Dicentra steers us to an article by Jere P Surber, a professor of philosophy at the University of Denver. Professor Surber is explaining why the humanities incline so heavily to the left. In doing so, he reveals a surprisingly explicit note of personal and collective envy:
Who, after all, would want to preserve a situation in which others who are equivalently educated and experienced – doctors, engineers, lawyers, scientists, colleagues in other areas, and, yes, chief executives – receive vastly more compensation, sometimes by a factor of 10 or 100?
Professor Surber feels undervalued by the base calculus of the market and clearly he’s essential to the working of the world. How can it be that doctors and engineers are thought more valuable more than him, a professor of philosophy? Society must be transformed to correct this abomination. To illustrate the magnitude of the injustice at hand, the professor shifts from resentment to self-congratulation:
Studies that must – simply must – lead one to the higher plains of the left. Note the implicit conceit that non-leftist outlooks lead to simplistic conclusions, unlike those who turn by default to the state and its enlargement.
Readers may think that a liberal arts education should expose students to a variety of viewpoints and ideas to be tested. But apparently that messy and time consuming business is no longer necessary. Professor Surber and his peers have already determined the only respectable position.
This boldness prompts Jonah Goldberg to raise an obvious question:
The academic left is of course renowned for its rigour and impartiality, its open-minded enquiry, and a willingness to engage honestly with challenging ideas.
And there’s another, incidental issue to ponder. It perhaps has some relevance to the aforementioned complexity. In many arts subjects, especially those tethered only loosely to evidence, logic or practical verification, there’s often pressure to avoid the obvious and prosaic, even when the obvious and prosaic is true. The obligation to be unobvious, if only for the benefit of one’s academic peers, may help explain the more fanciful assertions from some practitioners of the liberal arts.
Consider, for instance, Duke’s professor miriam cooke, who refuses to capitalise her name, thus drawing attention to her egalitarian radicalism and immense creativity. Professor cooke’s subtlety of mind is evident in her claim that the oppression and misogyny found in the Islamic world is actually the fault of globalisation and Western colonialism, despite the effects predating their alleged causes by several centuries. Professor cooke also tells us that “polygamy can be liberating and empowering” – a statement that may strike readers as somewhat dubious. It does, however, meet the key criteria of being both edgy and unobvious.
Meanwhile, Professor Surber’s self-regard continues to tumesce. He has fathomed all of history and it validates him:
In short, if you haven’t reached a similarly leftwing conclusion, you haven’t achieved sufficient complexity and nuance in your thinking, you peasant.
Luckily, we can count on Professor Surber and his peers to guide us to the light, such is their benign magnificence. They may be cruelly underpaid and underappreciated, but by God they’re better than us and they will save us from ourselves. I perhaps don’t need to mention how egalitarian politics are often signalled in this grand and superior manner. I will, however, mention Robert Nozick’s essay Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?, in particular the following:
Feel free to ease my animus with the buttons below.
Oh. Bifurcation of history, in the same comment as some references to the guillotine. If only I’d done that on purpose.
dicentra,
My undergrad degrees were in art/arch history AND German lit. I am inclined to agree with you regarding the lit degree, but the art/arch history studies were another thing entirely.
Not only did we study how and why things work (arch) but processes (e.g., different printmaking techniques and their results) and the evolution of imagery (both its meaning–iconography, and its style).
Unlike literature which relies on a great deal of opinion, the tracing of stylistic influences relies on visual proofs which oftentimes are apparent and supported by historic circumstances not just conjecture. My work required a conversant knowledge of several languages, mechanical and construction processes and other information from many fields as well as an in-depth knowledge of history.
This required critical thinking processes in many different areas and it was my job to distill those to focus on a particular research problem. It even gave me the ability to understand math better than I ever could as a younger satudent.
I have been out of the discipline for 20 years but still believe that it is an unsung, grossly underappreciated and largely ignored in our educational system.
Slartibartfast,
“I have a feeling only Prof. Surber, with his simplistic bifurcation of history along some (necessarily) subjective right/wrong axis, can give us an answer that he’d agree with.”
I find it more than a little ironic that someone who claims to be so “complex” and “nuanced” would accept such a rigidly Marxist interpretation of history.
For “classic liberal” may we also assume “green” ?
Perhaps rather a long bow, but I’ve been reading how green “activists” have become part of the scientific review process, and in so doing exhibit all the arrogance that the good Prof. Sturber typifies. From Jerome ravetz…
“…To have a political effect, the ‘extended peers’ of science have traditionally needed to operate largely by means of activist pressure-groups using the media to create public alarm. In this case, since the global warmers had captured the moral high ground, criticism has remained scattered and ineffective, except on the blogosphere. The position of Green activists is especially difficult, even tragic; they have been ‘extended peers’ who were co-opted into the ruling paradigm, which in retrospect can be seen as a decoy or diversion from the real, complex issues of sustainability, as shown by Mike Hulme. Now they must do some very serious re-thinking about their position and their role…”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/09/climategate-plausibility-and-the-blogosphere-in-the-post-normal-age/#more-16262
“Who, after all, would want to preserve a situation in which others who are equivalently educated and experienced – doctors, engineers, lawyers, scientists,…”
Equivalently educated? In your dreams.
Schumpeter worked these people out years ago.
“It exposed me to an incredible amount of information in many many disciplines, but more importantly, it taught me how to think critically.”
Translation : I read a book last year, and I expect to read another next year.
Keith,
Other than gratuitous sarcasm, your point is . . .?
Oh, I suppose that his point is that Surber’s “information in many many disciplines” is a mile wide and an inch deep… and, based on his missive that is the subject of David’s post, viewed through a very narrow lens.
Spiny Norman,
Except Surber didn’t write that. I did (see 23:06 above).
My mistake. I thought the discussion was still about Surber.
“In short, if you haven’t reached a similarly leftwing conclusion, you haven’t achieved sufficient complexity and nuance in your thinking, you peasant.”
Nice one, David. But does Professor Surber deserve this shabby treatment…?
Stork
From what you say I imagine you’re a UCL man. Did you use that same nic back in the mid-80’s? If you did, I think we used to play together on the cricket team. If not, feel free to ignore me.
(With apologies to our host for using his site as a more erudite version of facebook.)
“Who, after all, would want to preserve a situation in which others who are equivalently educated and experienced – doctors, engineers, lawyers, scientists, colleagues in other areas, and, yes, chief executives – receive vastly more compensation?”
I feel like this is actually a pretty common liberal thought, although I’ve never seen it stated this explicitly before; Your compensation should be based on the amount of money/effort you’ve put- or at least that you think you’ve put- into your own education, irregardless of the actual usefulness of the study. Pretty common amongst the sorts who’ve dedicated 5 years/140k to their Film Study Majors.
I also like how he ignores the economic value of tenure(stability) and his undoubtedly excellent benefit package. Something tells me economics didn’t make it into the list of acceptable social sciences for “nuanced” thinking.
Newbie,
“But does Professor Surber deserve this shabby treatment…?”
I think the shabby treatment is mostly his own doing. His article positively glows with parochial self-regard. It invites ridicule.
Surber disdains markets because they jar with his estimation of how clever and valuable he is and where he should be in the social hierarchy. (Not that he would approve of social hierarchies, being as he is so nuanced and enlightened.) It irks him that doctors and engineers may earn more than he does, and goddammit he’s at least as important and deserving, and almost certainly more so. He then goes on to cast doubt on that claim by portraying the sweep of history as a simplistic, quasi-Marxist validation of his own simplistic, quasi-Marxist political preferences, and indeed his ego. He has fathomed all of history and it validates him.
It’s almost as if Surber were trying to satirise his own position. How clever and deserving he must be.
CIngram,
“With apologies to our host for using his site as a more erudite version of facebook.”
It’s been used for much worse. But if anyone scores a date I charge a handling fee. As it were.
David
‘if anyone scores a date I charge a handling fee. As it were.’
But you have a doctorate, don’t you? You deserve more than I can afford to pay.
Back on topic, I was already thinking, and I don’t suppose I was the only one, that Marx was the ultimate Liberal Arts professor.
Surber’s article is full of absolute gems:
‘But if you actually take the time to look at history and culture, certain conclusions about human nature, society, and economics tend to force themselves on you. History has a trajectory, driven in large part by the desires of underprivileged or oppressed groups to attain parity with the privileged or the oppressor.’
They do indeed force themselves on you and me, but evidently not on Prof Surber, who only sees what he wants to see.
‘There is a “right side of history,” Obama said—the side of those who would overcome prejudice, question unearned privilege, and resist oppression in favor of a more just condition.’
No there isn’t. There are past events which agree with our sense of what is right, and you don’t have to be left-wing to feel glad that they happened (Lincoln was a Republican, f’rinstance). But the only ‘right side of history’, as an academic discipline, is the truth.
CIngram,
“But you have a doctorate, don’t you?”
I’m the Chief Grand Wizard of Moon Pins. See my badge, see how it catches the light.
“You deserve more than I can afford to pay.”
I know. I’m a great guy. I’ll even throw in some music.
http://www.ignatz.plus.com/stickyfingers.mp3
*Erudite Facebook on*
CIngram,
I’m afraid I’m not a UCL man (close though), and I’m doing my UG now (Gawd ‘elp me) rather than in the 80’s! I do play cricket though.
*Erudite Facebook off*
Surber: “It is because we liberal-arts professors… have carefully studied the actual dynamics of history and culture; and we have trained ourselves to think in complex, nuanced, and productive ways about the human condition that so many of us are liberals.”
He’s basically saying ‘the debate’s over, we won. THIS is what you SHOULD think about tax, abortion, welfare etc. Anything else isn’t respectable.’
Phantom Menace,
Pretty much. As Jeff at PW noted, Surber apparently sees his politics as some kind of intellectual endpoint – a final perspective that all students should come to share, provided they think with sufficient nuance. Though I’m not sure how this belief would explain people whose politics change significantly with age and experience – say, from the in-group theorising and bluster of student politics to a more worldly understanding.
T,
The purpose of college is to raise your market value.
Period.
If you prefer some other euphemism, fine, go for it.
Do not, however, make the mistake of thinking college is anything other than an advanced trade school, as it were.
“History has a trajectory, driven in large part by the desires of underprivileged or oppressed groups to attain parity with the privileged or the oppressor.”
Sounds like someone read Zinn. And then stopped reading history.
Do you suppose Surber is has studied the “complex cultural dynamics” of Botulism, as has “noted” Frenchy philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/world/europe/10levy.html
Blake (15:49 above),
This is where you and I disagree. You say it’s a market value issue, I believe that it’s a quality of life issue. Market value may be a component of that quality of life, and even an important component, but it is not the be-all end-all of a college education. For those who think it is, perhaps they would be better served in a trade school.
Better to be an excellent plumber than a below-average English teacher.
Ahh, yes: *complexity*. Soooo complex, these theories are. Except… they’re all Marxism. “Feminst theory” is Marxism plus estrogen. “Critical race theory” is Marxism via Benetton ads. “Cultural studies” is Marxism in comic books. “Literary theory” is either reader-centered Marxism (“reader-response criticism, which is “how oppressed do you feel when reading this?”), or critic-centered Marxism (Derrida: “the text is what I say it is, which is Marxism”). History simply assumes that Marx got everything right, then tries to explain why obviously non-Marxist things are in fact Marxist (see, for example, American “labor” historians, who have spent the last 75 years blithely ignoring the fact that “the workers” simply don’t see themselves as “the workers,” tout court).
Want a PhD (at least in America?) Grab “The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory” and use it to fill in the following: Marx was right about ____ because ______.
This article (http://mises.org/etexts/hayekintellectuals.pdf) might throw a light on the reasons for intellectuals leaning so heavily left.
Surber says: “It’s real simple: Those who have less and want more will tend to support social changes that promise to accomplish that…”. So he’s admitting that leftists act out of self-interest and greed? Another one of my illusions shattered. I thought they were all pure-hearted altruists, not like us mere mortals.
Jonathan,
An astute observation.
Hoist. Petard.
The mental condition called Marxism has 3 components.
1. Narcissism.
2. Envy.
3. Freudian Projection.
(and a dash of Dunning Kruger syndrome thrown in for good measure).
The Market economy prices in SHORTAGE, by doing this it tends to prevent shortages.
It’s important to remember that
Price = Demand/Supply
Price is a signal that attracts people into supplying a social need/desire.
So a rising price tends to increase supply, and this then tends to suppress the Price.
A falling price also tends to increase demand (it’s more affordable).
It’s a very stable (dynamic equilibrium) system (with a supply lag).
WRT Wages they can be seen as a Price.
Imagine the demand for Doctors and Cleaners is the same.
If C is the number of people who could be a cleaner and D is the number of people who could be a Doctor
The the relative wages are
C/(C+D) v D/(C+D)
If Less people can be doctors than Cleaners then Doctors will earn relatively more.
Mess with this and you create a shortage.
Mess with this enough to lower the productivity below the maintenance rate and you have a communist style collapse.
“we have trained ourselves”
And you should see the exams we set ourselves at the end of it!
great article…no doubt the issue with the intellectuals hangs on the meaning of merit and value. capitalism seems to imply that if merit and value are to exist and be relevant in society, then it is the dynamics of demand, from whatever their source, that will define what merit and value mean. This makes capitalism quintesentially populist, for good and ill.I suppose the intellectual retort to this would be that there must be (or rather there needs to be, in their opinion, that is) some plane or realm of reality that can accord to the meaning of ‘merit’ or ‘value’ something other (presumably deeper and more substantial) than can be accorded to these concepts by populist capitalist concumerism (demagoguery). Its funny of course that they presume that they themselves know better than John and jane doe what this depth and substance are; but maybe they are on to something about their potentially being such a great depth and substance. What do you think. maybe its just the way they self-refer to themselves as the answer that is the problem.
Apologies for the typos btw!
It shouldn’t be surprising that many academics are left wingers.
After all, an all powerful bureaucracy that takes care of them from cradle to grave, is the only world most of them have known. Kind of like the institutionalised convicts in the Shawshank redemption.
Should my son start flirting with socialism, I’d point out the disproportionate number of teachers in most left wing organisations, then ask him to imagine a world run the way most schools are.
“How can it be that doctors and engineers are thought more valuable more than him, a professor of philosophy?”
He isn’t making a good case for a pay raise. I don’t think he gets the whole economics thing. Maybe it wasn’t nuanced enough for him…
The profile of Miriam Cooke at DIW is hysterical.
“Several Group sympathizers implied that only specialists in the relevant field could even *describe* the academic work of Group members. cooke has taken this approach one step further, implying that only specialists in the relevant field *who agree with the Group’s approach* can review Group members’ work.”
That must be the nuance.
“That must be the nuance.”
Yes, it is a tad damning. I suppose what’s most damning is that her behaviour is so common among her colleagues at Duke. If you read the other faculty profiles, you’ll see a similar pattern. The disregard for evidence, the repeated distortions, the intolerance of criticism (even corrections by those on whose behalf she presumes to speak), and the claims of being victimised by expectations of rigour and basic probity. Facts don’t appear to concern her, nor it seems does logic, even cause and effect. She is, however, “interested in discourse.”
As Kay Hymowitz points out, “The irony couldn’t be darker: the very people protesting the imperialist exploitation of the ‘Other’ endorse that Other’s repressive customs as a means of promoting their own uniquely Western agenda – subverting the heterosexual patriarchy.”
http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_1_why_feminism.html
In this respect, and those above, cooke is not at all unusual. And that’s the real joke.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Alabama-University-Shooting-Three-People-Are-Shot-Dead-At-An-American-College/Article/201002215547997?f=rss
* Name: Amy Bishop
* School: University of Alabama Huntsville
* Location: Huntsville, AL
* Department: Biology
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=392617&page=1
“.And she is a socialist but she only talks about it after class.”
AC1, did you notice she got better ratings from 6 years ago until about 2008 and the comments about how “hot” she was? Turning 40 must have been traumatic for her. Much comments even years about how “scatterbrained” she was. I also liked “She might have graduated from Harvard, but she has very little common sense”.
Though, I take it she’s out of the running for that Nobel Prize the commenter back on 6/14/04 said she would surely get. Perhaps her anger was misdirected from Algore?
Always been a whackhead?
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/02/ala_slay_suspec.html
Gets even more interesting!
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2010/02/14/name-congressman-ap-coverage-bishops-prior-killing-ignores-delahunt-invo
http://afamilyofshepherds.blogspot.com/2010/02/is-accused-murderer-dr-amy-bishop.html
Is Accused Murderer Dr. Amy Bishop An Academic Fraud, Delusional or Both?
“Professor Surber’s piece is really fascinating. Now that he mentions it, of course it seems perfectly obvious: Unfair wage disparity causes humanities professors to support abortion, gay marriage, exploitation of human embryos for research, criminalization of offensive speech, decriminalization of marijuana, explicit sex instruction for grade-schoolers, suppression of guns and religion, and racial/gender discrimination against white males. Yes, that all makes perfect sense now. Thank heavens we have intelligent philosophers to explain these things to us.”
http://chronicle.com/article/Parsing-the-Liberal-in/64460/