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Contents Introduction 1. On Jaytalking 1 2. The Media is the Censor 24 3 Sports and the Dumbing Down of America 37 4. Education 45 5. The Professors 78 6. The Sense of Entitlement 97 7 Marketing, Actors, Anchors, CEOs 108 8. Economics as a Symptom of Sadism 153 9. Lawyers and Congress 194 10. Justice as Fairness 204 INTRODUCTION I n some countries the government exercises censorship. In this country it is the media (TV, magazines, journals, and newspapers) and the university. By censorship I do not mean blacking out some passage in a letter or book, concealing a CIA secret, or covering up a government experiment. I mean censorship of economic, political and social issues, censorship of discussion of income disparity, and censorship of the viewpoint that putting a ball in a basket is a trivial skill. If Sammy Sosa hits a home run, that means he hit a ball hard with a bat. So what? But there would be no more chance of getting that view expressed in the media than there would be of criticizing Saddam Hussein on Iraqi TV when he was in power. The media slugs people senseless from childhood on by indoctrinating people to idolize teams and athletes, actors and actresses, singers and songwriters, and there is no countervailing view ever expressed. Censorship stunts the cognitive capabilities people need for their lives in a democratic society. To evaluate public policy and candidates for office, sometimes to make personal decisions, people must have information and an ability to engage in rational, differentiated thinking. People need nurturance of their thinking to do this. Human cognitive capability is overestimated because humans have language. However, thinking often does not function well without nurturance and stimulation. People may not think of censorship in the media perhaps because they don't think of issues that can't be expressed in the media. It does seem plausible, though, that the media is concerned with being politically correct and with not offending its sponsors, the audience, or any special interest group. The media is also concerned with not threatening the prestige or the income of its own. For example, Tom Brokaw had a segment on the "Fleecing of America," but he would not discuss the question of whether his own $7.5 million dollar salary (probably more now) also fleeces America. He would not discuss the income of any news anchor, actor, or CEO, or comment on the issue of income distribution at all. The issues that are censored in the media will become apparent in later chapters. Censorship in the university may seem quite at odds with the image of an institution of higher learning. Professors, especially tenured ones, can write on almost everything and do write books and papers which might seem quite controversial or sometimes counterculture. The reason, though, people don't think of censorship in the university is that they don't think about students, especially graduate students. The university is like something under a rock. Graduate faculty may have paternal thoughts about students or more likely they may think of students as a necessary inconvenience, as people to dominate and impress, as a rabble, or as not yet formed and of no standing. Perhaps students are thought of as being like a manikin in a science fiction movie, a manikin that is spun around and around on a circular platform until it becomes a predetermined, programmed man, except the students may be viewed as a threat and potential competition, so the graduate faculty members may not want them to become men. The more that get through the less elite is the degree. Or perhaps it is more like pseudo-speciation in which a member of the same species is viewed as though he were a member of a different species. All these attitudes are not constructive or intelligent ways to relate to graduate students. Intelligence is a variable in behavior too. But I think the public does not think of graduate students at all. I can imagine someone saying incredulously, "Do you mean all professors are like that?" He thinks if he can catch me generalizing, he can one up me and be somebody. I would say the attitude I described is fairly typical and whether it is characteristic of all is quite irrelevant. When in this book I cite a disagreement with the view of a professor, I will often say it would be risky for a student to question a professor's cherished beliefs in class or in a written assignment. Well, aren't universities ivory towers where people seek the truth? I am afraid not, at least not in the humanities and social sciences. Graduate faculty members are often petty tyrants, not necessarily very intelligent, very invested in their viewpoints, and easily threatened. They do not like to be questioned or challenged. They have absolute power that can be arbitrarily exercised. The basis of this power is the license to evaluate students subjectively through term papers, essay exams, master's papers, and doctoral dissertations. There is an alternative, and I don't mean lowering standards. Even though there may be benign instructors, I have never seen a graduate faculty member I would take the chance of questioning, if the question might be interpreted as a challenge. Questioning another student with a faculty member present also just isn't done. It might make him look inadequate and the question might antagonize the instructor. Education is severely limited by these constraints. The instructor doesn't encounter views which conflict with his own, or of which he had not conceived, and neither do other students. That means discussion can't take place, issues can't be explored, and there is no forum. Millions of students are in universities, and there is no forum. Universities from the point of view of graduate students are the most totalitarian institutions in this country. Consider that the student's chance of entering a profession and, in a sense, his whole life depends on the graduate degree. He won't take a risk. Who would? That must be obvious but never stated, never faced. Students who have gone through graduate programs are aware to a degree of the pressure for conformity but accept it. It's the system. Some students are really indifferent to the viewpoint of any teacher or reading . They just want a degree. Perhaps for them it is easiest. So I will write about censorship in the media and in universities. I will document the censorship in the universities by some telling examples. By the way, I said some instructors, actually many or most, are not necessarily very intelligent. In his book, The Double Helix (1968, p. 14) Watson, who with Crick received the Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of the DNA molecule, mentions the resistance of some scientists to the evidence that genes are composed of DNA. He states: Of course there were scientists who thought the evidence favoring DNA was inconclu-sive and preferred to believe that genes were protein molecules. Francis (Crick), how-ever, did not worry about these skeptics. Many were cantankerous fools who unfailingly backed the wrong horses. One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull but also just stupid. But how can it be that a person with a Ph.D., and perhaps a graduate faculty member, is not very intelligent? This conflicts with what people think. But "think" is an ambiguous term. When I say it conflicts with what people think, that could mean an opinion they would have about it. But "opinion" doesn't necessarily mean they ever encountered, had information about, reflected about, or discussed graduate faculty. It doesn't mean they had the capability, objectivity, or motivation to think beyond the image. In a Pink Panther movie, the bumbling Inspector Clouseau allows a robbery to take place right under his nose. The lookout poses as a blind man and Clouseau is completely taken in. Later the Chief Inspector berates him for being so naïve. Clouseau says, "How can blind man see?" The Chief Inspector says, "How can an idiot be a policeman?" Clouseau infuriates the inspector by taking the question literally. He says, "He just makes an application and ...." Then, the chief inspector cuts him off. So how can a person not so intelligent get a Ph.D. and become a professor? Well, he just takes classes and writes papers by summarizing articles and keeps the commentary and analysis to a minimum and in accordance with accepted views in the field. And most of all he impresses someone else who also may not be especially intelligent. What about the famous doctoral dissertation? I give out a list of experiments to my classes to help them understand an experiment. The experiments are very simple One on the list is an experiment in which a researcher wants to find the relationship between hunger and aggression in cats. He puts a group of cats on 80% of normal body weight and then observes their aggressiveness. All the experiments on the list have a flaw for the students to find. This one has no control group. That is, it does not have a group of cats not made hungry, so then it would not be possible to determine if the aggression could be attributed to the hunger. The cats might have been aggressive anyway. A dissertation is supposed to be an original study. If this experiment had never been done before it would be original. Original doesn't necessarily mean brilliant and insightful. It just means never done before. This experiment is a little too simple for a doctoral dissertation. Design one a little more complicated and it will go. Not all dissertations involve experiments. One can do a survey. Suppose the student wants to study aging. It is necessary only to develop a questionnaire and ask about health, the marital relations, the children, how the time is spent etc. Then, the data is collected and maybe some commonalities are discovered, and perhaps there is some statistical analysis. A dissertation is produced, longer and more work but not really more difficult than a term paper. In some fields the student just may write on the life and work of someone. In the chapter on education I will present samples from a hundred years of research to prove that these methods, essay tests, term papers, any method of subjective evaluation is not reliable or valid no matter how invested faculty members are in believing in them. Denial doesn't change reality. These methods of evaluation are just self-defeating. The student can't live, breathe, or think. They simply focus the student on how to survive. The chapters "Education" and "The Professors" will propose an alternative without lowering standards. I would be inclined to think subjective evaluation is more of a problem in the social sciences and humanities. However, in the "Professors" chapter there is a story about the Harvard chemistry department, "Lethal Chemistry at Harvard" by Stephen S. Hall published in The New York Times Magazine (12-29-1998). Two students in the chemistry department at Harvard committed suicide. The article is about the most recent one, Jason Altom. I want to say at the outset, I don't blame anyone for anyone else's suicide. However, Hall raised the question why didn't Altom seek help. He suggested the reason was widespread fear in the department. He said, "Almost every student I interviewed for this story was concerned about being quoted by name, even for the most generic or neutral remarks, and when I asked why, the answer was always the same: they weren't sure how their graduate advisers would take it, and it might affect their careers." Of course, suicide is quite rare in a graduate department, but fear is always there, not constructive fear, fear of not achieving, but fear resulting from being helplessly subjected to often rather mindless and hostile authority. In a movie about the Nazis I once saw a concentration camp scene in which the older inmates were about to be gassed because they couldn't work well enough. Some of them found coal and blackened their hair. They stepped lively. Think a concentration camp analogy to graduate school is too dramatic and inappropriate? Perhaps it is. I just want to emphasize that education can't flourish in an atmosphere of fear and if people are concerned with survival. It is not about survival in terms of who will excel. It is about survival, as it always is in a tyranny, about who will appease those in authority and avoid their displeasure. The graduate students will step lively. The later chapters will provide evidence of what I am saying. There is an alternative. Perhaps I need to say a few words about the title since the book is not exclusively on economics. The title reflects the theme of the book which is a clinical analysis of pathology in American culture and education. The book discusses economic, educational, and political issues in terms of an analysis of symptoms expressed in values and attitudes. That simply means I apply clinical psychology where appropriate. When I describe the viewpoints of economists as a symptom of sadism, I mean their assertions, for example, on incentives needed by CEOs have no scientific or rational basis. Incentive is a question of motivation. The term "incentive" disguises that it is a question of motivation. Some psychologists and psychiatrists know about motivation. Economists do not. The views of economists are often expressions of aim-inhibited sadism. Sadism is not only whips and chains. It can be aim-inhibited, that is, attenuated and expressed in terms of an investment in control, dominance, power, having it or endorsing it. Economists more often endorse it. For example, I take up the economist's view of "no fair." Almost any economist would say a teacher has no right to be envious of a CEO's income even if it is a thousand times as much as hers. Thirty million is a thousand times as much as thirty thousand. Some CEOs make $30 million in salary and stock options and more. The economist would say she chose to be a teacher so she has no right to complain. She engaged in some implied contract to agree to the income differences. The teacher chose to go into teaching and not into business. That in no way implies she agreed to the income differences between her and the CEO. It simply means she decided to go into teaching and not into business. That the teacher's choice of a profession somehow gives tacit consent to the income difference is an economist's fantasy. It is a hostile sadistic fantasy to keep the teacher in her place. The teacher must stay in her place. That's economics as a symptom of sadism.
Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication:
Social justice -- United States.
Distributive justice -- United States.
Income distribution -- United States.
Elite (Social sciences) -- United States.
Hero worship -- United States.
Popular culture -- United States.
Education -- United States.
Censorship -- United States.