the Greater Nomadic Council

The problem with this circle of posters is that they seem to be libetarian-minded non-academics, who don't fully realize the extent of academic competition that occurs after tenure. Indeed, one is rarely going to make more than 50K pre-tenure--the real competition (and monetary compensation) for top professors is for those whose research has long since transcended the level necessary for tenure.

The problem with the Churchill case is really nothing new--it has to do with the endemic intellectual weakness in ethnic studies programs (a situation for which the admin is ultimately repsonsible), leading to someone like Churchill becoming a department chair with relatively banal ideas (it's not so much Churchill's controversial positions that bother me, but the foolish way they are expressed). I realize such a sentence offends many, but I think it has to be said. I hate to see the whole academy tarred for the lax standards in a particular department.

But it should be noted that the kind of supply-demand system that these libetarian folks seem to want is precisely the kind of nonsense that either leads to more Churchills or general academic conformity/weakness. If you base academic incentive on how much the students like you (i.e. how much you confirm their prejudices and/or conform to prevailing fads), then the educational mission of the university is crippled. I'm sure Churchill has been quite popular among ethnic studies majors who eat his rhetoric up, but I wonder whether said majors would have been more intellectually stimulated in some other major. In short, an academy that merely responds to demand and prevailing prejudices is a receipe for ending one of the last refuges of civilized discourse, and turning it into a circus akin to cable news, which merely caters to prejudice and prizes, above all, the rude and crude.

As an aspiring historian (a popular major among conservatives), I'm nervous about the prospect of being judged by the Sean Hannitys of the world and the students who expect all history to confirm to a Hannityesque interpretation. The purpose of the university is to educate, or at least provide an atmosphere where education can take place. Call me an elitist if you will, but the ones who should decide on the definition of a good education ought to be the educated.

As one of the main commenters over on the Mt. Hollywood thread, I should point out that I'm neither a libertarian nor a non-academic. I spent four years in grad school to earn two MAs (one in English lit, the other in Medieval Studies) and I've been a university adjunct for seven years. However, I also have eighteen years of work experience in the private sector and now hold a full-time non-academic job.

I bore you with my CV only to provide enough background to explain not only why I feel I'm in a good position to compare the business world and academia, but also why I'm not necessarily anti-tenure, just deeply agnostic about the value and effects of offering the rare prize of lifetime job security to professors. I'm more than willing to be persuaded by good arguments in favor of tenure; I just don't come across many of them. I don't hold a PhD, nor do I aspire to a full-time academic gig, so I don't have a personal stake in what happens with tenure. I do know that I'm thinking far more clearly about the issue now than I did as a grad student, when my colleagues and I considered tenure exempt from questioning and assumed uncritically that it must be a good thing per se because it might someday be a good thing for *us.*

In any event, I'm glad you guys chimed in over at Mt. Hollywood because your comments pointed me back to your blog. I'm having a good time back-reading it. :)

Uh, what Jeff said. Not the part about the CV. Mine is different. I do have a PhD, spent several years doing adjunct work, and after getting a close-up view of what full-time teaching consists in (thanks to a visiting professorship), I decided I wanted to do something else with my life.

I have libertarian instincts in some areas but not in others, and I don't consider myself a "libertarian." I sure don't know how to apply libertarian principles to academia, and if I have any kind of ideological motive it is probably a vague sense of social justice having to do with the two-tier system it creates. I'm certainly not opposed to elite institutions, but I don't think that elitism is its own justification. I prefer to weigh the advantages of having an elite against other factors.

I'm also having fun rereading the previous posts here.

My apologies--no ill will intended. I suppose I just read a bit to much into your concern to rationalize the incentive process.

The discussion at both of your blogs has been enlightening in that it deflates the value of tenure as economic incentive, though I don't think the case has been made against tenure with regard to its value in securing intellectual freedom and non-conformity. Given the fact that many tenured professors still make less than 50K, I think the latter reason for tenure is really the more important hurdle for those who wish to abolish it.

As for elitism, certainly you are correct that elites are a good to be weighed against others. But for myself, I think the results stemming from the increased supply and demand character of the modern university is a very mixed bag. I'm all for opportunity (hell, I'm for state-funded college education for all, and not simply because that would increase my job prospects :)), but I think the continued existence of and opportunities for elites is essential.

Jeff, perhaps this question would be better suited to your blog (and might be answered there somewhere, though I didn't find it), but I'm asking it here, lazy person that I am. What was your focus for you Medieval Studies MA? I assume literature, given your English degree, but any particular authors, works, or time periods?

CO, same for you. What did you study?

ludwig: Nah, I knew there was no ill-will. Just wanted to something on the record. ;)

marc's pushing me on the connection between academic freedom and tenure. I'm mulling it over. It's a hard thing--harder than I think is obvious--so I'm having a tough time coming to grips with it. For instance, there doesn't seem (to me) to be a conceptual link between academic freedom and guaranteed employment, only a practical one. That's a distinction worth keeping in mind, if only to keep one kind of reason from slopping over into the other.

mallarme: My PhD is in philosophy, in core areas (metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of language). I'm out of practice, so I don't really like touching those topics anymore. I just try to keep a sharp mind and wit about me. :)

Ah. The least respected and underpaid of all disciplines. :) If I had world enough and time, I would study philosophy after literature. They seem to me the two greatest consolations and highly intertwined. As it is, I have to do my reading of philosophy on the side and in an unsystematic way. Who would you recommend? So far, I have yet to read any philosophy I didn't enjoy, but Aristotle and Kant have been my favorites though I've read neither widely or well.

Ludwig: Likewise, no malice assumed, no offense taken. Given how populous libertarians are online, your assumption makes sense. :)

Mallarme: As a grad student in an English department, I studied Old English but also started focusing on lesser-known English romances. The curriculum of my Medieval Studies degree was broadly interdisciplinary: Latin, history, historiography, theology, philosophy, and so forth. I was probably in pretty good shape to tackle a PhD in medieval English lit after that, but I chose not to, for a variety of reasons--including the brutal job market, the meanness of the competition, my discovery that I found academic conferences unbearable, and the possibility of having to live in an undesirable place--possibly for the rest of my life--simply because some job opened up there.

Unlike some of my classmates, though, I didn't leave grad school bitter, but I did leave confident that I didn't have to pursue a career in academia to live an inquisitive life. (It's true, though, that the longer I'm away from grad school, the more critical I am of academic group-think.)

Drop me a note if you'd like to chat further about the whole medieval-studies route; we probably don't need to subject everyone else to our conversation. :)

Oh, heavens, mallarme. That's an awfully big question. Aristotle and Kant are very difficult figures, and I'm deeply impressed that you've enjoyed them. They are, of course, specialties all to themselves.

The contemporary philosophers in the analytic tradition that I am most familiar with are a bit harder to pick up. They write in article-sized chunks, and a full appreciation of their work largely presupposes a familiarity with the material they are responding to. Jumping in with such a writer is like joining a soap opera already in progress. You're apt to be confused as to who the characters and crises are, and even after you think you've got your bearings you're likely to be blindsided by some unexpected twist.

That said, some of the best and most influential contemporary philosophers to check out would have to include WV Quine, Saul Kripke, Hilary Putnam, Michael Dummett, and Donald Davidson. (Those are key guys in the core areas I'm familiar with.) John McDowell and Colin McGinn are very smart, highly readable, and open a good window into some key debates. Alasdair MacIntyre is always rewarding, and he's also one of the few philosophers who can be read simply for pleasure, even if you don't quite follow what he's talking about. For a pretty good survey of philosophy of language (the central concern during the twentieth century), I like AC Grayling's "Introduction to Philosophical Logic, though it's certainly not the only such book and probably not the best.

Wittgenstein, like Aristotle and Kant, is a giant and an industry all to himself.

CO,

What do you think is the best book to start with re. MacIntyre? He's one of those guys I've been meaning to read for years and hopefully will get to this summer.

I've read only a tiny proportion of MacIntyre's work. He's written an awful lot, of course. And I'm no specialist in his area, which primarily covers moral philosophy.

"A Short History of Ethics" is both pretty powerful and very readable. It is, of course, *his* history of ethics and should be read as such. But the survey style means you get a lot of thought without getting bogged down in a lot of detail. (It also means, of course, that you get more of a gloss than any DEEP discussion, and it's sometimes frustrating to read an undeveloped aside.) It's a tremendously useful map of the subject.

"After Virtue" is the book develops his own claims, and it marks the start of his current period of thought. It combines both history and analysis, and he uses more than just philosophy developing his arguments. Jane Austen, for instance, makes a major cameo appearance. It's also a very Aristotelean work, which makes it a good fit given your background. "Whose Justice? Which Rationality?" is a kind of sequel. (I guess "After Virtue 2: Electric Boogaloo" was taken.) Cheers, and have fun!

Oops, sorry ludwig, I didn't notice it was you who posted the query on MacIntyre.