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Why So Mad?
Elizabeth Anderson's idiosyncratic take on l'affaire Summers reminds me that I should probably point out something that's a staple of my discussions of this with my fellow young Harvard alumni, namely that to a very large extent the faculty revolt against Summers is less about his specific comments on this specific issue than about general discontent with his presidency. This has a lot of aspects. Most clearly, one crucial element of the backdrop for this controversy is the steadily declining number of senior job offers going to women since Summers took office. I don't really want to bore people with a litany of controversies that have no real implications beyond my alma mater, but suffice it to say that Summers has also embarked on an effort to centralize the administration of the University (naturally enough stepping on more than a few toes), relocate several major units out of Cambridge and into Allston (more toes), generally denigrated the importance of all scholarship outside the fields of natural science and economics, and strongly indicated a desire to change the nature of the College into something more like MIT where he was an undergraduate.
One could go on and on like this, but I'll just add that last, and by no means least in my estimation, some of us are a bit sick and tired of Summers' willingness to serve as a useful idiot for the right's ever-intensifying campaign against the American academy coming in the midst of what's really an unprecedented assault on the concepts of objective knowledge and disinterested scholarship from a rapacious but increasingly demented conservative movement.
February 24, 2005 | Permalink
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Comments
"unprecedented assault on the concepts of objective knowledge and disinterested scholarship"
Extreme relativism, hermaneutics, and extreme assaults on the concepts of truth and objective knowledge, in the modern era, date to European thinkers in the mid 20th Century-see Habermas, for instance. And they were taken up (and taken seriously) by the Left. That is why the social sciences (sociology, English criticism, but also political science, psychology, etc) are such a mess-they took those French lunatics seriously (presumably because it was convenient-use relativism to stick it to the Man). Its rough when the Right uses your own nonsense against you, isn't it?
Steve
Posted by: Steve | Feb 24, 2005 10:04:43 AM
I don't think Summers would so quickly separate out economics from the natural sciences, which is of course one of his major problems.
Posted by: david | Feb 24, 2005 10:05:06 AM
This guy has indeed been a useful idiot for the emergent rightist assault on the academy. It would not be so bad if many of his ridiculous musings has real intellectual foundations. He bullies others for the same foolishness that he espouses from the rightside, couched under the argument of "academic" inquiry...
What nonesense!
Posted by: Urbannomad | Feb 24, 2005 10:16:34 AM
Extreme relativism, hermaneutics,
That's "hermeneutics." And "hermeneutics" is defined as simply the theory and methodology of interpretation - which has been going on since people have learned to read and write.
and extreme assaults on the concepts of truth and objective knowledge, in the modern era, date to European
thinkers in the mid 20th Century-see Habermas, for instance. And they were taken up (and taken seriously) by the Left. That is why the
social sciences (sociology, English criticism, but also political science, psychology, etc) are such a mess-they took those French
lunatics seriously
Can you name a faculty member in Harvard who teaches the "extreme" stuff as true or are you simply being retarded?
Posted by: Dan the Man | Feb 24, 2005 10:23:12 AM
Objective knowledge? Disinterested scholarship? So long as the academy tenures and promotes the likes of Ward Churchill, these concepts will be the laughingstock of the American people, and the illustrious academy along with them.
Posted by: John | Feb 24, 2005 10:43:23 AM
Why should we care about Harvard and Larry Summers?
Why, only because the professional elites in the US are dominated by Harvard graduates. From most politicians, to most journalists, to most corporate CEOs, every aspect of our lives is dominated by Harvard graduates. The most prominent -- in any sphere -- are Harvard graduates; the people who essentially control our economy, our politics, our sources of information, heck our culture itself, are Harvard graduates. A Harvard degree has been, and remains, a passport to power.
Of course, there are graduates from other prestige educational institutions with power. And there are even those from less celebrated schools who've made it and are in influential positions. But go to the NY Times newsroom, the TIME magazine editorial offices, the corporate suite of any large company, the US Congress, the US Senate, and the US courts, and the vast majority of those in authority are Harvard graduates.
And how is this power exercised? I'm afraid that by any criterion these Harvard graduates are destroying the US. I see the rot everywhere.
There's obviously something very wrong with Harvard, and I think Summers has inadvertently pointed out the problem: It is the widely held assumption, implied in Summers's comments, that Harvard is a meritocracy and its students and professors are therefore inherently the brightest and the best in the land, and therefore educational and professional achievement are the result of natural intellectual superiority.
Meritocracy would be a great thing -- if it were ever feasible. Smarts are useful, but in the real world innate ability won't inevitably bubble up to the surface without a lot of luck: Children who are born to educated parents are luckier than those who aren't, children who are born to white parents are luckier than those who aren't, children who are born to prominent parents are luckier than those who aren't, children who are born to rich parents are luckier than those who aren't, children who are born to connected parents are luckier than those who aren't, and children who are born to Harvard graduates are luckier than those who aren't (and yes, children who are born male are luckier than those who aren't too). It will be much easier for them to accumulate the skills to enter prestige institutions, take advantage of legacy admissions, and establish great careers. The greatest mathematical genius ever, born in the inner city, may never even be recognized as such if nobody around her knows what a mathematical genius is like, and may never be encouraged to seek higher education. But a halfway decent intellect born in the right family may rise to great power as a NY Times editor, a CEO, a judge, a senator, a TV pundit, etc.
In our society, dominated as it is by sponsored economic and social mobility rather than by pure merit, professional accomplishments cannot be a true measure of innate ability. To take an extreme example, should we assume that because George W. Bush has been elevated to the highest professional office in the land he's ipso facto the brightest and the best? He holds, of course, a Harvard MBA, is white, a male, and comes from a prominent, wealthy and connected family.
That's why Summers's comments were so obtuse. His sin wasn't that he uttered a non-PC truth, but that he's arrogant and dumb enough to think that whoever makes it, must have made it due primarily to his innate abilities. He didn't only refer to women as being essentially less able than men in the sciences, he extended his reasoning beyond gender, to imply that because certain nationalities dominate certain professions, this must be due to some talent inherent in being of a certain color or creed.
I came to the US from Greece a couple of decades ago. I was initially dumbfounded at how many people would ask me if I owned a diner, as soon as they realized I was Greek; I had no idea why they would make that association. I soon realized that most diners in the NY/NJ area are owned by Greeks. Should we assume from this that Greeks are born with an extraordinary ability to manage diners? It's obviously an idiotic notion.
Unless Summers's could have shown that all other factors are kept constant and only pure merit is the criterion for educational and professional success, his comments are nothing more than the self-serving conceit of a fool. He shouldn't be the president of Harvard because he's just not smart enough to run an educational institution, and not smart enough to realize that right now many Harvard graduates are little more than inbred mediocrities (Matthew Yglesias excluded).
Posted by: Aris | Feb 24, 2005 10:52:05 AM
>
It'd probably be more accurate to date them to Nietzsche. Habermas is actually a pretty poor example to cite here; he's much more "objective-friendly" than say Derrida.
Posted by: harbinger | Feb 24, 2005 10:55:24 AM
whoops, screwed up the quote:
"Extreme relativism, hermaneutics, and extreme assaults on the concepts of truth and objective knowledge, in the modern era, date to European thinkers in the mid 20th Century-see Habermas, for instance."
etc.
Posted by: harbinger | Feb 24, 2005 10:56:17 AM
generally denigrated the importance of all scholarship outside the fields of natural science and economics
As a fellow recent Harvard grad, this statement befuddles me. The rest of the things you mention he is indeed doing, and are things people could reasonably disagree about. But this seems like unsubstantiated slander. How has he denigrated the importance of any field? By emphasizing that Harvard should recommit to excellence in the sciences? By being an economist? By suggesting Cornel West should stop making stupid rap albums and, you know, try some serious scholarship?
And I can hardly see how you could describe Summers--one of the smartest men on the planet, without question--as a "useful idiot." If his behavior has any political significance (and remember, he's a democrat), it's in favor of free inquiry over the neo-McCarthyism of political correctness in the academy.
Posted by: right | Feb 24, 2005 10:59:46 AM
"Its rough when the Right uses your own nonsense against you, isn't it?"
Yeah, when pomo weird is used in Joycean studies and comic-books it's funny, but when the right applies Foucalt and Derrida to physics and biology the room starts to spin.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Feb 24, 2005 11:09:53 AM
harbinger-
Yeah, I just couldn't think of Derrida when I was typing. Also, you are probably right about Nietzche. But the left doesn't like quoting Nietzche (too much bringing the whip when you speak to a woman, too much quasi-Nazi stuff, even if inaccurate), so they quote Nietzche's wannabe's. Besides, Nietzche was German, and Derrida and Habermas were French-who's going to win in Cambridge?
John-
Yes, its funny, isn't it. The right is assaulting the 'objective knowledge of the academy' that promoted and tenured Ward Churchill. (I think the Ward Churchill thing is hilarious. What's Colorado going to do? Fire him for not being an Indian? But then they'd have to admit they hired him for being an Indian to begin with! Fire him for not having a PhD, or being a charlatan, or being a boor? They knew all that when they hired him! That's why they gave him early tenure to begin with! Hilarious! I'm telling you, if it weren't for the current status of journalism, academia would be the laughing stock of the country.)
Dan the Man-
What does Harvard have to do with it? Matt is saying the Right is engaged in an assault on objective knowledge in academia "...right's ever-intensifying campaign against the American academy..." not just Harvard. And thanks for the spelling help.
Aris-
Meritocracy doesn't depend on 'innate' talent. It depends on talent. In a meritocracy, I don't care if you were born with the ability to to calculus, or were trained to that ability. What's important is that your ability is rewarded. I assume the assault on Harvard is that its not even rewarding ability (whether calculus, or thinking or writing, or whatever). Its rewarding 'right thinking.'
One more non sequiter. "Politics is everything" is not a right-wing view. Its left-wing. The only difference today is that the right-wing is actually taking it seriously. (Damn those right wingers. Not only did they listen to us, they took us seriously! How could they do such a thing?)
Steve
Posted by: Steve | Feb 24, 2005 11:13:39 AM
What does Harvard have to do with it?
Steve, you might not realize this, but Summers is the President of Harvard not the President of Every University in America. Really.
Posted by: Dan the Man | Feb 24, 2005 11:18:37 AM
Steve:
Habermas is German, actually.
Posted by: harbinger | Feb 24, 2005 11:22:51 AM
Steve, I'm a confused graduate student. Please help me out here. How can I tell the difference between regular (harmless?) hermeneutics and "extreme" hermeneutics?
Posted by: djw | Feb 24, 2005 11:36:59 AM
"Steve, I'm a confused graduate student. Please help me out here. How can I tell the difference between regular (harmless?) hermeneutics and "extreme" hermeneutics?"
The "extreme" kind involves bungee cords and oiled babes in bikinis.
Posted by: harbinger | Feb 24, 2005 11:42:12 AM
Dan the Man-
Here are Matt's words, in a direct quote (the actual quote can be read at the top of this page).
"the right's ever-intensifying campaign against the American academy"
Note that the right isn't being accused of merely campaigning against Harvard, but the American academy. Sorry if I wasn't clear. My post was suggesting that the Right's 'unprecedented assaults on objective knowledge' actually has its roots in the Lefts' embrace of European relativist nuttiness. In other words, the Rights' assaults are not unprecedented, they are rather quite precedented by Left wing academia-Harvard being merely one manifestation of it. Furthermore, Matt should know this, as a philosophy major/minor or whatever he was.
Harbinger- yuck. horrible mistake on my part. I withdraw the snarky French slam in my original post.
Bob-
"but when the right applies Foucalt and Derrida to physics and biology the room starts to spin."
Not sure what you are referring to here. Are you referring to the case where a physicist wrote a parody of this stuff as applied to science and math (i.e. paternalistic mathematics, capitalist physics, etc-he literally wrote nonsense with the right 'code words' for the journal), submitted it to an academic journal, and actually got it published?
Steve
Posted by: Steve | Feb 24, 2005 11:42:22 AM
Around the time Summers was hired, there was a big outlook piece in the Washington Post about the decline of the University Presidency. Early in the 20th Century, University Presidents were leading thinkers in the nation whose comments sparked national debates and had direct impacts on social policies and changes. Today they are mostly fundraisers.
Like it or not, Summers has to some extent managed to do what the Post article challenged him to do, which was to, as President of Harvard, bring that role back into one that drives and sparks national debates on issues of real significance to the country.
Whether or not you like what Summers said about differential male and female achievements in the maths and sciences, it's impossible to deny that his comments have sparked some intense and, at least in some instances productive, debates about why these differences exist and how the professions are structured in the US and if this is really good for adults of both sexes, families, and children. That's productive.
Summers has also taken some positive action to reintroduce an ethic of public service responsibility (offers for students going into public service and teaching) and to try to create more opoportunities for disadvantaged students to attend Harvard (waving tuition for students with family incomes below $40,000).
I'd argue that, whether or not you like what Summers is doing, our country would be better off if more major university presidents stepped out on a limb to spark national debates about similar issues, like, say, the distribution of wealth and income in this country, the failure of many elite college graduates to live up to responsibilities to society that's given them a lot, the failure of elite colleges to employ their massive intellectual and financial resources to addressing some of the most serious problems facing Americans today, the shame of Americans' lack of interest in empiricial knowledge and culture, etc, etc
Posted by: flip | Feb 24, 2005 12:08:53 PM
I'm sure there are lots of reasons for people not liking Larry Summers. But Matt is missing the point here. The point is that he's in trouble for saying reasonable things and if the lynch mob gets him, they will have no hesitation going after you or Kevin Drum or Brad DeLong or any other nice, centrist guy who says something that annoys them. (They can't touch the right, of course.) So, have a little spine and stop pretending this thing isn't about what it is about.
And, Steve, either read something or stop talking about Derrida and Habermas when you clearly do not have the foggiest what they are about. Denying the correspondence theory of truth does not entail condoning Karl Rove.
Posted by: Gareth | Feb 24, 2005 12:18:18 PM
The "extreme" kind involves bungee cords and oiled babes in bikinis.
Damn, now I'll need to find a new dissertation topic.
Posted by: djw | Feb 24, 2005 12:33:19 PM
I think that mnay people - serious, intellectual people as well as people in the professions - would question Harvard as the be-all/end-all of importance. Harvard is big, Harvard is rich, and Harvard is old. None of those in and of themselves indicate that Harvard is good, certainly not as good as its outsize reputation. If you really don't buy into that reputation, don't entertain the notion that it's true.
The Summers matter, ultimately, is an internal discussion at Harvard about the overall shape of his Presidency. Everything I've heard, including what Matt reports here, is that this performance at the conference on women in the sciences was simply that last in a series of missteps; which, being that it's Harvard, played out more publicly than might otherwise occur at another school (although about 25 come to mind where it would).
Given that, I think Summers is out, however gracefully, pretty soon. The other issues, about "the right's assault on Academia" etc. will continue merrily along with or without a punching bag like Summers to stand in for whatever one side or the other is looking for (much like Ward "why don't you just go, now" Chruchill). This discussion is not resolvable, is often over the top (hermeneutics? really?), and has a truth that lies in between the extremes - Academia could stand, particularly in the humanities, to tighten up a bit. But these far-flung assertions about academics going to hell are overstated.
Finally, I agree with Matt and a few others - Summers' emphasis on the sciences over the humanities distorts Harvard's overall mission and is better suited to MIT. And that, ultimately, is probably what's doing him in.
Posted by: weboy | Feb 24, 2005 12:44:00 PM
assault on the concepts of objective knowledge and disinterested scholarship
Are you saying Summers is on the field bearing a rifle in this assault?
If so, what's the evidence? How about a link?
Posted by: Obtuse | Feb 24, 2005 1:01:23 PM
Steve: Improve your spelling (Nietzsche, Foucault, sequitur etc.), and try actually reading people before you post about them! Habermas, a sane German fellow, is probably the most prominent advocate of Enlightenment modernity now writing.
There's no such thing as "the academy" (in someone else's post) that does things, but *many* different institutions. And sweeping statements about "the social sciences" doing things or even thinking things are idiotic: Pick any given social science and you will find numerous different schools, tendencies, traditions.
Here are some traditional academic values: careful reading, clear definition of terms, and using evidence to back up your points. What's striking about attacks like yours and like-minded people is that, despite rhetorical efforts to position yourselves as defenders of truth against deniers of it, you exhibit none of this rigor -- you make sweeping, foolish, unevidenced statements lumping together vast amounts of heterogeneous work.
*One* of the sad consequences of this is that budding conservatives become convinced that being conservative requires you to be a yahoo. It doesn't. It's possible to defend the values you want to defend without sounding stupid. But you'll have to do a little work.
Posted by: Hazel | Feb 24, 2005 1:51:26 PM
Dan the Man- Here are Matt's words, in a direct quote (the actual quote can be read at the top of this page). "the right's ever-intensifying campaign against the American academy"
Well, sure. And "the American academy" we were talking about was Harvard. Ever heard of the word anaphora?
Posted by: Dan the Man | Feb 24, 2005 2:08:32 PM
Hazel - not to drift into someone else's fight, and not to give Steve too much credit, but would you acknowledge, for instance, that there are some larger issues at play in the universities of late? I don't remotely subscribe to the more outrageous allegations, but I have noticed, as in the general culture, that arguments are becoming more shrill, and dversity of viewpoint is harder to find. I don't necessarily agree that there's a concerted effort, for instance, to keep conservatives out of various parts of academia, but I am troubled by some of the flat-out dismissive things that have been said when the subject is raised. As someone whose spent a lot of time around university life (my Mom recently retired after many years of teaching), I can't say she, or I, spent all that much time around people who didn't share our particularly liberal point of view. I think to some degree that matters.
I'm not suggesting that the arguments on the opposing side are well made; I'm just wondering - is there enough an acknowledgement that there's room for the universities, as a system, to do a better job than they're doing now of encouraging lively, intellectual debate that really encompasses diverse viewpoints? I don't know that I'm seeing enough of it myself, and I think it's a place where universities could do a better job of helping create a fuller dialogue within the larger culture. Just a thought.
Posted by: weboy | Feb 24, 2005 2:13:38 PM
weboy:
"arguments are becoming more shrill"
Is there evidence? You'll have a hard time finding a previous golden age in academia when everyone was nice to each other.
"diversity of viewpoint is harder to find."
There are more different scholarly traditions and research programs active right now than at any previous time in human history.
If you mean diversity of political viewpoint, (a) at every place I've taught I've had colleagues who were gun-owning Republicans (b) if you're a *competent* teacher, your politics should have no more effect on your teaching than a doctor's politics has on her or his practice of medicine.
As for encouraging more debate, every campus I know has active student organizations of various ideological hues. There are numerous, well-funded, conservative student newspapers.
Messages are mixed. People who say there is too much politics in the academy nonetheless want affirmative action for professors with conservative ideologies. There are calls for the expression of a wide range of views on campuses, but God forbid you should invite Ward Churchill to speak -- the people who did that at Hamilton were punished.
So while I sympathize with your concerns I don't know what fuller dialogue with the larger culture means, exactly. Is there one "larger culture"? Our main contact with the society at large is teaching, and by that test U.S. higher education has more contact than at any previous time in history or in almost any other part of the world, if you measure that by the proportion of the population who goes to college or university.
Posted by: Hazel | Feb 24, 2005 3:03:41 PM
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