Jonah Goldberg Oinks for Larry Summers
Posted on June 26th, 2005 in Uncategorized | 45 Comments »
I have mixed feelings about this column by Jonah Goldberg in National Review Online.
On the one hand, I consider Jonah Goldberg a loathsome character, a self-satisfied ball of snark untempered by warmth, maturity, kindness or wisdom.
On the other hand, he’s certainly clever (if prone to showing off his cleverness, as in this column, when he throws in references to Cafe Vienna, the Bronze Age, and the Blues Brothers, as if to say, “Look at me! I can go high! I can go low!”.)
And Goldberg is clever enough to note the awkwardness of the recent study purporting to show why Jews are smart versus the outrage over Larry Summers’ recent remarks purporting to show why women are dumb.
(I’m simplifying, but you get the point.)
Goldberg writes, “The flames of the Summers auto-da-fe cast a useful light on the cognitive dissonance, schizophrenia, and bad faith dotting the intellectual and political landscape today when it comes to genetics.”
(“Auto-da-fe” being a phrase Goldberg tosses out to show off his whippersnapper-smarts while suggesting that those who criticize Summers constitute an Inquisition.)
Well…no.
It’s certainly true that the subject of genetic differences between genders, races and ethnic groups makes people uncomfortable. It should. A study showing “superior” intelligence in Jews makes me squeamish for myriad reasons. A university president suggesting that men may be genetically superior to women in math and scienceââ¬âyou bet, that makes me shift uneasily in my seat.
I think I’ll be nervous when the day comes that such topics do not make us a little uncomfortable.
But as with every single conservative who’s blabbed on about this brouhaha, Goldberg makes his point by creating a straw man: that it was the mere suggestion of genetic differences which aroused such ire among women and the Harvard faculty.
Not so.
It was Summers’ unambiguous suggestion that such differences were a greater contributor to the paucity of women in science than was discrimination. Coupled with the fact that tenure rates for women had dropped dramatically during Larry Summers’ four years as president. Both of which presented the idea that Larry Summers was using cockamamie genetic theories to justify denying tenure to women.
In closing, let me quote Goldberg one more time:
“The animal kingdom is replete with enormous male-female disparities. Even among the branch of humans we call feminists, it’s a widely held view that men and women think and behave differently.”
I’m not sure, but I think that Goldberg is, in a sneering, deliberately-deniable sort of way, suggesting that feminists are a lower form of animal.
Lower than a pig, Jonah?
45 Responses
6/26/2005 12:59 pm
Mr. Blow-
Your lame attempt to disparage Jonah (oh… about two months after anyone stopped caring about the Summers brouhaha) is utterly toothless. If you want a few tips on how to write an effective hatchet piece, take a look at Jonah’s review of your Kennedy book.
BTW, hatchet pieces gain most of their effectiveness by being fundamentally correct.
6/26/2005 3:23 pm
it was the mere suggestion of genetic differences which aroused such ire among women and the Harvard faculty. Not so. It was Summers’ unambiguous suggestion that such differences were a greater contributor to the paucity of women in science than was discrimination.
So there’s nothing wrong with saying that there are differences between men and women, but it’s discriminatory to say that differences matter?
6/26/2005 8:06 pm
To the first writer…I’ve never read Jonah’s review and I don’t have much interest in it. Jonah’s never been a reporter, never written a book, and only got into journalism through his mother’s attempt to bring down a president. It’s hard to take that kind of review seriously—good or bad.
As for the timeliness of writing about the brouaha—don’t blame me. Jonah’s the one who wrote about Summers. I was only responding to his column.
The second writer’s comment is more interesting. I was trying to say that the people who were offended by Summers’ remarks felt that he trivialized the issues of discrimination and socialization, instead emphasizing a genetic inequity that is far from established. For the president of a university—and not just any university—to engage in ill-informed speculation about genetic differences between men and women when he’s in charge of hiring both (and not hiring very many of the latter) was just wrongheaded on Summers’ part.
6/26/2005 8:37 pm
“It was Summers’ unambiguous suggestion that such differences were a greater contributor to the paucity of women in science than was discrimination”
Where’s the beef?
If you are going to spin this rant based on the supposition that discrimination exists in academia, then lets see the facts.
Incidentally, discrimination does exist in academia but it is decidely not anti-PC. It is ,if anything, still miredin Mother Goose Marxist Relativism.
6/26/2005 9:33 pm
It’d be nice if Rich knew a little bit more about how hiring gets done at Universities. Summers may sign off on hirings but it’s the departments and colleges at a university that make the real hiring choices. The reason for this is that the departments are supposed to be aware of who the leaders in their fields are and be able to weed out the pretenders. At an institution like Harvard, liberal and supposedly cream of the crop, it’s pretty funny to hear feminists and others on the left complain about discrimination. Theoretically, in their view, the same decision-making process that is supposedly not discriminating against people for their political views, is discriminating against people for their gender. It would be nice if people on the left could be consistent in this matter, instead of simply complaining about a lack of outcomes they don’t happen to like. The right’s not perfect on this issue either, but given the ideological makeup of Harvard and other “elite” universities, their claims hold a little bit more water.
In the meantime, Harvard feminists and their lock-step idealogue supporters will hold sessions on diversity, gin hiring committees to balance out the demographics in departments, and essentially ignore any possible evidence that said numbers are less likely to change because of genetic diiferences, for political, rather than academic reasons. They’ll be satisfied with those demographic changes, rather than seeking out the best and brightest candidates (female or male) because this is a battle of idealogues rather than scientists.
Jonah’s point was simply that. That the battle was not about the “evidence” but about whose political perspective reigned supreme. Rich’s article just confirms that, only in an even more bitter and self-loathing fashion than the participants at Harvard have engaged in…and that’s a pretty high bar to clear.
6/26/2005 9:58 pm
Anonymous,
In fact, I know quite a bit about how hiring is done at universities. Frankly, it sounds like I know more than you do.
Let’s start with your implicit assumption: “At an institution like Harvard, liberal…it’s pretty funny to hear feminists and others on the left complain about discrimination.”
First off, it’s not really true that Harvard is a liberal institution. While there are plenty of liberal faculty members, the institution as a whole is profoundly conservative. Remember, it’s a $25 billion institution. They manage their money very conservatively.
Second, something like 2/3 of the faculty members at Harvard are male. So the composition of the Harvard faculty is far from what you are implying.
In the departments in question—sciences, mathematics and engineering, mostly, but also economics and government—the numbers are much worse than that 2:1 ratio. There are no tenured women, for example, in the entire mathematics department. In the government department—which is a huge department— there are, I think, two. The numbers are about the same for economics.
Many female academics argue—with some validity, I think—that many men in these departments are simply uncomfortable hiring women. And so in the tenure nomination process, men get preference.
And here the president of Harvard plays a vital role: he uses his bully pulpit to say to the department chairs that this is an important issue to him, and department chairs need to do a better job of recruiting qualified female candidates.
Remember, the Harvard president has the power—rare at American universities—to veto tenure nominations.
Summers has repeatedly used that power to veto candidates he considers too old.
He has never, that I know of, used that power to say to a department, you can not simply send up another man in a department where there are no women (and surely there are qualified female candidates).
Summers has also personally recruited a number of high-profile professors whose work he approves of. None are female.
Moreover, the percentage of candidates receiving tenure who are women has plunged dramatically since Summers became present, from about 33 percent to around ten percent. In the 2003-2004 school year, a whopping 4 out of 32 professors given tenure were women.
So while some of these commentators may not want to admit it, Harvard does have a problem in this regard. And it has nothing to do with political correctness or liberal hysteria. It has to do with finding the best qualified professors who are out there, many of whom happen to be women.
A side note to BMC: Have you been in academia lately? There’s not a lot of Marxism going around. I know that’s an easy stereotype to believe, but it just ain’t so.
6/26/2005 10:38 pm
Mr. Blow: You said that Harvard is not liberal but I doubt you could find anyone serious on the Harvard campus that would describe it as anything but liberal.
Also, the fact that there are few women faculty in some areas does not imply discrimination. There are few white men in the NBA, but no one is crying discrimination there.
As for your comments about Mr. Goldberg, he has contributed much more to American journalism than you have. Your attack looks pathetic.
6/26/2005 10:58 pm
I’m not sure what Jonah has contributed to American journalism other than being another nasty, cynical, conservative attack dog. But so be it, his contributions are a matter of opinion. I do think he’s a smart and talented guy. I just wish he’d turn his talents and intelligence to something more constructive than what he specializes in: the hit piece.
And Anonymous, trust me, you could find plenty of people at Harvard who would not describe it as a liberal institution. Harvard Business School? Harvard Law School? The Harvard economics department, dominated by Martin Feldstein? The equally conservative government department? The Harvard Corporation, which is dominated by businessmen?
Anonymous, I don’t think you really know much about Harvard at all, do you?
Of course, the fact that there are few female faculty in some areas does not establish discrimination. You’re right on that point. But when Harvard departments consistently have fewer women than peer departments at other universities…and there are more female ph.d.’s than male in academia generally….and there are more women in grad school than men…and yet the Harvard faculty still remains predominantly male, even as the rest of the world becomes much more balanced….it does make you wonder. Remember, in its 350 years Harvard has had one female law school dean…three female members of the Corporation (one black, and that’s it for minorities)…and no female presidents. Even if you exclude, say, everything but the last 50 or 75 years, when these issues became more relevant, that’s a pretty pathetic record.
By the way, Anonymous, why don’t you identify yourself? Your initials wouldn’t happen to be J.G., would they?
6/26/2005 11:17 pm
Mr. Blow: You still have not given anything other than circumstantial evidence that Harvard discriminates against women. Caltech has a high male to female ratio, but I do not know of anyone accusing them of discrimination.
Any school where a guest speaker is attacked for being “heteronominative” should qualify as liberal.
The real reason the Harvard faculty dislike Summers is because he fired Cornell West, who was a fraud.
Sure, there are some conservative faculty, but liberals dominate the campus. I doubt even those individuals you mentioned would describe the campus as conservative. A couple faculty members do not make a representative sample. You could probably find conservatives at UC Berkeley, but that does not change the fact that Berkeley is one of the most liberal campuses in the nation.
You describe Mr. Goldberg as an attack dog, but you were the one that attacked him and lied about him.
No, my initials are not JB.
6/26/2005 11:40 pm
Me the First Anonymous again…
Rich,
Thanks for confirming that you do, have little idea as to how the hiring process work at insitutions of higher education. As someone who does work at an institution of higher learning and who has worked at a public university, I can tell a poseur when I see one, and you seem to qualify.
While you recycle the talking points on the issue very adroitly, you completely disregard the details of how candidates are vetted (and it should be noted, carefully leave out the absence of real conservatives at the institution.) Candidates are generally pooled from applications as in the business world (Harvard may do a bit more direct recruiting from within specific departments, as a private academic institution, but I suspect they still have hiring standards that require them to vet applications.) and then evaluated in terms of their resume: expreience, background, awards, publications, etc. The top candidates get interviews and occasionally submit additional documentation or in some cases present on their field before the hiring committee. What you are suggesting then is that committee members see on a CV the name of a woman and instinctively weed that out, since that is where the majority of names get knocked out. If a candidate reaches the interview process, they get there because they are considered serious candidates for the job, and that’s hardly a sign of discrimination.
As for Summers’ veto power, you are confusing tenure vetos with overall hiring. Tenure is usually internal. Some high profile chairs might be granted tenure as new applicants, but this is not standard practice and even very well-known hires generally have to go via the associate route, making up for this by being placed in endowed positions of prestige.
While I don’t have the numbers in front of me, Harvard probably has a fairly comperable number of associate faculty on staff and these are untenured individuals. The discussions about Harvard have tended to focus on overall hiring. While tenure is a factor, it would be very difficult (the word idiotic comes to mind) for Summers to justify repeatedly refusing tenure to qualified male faculty members simply because there were no female candidates in the tenure pool. He could ask for more female departmental hired, but this is not going to increase his ability to veto males versus females until they are on board.
Vetoing tenure candidates on age does make some sense if Summers is advocating maintaining long term faculty stability (although there is an initial distastefulness with those choices) but vetoing tenure based on gender because the diversity numbers don’t add up is completely impractical in the short term (lawsuits, maintaining the number of tenured faculty) and in the long term tells the department that their perception of quality is not appreciated because it doesn’t match the preconceptions of achievement that those outside the department, and for that matter field, have.
Harvard as a “conservative” institution because they manage a lot of money? So do Richard Soros and Ted Kennedy. Try foisting your Eric Alterman version of Chomsky-lite to them and see if it sticks. All this tells us is that you’re well to the left of the senior Senator from Massachusetts. From way over there, everyone looks conservative. Heck, from there, Trotsky looks like a New Deal Democrat. Again, from this it’s very clear you know very little about university hiring practices, since departments don’t tend to engage in institutional conversation when hiring faculty. In fact, if you knew anything about faculty at higher education institutions, you’d know that the faculty - institution relationship often tends to be adversarial. Indeed, a large amount of criticism of Summers has come from, (drumroll) Harvard faculty. Just not the faculty from the departments in question, because they are the ones who have a different viewpoint about their hiring practices. I very seriously doubt though that the science faculty chat with the Board of Trustees or the corporate sponsors before they go over the resumes.
So nice try but all those numbers and talking points have to add up to something and yours simply don’t.
Discrimination should amount to something more than demographic outcomes. Someone should be able to point to real evidience (quotes, statements, memos, demonstrable attitudes) that Harvard faculty in the departments in question have acted discriminatorily, in which case appropriate action should be taken. Goldberg and others have successfully pointed out that this is all about politics rather than science. Summers made his comments in good faith, even if they do turn out to be erroneous (and that the jury is still out on that one does not mean that Summers shouldn’t be able to speculate, especially since he did so, not to justify the imbalance by gender, but to explain why the current numbers existed.) It’s a shame that you and his other critics haven’t based your attacks as honestly.
6/26/2005 11:42 pm
Regarding your assertion that Jonah Goldberg is a journalist because of his mother’s efforts in the Monica Lewisky case, you might be interested in Jonah’s rundown of his CV — which includes much journalism before anyone had ever heard of Monica Lewinsky:
From http://corner.nationalreview.com:
“SEE DICK TYPE [Jonah Goldberg]
The writer formerly known as Dick Blow has a snippy response in his comments section. He says he never read the review I wrote for the Wall Street Journal of his book. I’m sure he’s telling the truth because he’s so well known in Washington and New York as an honest and up-front guy famously secure in his own skin. He would never care what reviewers said about him. I mean it’s not like he’s the kind of guy who would change his own family name because he couldn’t handle the barbs of public life.
But he does lie about me and my resume and I figured I might as well clear the air. He says I only got into journalism because of the Lewinsky scandal. For the record: Among the places I worked in one capacity or another before my mom attempted to, in his words, “bring down a president” were United Press International, Scripps Howard News Service and various gigs in publishing. I worked for a nationally syndicated columnist doing research and reporting for him for several years and had written articles for Commentary, The Public Interest, The Wilson Quarterly and Wall Street Journal and elsewhere long before I’d ever heard the name Monica Lewinsky. I’d worked on several journalistic political specials for PBS with Ben Wattenberg and David Gergen and others. I was the producer and later senior producer of one weekly public affairs television program and had done off-camera reporting in a number of fields here and abroad. As for my work post-Lewinsky, I think it speaks for itself and even if it doesn’t I’m not going to bother speaking for it. I find it revealing that Blow finds it necessary to attack what he thinks is my C.V. rather than defend his own book which, I should add, was nigh-upon universally panned across the ideological spectrum as a cheap bit of fluff intended to exploit the memory of a dead man he didn’t know very well and who had treated him better than he deserved. It was printed at the expense of what little journalistic integrity an editor for George magazine had to begin with.
I’ll close by noting that I can’t claim to have betrayed a friend in order to cash-in and write a tell-all book, a claim often made by Blow-types about me and mine. But I can say that about him.
Posted at 10:09 PM”
6/26/2005 11:44 pm
Richard Bradley used to be Richard Blow, but changed his name for obvious reasons.
6/26/2005 11:47 pm
One addedum from Anonymous- so there’s no confusion. The tenure pool are those faculty with the experience and publication record that make them eligible for tenure. I don’t mean to imply that there are absolutely no tenurable women in the departments in question at Harvard (though regretably my post seems to have read that way on second glance). What I mean to verify is that Summers is limited to tenure decisions and that is very different from overall hiring practices, which is a part of this argument.
I also want emphasize that for a university president to veto tenure applications simply on the grounds of demographic/diversity balance, as Rich suggests Summers should have done and should be doing, is simply ludicrous and, it should go without saying, discriminatory. It is a clear indication that Rich and others are not interested in ending any discriminatory practice at Harvard, but instead are only interested in increasig the numbers of a particular group.
6/26/2005 11:48 pm
Blow, Bradley, what next?
Time for a new name it seems.
6/26/2005 11:52 pm
Anonymous - the first one - hiring practices, addendum, etc.
JG? - How flattering…but no. My initials are CB.
BTW, Harvard Law School - conservative? According to at least one source (http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/04.15/03-brown.html) 1/8th of the faculty clerked for Thurgood Marshall. I’m pretty sure that all of the liberals on the Law school faculty didn’t clerk for Marshall…
Come in from the cold Rich. You and Noam and Eric must be pretty lonely out there.
6/27/2005 7:23 am
Gentlemen,
Thanks for all the comments, especially the civil ones.
To Jonah—a little touchy, aren’t you? I’m sorry to have overlooked all your work at Scripps-Howard. Your resume seems to suggest only that you weren’t having much luck getting ahead in journalism until the Clinton scandal gave you the opportunity to morph into your current unpleasantness.
And yes, people like you trashed my book. Doesn’t bother me at all. That’s like asking HIllary Clinton to read a book about Clarence Thomas and say nice things. But people who read it with an open mind did like it, and that mattered much more to me. I think it represents John well, and of course I was always proud of the work that we all did at George. It wasn’t a perfect magazine, but it was sometimes a very good one, and the mission of it—to write popular jounalism about politics—was one that I think you probably support.
It is true that I didn’t read your review, Jonah. I know that might be hard for someone of your outsized ego to imagine, but why would I? I don’t respect you, and, like many writers, I don’t read hostile reviews. There’s just no point. I do remember that the headline said something about the book being a “tell-little,” though—so it amuses me that you’re now accusing me of writing a tell-all.
And by the way, Jonah—”nigh-upon”? Someone call an editor.
Some of the other posters defend Jonah more eloquently and more honorably then he defends himself.
To the person who thinks that the attack on Summers was all about Cornel West, who was “a fraud” anyway—I’m curious why you say that. I did a great deal of research into West’s life, read a lot of his work, and interviewed him at length. While I’m sure not everyone agrees with his politics or his style, he’s hardly a fraud.
To the Anonymous who talks about the tenure process…in fact, the tenure process at Harvard is very different from what you describe. (For example, there are no tenure track jobs at Harvard. When tenured professorships open up, they are almost always filled by outsiders. Associate professors are expected to leave after a few years.)
There’s an extended description of the tenured process in my book, Harvard Rules. (If you don’t want to buy it, which I’m guessing you don’t, maybe you can “search inside the book” on Amazon.
Just for the record, I’m no fan of Eric Alterman, so those of you trying to lump me with him—please don’t.
Finally, a note on the definition of the term “conservative” here. I’m not suggesting that Harvard is filled with conservatives in, say, the Rick Santorum mode. What I am saying is that it’s a very wealthy, powerful institution which has no interest in profound social change. Its business school is a pipeline into corporate America; its law school is well-known as a the country’s most prominent generator of corporate lawyers. In the sense that Harvard is an arm and a foundation of American capitalism, it is a profoundly conservative institution—a point that conservative ideologues who obsess about the politics of individual faculty members consistently miss. Forget about what some scholar in the sociology or English departments says. Consider the institution as a whole—its governing actions, its effect on society at large—and its conservatism becomes much more apparent.
6/27/2005 7:25 am
Oh, I almost forgot: It’s true that I indulged in a little name-calling with Jonah, and that probably wasn’t the most constructive thing to do. But at least I engaged with his argument about Jews, genetics, and Larry Summers. Jonah’s so busy trying to insult me, he completely avoids the substance of my response to his original article….
6/27/2005 9:24 am
As Norman Mailer pointed out, the unstated purpose of this war represents the repudiation of international law in order to bring about the end of any possibility of social justice in a reactionary state. On the other hand, the appropriation of Arab resources belies justifications given by the world’s leading apologists for a McCarthyism which threatens everything we hold dear. Perhaps for the first time since the late 1940s, Americanism as an ideology is solid evidence of the result of a pre-fascist atmosphere in America. Presumably, the pro-Sharon neoconservative cabal can be seen in the light of the apparent fabrications which lead to the police state which has come to pass.
6/27/2005 9:25 am
Dick,
Here is why democrats/leftists/liberals cannot win elections today. This does not go over well in Red States:
“I don’t have much interest in it. Jonah’s never been a reporter, never written a book, and only got into journalism through his mother’s attempt to bring down a president. It’s hard to take that kind of review seriously—good or bad.”
Only authors have the ability to write book reviews? Non-authors cannot have an opinion worth considering?
“In fact, I know quite a bit about how hiring is done at universities. Frankly, it sounds like I know more than you do.”
Well of course you know more than someone else, just ask.
“Anonymous, I don’t think you really know much about Harvard at all, do you?”
I AM THE SMARTEST MAN ALIVE! NO ONE IS SMARTER!!
“It wasn’t a perfect magazine, but it was sometimes a very good one, and the mission of it—to write popular jounalism about politics—was one that I think you probably support.”
Oops……Wait, I’m such an awesome writer that I just came up with a cool new way to spell JOURNALISM.
6/27/2005 9:46 am
Jonah defended YOUR attack on him.
Where are your supporters, Dick? Jonah has an audience. The people reading about your insults at the Corner and coming here to check you out (that is what conservatives do, believe it or not, we read up on both sides- don’t know many liberals who come by the corner and read up on what conservatives REALLY have to say. They keep their heads in the sand and rant about the media who we find to just as pathetic as the liberals do, but obviously for different reasons) but it doesn’t seem that you have ever gotten traffic to this site that wasn’t generated by Jonah. Maybe you should attack a popular con blogger a day and start generating some ad revenues. I’m sure your book isn’t getting your bills paid. Who would write a book about a university president? I guess the same guy who would break a confidentiality agreement and cash in on the death of his “friend”/ boss.
6/27/2005 9:48 am
Anonymous,
You’re losing it….
6/27/2005 10:47 am
Umm…There are several anonymouses here… I’ll stick to the higher ed issues which is how I started, but please don’t lump us all in together. A concession and some clarifications are in order first.
I conceded earlier that tenure at Harvard might be mostly high profile but concede the argument that Harvard is atypical in this regard and does much more direct tenured applications than I was previously aware. I should point out that this is not standard practice at most universities, and that tenure is generally an earned privelege for all but the most prestigious chairs. Harvard, being a “first rank” institution does more direct faculty recruiting than the average institution as well. So I’ll recognize you have some points there, and that makes Summers role in the hiring process a bit more influential. While not so many assistant (Typing quickly I previously wrote associate, but meant assistant) faculty get a shot a tenure at Harvard, a recent article of the Harvard review indicates that over a third of Harvard academic promotions do come internally, so while you have the upper hand on that point, your facts are not all in order either, in suggesting that almost all tenured positions come from outside. Nonetheless, as an honest debater, I must recognize that Harvard and certain other institutions of higher ed, don’t necessarily follow the same policies as the public institutions I’m more familiar with. So, I appreciate the chance to learn a bit more about the specifics of Harvard and happily concede my error.
Aside from those details, my comments still stand. The essential point is that the vetting process is at Harvard, as with the vast majority of insitutions of higher education, based on the principles of meritocracy. Proving discrimination is not a simple matter of pointing to faculty ratios and averages. Indeed, by pointing out the excluvisity of Harvard’s faculty hiring, you point towards a purported reason why Harvard faculty demographic trends even more away from broader female representation, that these numbers tend to break down in ways that suggest fewer females at the high ends of the spectrum (and low for that matter) in math and science fields.
However, my real quibble is with the assertion that the hiring process should be radically changed for the purpose of demographics. You haven’t answered that at all, merely asserted that Summers comments were inappropriate and that he should be rejecting male tenure applications for the sole reason of improving diversity. That’s simply not a defensible argument, and laughable as a policy of redress, even if discrimination were proven, particularly at an elite private insitution.
As I said before, discrimination as a legal and ethical matter is not simply proven by balancing out demographic trends. If it were, then, as has been famously pointed out by many, the NBA would long ago have been sued for its predisposition towards African-American players. Instead, we recognize that organization does work as a meritocracy.
What the critics of Harvard and other academic institutions (particulary the elite institutions) and fields where women are not found in the same numbers as they would expect really need is proof that discrimination is occuring. Where are the memos or e-mails or conversations overheard that indicate such attitudes of unfairness? Where true institutional discrimination occurs, there are usually signs of such attitudes (as with the blackballing of conservatives at some universities, again my contention being that such discrimination is more easily proven as discrimination would be proven in indiviudal cases.)
No, this is discrimination proven by fiat, as with certain racial quota cases (the term affirmative action being misplaced in such cases) by numerical construct, the assumption being that if the numbers do not match the preconceptions of equality, then discrimination exists.
Better to either prove discrimination exists in the attitudes of those accused (and in some cases smeared) of discrimination, or to address why such numerical disparities exist. Summers is being attacked because he chose to do the latter, however imperfectly. It is this honest approach, however flawed it may or may not turn out to be on the scientific evidence, that separates him from his critics, who choose instead to play the numbers game, and prey upon a simplistic sense of fairness, rather than address the real aspects of what discrimination is and where it comes from. Such criticisms lack intellectual seriousness, for all their political venom.
And these are the challenges that remain unanswered here and elsewhere where Summers is criticized.
6/27/2005 10:47 am
Ramesh Ponnuru makes a good point:
Here’s his parting shot at Jonah: “In closing, let me quote Goldberg one more time: ‘The animal kingdom is replete with enormous male-female disparities. Even among the branch of humans we call feminists, it’s a widely held view that men and women think and behave differently.’ I’m not sure, but I think that Goldberg is, in a sneering, deliberately-deniable sort of way, suggesting that feminists are a lower form of animal. Lower than a pig, Jonah?”
First of all, let’s note that Mr. “I’m not sure” really ought not be lecturing others about building in deniability to their attacks. Second, how can a branch of humanity even arguably be lower than humanity? You would have to be an idiot to read Jonah’s words this way.
6/27/2005 10:50 am
Oh, come on…it’s obvious that Jonah was making a point of referring to feminists in a snarky way. Perhaps my specific inference was wrong. But Jonah, and conservatives in general, love to bash feminists the way that, say, some liberals like to bash evangelicals—by broadly stereotyping them.
6/27/2005 10:55 am
To the Anonymous writing about tenure: Thanks again for writing with intelligence and civility.
But I don’t think anyone is saying that lesser-qualified women should be given tenure simply because they’re women. That’s silly.
What I and others would argue is that there is value to having a diverse faculty—intellectually, demographically and otherwise—and that it’s worth looking harder to find people who add to that diversity.
At Harvard, I think that argument applies both to women and to conservative professors.
A further point is that male-dominated departments tend to be self-perpetuating; that is to say, men hire their friends and/or men more readily than they do women. And the president of the university can play a valuable role by using his bully pulpit to push department chairs to cast their nets wider.
6/27/2005 11:57 am
Rich,
Anonymous CB here. Thanks for responding with civility.
I think the disagreement here (and the larger disagreement with Jonah, book reviews and journalism aside) stems in part from ideas about what discrimination is. I do happen to think that there are people making the argument that women should be hired because of their status as women, although I’d happily acknowledge that such people would never suggest that the hiring of unqualified faculty would be the result.
At Harvard, because the standard is not just qualified but eminently qualified and esteemed in the field, this narrows things down a bit and, depending on how and if science aptitude breaks down along gender, may affect the distribution. I wish to speak in as general terms as possible - I’m not a mathematician but have read about the issue enough to know that some studies indicate a larger number of men at the extreme ends of aptitude, even though women do well, better if I remember correctly, on average. Since Harvard is dealing in extremes, so to speak, this might be a factor. This does not mean there are not women who fall into this extreme high category, just that those numbers may diminish as you approach that end of the spectrum. That’s the theory anyway.
The question though does tend to hinge on the numbers rather than individual cases, which as far as discrimination goes, is out of tune with our national laws and ethic. A much stronger case could be made against Harvard or another institution if, for instance, a particular female applicant of great merit was rejected over a male of lower reputation and most importantly achievement.
The use of numbers is the easy road out for this group, rather than pointing to specific demonstrable cases or specific identifiable attitudes (which if proven, could potentially lead to large scale reform.) It’s harder work this approach, but infintely preferable because it deals with evidence in regards to the accusation of discrimination.
I should point out that there is a difference here between the use of numbers. The studies I mentioned that purport to address distribution differences between males and females, do not exist as excuses or justification for discrimination (and I assert that Summers comments are in the same vein) but rather attempt to explain why such differences might occur. The use of numbers to identify discriminatory trends however, rely upon the assumption of discrimination if the numbers do not match other trends, which may or may not relate to the case at hand. For example, nationwide females may trend higher in science departments than they do at elite institutions like Harvard. The difference in numbers may be genes, culture, discrimination, etc. but where the studies and Summers comments suggest and theorize, the anti-discrimination forces (the ones in question at least) assert and demand. Though your own comments suggest a more moderated view, that such discrimination is at best unintentional and cultural, that case remains as unproven in regards to Harvard as anything Summers as said. As you have clarified in regards to tenure, so also Harvard is (or aims to be) in regards to achievement, a different animal, so to speak. The assumptions inherent in the numerical analysis regarding diversity remain assumptions. Innocent until proven guilty.
As to the value of diversity, I agree in part. I enjoy living in a fairly diverse community, and think that the exchange of ideas and perspectives is healthy. I’m pleased to see you apply diversity to political values as well, which marks you as more thoughtful than many in regards to that argument.
Where diversity is less important is when we run up against fields and social needs where achievement is particularly important, especially at the highest ends. Again, I would not expect to find any racial or gender homogeny at the ends, but like the NBA, would expect that in some cases a particular group may trend higher for any number of reasons.
The ultimate question is why that happens, and whether it is for honest reasons (genetic/gender trends) or dishonest trends (discrimination, deliberate or unintentional). In the case of the dishonest reasons, I think you and Jonah would be on the same side of the argument, whatever your other differences.
The problem is that the assumption of dishonesty is all too readily leveled when the question itself remains a failry open one. It’s understandable to some extent, given that discrimination is a reality in life. However, the criticism conservatives like Jonah offer is that there is a rush to assert discrimination in some cases, when the case remains unproven, and a political unwillingness to discuss the potential reasons why differences occurs, for fear of losing the poltical leverage that such assertions have.
That, I think, is the crux of the argument.
Thanks for the discussion, and for being willing to lower the rhetoric to get at some of these ideas.
Cheers.
6/27/2005 12:07 pm
Oh, come on!
“Jonah, and conservatives in general, love to bash feminists the way that, say, some liberals like to bash evangelicals—by broadly stereotyping them.”
Couldn’t you have saved that line for an actual example of stereotyping?
Even if your accusation is true, it’s not happening in the passage you refer to (“Even among the branch of humans we call feminists, it’s a widely held view that men and women think and behave differently.”). This makes your accusation read like a broad stereotype itself.
Also, what do you gain, exactly, by not acknowledging-or at least disputing-the claim that feminists, like other people, agree that men and women think and behave differently?
Does the topic really make you that uncomfortable? Why?
6/27/2005 12:51 pm
Actually, I agree with much, maybe even most, of Anonymous CB’s final post. I suspect he/she and I are probably pretty close to agreement in a lot of areas.
The problem with trying to prove discrimination in this regard is that it’s almost impossible—and it’s a career-ender for anyone who pursues it.
Harvard’s tenure processes are cloaked in secrecy. They have various levels, so it’s not easy to say that there’s one point at which discrimination could kick in. Moreover, the merits of various candidates are subjective; it’s very hard in academia to look at two well-qualified candidates and not be able to argue that one (who might be, say, male) isn’t better qualified than the other (a woman, perhaps).
So there’s not much data to go on. You can look at the broad numbers and say there’s a problem—the falling rates for women getting tenure during Summers’ tenure, for example—but it’d be almost impossible to win any kind of lawsuit.
That’s one reason why almost no one ever sues. Another is that academia is a very small world, and getting a reputation as a troublemaker is a great way to keep yourself from getting hired anywhere. Besides, lawsuits take years and years, and most academics just don’t have the stomach or the desire to pursue such an arduous course.
Regarding sutefish’s comments… Look, it’s possible that I was reading too much into Jonah’s line. But I do think it’s pretty obvious that he was writing with a bit of a sneer. Why else say “the branch of humans we call feminists,” as if they’re a separate, strange offshoot of the mainstream, instead of just saying “even among feminists”?
And yes, the subject of genetic differences make s me uncomfortable, because its potential for abuse is so huge. Once people start really believing that Jews are genetically smarter than everyone else, or women can’t do science at the highest levels, then I can imagine all sorts of kooky policies and prejudices following.
And as a general matter, I don’t like to believe that biology is destiny. At least, not entirely.
6/27/2005 1:17 pm
Jonah = Hitler
6/27/2005 1:35 pm
You said it, not me.
6/27/2005 1:40 pm
That’s a joke, by the way.
6/27/2005 2:41 pm
National Review = Gulag
6/28/2005 10:11 am
Oh, come on…it’s obvious that Jonah was making a point of referring to feminists in a snarky way. Perhaps my specific inference was wrong.
Perhaps? You make careless and malicious errors of fact (Jonah’s never been a reporter, never written a book, and only got into journalism through his mother’s attempt to bring down a president). You misread a simple statement (a branch of humans cannot be lower than humans). You use your misreading of that simple statement to smear.
Careless and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
But Jonah, and conservatives in general, love to bash feminists the way that, say, some liberals like to bash evangelicals—by broadly stereotyping them.
And you’re helping to defuse this unfortunate situation how exactly?
But as with every single conservative [emphasis mine] who’s blabbed on about this brouhaha
Oh, you’ve read them all?
You’re reaching self-parody.
6/28/2005 11:51 am
Anyone defending Jonah Goldberg should resist criticizing others for being careless, malicious, and stupid.
If Jonah’s written a book, I’ve missed it.
I know Jonah listed a whole bunch of reporting that he’s supposed to have done, but let’s just say that, if a liberal had this stuff on his c.v., Jonah would accuse the guy of resume-padding pretty quickly. Be real: Jonah’s a pundit. A smart one, sure. But he’s not a reporter, and (I hope) he wouldn’t claim to be.
Let’s face it: No one in journalism had ever heard of Jonah before he piggybacked onto the Lewinsky scandal via his mother. No one who didn’t already know his mother, anyway.
Also, Chris, I wasn’t suggesting that feminists constitute a lower branch of humanity; I was suggesting that Jonah was. And I still think that’s true.
And yes, I’ve read pretty much everything every conservative has published in newsprint or mainstream web sites about the Summers controversy. Having written a book about Summers and Harvard, I pay pretty close attention. If you want to dig up an example that runs counter to my characterization, I’d love to read it. Good luck.
6/28/2005 1:00 pm
Let’s face it: No one in journalism had ever heard of Jonah before he piggybacked onto the Lewinsky scandal via his mother. No one who didn’t already know his mother, anyway.
That’s a different claim. One that is probably more or less true (I hadn’t heard of him before that, either). One that doesn’t make your previous claim more or less false.
Also, Chris, I wasn’t suggesting that feminists constitute a lower branch of humanity; I was suggesting that Jonah was. And I still think that’s true.
I would hazard a guess that he believes that they are politically wrong, but not that they are a lower than humans, as you suggest he believes. And if you could support your contention, then you wouldn’t have to “think” that it’s true.
By the way, would I be safe to “think” and write that you’re lying about not having read his review of your book? After all, I have no proof, but I have this hunch…
6/28/2005 1:46 pm
Well, I wrote that Jonah couched that line in a “deliberately deniable” sort of way, which is an approach that you see sometimes from right-wingers. Ed Klein hinting that Hillary is a lesbian, but never coming out and saying so, comes to mind. So I’m never going to be able to prove that that’s what Jonah meant, no. But Chris, do you honestly think he went out of his way to write the sentence the way he did without intending to imply some anti-feminist position? You can argue whether or not my specific interpretation was correct, but you can’t argue the gist of what Jonah was suggesting. Or maybe you can, but then you’re just saying that the sentence was bad writing for no particular reason.
For what it’s worth, reading or not reading Jonah’s review isn’t that big a deal to me. It’s not like it’s a point of pride to me that I haven’t read it. I just didn’t think it was going to say anything particularly interesting. The review was obviously going to be a hatchet job; that’s why the Journal assigned it to Jonah in the first place, and Jonah delivered on what was expected of him. So when you know a review is coming from that perspective, why would you read it? Life is too short.
But if you’re saying that I’m predisposed to dislike Jonah because of that—well, I’ve always known that it was a bad review. (People mention these things.) But my opinion of Jonah’s work was formed long before that review came out, and nothing since—certainly not his puerile response to my original post—has changed my mind.
As I’ve said, I think Jonah’s a smart guy, clever, and a talented writer.
I just wish he’d apply those talents to something more constructive than the sneering, cynical takedowns which are his specialty.
6/29/2005 5:48 am
I have gone to school at Harvard for 7 years, and I make no qualm about describing it as deeply conservative. True there are leftists, what university could say it was worth its salt if it didn’t have some diversity of opinion. But the cultural of the institution is profoundly status quo. Bradley’s description of tenure at Harvard is very accurate. I will mention one case where a female professor, who is among the best in her field and a beloved teacher, was denied tenure on the authority of the President, with no further explanation. We no the president thinks women are stupid…
Even Bradley seems to believe that the question of genetics in women’s aptitude in science is meaningful.I would like to make two points.
1. It is unclear how one could falsify the claim that women have an inaptitude in science, and any non falsifiable claim is not a scientific claim.
2. Science as a discipline is a human sociological invention and not a fact of nature, to say that women are inherently bad at it is ridiculous. It is like saying that women are bad at playing poker or telling jokes.
There is a strange religious faith in “Science” among our conservative brethren. They seem not to realize that scientists are people, and that science is a discipline like history or literary criticism.
Incidentally, Summers has brought as many quacks as he has rid us of. One need only mention Stephen Pinker. There is something wrong with a universities governance when the President has uniform power to recruit half-wit pop-scientists whoes book he happend to think was a good read. -Nathan Hill
6/29/2005 9:40 am
At last! A liberal weighs in. And someone who knows Harvard to boot. Thanks, Nathan, for your comments.
6/29/2005 9:47 am
But Chris, do you honestly think he went out of his way to write the sentence the way he did without intending to imply some anti-feminist position?
Maybe I should type more slowly.
Yes, he did intend to imply an anti-(radical)-femininst position.
No, he did not intend to imply that feminists are lower than pigs.
Do you experience conflations like that commonly in your thinking?
6/29/2005 10:17 am
No. Only when I’m analying the writing of Jonah Goldberg. Somehow, with Jonah, one assumes the worst.
6/29/2005 10:20 am
I have gone to school at Harvard for 7 years, and I make no qualm about describing it as deeply conservative.
Ah, be careful, or you might leave people believing that you are confusing two meanings of conservatism. There is the conservative temperament, which is a stubborn resistance to change, and there is political conservatism, which in the US at least bears little resemblance to the first meaning (see also “liberal” and “liberal”).
We no the president thinks women are stupid…
It’s funny how liberals seem to “no” things that they can’t come close to demonstrating.
It is unclear how one could falsify the claim that women have an inaptitude in science, and any non falsifiable claim is not a scientific claim.
Proof by lack of imagination.
Science as a discipline is a human sociological invention
This makes no sense. Are you trying to imply that science was invented by sociologists? If you were to say “science as a discipline is a human invention”, ok, that makes sense.
and not a fact of nature
This makes no sense. Humans are not a part of nature?
to say that women are inherently bad at it is ridiculous. It is like saying that women are bad at playing poker or telling jokes.
Proof by assertion.
There is a strange religious faith in “Science” among our conservative brethren.
Ok, I can now say with near complete certainty that you know very little about political conservatism.
Read a little Burke, Kirk, Hayek, and maybe some Hume, Locke, Adam Smith, and Oakeshott. These folks are the primary sources for modern political conservatism. If you still believe that conservatives have an outsized faith in “Science” then I don’t know how to help you.
It was Marxism that defined itself as “Scientific” and made itself into a new religion. Modern political conservatism was largely forged through the opposition to Marxist Communism.
They seem not to realize that scientists are people
That’s absurd. Marxism, for example, is about the irrelevance of the individual, the inevitability of historical forces, and the triumph of so-called reason and science.
Political conservatism concerns itself with the importance of the individual, the contingency of history, and the limits of reason and science.
Incidentally, Summers has brought as many quacks as he has rid us of. One need only mention Stephen Pinker.
I suppose that when one is too lazy to make an argument, or incapable of making one, it must suffice to only mention.
6/29/2005 10:29 am
I just wish he’d apply those talents to something more constructive than the sneering, cynical takedowns which are his specialty.
The sneering, cynical takedown has a long and distinguished history. See Shaw, Swift, Tacitus.
Puncturing pretension is an honorable profession.
6/29/2005 11:33 am
Chris,
I don’t think of any of those names you mentioned as sneering or cynical. And I certainly wouldn’t put Jonah in that group.
I also think that the takedown is more effective when it’s a rarely used weapon. When it’s all you do, it becomes merely a predictable shtick. At some point it’t not enough just to trash others. You have to stand for something yourself.
6/29/2005 11:34 am
Also, Chris, it’s unfortunate when people misspell. But to seize on a misspelling and make some larger point from that small mistake is a lazy cheap shot, and I think you’re smart enough to know that.
6/29/2005 12:19 pm
Ah, be careful, or you might leave people believing that you are confusing two meanings of conservatism. There is the conservative temperament, which is a stubborn resistance to change, and there is political conservatism, which in the US at least bears little resemblance to the first meaning (see also “liberal” and “liberal”).
Indeed. It is true that there are few creationists at Harvard (especially among the faculty). Does this mean it is a liberal institution? It is also true that there are few marxists (especially among the faculty).
Frankly, I do have trouble understanding what makes conservatives hang together. Do they or do they not like big government, deficit spending, preemptive wars? The only things I can really see as a unifying theme is that they don’t like gays, animals, or the poor.
I admit my command of English orthography is sub par, it is the interenet though, and if you scroll up you will no doubt notice other infelicities of English.
I previously wrote “It is unclear how one could falsify the claim that women have an inaptitude in science, and any non falsifiable claim is not a scientific claim.”
Proof by lack of imagination.
Give me a senario.
If you were to say “science as a discipline is a human invention”, ok, that makes sense.
This makes no sense. Humans are not a part of nature?
Here I must point you to several senses of the word “nature”. I meant simply that Science as a discipline is made by people, like governments, or country clubs. It is not like stones, or the weather.
If a country club did not admit women this would not be seen as a genetic failure on the part of women, but if another manmade social entity (such as Mathematics in the United States) has trouble admitting women, then women are blamed. To credit a social woe to biology is to give up on it. Social woes must have social solutions.
As far as conservatism and science- I think it is quite evident that discussions of innnateness as explanations for social maladies have gotten quite out of hand, and that for the time being ‘nature’ has the upper hand against ‘nurture’. It may also be that in other respects conservatives abhore (sp?) science, such as evolution or global warming. This one must credit to inconsistency.
I object incidentally to having Hume called a conservative, would Hume really approve of the use of religion by the right?
Apropos of Steven Pinker, yes , I do think in some cases an educated audience should be able to know a quack when it sees one. I would suggest reading any of his books or essays. One small example will suffice for now.
Steven Pinker is amazed that English childern generalize the suffix –ed onto the past tense of nonce verbs. He asks a child “if I bling today, what did I do yesterday” and 80 percent of the time the child says “you blinged”. He takes this to prove that children are genetically coded with something called Universal Grammar that allows them to set parameters with minimal input and form a rule based transformational grammar.
Incidentally, he credits the twenty percent of the time children say “blang” to analogy with such commonly used verbs as “sing” or “ring”.
What he fails to realize is that the same process of analogy and inductive reasoning are also sufficient to explain why mainly children say “blinged”. Thus, UG and transformational grammar are descriptively unnecessary.
Hm.. that took me a while, and I do have better things to do. Maybe conservatives would be bette off if they read more.
When the gay bishop question was around, I was talking to another chorister at church who was dead against gay marriage. He said that marriage between one man and one woman had been the only form of marriage ever. Clearly he had not read the Old Testament, or any work of modern anthropology (Ancient Greece, Tibet, the Adelphopoiia rite of the Orthodox and early Latin church). Among undergraduates I have often noticed a trend, poorly read, votes Republican. It has something to do with small mindedness.
Which brings me full circle, perhaps more Harvard students voted for Kerry than for Bush (I think it was 2/3 which shows how conservative the place is). But in modern America are the democrats really any farther to the left. I will point merely to capital punishment and socialized medicine where the US looks neolithic compared to Europe.
-Nathan Hill