[MD] Philosophy and Philosophology

[Matt Kundert]

Hi John,

Matt said:
I often go off on little screeds about this particular 
issue--which is my own little pet concern--because I see a 
lot of the very different ways in which us amateur 
philosophers pursue our own pet concerns collecting in this 
very similar pattern, in which professional behavior is 
down-graded in an effort to clear space for one's own 
amateur activity (an effort I don't think is needed).  So, in 
its way, it is one of the few things amateur philosophers 
can be expected to have in common, and so to have also 
the possiblity of discussion in which everyone will have not 
only an opinion, but a horse in the race, i.e. a reason for 
thinking the discussion has consequences for what one is 
doing, and so a reason for having a _motivated discussion_ 
(and not just an idle one with few consequences to what 
one does or thinks).

John said:
In this way is the amateur philsopher purer than the pro, 
because a pro has to fit into a given structure or suffer 
rejection and thus is exposed to constant temptation to 
immorality - subjecting his intellectual patterns to the 
scrutiny and oversight of a social organization.  Given 
enough prestige and motivation, the profession is constantly 
evolving towards degeneracy because those that succumb 
to the social pressure thrive and prosper, and those that 
hold fast to intellectual ideals in pursuit of Quality at the 
sake of social advancement - are kicked out or quit.  Over 
time a culture evolves with very strong static defense 
mechanisms which keep out all DQ. Its the same exact 
problem with organized religion and it's starting to make 
more sense to me, Pirsig's disdain for both.

Matt:
Yeah, I suppose.  I dislike greatly metaphors of purity (I talk 
about "purity" in the last three paragraphs of Part I of 
"Philosophosofpolsopy"), but you're pointing at the problem 
of getting money for having ideas.  The notion of a 
"think-tank," left or right, falls into this category.

However, I don't think a "profession is constantly evolving 
towards degeneracy."  I think our culture has done quite 
well--so far--in generating safeguards against that kind of 
thing.  It's not like that kind of thing doesn't happen, but as 
_a system_, we can't forget what effect the image of 
Socrates has, dying for his unpopular, free beliefs.  The 
image itself is welded into the cultural immune system, if 
you will, which breeds in regular joes, like you and me, the 
simple, if only slight, suspicion of people getting paid to 
generate ideas.

On the side of the university system, however, we have to 
remember that the idea of _tenure_ was created 
_exactly for_ this problem.  Tenure means that, if you play 
the game of academic politics long and well enough, then 
when you're older, you can say whatever the fuck you want 
without fear of losing your job.  I don't see what's wrong 
with this trade-off: we can't just assure everyone a job if 
they just want to sit around and think all day, but on the 
other hand we can't threaten people with job-loss and 
expect them to say what's really on their mind.

And if you weren't aware of it, tenure is an endangered 
species these days.  _THAT_, more than anything, will spell 
the doom of culture (the planet being a separate problem).  
The Right has been assaulting the University in America for 
years, talking about "political correctness" and other kinds 
of bullshit.  The fact of the matter is that tenure protects 
everyone, and every discipline goes through generational 
upheavals (if they didn't, _then_ we can talk about, maybe 
not degeneracy, but at least crusty, static scholasticism).  
And recently the Right, not just attacking the University in 
general, has been assaulting tenure, saying we need 
"standards."  Standards sound okay (who doesn't think 
every profession should have standards?), but when talking 
about the education profession, standards--when talked 
about by _politicians_--are code for "think our way, or see 
you later."  It might not seem pernicious, and most of the 
people who think it's a good idea are not thinking anything 
so destructive, but we are talking about a _system_, one 
that's been functioning quite well, thank you very much, 
and the effect on the system would be to make it at the 
mercy of the standards-writers, which means we could see 
an Orwellian situation occur, where the present just keeps 
writing itself into power: a situation _not_ likely in the 
present set-up.

This is a tangled, complicated issue, and the first step has 
to be to separate primary from secondary (University) 
schooling, and demand that each seek their own specific 
answers.  And secondly, that even when the Right isn't 
overtly threatening the University with attacks on tenure, 
with the insane, Chicago-school economic policy they keep 
thrusting down our throats, they destroy working economies 
(because that is, even if unintended as when we take 
Greenspan's surprise sincerely, what it's designed to do, 
funnel dispersed money into fewer and fewer hands) and 
thus create underfunded universities--which means 
universities, because they're seeing their money dry up, 
have to hire _adjuncts_, which are basically analogous to 
non-union jobs, something like scabs.  Or perhaps not like 
scabs, but like part-time Wal-Mart employees, who are 
_specifically_ kept at part-time so Wal-Mart doesn't have to 
cough up benefits.  It's not the adjuncts' fault, they gotta' 
make a living like anyone else.  It's a system gone down the 
tubes.  And guess what--adjuncts can be fired whenever, for 
whatever.  They are non-tenure-track positions, contractors 
who are hired back only if the employer feels like it.

So what's more dangerous to intellectual quality: the lures of 
being President of the American Philosophical Association, or 
being asked to give the Paul Carus lectures--or a sea of fresh, 
massively in debt PhDs just waiting for the chance to get a 
job, any job, when you--an adjunct--are fired for teaching 
Pirsig or Royce instead of someone more entrenched, like 
Searle or Russell?

Matt

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