bio-ludditry shooting themselves in the foot.
Dr. Yes on biowarfare.
Someone pleaseplease tell me how we address this problem given the Bush admin’s suppression of biotech?
Why actus, that would seem to be academe in general.
Latory is a professor of anthropology and afro-american studies. Seems the boderline is quite blurry there.
There’s no reason why one can’t do both. But there are problems with thinking you’re doing one when in fact you’re doing the other. Or worse: devaluing one so that you can claim you’re doing it.
playah grrl,
i don’t get what the point of posting that matory blurb was. sounds like a pretty good research topic, so where’s the beef, so to speak?
actus, i have a question for you.
if you read this link about biowarfare that come out today, you can see that the Bush admin’s suppression of biotech and creation of the “bioethics” council have left us deeply vulnerable in counter responses to the threat of bioterrorism.
Why aren’t the dems screaming bloody murder about this?
I think because they are cynical gutless vote-whores and they are wooing the red state conservatives with all their might.
zach, more example of the war on science.
actus brought it up, blame him.
zach, the left uses identity politics as a weapon against science. that was my point.
I have no idea why democrats aren’t complaining about bush’s war on science.
A quick summary of this post: Someone at the Manhattan Institute agrees with me and shares my ill-conceived notions about the current state of the academy.
I’ve said it here before and I’ll say it again. Summers was not a “casualty of the left-wing ideological standards erected by Harvard’s arts and sciences faculty”. Summers was pushed out because of his management style combined with his history of making statements (as President of Harvard) without the evidence to back it up.
It’s fascinating that the posts here just automatically assume that Summers was ousted because of the supposed leftist hegemony in academia, and barely (if at all) address the question of whether his resignation had anything to do with freedom of speech or ideas or anything like that. The assumption is taken as fact, and then this is taken as an excuse for Goldstein (and Piereson) to just ramble about their oet issue.
But when building a hypothesis, one of the key errors that people make is interpreting whatever “evidence” they have as automatically fitting their hypothesis, without taking the time to actually examine whether what they take as evidence actually is evidence. It’s a major problem that’s repeated again and again in these diatribes against the supposed suppression of free speech in academia.
P.S. This stuff about evidence? I learned it in that cauldron of “intellectual homogeneity and hive-mindedness” called the university. And by the way, I think this is one of many attempts to “dispute the factual nature of the claims” presented in your comments. I’m not critiquing you because you have an axe to grind. I’m critiquing you because the evidence supporting your claims repeatedly isn’t what you think it is.
Let’s not forget that Summers isn’t some mouth-breathing Bircher. Summers is one of them. What we are witnessing at Harvard is just another episode of leftist self-immolation, with the far-left faculty demonstrating that they will brook no infidelity to the official multi-culti catechism, even from their own.
Considering that they’re running the joint, is the Harvard brand going to suffer? You betcha. It’s just going to take a little time is all.
yours/
peter.
Quite the lefty: thinks the 3d world is underpolluted!
Summers’ was thrown out primarily for a ham-handed management style, especially with regard to the Kirby and Schliefer incidents. Identity politics and culture wars are much bigger issues to the denizens of this blog than it is to most of the Harvard faculty.
<style combined with his history of making statements (as President of Harvard) without the evidence to back it up.</blockquote>
So he was universally disliked then? The dislike cut across ideological lines and was shared by a wide cross-section of the Harvard faculty?
by the faculty. a large part of this brouhaha was also that Harvard is expanding across the river, and Summers “exiled” some departments he considered less valuable across the river. women’s studies and afro-american studies were most likely moved.
So its not his ideology that is problematic, just his administrative decisions. The point being made by the minority of people here.
I’m sorry actus, but only a denialist could read this article and the one about the disappeared no confidence introduction and turn around and make a statement this silly.
When you argue politics, there’s no law saying you have to fight to the death over every tiny point of your opponents.’ You would be better off conceding the obvious and keeping your powder dry for the important points. Otherwise you just come off as a knee-jerk contrarian unsusceptible to reason, which is never good.
Thus endeth the lesson.
TW: the first one’s always free.
yours/
peter.
actus! the point jeff is making is that identity politics was used to beat Summers up and force his resignation.
tw: exploit
Peter,
You mean the no confidence introduction that was removed, likely because of the political statements included? Or the Piereson article which is essentially an opinion piece that doesn’t adequately address the important questions of whether the no confidence vote was because of the “left-wing ideological standards erected by Harvard’s arts and sciences faculty” or was actually because of his management of the University?
Again, it’s all about examining the evidence. And in the jump to turn Summers into a poster-child for the eeeeeevils of liberal academic hegemony, or the eeeevils of rampant sensitivity issues in the university, or the crushing of dissent in academia, or [insert pet issue w/academia here]; y’all clearly aren’t stopping to see if the evidence actually supports your claims.
playah grrl,
i agree identity politics is used as a weapon, but i don’t see it in the quote provided. matory seems to be doing a study simply on how the concept of what is and is not “black” in america has changed or is a mutable quantity. you could similarly do a study on how whiteness has changed over the past 200 years (w.r.t.: irish immigrants, catholics, for example). at least in the blurb provided there is no value judgement being presented on what it means to be “black” or “not black.” maybe you think it’s a stupid subject, that’s fine. but i don’t see how it relates to anything here, i guess.
the blurb reeeks of victimhood politics.
anthropology is a science.
afro-american studies is not.
voodoo is not.
“Progressives” have built their dominance over academia based on some false assumptions. Among them are that society owes left wing acadermics a comfortable life and unlimited respect. Also that people want to pay taxes to support that lifestyle. We can add that government has a duty to suppress those who question the previous assumptions. There are others but those three will do for the moment.
I’d like to point out that the Supreme Court recently decided FAIR v. Rumsfeld on a 8-0 vote. The beginning of the end for academic aristocracy has happened. Those who pay the bills can now demand some value for their money.
“Progressives” will fight tooth and nail for their fantasies and the battle will be long and hard but the left’s right to live like kings at taxpayer expense will eventually be overthrown and universities will either have to raise their own funds or supply some value for their money. And no, I don’t think teaching hate disguised as ethnic or gender studies is of any value, especially to the students.
Whine as much as you want. Imagine the onset of fascism ( as if you had any idea what fascism entails ). Cry about the supposed war on science. Wail and moan about diversity. All those excuses to live high on the hog at public expense rapidly being seen for what they are. You do not have the right to exclude ideas you don’t like just because you have tenure. The marketplace of ideas belongs in the universities. It will be back.
Playah grrl, he’s talking about tension within the black community. Rent “School Daze.” Don’t worry, this mean black professor isn’t going to try to make white people feel guilty.
Afro-american studies is just as much science as anthropology or economics is. None of it is science.
Hmm…
People seem to forget that politics IS politics. No matter how ‘virtuous’ a pol is your eyes, there is always going to be political self interest. If a politician is sufficiently serving the people, one might call them a ‘statesman’ or ‘stateswoman’.
Bush’s supposed ‘war on science’ as you put it is merely a result of a tangled web of politics, same as most of anything else coming out of Washington. I’m more and more convinced daily of D.C’s self-referencial nuttery. I’m almost convinced that if everyone stopped voting, they would still ‘elect’ people to office to run things. Maybe that’s just my paranoid right-wingedness…
As for, interestingly, the ‘controversy’ of knowledge– knowledge is about controversy. I remember us being taught science as kids… most of what we were taught was really not science, but scientific knowledge. Its good to know scientific knowledge, but the one thing that I did not learn until later (but often suspected) is that scientific knowledge is no ways absolute. It is challeneged, changed and questioned daily. That’s actually the part of it that makes it science. The ‘science’ part of it has nothing to do with it being about biology, physics, or chemistry (to name a few.) Science is about the scientific method and its application to that field. If we want to argue that Bush or his administration, party or general cronies are engaged on a ‘war on science’ then we must discriminate between whether they merely disagree with us based on research they hold in higher esteem than we do, or if they are really rejecting the method of question, experiment, observation, conclusion. Some of what you see is merely a political result of ‘playing it safe’. Don’t crepe-hang and assume that because B & Co. are against cloning and other types of biotech right now makes that a ‘regime of anti-science’ or something else so extreme.
In fact, the advancement of scientific knowledge and technology need not follow the path which you have conceived that it ought to. The results which are desired from cloning are both good and ill. I am glad that the hard sciences in the academic system are still rigorous enough to be debating this.
People of progressive bent play a strong lead in asserting that a particular bit of scientific knowledge is a legitimate truth, and that going against it would be bad if not suicidal. I’ve experienced it many times, and it is evident in these comments. It is a mistake. While you may have good evidence from scientific sources showing that what you assert to be factual most likely is, do you also have scientific evidence showing that if the U.S. does not immediately account for this new scientific truth that it will fall apart? Doubtful.
I dislike the idea that we are locked into operating our debate from positions of core values so different that we are unable to have a real debate like gentlemen (or gentlewomen as the case may be) but instead engage in a kind of melee that involves a lot of name calling and bad logic. While those things are bound to occur once in a while, I think they should be kept to a minimum.
It seems that too often we come into this ‘debate’ trying to convince everyone of our correctness. What if we both are wrong? What have we gained? Debate ought to consist of a exchange and presentation of opposing ideas– the result of which cannot be described as ‘victory’ or ‘defeat’, because both parties should be the beneficiares of the debate.
This crucial element is lacking from many of the academic situations I found myself in whilst in college. In most cases, ‘critical thinking’ exercises were presented in the same formula as a crossword puzzle, word search, ‘comprehension’ questions, etc. As though critical thinking is simply the task of taking the information from the chapter and getting particular answers!
The result of critical thinking may indeed not be one that is acceptable to everyone, nor might there even be a conclusion drawn!
I want to express that what I have said is by no means the ‘absolute’ truth about critical thinking or what needs to improve in academics, but are merely my conclusions based on my observations. They might change tommorow. They have been colored by my emotional state. But I have made an effort to remove biases that I perceived as present.
By the by, the only absolute truth I believe in is that God so loved the world that he sent His only begotten Son, so that whomsoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. And so forth.
Being religious and highly devout need not conflict with one’s pursuit of the truth and of knowledge in general. In fact, historically, it was what enabled many an intellectual rebirth. In this regard, please refer to any reliable historical source– you will find that such is the case with many religions.
As an aside, I enjoy your work, Jeff, and I like how you tend to cut towards the center of things instead of only talking about externalities. There is an old aphorism. It advises: “Cut to the heart of the matter immediately.” or maybe it was “Know the central truth.”
Cheers, everyone.
Being opposed to stem cell research because they are opposed to the use of fetal tissue means they are allowing their religious views to trump scientific advancement. That is being anti-science.
I voted for the man twice, but there is no question that he puts faith ahead of science.
So does the Left though. Their brand of faith was inherited from Kant. He was the one who came up with the idea that our minds create the world that we experience. From there, it is a simple step to ask whether all minds create the same world, or do some minds view the world differently. Hegel divided them up according to race, Marx divided them up according to class, and modern feminists added gender. We ended up with a three-dimensional coordinate system to divide people up into different tribal groups according to race, glass and gender (and subdivide gender according to the latest in g-l transgender studies). But the foundation of the system isn’t in politics, or even ethics, it’s in epistemology.
Kant infamously stated, “I found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.” That is what he did. He “proved” that nothing definitive could be said about the real world, the thing-in-itself. All we could know is the reality created by our minds. At a time when religion was being hard pressed by the Enlightenment’s exaltation of Reason, he created a new space for faith to exist. He pulled it out of the realm of the supernatural, and gave it a pseudo-scientific basis. He brought it into the secular realm, and made it an epistemological method for philosohpy.
The post-moderns are people of faith. That is, they are people who think that belief in an idea does not require evidence. If they believe an idea, then it is true–for them. It is part of <objective reality that exists independent of us, <i>but which we all are able to perceive in the same way</i>, is a tool of the white male patriarchy designed to oppress others by forcing its perception of reality on them.
rivercocytus.
*curls lip with scorn.*
believer.
Sir Richard says that being raised in a religious environment and taught not to question, makes one incapalble of scientific enquiry.
Name one scientist whose work i respect that is also a believer.
That’s quite a condition you have posed there playah grrl, “Name one scientist whose work i respect that is also a believer.” So if I name a scientist who is “believer”, you will either say “i don’t respect their work” or “they are not a believer.” In other words, an infallible premise, something we in the sciences avoid. Tell me, how many scientists do you even KNOW? I can name several dozen prominent cognitive scientists, acousticians and speech researchers (because hearing science is my field) who are regular churchgoers and believe in God. And they see no contradiction there, in fact for them science is a way of uncovering God’s natural order. But of course you wouldn’t have heard of any of them because you prefer to wallow in your ignorance and not have your cherished beliefs challenged.
Cognitive scientists? It is to laff.
Read some real cognitive scientists, like Atran and Boyer.
If you are capable, that is.
I don’t think that’s fair!
Nothing specific. Just practicing.
It is so nice that every once in a while an arrogant jerk gets what’s coming to him. I wish it happened oftener.
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