Shots in the Dark

Those of you who read this blog frequently will know that I often gas on about why I think Harvard professors (and professors in general) should blog—as a tool for pedagogy, a way to translate the process of thinking and writing into a daily exercise, and a means of communicating intellectual passions to the world beyond the gated walls of academe. This is particularly true, I’ve suggested, for the humanities, which need to work harder to convey relevance and value in an increasingly competitive world than do the social sciences and sciences.

An article in yesterday’s Times raises this issue anew. It’s called, “In Tough Times, Humanities Must Justify Their Worth.”

...in this new era of lengthening unemployment lines and shrinking university endowments, questions about the importance of the humanities in a complex and technologically demanding world have taken on new urgency. Previous economic downturns have often led to decreased enrollment in the disciplines loosely grouped under the term “humanities” — which generally include languages, literature, the arts, history, cultural studies, philosophy and religion. Many in the field worry that in this current crisis those areas will be hit hardest.

Of course, tenured professors may have job security, and therefore feel they don’t need to blog—but that doesn’t mean they have cultural relevance.

…“Although people in humanities have always lamented the state of the field, they have never felt quite as much of a panic that their field is becoming irrelevant,” said Andrew Delbanco, the director of American studies at Columbia University.

Former president Derek Bok argues that the humanities justify themselves plenty.

Derek Bok, a former president of Harvard and the author of several books on higher education, argues, “The humanities has a lot to contribute to the preparation of students for their vocational lives.” He said he was referring not only to writing and analytical skills but also to the type of ethical issues raised by new technology like stem-cell research. But he added: “There’s a lot more to a liberal education than improving the economy. I think that is one of the worst mistakes that policy makers often make — not being able to see beyond that.”

This is common sense, of course, and inarguable. Anyone who’s spent any time in the private sector has seen the value of a liberal arts education in the workforce, even if it’s just in the ability (or often shocking lack thereof) to write a decent paragraph.

(A few days ago, for professional reasons, I met with the head of a boutique investment bank, and he threw some Emerson at me; I asked if he remembered the lines from college, and he said no, he frequently re-read Emerson. I conveyed my opinion that Emerson is the most overrated American thinker, and we had a nice little chat.)

But Bok’s tone, at least, is also faintly anachronistic (as is so much about Bok, and I mean that as a compliment).

The reason that policymakers often fail to see why the humanities are relevant to the work of public policymaking is because the humanities are often so inward-looking; its practitioners don’t feel the need to justify themselves, to demonstrate their social import. The value of their work is simply seen as self-evident. Or, they’d rather not bother; easier to write books that their peers, if no one else, will read.

But like the members of any profession, humanists need to market themselves, or what may just be a failure of insight on the part of policymakers will prove to be a reality by default. If everyone thinks the humanities are irrelevant, then even if they aren’t, they may in effect become so….

As the Times article warns,

As money tightens, the humanities may increasingly return to being what they were at the beginning of the last century, when only a minuscule portion of the population attended college: namely, the province of the wealthy….

Bennington, anyone?

“Dread is Rising in Harvard’s Hole”

—Boston Globe, 2.23.09

The existential weirdness of that headline aside, it’s actually a pretty interesting story. Bottom line: Allston just got screwed. The neighborhood is looking at years of blight, empty storefronts, barren streets, and plagues of rats.

It’s not really Harvard’s fault—blame the economy—but is it Harvard’s responsibility?

Harvard even kicked out the VW dealer where I bought my Passat, on a blustery winter day six years ago, so that I could commute back and forth from NYC to Cambridge and write Harvard Rules….

Harvard’s Edward Glaeser argues for the abolition of the tax deduction on mortgage interest—and makes a pretty good case.

Both New York Times and Washington Post polls show that Barack Obama is enjoying broad support from the American public in his efforts to fight the recession.

Large majorities of Americans in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll support his $787 billion economic stimulus package and the recently unveiled $75 billion plan to stem mortgage foreclosures. Nearly seven in 10 poll respondents said Obama is delivering on his pledge to bring needed change to Washington, and about eight in 10 said he is meeting or exceeding their expectations. At the same time, however, the bipartisan support he enjoyed as he prepared to take office has eroded substantially amid stiff Republican opposition to his major economic initiatives.

That’s from the Post; this is from the Times.

President Obama is benefiting from remarkably high levels of optimism and confidence among Americans about his leadership, providing him with substantial political clout as he confronts the nation’s economic challenges and opposition from nearly all Republicans in Congress, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Further evidence of my argument that the GOP, in choosing to stand and fight Obama rather than work with him for the good of the country, is only shooting itself in the foot, further marginalizing an already-minority party.

…at universities?

Often, it’s not the president—or at least not relatively speaking. The Times reports on a survey of the highest-paid officials at various colleges. At USC, it’s the football coach; at Yale, David Swensen.

Sometimes—not often, but sometimes—I think that print journalism doesn’t deserve to live. Mostly I feel that way when I see a lengthy story on an important subject by some of the business’s most respected reporters that seems to have no sense of history or deep knowledge of its subject. Case in point: Newsweek’s long profile of Larry Summers, titled “The Reeducation of Larry Summers.”

First, a couple caveats. One, I understand that Newsweek doesn’t want to do too tough a piece on Summers because, in theory, he’ll be an important source for the magazine over the next few years. In that context, this article is a bit better than the dreadful schlock that Time served up a couple weeks back.

And two, one of the two reporters who wrote this piece actually interviewed me, and we had, IMHO, a more substantive conversation than what appears in the magazine.

And a third caveat: I don’t mean to sound arrogant when I say this, but there is simply no excuse for a White House reporter covering Larry Summers not to have read Harvard Rules. That none of them seem to have doesn’t really surprise me, though.

Here’s a big reason why reading HR would be useful background: the theme of the Newsweek article, “reeducation,” is an element in Summers’ career that is thoroughly covered in HR, and if the writers had read the book, the knowledge that Summers was, in theory, “reeducated” at least twice before*, and then always reverted to form, would have provided their story with greater depth and resonance.

For example: economist Christy Romer says this about Summers in the Newsweek piece:

“You could never call Larry Summers humble,” says Christina Romer, chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers. “But there is a difference in him in the sense that, when he starts to make a comment, he says, ‘Now, I could be wrong but …’ I feel the old Larry would not say, ‘I could be wrong.’ That’s a nice change.”

Well, except it’s not really a change at all. Consider this, from page 28 of HR, describing things that Summers learned from Bob Rubin in the late ’90s:

Summers could never become humble, but he could at least act it. So he learned to preface his opinions, as Rubin did, with softening phrases, such as, “I’m not an expert on this, but…” Or, “It’s just one man’s opinion, but….” Or, “It seems to me that…”

So the behavior that Romer is describing is at least ten years old.

There’s another element of Summers behavior that Newsweek does imply but doesn’t document: his tendency to blame other people for messes that are largely his own creation.

Consider this remarkable quote, about Summers’ evisceration of CFTC commissioner Brooksley Born, after she dared propose that derivative-trading be regulated.

According to witnesses at the CFTC, Summers proceeded to dress her down, loudly and rudely. “She was ashen,” recalls Born’s deputy Michael Greenberger….

Summers told NEWSWEEK: “I believed at the time, and believe much more strongly today, that new regulations with respect to systemic risk were appropriate and necessary, but expressed the strong view of Secretary Rubin, chairman Greenspan and SEC chief Levitt that the way the CFTC was proposing to go about it was likely to be ineffective and itself imposed major risks into the market.” (At the time, the Rubin Treasury Department argued against the Born proposal by maintaining that the CFTC didn’t have legal jurisdiction.) Still, Summers allowed that “there’s no question that with hindsight, stronger regulation would have been appropriate” before the financial crash. He added: “Large swaths of economics are going to have to be rethought on the basis of what’s happened.”

Summers’ response is pretty remarkable. He essentially frames himself as the messenger boy of Bob Rubin, Alan Greenspan, and Arthur Levitt (as if Summers ever cared about Arthur Levitt!). This surely downplays Summers’ role in policymaking, as well as the, um, enthusiasm with which he seems to have rebuked Born.

And Summers’ language, once you parse it, is hilarious: No, we wouldn’t want to impose major risks on the market!

Because, you know, regulating complicated financial instruments with high levels of risk and leverage would definitely be risky.

(I mean, really, no wonder Summers shows contempt for reporters.)

The point matters because the article almost entirely omits the obvious argument that Bob Rubin and Larry Summers contributed very much to the current financial crisis, a not-insignificant argument to make when you realize that one of them is now in charge of solving it.

And then Summers adds, well, it’s not really my fault, “large swaths of economics are going to have to be rethought on the basis of what’s happened.”

That’s a fascinating idea, and a reporter might follow up by saying, “Huh. Like what?”

Because nothing that has happened seems to have discredited any longstanding economic theory, and there certainly isn’t any bold new theoretical answer to recent events; it’s just a standard Keynesian, pump-up-the-economy response.

But by saying, well, it’s the fault of economic theory that now needs to be reconsidered, Summers is moving the question of blame off his shoulders onto those of past economic thinkers. (Calling Dr. Freud….)

A final point: For all the talk about the nice new Larry, Newsweek doesn’t even mention that already there have been reports of tension between Summers and Joe Biden, Summers and Tim Geithner, and Summers and Paul Volcker. That would seem relevant, no?

My feelings about journalism aside, we all want to see Larry Summers succeed in his current position. By definition, it would be good for the country if that happened. But journalists don’t do the public any favors when they fail to raise the important issues that attend this new ascension of Larry Summers.

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* One in the late ’90s, when Summers was positioning himself to replace Bob Rubin, and once after the women-in-science comments.

Over the weekend, Geraldine Fabrikant in the Times wrote an intriguing piece about Jane Mendillo, who had the misfortune of stepping into the job of head of the Harvard Management Company just before the stock market crashed.

Her critics say that Ms. Mendillo’s overall investment strategy is unclear and that while the crisis erupted faster and with more magnitude than could have been predicted, she could have moved more quickly to manage the risk. Supporters counter that her predecessors essentially left her hamstrung with a portfolio that was illiquid, and give her high marks on investing acumen.

The article implies that some of Harvard’s riskier investment stratagems, which looked so promising in happier times, are costing the university billions now.

And it suggests to me that Harvard is in a very delicate position at the moment: In a time of crisis, it has a new president and, perhaps even more important, a new investment management head—its third in, what, the last four years?—both of whom can only be described as untested. That status is, of course, rapidly changing.

Will Drew Faust and Jane Mendillo rise to the occasion?

Because make no mistake, this is a watershed moment in Harvard’s history, probably the most important one—even more than the events of 2005-2006—since 1968. How these two women fare will affect Harvard’s culture and growth for years to come.

My friend Tony Perez sent me these photos of sailfish feeding in the Gulf of Mexico….

It turns out that for years he’s worked out with Angel Presinal, who has recently acquired the reputation of baseball’s biggest steroid-provider.

Asked whether he knew about any involvement Presinal had with steroids, Ortiz said, “Those are things that are at another level.

“You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to know what can cause you problems and you have to deal with that.”

Um….sure. Whatever that means.

It’s interesting to look at Ortiz’s statistics: In his first 1325 major-league at-bats, Oritz hit 89 home runs, about one every 14.9 at-bats. The most he ever hit in a season came in 2003, when he hit 31.

In 2004, that changed. In 582 at-bats that season, he hit 41 home runs, or about one every 14.2 at-bats. In 601 at-bats in 2005, he hit 47 home runs, or one every 12.8 at-bats.

In 558 at-bats in 2006, he hit 54 home runs, or one every 10.3 at-bats.

You see where this is going?

Suddenly, in 2007, only 35 home runs in 549 at-bats, or one home run per 15.7 at-bats. And then in 2008, just 23 home runs in 416 at-bats, or one home run every 18.1 at-bats.

If you plotted Ortiz’s home-run production on a graph, it’d look like a long, gradual line at about a 30-degree angle, then a sudden, short spike at about a 75-degree angle, then a plummet.

Again: I like Ortiz. But given how many times Alex Rodriguez will hear “A-Roid” chants at Fenway Park this season, it’s important that Sox fans admit the role steroids played in their team’s success.

By the way, Globe reporter Nick Carfado asks Ortiz if he knew Presinal, if he has to be careful who he associates with, and so on.

But he never asks Ortiz if he ever steroids….

On Newsweek.com, Raina Kelley writes on the “seven lies we tell ourselves about Facebook.”

As I’ve pondered why so many people willingly sacrifice so much privacy, here’s the “lie” I found most interesting:

2. Facebook Made Me Do It: Facebook didn’t make you tell all 1,384 of your friends that you once had chlamydia. Facebook didn’t hold your hand onto the mouse and force you to type: “Josh is in favor of slapping geese and women,” as one of your “25 random things” and it certainly didn’t waterboard you into asking everyone what their slave name is. Psychiatrists call this “externalizing blame.” It’s a way to lay-off shame and self-loathing onto somebody (or something) else so you can feel better about yourself. I once wrote, “Raina is feeling like the cat’s meow,” and hated Facebook for days because of it. I know now that it was nobody else’s fault but my own.

Facebook as shrink, priest, and facilitator? In an electronic world, why would this be a surprise?