PicoBlog

Months ago, I ran out of things to say about the “woke wars,” and I made a conscious effort to stop writing about the issue. With this post, I am backsliding. My readers already know what I think. So although another post might give them a dose of good feelings, it is not going to affect anything. But here goes.

My thoughts on the Harvard President situation are expressed clearly and concisely by John Cochrane.

Harvard faces a historic choice: Is its main mission advocacy for, advancement of, and indoctrination in a particular political and ideological cause, going by names such as “woke,” “social justice” “critical theory” and “diversity equity and inclusion” (a chillingly Orwellian name since it is exactly the opposite)? Or is its main mission the search for objective truth, via excellence, meritocracy, free inquiry, free speech, and critical discussion, bounded by classical norms of argument by logic and evidence; and to advance and pass on that way of thinking? Even though yes, most of those ideas originated from dead white men whose societies had, in retrospect, some unpleasant characteristics? And to get there, given the BS spreading like cancer and the political and ideological monoculture that pervades the university, it needs a top to bottom cleanup.

…Gay is exactly what Harvard wanted, and a look-alike is exactly what it will get unless it wants something different.

The litmus test is what one thinks Claudine Gray represents. For some, she represents only one person. Maybe Harvard slipped up a bit in hiring her as President, but otherwise it is fine. Or maybe she only has enemies on the right, and she is a martyr.

Cochrane and I (and others of our age and outlook) think that she represents nearly everything that has gone wrong with higher education. In the choices he lays out in the first paragraph quoted above, universities are choosing the first mission over the second. This is a top-to-bottom issue. It reflects the preferences of many of the faculty (although by no means all) and the preferences of many in the current generation of students. If there is a battle for the heart and soul of higher education, the forces of social justice activism are winning—arguably, they have completely won.

From our point of view, firing Gray would solve nothing. If anything, it would probably relieve the pressure for real reform in higher education. Instead, what might work would be something like a multi-institution blue-ribbon commission to get higher education to re-commit to the values in Cochrane’s second mission. But I don’t think that such a commission could get enough buy-in to make a difference.

I think we need some fundamental realignment of status. That is what the Network-based University idea is aimed at. That is what the Fantasy Intellectual Teams idea was aimed at. That is what the essay grader is aimed at.

Speaking of the essay grader, a lot of its emphasis is on engaging with opposing points of view. I have not engaged with the point of view that the mission of higher education should focus on social justice. So this essay does not deserve a good grade.

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