Few times has PMB been so embarrassed for his country as now, in light of the rigorous and misguided opposition to plans to build a mosque and Islamic community center near Ground Zero in New York City.
Those in opposition to the building plans are claiming that a mosque and Islamic center built near Ground Zero would be an affront to the victims of 9-11, a breach of the sanctity of the tragic site, and would signify capitulation to proponents of radical Islam.
Few on either side of the issue would openly admit that they can identify no difference between what is called 'radical Islam,' 'Islamofacism,' 'Al-Quaidaism,' 'Islamic terrorism,' etc. and the peaceful, 'mainstream' practice of Islam in places all over the world, including New York. Most reasonable people would consider the simple equation of the practice of Islam with terrorism a straightforwardly bigoted attitude. Nonetheless, the rapid and unthinking and direct association of Islam in general, by way of the image of the mosque, and the radical Islamic terrorism of 9-11, underpins the entirety of the position against building a mosque and Islamic community center near Ground Zero. If the simple ontological status 'Muslim' is rendered equivalent to 'terrorism,' our attitude problem at home is as potentially threatening to the American way of life as is any danger abroad.
One could argue that even the mere evocation of anything loosely 'Muslim' is offensive at Ground Zero, given what's happened there, even if there is no explicit or admitted equivalency being produced between Muslim Americans in New York and 9-11 terrorists. But as long as we indulge that paranoia, we again threaten to undermine some of the very basic freedoms that make America what it is.
The building of a mosque and Islamic community center near Ground Zero would be the ultimate symbol of American endurance, the ultimate sign of America prevailing over terrorism, and the ultimate slap in the face to radical Islamic terrorist groups who would like nothing more than for Americans to turn against our own pluralist values and become the monster they portray us as.
When terrorist struck down the twin towers on 9-11, they thought they had struck at the symbolic heart of America, the pillars of America as world financial center. Little did they know that America is best exemplified by its pluralism, tolerance, and polyvocality: by the faces you can still see climbing on and off the World Trade Center Subway stop and walking along Wall St. and Vesey St. where the towers used to be. Erecting a mosque and whatever else serves the community there would demonstrate that America is still the diverse and tolerant community that's made it great. PMB can think of few things that would constitute sweeter poetic justice than the building of a mosque and Islamic community center near Ground Zero.
The ultimate shame, however, is the politicizing by people who have nothing to do with New York, on a national level, of these building plans, along with the childish fear and unenlightened contempt exhibited by those opposed. To raise a political fuss over the wholly legal and appropriate building of the planned Islamic community facilities in their planned location is to take a hack at the most important pillar that Americans ever built: the pluralist tradition.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Research for Research's Sake?
In a July 13, 2010 Guardian article, Malcolm Grant, provost of University College London, is quoted arguing that imminent government cuts to higher education should be directed at closing down lesser universities altogether, if need be, rather than reducing budgets at elite research universities. Grant's rationale, which in many ways makes sense, is that while top-flight UK research universities make the UK a top competitor in the global research biz, and "research" writ large is a rather important biz in which to be a leader, many of the UK's teaching-oriented, non-research, or semi-research universities underperform in their primary task of teaching, and do little to produce world-leading research. Grant's fear is that by taking research funding and resources away from top research universities, the UK government will render the UK's top research universities less competitive, all while reducing the potential for practically beneficial research. Much of the force of Grant's argument, which is foremost a very public appeal for the people who vote and pay taxes to side with him, UCL, and places like it when the government decides to bring down the funding hatchet, can be summed up in these remarks, quoted from the article, with Grant's quotes quoted within:
"Such a move [to cut research funding] could 'decimate Britain's global competitiveness in research', Grant told the Guardian, arguing that there is a 'direct human benefit' in areas such as cancer and Parkinson's disease from research-intensive universities."
As universities all over the world are facing the possibility, if not the certainty, of budget cuts, whether from government or from their own trustees and administrators, the kind of thinking Grant espouses comes up frequently. Typical are calls to validate everything that universities do according to some immediate demonstration of "direct human benefit," as though the only things that have "direct human benefit" are things that can also be easily quantified on a balance sheet and/or explained concisely and convincingly to a shareholder-type with an attention span rivaling that of a moth. The logical conclusion of such thinking is that the primary purpose of a university--and hence the primary activities for which it is or ought to be funded--is research. "Research." "Research," from the expensive chemical analysis of belly-button lint to the sequencing of the human genome. All that need be uttered to win over the holder of the purse strings in the eyes of so many is "research" (excluding, naturally, nonscientific research--even if you successfully pass this off as "research," they'll eventually catch you at the "payoff" or "takeaway" stages of the "direct human benefit" assessment, when you ramble on for more than thirty seconds about your "research").
Now is a good time to turn to Princeton philosopher Peter Singer, who had this to say in Animal Liberation, his seminal discussion of the inclusion of animals within our ethical spheres (which, naturally, touches on the use of animals for scientific research):
"In addition to the general attitude of speciesism that experimenters share with other citizens, some special factors also help to make possible some of the experiments I have described. Foremost among these is the immense respect that people sill have for scientists."
Now PMB should inform you that the types of experiments Singer is writing about here are not only, as one might guess from his broader topic, experiments on animals, but also experiments with humans that demonstrate our general willingness to put "science" and "research" ahead of ethics or rationality. Singer gives as an example of this "immense respect that people still have for scientists" a well-known Harvard study in which people who were told to "punish" fellow humans with electric shocks (in the name of "research") would follow the order when it was given by people in white lab coats, continuing to do as the lab-coated "scientist" recommends even as the human writhes and shouts in pain in full view (it should be noted that the person "being shocked" was only acting according to the "shocker's" administration of "shocks," and wasn't being shocked or tortured for real).
The rational and probably non-sadistic person in the Harvard experiment shocking the hell out of a human subject under the direction of a white-coated scientist is a phenomenal metaphor for much of our decision making in higher education. Whatever you think about Singer's ethical position with respect to animals, his anecdote provides significant insight into the flawed logic and the prejudices that affect so much of this decision-making. Research Almighty is almost always granted top priority in the value chain as "directly beneficial" to our lives, despite prominent research findings that suggest, among other things, that by the late 20th century, the vast minority (generously 3.5-5%) of improvements in population mortality could be attributed to medical intervention (versus environmental factors) (Singer's book, to some extent outdated, cites Thomas McKeown's The Role of Medicine, 1976, and the J.B. and S.M. McKinlay study "Trends in Death and Disease and the Contribution of Medical Measures," 1988). We might then begin to talk about what kinds of research (or non-research practices) best improve quality of life; but then we're starting to move into the realm of things that, like a discussion of the value of Chaucer, might take up a bit more time than the shareholders have to listen.
None of this is to say that research shouldn't be a priority, or that research is valueless. Of course one living in this world would have to be blind to much of their own reality to assert such a thing. Nonetheless, research of no kind should ever get the free pass that much of it does, much less be bandied about as a panacea and a monolithic concept all wrapped into one, then splashed over the headlines as an argument to de-fund and de-emphasize teaching in higher education, and in so doing to slash opportunities for a broader range of willing and eager students to gain access to higher education. The simple utterance of the word "research" a few times in an argument is hardly enough to settle debates about the purpose of higher education. Likewise, this word is not enough to cloud the astute reader's rather vivid impression of the innumerable ways and instances, from cancer research with the noblest intentions to animal testing for consumer cosmetics, in which "studies" and "research" produce nothing but a line item on someone's CV, plus negative externalities ranging from large-scale pain, suffering, and death to inconceivable wastes of money.
"Such a move [to cut research funding] could 'decimate Britain's global competitiveness in research', Grant told the Guardian, arguing that there is a 'direct human benefit' in areas such as cancer and Parkinson's disease from research-intensive universities."
As universities all over the world are facing the possibility, if not the certainty, of budget cuts, whether from government or from their own trustees and administrators, the kind of thinking Grant espouses comes up frequently. Typical are calls to validate everything that universities do according to some immediate demonstration of "direct human benefit," as though the only things that have "direct human benefit" are things that can also be easily quantified on a balance sheet and/or explained concisely and convincingly to a shareholder-type with an attention span rivaling that of a moth. The logical conclusion of such thinking is that the primary purpose of a university--and hence the primary activities for which it is or ought to be funded--is research. "Research." "Research," from the expensive chemical analysis of belly-button lint to the sequencing of the human genome. All that need be uttered to win over the holder of the purse strings in the eyes of so many is "research" (excluding, naturally, nonscientific research--even if you successfully pass this off as "research," they'll eventually catch you at the "payoff" or "takeaway" stages of the "direct human benefit" assessment, when you ramble on for more than thirty seconds about your "research").
Now is a good time to turn to Princeton philosopher Peter Singer, who had this to say in Animal Liberation, his seminal discussion of the inclusion of animals within our ethical spheres (which, naturally, touches on the use of animals for scientific research):
"In addition to the general attitude of speciesism that experimenters share with other citizens, some special factors also help to make possible some of the experiments I have described. Foremost among these is the immense respect that people sill have for scientists."
Now PMB should inform you that the types of experiments Singer is writing about here are not only, as one might guess from his broader topic, experiments on animals, but also experiments with humans that demonstrate our general willingness to put "science" and "research" ahead of ethics or rationality. Singer gives as an example of this "immense respect that people still have for scientists" a well-known Harvard study in which people who were told to "punish" fellow humans with electric shocks (in the name of "research") would follow the order when it was given by people in white lab coats, continuing to do as the lab-coated "scientist" recommends even as the human writhes and shouts in pain in full view (it should be noted that the person "being shocked" was only acting according to the "shocker's" administration of "shocks," and wasn't being shocked or tortured for real).
The rational and probably non-sadistic person in the Harvard experiment shocking the hell out of a human subject under the direction of a white-coated scientist is a phenomenal metaphor for much of our decision making in higher education. Whatever you think about Singer's ethical position with respect to animals, his anecdote provides significant insight into the flawed logic and the prejudices that affect so much of this decision-making. Research Almighty is almost always granted top priority in the value chain as "directly beneficial" to our lives, despite prominent research findings that suggest, among other things, that by the late 20th century, the vast minority (generously 3.5-5%) of improvements in population mortality could be attributed to medical intervention (versus environmental factors) (Singer's book, to some extent outdated, cites Thomas McKeown's The Role of Medicine, 1976, and the J.B. and S.M. McKinlay study "Trends in Death and Disease and the Contribution of Medical Measures," 1988). We might then begin to talk about what kinds of research (or non-research practices) best improve quality of life; but then we're starting to move into the realm of things that, like a discussion of the value of Chaucer, might take up a bit more time than the shareholders have to listen.
None of this is to say that research shouldn't be a priority, or that research is valueless. Of course one living in this world would have to be blind to much of their own reality to assert such a thing. Nonetheless, research of no kind should ever get the free pass that much of it does, much less be bandied about as a panacea and a monolithic concept all wrapped into one, then splashed over the headlines as an argument to de-fund and de-emphasize teaching in higher education, and in so doing to slash opportunities for a broader range of willing and eager students to gain access to higher education. The simple utterance of the word "research" a few times in an argument is hardly enough to settle debates about the purpose of higher education. Likewise, this word is not enough to cloud the astute reader's rather vivid impression of the innumerable ways and instances, from cancer research with the noblest intentions to animal testing for consumer cosmetics, in which "studies" and "research" produce nothing but a line item on someone's CV, plus negative externalities ranging from large-scale pain, suffering, and death to inconceivable wastes of money.
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