Dan Drezner and I talk about torture, tenure, and war.
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29 Apr 2008 03:26 pm
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Comments (12)
Your comments about the status envy among academics reminded me of the movie Little Miss Sunshine and the rivalry between the #1 Proust scholar and #2: how many Proust scholars does the world need -- more than one?
I suspect the tribal nature of political discourse tracks the participants' perceptions of the future. If they think things are getting worse, they become more rancorous. The present political tone suggests a pessimistic polis. (alliteration unintended)
Can you please, please respond to the fact that the best available date, employee satisfaction surveys, show academics are significantly more satisfied with their jobs than the average?
Funny that people should say that all the evidence points to academic contentment: would you please indicate some sources.
Listening to your arguments, about Yoo and tenure, I think the ethics argument are important (that Yoo facilitated torture); your arguments that people should be fired for pushing lines of thought that the community disagree with are precisely why academic tenure should be there. Indeed, once you have people listing views for which people should be sacked I get extremely suspicious: the community has decided what is acceptable on a given issue; I can't see how that is at all healthy.
It is interesting that in so many areas (e.g., science, journalism, academia) there is a belief that they exist in an ethics-free context, or that the idea of ethics is extremely narrow (not lying).
An intersting blog.
I agree so much with the argument about the cost the US brand is incalculable. Projecting political, economic and military power is about fixing an attitude towards you. The most powerful attitude is to want to be like you. The power of the brand--there are countries and people that still name themselves after the Romans and to some extent maintain that pride.
I can't believe that you guys have sympathy for the Bush administration over Guantanamo! The decline of any sense of boundaries in the US discourse is truly remarkable--the neocons are really reflecting something much deeper (we shouldn't be surprised at that I suppose). At least kidnap these people, bring them, to the US and try them under American law, but much better to either get them extradited or tried in the jurisdictions they are apprehended in. But to kidnap them and dump them in limbo with no rights (either military or civilian), often on hearsay evidence encouraged with financial incentives? Why is this necessary? To hear such intelligent and well-informed people--this 'war on terror' is much more than other people's perceptions--it seems to be a deep collective corruption.
I agree with both of you about the pie business being horrible--then again I am not 25! (And I am sure Matt is far too mature to be in the least offended.) Age is obviously important and students should be told that pieing people over 30 is cruel and inappropriate.
I have sympathy in the sense that I think that the problem is much harder than their critics credit. That doesn't mean that I think they've handled it well.
For sure, but it is important at the same time to be careful about where to place benefit of the doubt. This is hardly something that can be addressed adequately in such a comment. I am writing it up in an article that I will post later and summarise in a comment here.
OK, I have completed the article and posted it on my blog.
My point is that to say that it may have been difficult to do something rational in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks but that I can see no justification for Guantanamo. If that is the case then we should be clear about this while providing an exit strategy for those who have got themselves embroiled in this mess. I also argue that in some sense we all have become embroiled in it--hence the 'big' ethics issue is relevant.
I have tried not be irritating. I hope I have succeeded.
[Sorry for the above comment: it has been a long day. Let me try again.]
The article is posted on my blog.
My point is that it while it may have been difficult to do something rational in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, I can see no justification for Guantanamo and we should be clear about this. It is now important to provide an exit strategy for those who have got themselves embroiled in this mess. I think we all have in some sense become embroiled in it—i.e., the 'big ethics’ issue is relevant.
I have tried to not be irritating. I hope I have succeeded.
You guys were great. Especially you, Megan. You're a natural.
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Wow. So, despite all evidence, you continue to profess that academics are unhappy with their job. Even though all the evidence contradicts your claim.
Posted by rickm | April 29, 2008 4:01 PM