PMB is aware of a commonly held belief, particularly among Americans, that "real" doctors are medical doctors or physicians, and that it's offensively self-indulgent for PhD-holders to take the title "doctor." Whether this belief stems from the fact that physicians, and not chemical engineers or sociology professors, get to parade around in scrubs and expensive watches on popular TV shows, movies, and even real life, solving (or attempting to solve) a definitive set of explicitly illustrated problems with which we can all identify--or whether it's for some other reason--is not really PMB's concern here. Regardless of the cause, the belief that only physicians or medical doctors have the moral right to call themselves doctors is hogwash, based on ignorance of the history and meaning of the term "doctor" and the curricular differences between those who earn degrees in medicine and those who earn doctorates in academic disciplines. Viz:
The term "doctor" comes from the Latin "doctoris", or "teacher." Such a title has been, first and foremost for over a thousand years, an academic title. Though, coincidentally, the first academic degrees happened to be in professional disciplines, like medicine, law, and theology (theology is arguably no longer a professional discipline in the same way law or medicine are today), the title "doctor" was not bestowed simply on account of one studying medicine (or law, or theology), but because one achieved a certain level of academic distinction in a given discipline. "Doctor," "teacher," is a title of honor and accomplishment given someone who has become qualified to preside as a teacher in an institute of (higher) education. While a medieval or Renaissance "doctor" was likely to be a lawyer or a physician who also studied literature, philosophy, and the sciences (as "learned" people were "learned" people then, not specialized and divided as we are today after the democratization of education), "doctor" clearly bears no inherent relationship to the study or practice of medicine.
Presumably, after hundreds of years of linguistic slippage, the American "doctor" is more popularly understood as a physician or medical practitioner who has earned a medical doctorate, though this is at least partially the case because in the US, a doctoral degree is required to become a practicing physician. In much of the rest of the world, however, one is trained to become a physician without earning a doctorate. In the UK and much of Europe, for example, a degree in medicine (and in law) can be undertaken as one's undergraduate degree. Only after pursuing a doctoral degree (and usually submitting a thesis or dissertation of original research) does a physician become a "doctor" in the classical sense. The American-style usage of "doctor" as interchangeable with "physician" or "medic" persists in some cases, though it's widely understood that many such physicians actually don't hold doctorates at all.
As far as who deserves to wield the title of "doctor," or who gets to call themselves a "real" doctor,' the prejudice against PhD-holders is both ignorant and uncalled-for. Earning a PhD requires typically 2-3 years of coursework, examination, and/or thesis writing, only to be followed by another 3-5 years of independent research (and teaching "on the side" (ha!)) that must culminate in more or less a book-length dissertation that constitutes an original research contribution to a wider field of study. Of course, that research must be defended as the culmination of the doctoral degree, such that examiners are satisfied that the work is both strong and a viable contribution to the field. Not at all to belittle the medical doctoral curriculum, for which original research is not a requirement, but difficult and stressful examinations are; but at the very least one would be extremely hard-pressed to find evidence that earning a PhD is somehow easier or "softer" or less demanding or less "real" than earning a medical doctorate.
PMB is not in the business of telling people what to call themselves. Actually, PMB finds it tasteless to push a title--any title--in many social settings, even if you are a medical doctor. Further, PMB understands if people take exception to the use of titles in any or all situations these days, as there's an argument to be had about whether titles are unavoidably pompous, classist, etc. But the trouble starts for PMB when people unthinkingly assume not just that titles are bad, but that one type of doctor has any greater claim to the title than another, or any greater reason to identify as "doctor" in certain situations than another type. What exactly are the reasons for that differentiation, that imposed hierarchy of doctors, that gives medical doctors the right to identify as "doctor" while PhD-holders are somehow always considered insecure or pompous should they dare to take their rightful and proper title, for one reason or another?
It takes an offensive level of ignorance to think that someone who has gone through the long, grueling, and often thankless process of earning a PhD should be thought of as causing offense for simply entertaining the option of taking on the title "doctor," "teacher," which that accomplishment officially bestows upon them, and has for a millennium. A PhD-holder may not have the payoff at the end of the long road of seeing his profession dramatized amid blood and guts by the likes of George Clooney. In fact, a PhD-holder probably never had the satisfaction of taking a break from studying for exams or working late nights in the lab or brooding over a dissertation chapter to gather with friends and popcorn and have a med-school-class viewing of "Grey's Anatomy," a respite in which to fantasize about the days to come, sure to be filled with sex and heartache and, most importantly, salaries large enough to actually pay off student loans. But at the very least, a PhD-holder has the moral high ground, unequivocally, to call herself "doctor," every bit as much as, if not more than, a medical doctor, without being presumed insecure or pompous. Certainly all kinds of doctors can abuse their title and its attendant status and distinction; but the idea that only a medical doctorate deserves the option of distinction in certain situations is an insult, and should be taken as such. PhD-holders achieve a level of distinction and qualification well beyond that of BA- or MA- holders, for example, if not MD holders as well. Accordingly, PhD-holders should be expected to censor their accomplishments or to go by Mrs./Ms./Mr. no more than our ordinary holders of medical doctorates. If that's offensive to you, PMB suggests you make an appointment with your local academic historian (who, perhaps, may refer you to a specialist in the history or sociology of academic titles); they will likely have the cure for your ailment, probably for an alarmingly cheap fee.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
More Arrogant: Americans or Scientists?
As PMB collates in his fearsome paper head a few unprompted comments from scientists on science over the past couple of weeks, there can be little doubt that for some people, science is a cult idol. Rarely has a contingent been so arrogant about its primacy and potential.
Perhaps the most empirical observation we can make, present all around us, is that humans are terrible scientists. So easily fooled by optical illusions, differing vantage points, constant misapprehensions, and a sheer inability to apply rationality in our daily decision-making, we employ machines to count, measure, and process all that we cannot. Thank the Science Gods for science, which enables us to render scientific and explain scientifically all of that which we are not and do not understand scientifically. Thank the Science Gods for the Great Intelligent Design of Science, Science being perhaps the greatest artist--and PMB says this without irony--in the history of the world.
Science, like art, is a perfect self-sealing argument: defined scientifically through the scientific process, everything that can be crammed into this artificial framework can be churned out with a scientific explanation. Defined subjectively and contextually, everything that can be framed under the banner of art can be explained artistically. The difference between empirical truth and experienced truth is vast, though the presumed primacy of the former is as much a construct as the latter, and brings us no closer to an objective Truth, despite its claims of 'little objectivities' and its strategic essentialisms. The idea of science as the all-powerful and all-encompassing, general mode of progress and discovery, is crude and shortsighted, and ought not to be tolerated. From a hapless poet, William Blake, "Jerusalem":
Perhaps the most empirical observation we can make, present all around us, is that humans are terrible scientists. So easily fooled by optical illusions, differing vantage points, constant misapprehensions, and a sheer inability to apply rationality in our daily decision-making, we employ machines to count, measure, and process all that we cannot. Thank the Science Gods for science, which enables us to render scientific and explain scientifically all of that which we are not and do not understand scientifically. Thank the Science Gods for the Great Intelligent Design of Science, Science being perhaps the greatest artist--and PMB says this without irony--in the history of the world.
Science, like art, is a perfect self-sealing argument: defined scientifically through the scientific process, everything that can be crammed into this artificial framework can be churned out with a scientific explanation. Defined subjectively and contextually, everything that can be framed under the banner of art can be explained artistically. The difference between empirical truth and experienced truth is vast, though the presumed primacy of the former is as much a construct as the latter, and brings us no closer to an objective Truth, despite its claims of 'little objectivities' and its strategic essentialisms. The idea of science as the all-powerful and all-encompassing, general mode of progress and discovery, is crude and shortsighted, and ought not to be tolerated. From a hapless poet, William Blake, "Jerusalem":
They Plow'd in tears, the trumpets sounded before the golden Plow
And the voices of the Living Creatures were heard in the clouds of heaven
Crying; Compell the Reasoner to Demonstrate with unhewn Demonstrations
Let the Indefinite be explored. and let every Man be judged
By his own Works, Let all Indefinites be thrown into Demonstrations
To be pounded to dust & melted in the Furnaces of Affliction:
He who would do good to another, must do it in Minute Particulars
General Good is the plea of the scoundrel hypocrite & flatterer:
For Art & Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars
And not in generalizing Demonstrations of the Rational Power,
The Infinite alone resides in Definite & Determinate Identity
Establishment of Truth depends on destruction of Falshood continually
On Circumcision: not on Virginity, O Reasoners of Albion
Saturday, May 15, 2010
The Case Against Conservatism, Made Simple
There exists a long history of authoritarian disaster on the Left, which is rather easily pointed out: where communism reached its extremes in Leninism and Stalinism, for example, we saw the devastating potential of unchecked tendencies toward authoritarianism by way of a Leftist political agenda. What enabled these despotic regimes was fundamentally *not* any particular Marxist or collectivist ideology, but rather an interpretation of these ideologies that favors autocratic government and fears pluralism. In other words, a truly free and pluralist society has room for ideologues like Lenin and Stalin, but ultimately treads toward its own murderous decline when it finds ways to enshrine absolute power in the hands of ideologues instead of merely tolerating them and their political voices within the stable framework of a pluralist and rights-based democratic society. In this vein, for example, America tolerates the unsightly public demonstrations of neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan sheetheads, and does so admirably, its tolerance of even the most abominable speech positions being altogether very different from a (de facto, as it were) ratification of these extreme positions. This is how great pluralist societies work: instead of martyring the fringe, they protect the right of fringe expression and co-opt it into a broader and more sensible political discourse.
That said, here's the beginning of the case against today's American conservatism: whether conservatives like it or not, America is and has always been a pluralist nation par excellence. The greatness of America does not and has never come from any particular 'American' ideology or way of life, but rather through America's impeccable ability to accommodate a daunting range of ethnic, cultural, religious, and political difference under a series of very big tents, doing so by ensuring a set of inalienable rights and shunning authoritarianism. Today's conservatives, however, are committed to a very different narrative of America, a narrative that betrays our characteristic pluralism, our national lifeblood. For conservatives, America's success stems from America as a Christian nation with a free-market economy, a particular set of family values, a way of educating in the great Western European tradition, and particular versions of individualism and self-determinism that sanctify the pursuit of wealth for its own sake. The case against conservatism, however, is not an argument that any of these aspects of the conservative American narrative are wrong, but that the assumed primacy of these aspects of the conservative American narrative is wrong. These aspects--the conservative brand of individualism, the relatively unregulated markets, etc.--are not prime, but derivative, the *results* of a rights-based pluralism that enables some Americans to envision their country in this way, while others can see it differently.
What PMB is getting at, then, is that when conservatives mistake some of the fruits of America's great pluralism and tolerance as the prime American narrative itself--the source of American greatness--they risk establishing a rather narrow, singular version of what America is or ought to be, and consequently they move to defend that singular version at all costs. We see this daily in conservative politics, including, but not limited to, the following examples:
1) The abandonment of the basic right of protection against cruel and unusual punishment in advocating for the torturing of 'enemy combatants,' even when such enemy combatants are American citizens, in order to obtain intelligence (even if this tactic is proven not to work, the point is that the conservative position here is to abandon a fundamental right by making an exception for certain 'special' security cases).
2) The abandonment of basic due process rights (via Miranda) for people suspected of terrorist activity.
3) The threat to remove the American citizenship, through the Department of State, without due process and without conviction, of anyone suspected of cooperating loosely with a government-defined and identified terrorist cell.
4) The abandonment of due process rights and the stopping of people on the street in Arizona based on 'reasonable suspicion' of illegal immigration status (appearance).
5) National prayer days
6) The governments in Texas and Arizona intervening into the substantive material being taught in schools by banning (in AZ) ethnic studies curricula and removing (in TX) Thomas Jefferson, who believed strongly in the separation of church and state, from history of the enlightenment curricula.
7) Assertions that any Americans or American politicians who favor any degree of social welfare provisions are anti-American or 'ruining America.'
8) Assertions that any semblance of government regulation in financial markets, political lobbying, or monopolistic or duopolistic markets is anti-American or 'ruining America.'
9) Assertions that certain Americans living in certain American regions are 'real Americans,' and the 'heartland' is the 'real America.'
In sum, these positions advocate strongly for a singular view of America and Americanness, as opposed to a pluralist America in which ideological difference is not wielded as a threat of exclusion, expulsion, or treasonous hostility.
The case against conservatism, then, is that it's anti-pluralist. The conservative agenda isn't in favor of big or small government, regulated or unregulated markets, personal freedoms or authoritarian measures. It moves back and forth on each of these issues in order to defend, by any ideological means necessary, a singular conservative understanding of what America is and is all about. Even if the professed conservative positions on these issues--small governments, unregulated markets, individual freedom--are ultimately correct, it is incumbent upon all Americans to reject the totality with which these positions are assumed and advanced, for the sake of the true lifeblood of this nation: our pluralism, tolerance, and INALIENABLE rights, all of which can be compromised UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES.
That said, here's the beginning of the case against today's American conservatism: whether conservatives like it or not, America is and has always been a pluralist nation par excellence. The greatness of America does not and has never come from any particular 'American' ideology or way of life, but rather through America's impeccable ability to accommodate a daunting range of ethnic, cultural, religious, and political difference under a series of very big tents, doing so by ensuring a set of inalienable rights and shunning authoritarianism. Today's conservatives, however, are committed to a very different narrative of America, a narrative that betrays our characteristic pluralism, our national lifeblood. For conservatives, America's success stems from America as a Christian nation with a free-market economy, a particular set of family values, a way of educating in the great Western European tradition, and particular versions of individualism and self-determinism that sanctify the pursuit of wealth for its own sake. The case against conservatism, however, is not an argument that any of these aspects of the conservative American narrative are wrong, but that the assumed primacy of these aspects of the conservative American narrative is wrong. These aspects--the conservative brand of individualism, the relatively unregulated markets, etc.--are not prime, but derivative, the *results* of a rights-based pluralism that enables some Americans to envision their country in this way, while others can see it differently.
What PMB is getting at, then, is that when conservatives mistake some of the fruits of America's great pluralism and tolerance as the prime American narrative itself--the source of American greatness--they risk establishing a rather narrow, singular version of what America is or ought to be, and consequently they move to defend that singular version at all costs. We see this daily in conservative politics, including, but not limited to, the following examples:
1) The abandonment of the basic right of protection against cruel and unusual punishment in advocating for the torturing of 'enemy combatants,' even when such enemy combatants are American citizens, in order to obtain intelligence (even if this tactic is proven not to work, the point is that the conservative position here is to abandon a fundamental right by making an exception for certain 'special' security cases).
2) The abandonment of basic due process rights (via Miranda) for people suspected of terrorist activity.
3) The threat to remove the American citizenship, through the Department of State, without due process and without conviction, of anyone suspected of cooperating loosely with a government-defined and identified terrorist cell.
4) The abandonment of due process rights and the stopping of people on the street in Arizona based on 'reasonable suspicion' of illegal immigration status (appearance).
5) National prayer days
6) The governments in Texas and Arizona intervening into the substantive material being taught in schools by banning (in AZ) ethnic studies curricula and removing (in TX) Thomas Jefferson, who believed strongly in the separation of church and state, from history of the enlightenment curricula.
7) Assertions that any Americans or American politicians who favor any degree of social welfare provisions are anti-American or 'ruining America.'
8) Assertions that any semblance of government regulation in financial markets, political lobbying, or monopolistic or duopolistic markets is anti-American or 'ruining America.'
9) Assertions that certain Americans living in certain American regions are 'real Americans,' and the 'heartland' is the 'real America.'
In sum, these positions advocate strongly for a singular view of America and Americanness, as opposed to a pluralist America in which ideological difference is not wielded as a threat of exclusion, expulsion, or treasonous hostility.
The case against conservatism, then, is that it's anti-pluralist. The conservative agenda isn't in favor of big or small government, regulated or unregulated markets, personal freedoms or authoritarian measures. It moves back and forth on each of these issues in order to defend, by any ideological means necessary, a singular conservative understanding of what America is and is all about. Even if the professed conservative positions on these issues--small governments, unregulated markets, individual freedom--are ultimately correct, it is incumbent upon all Americans to reject the totality with which these positions are assumed and advanced, for the sake of the true lifeblood of this nation: our pluralism, tolerance, and INALIENABLE rights, all of which can be compromised UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
More on Arizona, Union's New Worst State
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and her state legislature may have one-upped Texas governor and Texas secessionist Rick Perry's general puerility by dealing the unfortunate residents of the (not so) Grand Canyon State two consecutive and particularly egregious blows. As if Arizona's new anti-immigration law, which the governor tells us will not amount to racial profiling, weren't enough on its own to reflect the racial and ethnic fears and intolerances of a vociferous bloc of Arizona residents, now comes a new bill prohibiting the teaching of ethnic studies courses in public high schools.
Brewer and head of State schools Tom Home argue that ethnic studies courses cause racial hatred and resentment, and teach non-white, predominately Mexican-American students to hate white people. On this basis they will abolish these courses.
PMB doesn't intend for this post to be a thorough discussion of the merits and problems of ethnic studies curricula, as such a discussion would be both longer and more complicated than he has time for at the moment. PMB will say, however, that though ethnic studies courses, taught in certain ways and with certain objectives, can certainly result in race-based resentment, there are two relevant counterpoints:
1) As with teaching virtually any body of knowledge, there are counterproductive ways to proceed and there are productive and laudable ways to proceed. Simply because course material is about a particular ethnic group, its history, literatures, languages, etc., doesn't mean that teaching such material amounts to racial or ethnic favoritism, or an unproductive mode of 'solidarity-promotion,' as the proponents of this law fear. This material can be and in fact is taught responsibly and productively, and has been for a long time. Simply arguing, as the governor and her henchman do, that anything ethnic-studies related is by definition inflammatory because it concerns ethnicity-based knowledge is ludicrous. Not to state the obvious (but sometimes one has to when dealing with ignorant politicians), but the VAST MAJORITY of history, literature, etc., taught in US schools is already refracted through a white, Anglo-European ethnic lens. This makes sense, of course, given the history of the country. But we wouldn't dare argue that the teaching of Shakespeare or Milton or Rousseau over Borges or Garcia Marquez risks rousing a dangerous and disruptive white solidarity. When educating young Mexican-Americans in Arizona, however, certainly allowing them to identify ethnically with some Mexican or Mexican-American writers or histories alongside the rest of the standard Eurocentric curriculum isn't exactly a militant exercise aimed at causing hatred of white people.
2) We must be careful not to confuse transmission of knowledge with advocating ethnic or racial separatism. Tom Home compares the ethnic studies courses to the Old South; but this is like saying that one who teaches or learns about slavery is also advocating for it. Of course that's ridiculous. Categorizing knowledge along ethnic or cultural or linguistic lines, as we often do (you wouldn't accuse your Spanish teacher of being anti-English-language or anti-American for teaching you Spanish, would you?) reflects a tendency to heuristically separate histories and knowledge fields in a certain way, and not a tendency to ratify the separation of actual people in such a way.
PMB is skeptical, further, that these courses are really having the extreme effects on race relations that proponents of the new bill suggest (this is in part due to a lack of trust in people who invoke slavery and segregation in comparisons with teaching Mexican-American kids about their ethnic heritage, no less in school districts that are about half Mexican-American, demographically).
But the issue to trump all other issues here, I think, has less to do with concerns about ethnic studies and more to do with the relationship between the state (and the state legislature) and the education of children, even in public schools.
Even in public schools, ignorant politicians have no business censoring school curricula until they've thoroughly understood the curriculum and the materials they aim to censor. And even then, one would have to cross a lot of lines to shut down courses that teach kids about their own cultural heritage. PMB is not convinced, in this case, that any of these people know anything about ethnic studies and/or Mexican-American literatures, histories, or cultures. This is transparently a political intervention into the sphere of education, a sphere not at all immune from both internal and external politics, but vastly more knowledgeable and competent when it comes to sorting out its own political, pedagogical, and curricular conundrums. This situation, in which a state head of schools has apparently forgotten, if he ever knew, the value of a broad education, is like a distorted mirror image of the situation in higher education, in which many of those running the administrative show are demonstrating utter cluelessness about what actually goes on in the classroom, how, and why.
Brewer and head of State schools Tom Home argue that ethnic studies courses cause racial hatred and resentment, and teach non-white, predominately Mexican-American students to hate white people. On this basis they will abolish these courses.
PMB doesn't intend for this post to be a thorough discussion of the merits and problems of ethnic studies curricula, as such a discussion would be both longer and more complicated than he has time for at the moment. PMB will say, however, that though ethnic studies courses, taught in certain ways and with certain objectives, can certainly result in race-based resentment, there are two relevant counterpoints:
1) As with teaching virtually any body of knowledge, there are counterproductive ways to proceed and there are productive and laudable ways to proceed. Simply because course material is about a particular ethnic group, its history, literatures, languages, etc., doesn't mean that teaching such material amounts to racial or ethnic favoritism, or an unproductive mode of 'solidarity-promotion,' as the proponents of this law fear. This material can be and in fact is taught responsibly and productively, and has been for a long time. Simply arguing, as the governor and her henchman do, that anything ethnic-studies related is by definition inflammatory because it concerns ethnicity-based knowledge is ludicrous. Not to state the obvious (but sometimes one has to when dealing with ignorant politicians), but the VAST MAJORITY of history, literature, etc., taught in US schools is already refracted through a white, Anglo-European ethnic lens. This makes sense, of course, given the history of the country. But we wouldn't dare argue that the teaching of Shakespeare or Milton or Rousseau over Borges or Garcia Marquez risks rousing a dangerous and disruptive white solidarity. When educating young Mexican-Americans in Arizona, however, certainly allowing them to identify ethnically with some Mexican or Mexican-American writers or histories alongside the rest of the standard Eurocentric curriculum isn't exactly a militant exercise aimed at causing hatred of white people.
2) We must be careful not to confuse transmission of knowledge with advocating ethnic or racial separatism. Tom Home compares the ethnic studies courses to the Old South; but this is like saying that one who teaches or learns about slavery is also advocating for it. Of course that's ridiculous. Categorizing knowledge along ethnic or cultural or linguistic lines, as we often do (you wouldn't accuse your Spanish teacher of being anti-English-language or anti-American for teaching you Spanish, would you?) reflects a tendency to heuristically separate histories and knowledge fields in a certain way, and not a tendency to ratify the separation of actual people in such a way.
PMB is skeptical, further, that these courses are really having the extreme effects on race relations that proponents of the new bill suggest (this is in part due to a lack of trust in people who invoke slavery and segregation in comparisons with teaching Mexican-American kids about their ethnic heritage, no less in school districts that are about half Mexican-American, demographically).
But the issue to trump all other issues here, I think, has less to do with concerns about ethnic studies and more to do with the relationship between the state (and the state legislature) and the education of children, even in public schools.
Even in public schools, ignorant politicians have no business censoring school curricula until they've thoroughly understood the curriculum and the materials they aim to censor. And even then, one would have to cross a lot of lines to shut down courses that teach kids about their own cultural heritage. PMB is not convinced, in this case, that any of these people know anything about ethnic studies and/or Mexican-American literatures, histories, or cultures. This is transparently a political intervention into the sphere of education, a sphere not at all immune from both internal and external politics, but vastly more knowledgeable and competent when it comes to sorting out its own political, pedagogical, and curricular conundrums. This situation, in which a state head of schools has apparently forgotten, if he ever knew, the value of a broad education, is like a distorted mirror image of the situation in higher education, in which many of those running the administrative show are demonstrating utter cluelessness about what actually goes on in the classroom, how, and why.
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