Monday, July 17, 2006

Thoughts on Academia

I will offer some thoughts on academia, since I was once a part of it.

Some few people gravitate to academia because they are extremely bright and want/need some kind of stipend in order to support their research. The vast majority of people who fit this bill (and they are a tiny minority of academicians), are in the hard sciences. The reason is because there's new data and methods being discovered all the time and therefore there's real, hands on work to do.

Another class of people are in academia where they have a special skill that in turn they pass on to students. Think some applied science disciplines, and esp foreign language study.

In literature and the social sciences another set of circumstances obtain. There are some successful novelists in literature. There are some outstanding historians of literature. And there are a lot of people who just like to read. Ditto sociology, poli sci, history, etc. in this area.

One should ALWAYS remember that the academy is a business. It promises a product: a mind that has been inculcated with the accumulated wealth of our civilization, or, at the very least, a certificate that attests to that. The price can be, say, $150,000. (It can also be a lot cheaper, and even more expensive.)

To sell the product, the academy has to tailor its curriculum to the potential buyers. This brings about a situation that is actually a little unusual. Normally, we advertise to a consumer for something that he or she will actually use. In the case of a college education, we advertise for something one person will (theoretically) use, and another person (the parents) will largely if not entirely pay for.

That means college curricula, extra-curricular activities, campus layout, and all the rest have to appeal not only to the 18 year old Jack and Jill who will be attending college, but also the the 40 something (or 50 something, or whatever) parents who will be paying for it. The kids have to be sold on fun, self-discovery, deep meaning, relevance, and so on. The parents have to be sold on practical utility and ROI.

Thus the packaging of a college education is a little bit like breakfast cereal packaging: the cereal is sweet, and delicious looking, there might even be irresistable trinkets inside. But the sidebar of the box assures the parents that the product is GOOD FOR THE KIDS.

The parents are sold by statistics. X no. of Nobelists, or National Book Award finalists. X millions of dollars in research grants acquired by faculty. X % of graduates tracked to make Y amount. That sort of thing.

The kids are sold on other things. Getting past the most obvious (sex and beer), they are sold on relevance. Virtually every college has a department of middle east studies, because, it's in the news every day. Thirty years ago, there used to be departments of German and/or Soviet Studies everywhere. Where are they now? Gone, replaced by Muslim studies, Gay studies, Chinese Studies, Far East Studies, etc. etc.

Part of this is driven by geopolitical realities (we really should be graduating more Arabic and Persian mavens), but a large part of it is driven by what an 18 year old thinks is relevant. And what an 18 year old thinks is relevant, is, 99% of the time, usually just a reflection of the surrounding popular culture, which, by definition, will be shallow and short-sighted.

The people who work in academia, I mean, the professors, have to service the students in this manner. They have to teach about the things the students want to hear. Not necessarily WHAT they want to hear (in terms of interpretation), but subject matter.

At the same time, for any job security, the academician has to produce a lot of papers, reviews, and generally one or two books, to go into their CV so they can get job security, otherwise known as tenure.

That's not all they have to do. They generally have to teach three courses simultaneously, that involves lecturing perhaps nine hours a week. In addition, they have to allow about four hours a week to listen to students complain about their lives or about how to write their papers. If a professor is conscientious, there will be another four hours a week for group discussions, and LOTS of reading and writing assignments for the students, which in turn have to be read, graded, and evaluated with an eye to the student's improvement.

Also, since the college is essentially a bureaucracy, there will lots of meetings, and any professor, especially a novice, will have to "volunteer" (because tenure tracks this also) for committees that have significant student participation. The Black Students Union, Gay Lesbian Bisexual Tranvestite Congress, Asian Students Union, Traffic Committee, American Indian Union, Halal Breakfast Menu Committee, and, of course, the dreaded American Indian Indian American Revolving Door Committee, not to mention department meetings, faculty meetings, and pep rallies will normally take up another 10-15-20 hours a week, in addition to teaching and prep, and in addition to the research and writing that will generate the paper trail that ensures tenure.

It is NOT an easy life. And it doesn't pay very well either, comparatively.

So: Outside of the geniuses and the savants in academia (comparatively few), who really makes a career in this? People who are gregarious, who like directing the lives of young people to a better place, IOW, the same qualities that make good elementary school teachers, except usually better read, but not necessarily more intelligent. Because they are in continual symbiosis with the darlings whose parents are paying for a piece of paper, the faculty tends to adopt the youthful idealism and values of the generally non-adult student body. To be sure, one can avoid this, and be independent. Then one likely will face ostracism from one's faculty peers, and even from the students (poor course evals, no one signs on for your lectures, etc.)

Is it any wonder that the academy is overrun by people with immature world views and opinions? Those who are not, esp those who have to face the reality of raising children or just earning a decent living, generally do not stick around.

There are some exceptions. But we are making a HUGE MISTAKE if we choose to denigrate the life of the mind, that is distributed in and out of the academy. There are significant things being done in many fields, inside and outside the academy. Broad brush dismissals of the sciences, philosophy, or even the humanities, because of the academy's dependence on selling their sheepskin product, are quite unfair. While the percentage of ACADEMICS who are making, or who make, substantial contributions to our continuing knowledge may be smaller than one might think, that doesn't mean that they make no contribution, and, furthermore, in addition to all of their other duties they are, faute de mieux, the CUSTODIANS of our intellectual tradition, going back thousands of years. However silly their political opinions might be, EVERY academic understands their duty in that respect. If they don't know the books, the lineage, the background, then no one will. They know this, they study it, but it's not the type of thing the ordinary person asks, nor is the kind of thing that ever gets quoted on the Internet.

In sum: The people in academia are the way they are because they are engaged in selling a product. They are not necessarily fonts of wisdom (though sometimes they are.) They are the repository of accumulated knowledge, and they have to work hard. Yes, they tend to write and speak about the world we live in in stupid and silly ways. But they usually do have an expert knowledge that no one cares about. Meanwhile, they work very hard, and are not paid very well, for the work they do. It is true they tend to arrogate to themselves the voice of wisdom and irreproachable authority: well, anyone who falls for that has only himself to blame.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

My Crystal Ball on Israel

Daily Kos has a post on "Imagine a World Without Israel." The posting at Kos is absurd.

However, I have to say that I think Israel in say a generation is going to be a lot different than it has been. I would say the same about Europe, and the United States as well.

Certain things run common in history. One of these is that wealthy countries act as magnets to poorer countries, that wealth is redistributed by revolution (violent or peaceful) when the demographics warrant, and that whenever a country tries to nativize itself against teeming hordes of Others, they have already lost.

I know people like to give the example of the Native Americans. Couple things there. First, there was a lot of intermarriage (my ancestors, among them; South Carolina Cherokee.) Second, there weren't that many, WRT to the territory: density was not an issue.

Another example has to do with genocides or ethnic cleansings. Well, the Armenians are back in Armenia and Germans have been floating back to lands outside of Germany for awhile now, and, thanks to the extension of the EU, will be able to buy the old family farms in another 15-20 years.

Demographically, the US is going to become more Hispanic (heavily Amerind south of the border already, BTW), Europe is going to become more Muslim, and greater Israel (Jordan to Med) will probably have a Pali majority in a few years.

All these people are going to want to be treated as equals by the dominant cultures. They will get it, eventually. That's just the way it goes. In Israel's case, they will never be able to "lock out" the West Bank, or Gaza, or their own Arabs. Although today the Palis are proportionally much poorer and less powerful than their Jewish Israeli counterparts, that will change. It just will.

Meanwhile, Israel is becoming more secular. More Israelis are thinking about living elsewhere; even today probably less than half of world Jewry actually live in Israel, I know several nominal Israelis who live in the Northeast who frankly prefer it here, for various reasons.

Meanwhile, the meme that Israel is unwise to Jews because it concentrates too many in one space, or the meme that Israel causes anti-semitism, are both frequently made by Jewish commentators (Tony Judt, et al.)

So I expect that Israel is going to end up as a binational state, or even a blended state of Jews and Arabs. It will be much stronger for it, too. That's my guess.

No One Pays Any Attention to Me: Fine!

Self-originating posts are not my thing right now. I do, however, react to other people's blogs, and I will post them here, as an immortal record of stuff I would have said at random over the telephone or with my mouth half full of food over lunch.

Of course, it's no secret that a lot of internet comm is inter-active based, I mean, people say stuff to get noticed, and to get stroked (or stoked.) That bothers me less and less since, compared to my too hectic family life, it really doesn't matter what people think of what I write. But at least this way I keep in practice.

So, a couple things .....

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I have noticed that the news cycles have been going very rapidly in recent weeks. Can it be that it was just 10 days ago that everyone was freaked out N. Korea's missiles? That got Iraq off the pages. Then Iraq came back, no, wait, trouble in Gaza, no, wait, problems on the Lebanese border.

In some vague way the crises are always the same, the outrage is always the same, the call for bold destruction always the same, and then someone changes the channel .....

I would not want to say that we are collectively being played. I would say that most people have an astoundingly short attention span, as well as a willingness to be led hither and thither by whatever news is passed on to them. Is life really worth living when it is so much at the mercy of some reportage of events over which, in fact, we have no control?

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I don't disagree that multicult is often used to put a minority POV that is attempting to become dominant on an essentially spurious (because undeserved) equal level with a majority POV. If that's what you are saying. In that case, we might call multiculturalism affirmative action for ideas.

OTOH,as a devotee of individualism, individual rights, and social libertarianism (even privacy rights) as a bulwark against the capabilities of modern governments to control and interfere with the lives of their people, I must say that any shrink-down of executive power is not going to be greeted with unhappiness in this corner.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Geneva Extended to the Bad Guys

In general, I think it’s good, and also good PR, for the US to abide by Article 3. I really see no reason not to. I doubt that treating these people badly has yielded much good intelligence. And, I have heard anecdotally, and know from my own time in service (part of which was in helping run a ship’s brig), that unless there are bright lines there will be abuses.

As I understand it, quite a few of these guys we are holding are suspicious characters who may be dangerous to us. Fine. Hold them for the duration, or, re-write the laws to get it past SCOTUS so they can have a day in court. That will settle it once and for all.

On the other hand, I’m sure a good number of these dudes are hostile sadistic killers. Frankly, treating them under Article 3 will only treat them as well as our sizable national Death Rows which are inhabited by thousands of hostile and sadistic killers, whose deeds are well documented.

People are angry and I understand that. I just don’t see the justification for abuses or interrogation techniques bordering on torture.

I realize the WOT is very frustrating but we won’t get to where we want to be by thumping or offing people. Mainly because that’s not the purpose of the WOT. The aim is to get the people in the Middle East to change their minds and change their ways. That’s a supra-military task. It will take a long time. But, quoting Pope, “A man convinced against his will remains unconvinced still.”

An Odd Silence Amid Bloody Fantasies of Revenge

I have noticed since the release of the latest videotape, showing the desecrated and mutilated remains of the 2 American GI's in Mahmoudiya, that the right wing has been rather quiet on related matters, and unwilling to say anything explicit about the charges against 5 Americans for the rape, murder and desecration (by burning) of an Iraqi family. Granted, the jihadists may be attempting an ex post facto justification. But why not at least mention the terrible accusation against our own soldiers? Perhaps they are afraid of being accused of moral equivalence.

Meanwhile, the right wing is seething, and insists that we wreak a terrible vengeance on any and all Iraqis who may have had a hand in this outrage against our troops. I will leave it to your imagination as to how they would react if, say, their neighbor's family was raped, murdered, and desecrated .....

Latest Video of Mutilated American Soldiers

Many years ago, when I was a kid in the '60's, I read a book called "The Curtain Rises" by Quentin Reynolds. I remember when I picked it up I thought it was going to be about plays, or something. Actually, it was a book of Reynolds' reportage during WW2, and in this volume, mostly about the US arrival in North Africa.

One thing that struck me was the casual mention of a torture that local Arabs had inflicted on wayward GI's who had been dumb enough to have sex with an Arab woman. Their genitalia were cut off, and placed in their mouths, and then their throats were cut. I don't know if this is true, but it definitely turned me off to Arab chicks.

I do recall that Reynolds mentioned this, and that the Americans talked about it, there was no discussion about retributively killing all Arabs if or when something like this happened. It was just a cautionary tale.

Anyway, in a possible attempt to cash in on a recent case in which Americans are accused of rape and multiple murders, Iraqi terrorists have released a video of 2 Americans who were tortured, killed, and mutilated. I wrote the following somewhere:

*****

I don't know if I would call our guys "dupes", but there's definitely something about this case that looks like retribution to me.

The rape murder happened in March. The ringleader gets a discharge in April. The 2 guys get kidnapped and mutilated in June.

One can say that no one had a clue about the March incident, but, frankly, I think that's naive.

I don't think it's just a coincidence that the guy who was the main accused perp in the rape murder was discharged soon after. Nor do I think it's a coincidence that our 2 guys were killed and mutilated when they were in the time line. Outside of those 4 contractors in Fallujah -- and that was 3 years ago -- I can't think of a single time US troops were ambushed, then slaughtered, then mutilated. Given that -- going back to the US in North Africa in WW2 -- it is well known that Muslims will kill and mutilate in retaliation for sex crimes, I'm sorry, but I think that's what this is.

*****

I will say a bit more. The discharge of this guy is suspicious to me. It looks like there was a deliberate intent to get rid of him. Normally, once you are discharged, you are not going to be charged for any crimes you committed in uniform. That's why most of the people at My Lai were never charged: they were long gone out of the service. Charging this guy was extraordinary. Which suggests that, if not for the blowback, retaliations, and confessions, this dude might have gotten away with this scot free (assuming he did it, of course.) That's a spooky thought.

On the other hand, if the Army had any suspicions about this incident, the very last thing they would do, for PR purposes, is broadcast it. Yes, a case like this might be a discrete act of madness by a handful of Americans, etc. etc., but every ONE case like this defames all of us, and, yes, endangers the people we have there as well as all of us at home. Committing crimes of passion against Iraqis, or any Muslims, in these days, is to give major agitprop victories to the other side. That's just the way it is. We have to be clean, not only because it's right, but because otherwise, we lose.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Deb Frisch and Jeff Goldstein

I don't have a lot of time for blogging. It's not that I don't think my views are important, but I am bit more fact-oriented than that, and, when doing I have the time I tend to focus on other things.

Pretty much each day, I read selected sites. I read Drudge, for breaking news. WaPo, NYT, WSJ; NRO, Andrew Sullivan, like that. I also read Michelle Malkin, not because I think so highly of her stuff but because the far right interests me.

Anyway, today, Michelle had a post about a guy named Jeff Goldstein who had a denial of service attack in conjunction with some gal making pornographic comments about his child. So, I followed up on that.

Obviously, this woman should not have said these things. Just in general people should not make death threats or child porn threats. Of course, it can actually be dangerous. But I've seen it before; it's usually people who for one reason or another have lost control of themselves. In other words, it's not dangerous but it's still disgusting and legitimate source of shame.

But I also think I would leave it there. Apparently, this woman has already lost her job as a result of this; what more is useful? Money? Please. Jail. Double please. I hope she gets help, I think she needs it. I wouldn't go after it.

On the other hand, I don't know what Jeff Goldstein is going to do. As a father, I can recall when my kids were little how I would have reacted as he did: by, apparently, making a federal case of it. However, now that the perp and her circumstances should be pretty obvious to any observer who isn't blind; I'd let it go. There's no point in being impolite to a woman who insists she has balls.

The other thing I can't help but note is that too many people in the blogosphere take themselves way, way, too seriously.

Peace out.