Fortunately, what's written there is not true in all places at all times. For example, I got my PhD in math at Harvard in the 1970s. My PhD adviser, Andy Gleason, was a terrifically nice guy, yet seemed oddly unsympathetic to the stresses of the PhD process. I later realized that he didn't have a PhD himself ... when I noted that absence in his bio as he was elected to be president of the American Mathematical Society.
And by the way -- while I think he sort of understood what I was working on (the theorem that came to be known as the Mertens-Neyman result for stochastic games -- they scooped me by a few months, but I got my degree anyway), I'm nearly certain that nobody else in the rest of the department did. It didn't matter. When it came to approving/disapproving theses, our department seemed quite politics-free.
On the other hand, I heard horror stories from my dorm-mates about other departments, such as history and Slavic linguistics. Perhaps the "harder" subjects had better standards of objectivity. Perhaps I was just lucky.
And by the way -- it also was not the case that an undergraduate degree was needed for admission to grad school. Discovering this fact on my junior year Spring break grad school trip let me greatly change the negotiating dynamics around degree requirements at my undergraduate institution. When it as all over, the dean who had originally given me the most grief politely thanked me for bothering to get my undergrad degree.
> When the thesis came to be read by our committee, we could not pass it. Brilliancy and originality by themselves won't save a thesis for the doctorate; it must also exhibit a heavy technical apparatus of learning; and this our candidate had neglected to bring to bear. So, telling him that he was temporarily rejected, we advised him to pad out the thesis properly, and return with it next year
This is not much of an exaggeration. Getting a Ph.D. is as much (maybe more) about demonstrating your ability to shmooze, defer to authority and put up with bullshit for an extended period of time as it is about learning or doing good research.
Did we read the same paragraph? The problem with his first thesis was that, though he presented a brilliant and original result, he didn’t show that he’d studied enough prior research.
Nothing to do with schmoozing, everything to do with scholarly integrity.
>This is not much of an exaggeration. Getting a Ph.D. is as much (maybe more) about demonstrating your ability to shmooze, defer to authority and put up with bullshit for an extended period of time as it is about learning or doing good research.
As opposed to all the various professional competencies and activities which involve... zero schmoozing, total defiance of authority, and never tolerating bullshit for a single moment? I feel very confused here. Doing things you don't find fun at the time is what work is.
It's kind of understandable. In some professions we have accreditation and licenses; others sometimes clamor for the same thing. That fellow's Ph. D. diploma on the wall was the effective equivalent of "licensed practitioner of teaching the Liberal Arts" or something like that. That's why the employer insisted on it.
Would we say that a dentist's license had nothing to do with whether they can do dentistry and cheerfully go to one that doesn't have one?
Fact is that by getting the Ph. D., the guy did prove that he was "good" in some way; he had the academic "muscle" and that is relevant to the teaching, even if the subject isn't the same.
You absolutely cannot say that philosophy is irrelevant to literature. That is to say if we examine the statement "[w]e wrote again, pointing out that a Ph.D. in philosophy would prove little anyhow as to one's ability to teach literature" it doesn't really hold up. That fellow simply doesn't cast aside his philosophy background when he gets up in front of the literature class! The way we analyze literature all has philosophical underpinnings. Literature can carry philosphical points of view, and consciously so, even. Fictional literature has been used to transmit philosophical thought, from Socratic dialogues of ancient greece to works like the novels of Ayn Rand.
How long ago was this? These days the only people who are likely to be teaching you at a university who don't have PhDs are PhD students. And they're less good at it largely because they don't have years of experience.
Amusingly, I have a "B.A. in CS". Given the subject, most people assume a B.S. if you just say "bachelors'", but in my particular case, they'd be wrong ;) I imagine this is somewhat like how you can get a doctorate in nursing.
(just wrapping up my own three magical letters too!)
I've seen this in many job descriptions, but in 30+ working years I've never seen an employer actually verify that a candidate had the credentials he claimed to have.
In my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, this requirement is often flexible. I tend to read it as "B.S. in CS, or sufficiently impressive relevant experience."
> It seems to me high time to rouse ourselves to consciousness, and to cast a critical eye upon this decidedly grotesque tendency. Other nations suffer terribly from the Mandarin disease.
Does anyone know what this use of "Mandarin" is supposed to suggest? It sounds like a sort of Orientalist fear of exotic diseases, but seems like it could refer to something more specific. Just curious.
The Chinese Imperial Examinations system determined who could hold which rank of government office based on grueling study and testing on Chinese literature.
The comparison the article is making is that the selection process is entirely orthagonal to the job, and the hoops that needed to be jumped through precluded any actual study of the things that mattered.
This was regarded at the time of the article as a really bad idea both within and outside China, and ended two years later after 1,700 years of use.
I believe it's meant to disparage a bureaucratic, technocratic academy, in the sense of "you must jump through these hoops and pass these examinations to join the leadership / professoriate, regardless of your actual abilities."
Judging by the etymology presented here, meaning officials, "mandarin chinese" being then "chinese as spoken by officials", I would take it as simply a rewording of his condemnation of the tendency for admiration of title in place of admiration of the title holder, which he otherwise goes on about.
A disease of officiality.
I don't know if an overtone suggesting a cultural judgement over some perceived chinese tendency for admiration of title is intended or not.
Note the assumption that intellectual distinction is native. That is an assumption that is counter to the American assumption that any man can become anything he wants given the effort and desire. The people who want and try to earn a phd without the native ability are the problem James is stating the universities are creating. This is the third class of persons.
The other interesting thing was how the third class of persons obtains a phd is subjective. "Thus, partiality in the favored cases; in the unfavored, blood on our hands; and in both a bad conscience,--are the results of our administration."
Interesting thoughts from a man who has "distinguished intellect"
You think it's bad here? If you ever take the DC metro, look out the window at the Pentagon metro station (but others are often bad too). You will see exclusively two ad buys over all of the signs. The first is for some large defense contractor, usually Northrop, advertising weapons systems or IT services.
The other half of the ads are for "Graduate School" which is some sort of organization that confers masters and phds. Perfect for the aspiring bureaucrat that needs to check that qualification off the list.
I had a friend pulled in to one of these "health policy PhD" (she wasn't in the DC area) and she was excited to be in a degree program with high ranking bureaucrats in the HHS.
[+] [-] CurtMonash|9 years ago|reply
And by the way -- while I think he sort of understood what I was working on (the theorem that came to be known as the Mertens-Neyman result for stochastic games -- they scooped me by a few months, but I got my degree anyway), I'm nearly certain that nobody else in the rest of the department did. It didn't matter. When it came to approving/disapproving theses, our department seemed quite politics-free.
On the other hand, I heard horror stories from my dorm-mates about other departments, such as history and Slavic linguistics. Perhaps the "harder" subjects had better standards of objectivity. Perhaps I was just lucky.
And by the way -- it also was not the case that an undergraduate degree was needed for admission to grad school. Discovering this fact on my junior year Spring break grad school trip let me greatly change the negotiating dynamics around degree requirements at my undergraduate institution. When it as all over, the dean who had originally given me the most grief politely thanked me for bothering to get my undergrad degree.
[+] [-] lisper|9 years ago|reply
> When the thesis came to be read by our committee, we could not pass it. Brilliancy and originality by themselves won't save a thesis for the doctorate; it must also exhibit a heavy technical apparatus of learning; and this our candidate had neglected to bring to bear. So, telling him that he was temporarily rejected, we advised him to pad out the thesis properly, and return with it next year
This is not much of an exaggeration. Getting a Ph.D. is as much (maybe more) about demonstrating your ability to shmooze, defer to authority and put up with bullshit for an extended period of time as it is about learning or doing good research.
[+] [-] dpkendal|9 years ago|reply
Nothing to do with schmoozing, everything to do with scholarly integrity.
[+] [-] eli_gottlieb|9 years ago|reply
As opposed to all the various professional competencies and activities which involve... zero schmoozing, total defiance of authority, and never tolerating bullshit for a single moment? I feel very confused here. Doing things you don't find fun at the time is what work is.
[+] [-] tomrod|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kazinator|9 years ago|reply
Would we say that a dentist's license had nothing to do with whether they can do dentistry and cheerfully go to one that doesn't have one?
Fact is that by getting the Ph. D., the guy did prove that he was "good" in some way; he had the academic "muscle" and that is relevant to the teaching, even if the subject isn't the same.
You absolutely cannot say that philosophy is irrelevant to literature. That is to say if we examine the statement "[w]e wrote again, pointing out that a Ph.D. in philosophy would prove little anyhow as to one's ability to teach literature" it doesn't really hold up. That fellow simply doesn't cast aside his philosophy background when he gets up in front of the literature class! The way we analyze literature all has philosophical underpinnings. Literature can carry philosphical points of view, and consciously so, even. Fictional literature has been used to transmit philosophical thought, from Socratic dialogues of ancient greece to works like the novels of Ayn Rand.
[+] [-] qntty|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pnathan|9 years ago|reply
I would guess that the internal qualities that drove them to seek the phd were the ones that made me prefer them.
[+] [-] foldr|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arcanus|9 years ago|reply
(three magical letter holder here)
[+] [-] chias|9 years ago|reply
(just wrapping up my own three magical letters too!)
[+] [-] ams6110|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] macsj200|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acobster|9 years ago|reply
> It seems to me high time to rouse ourselves to consciousness, and to cast a critical eye upon this decidedly grotesque tendency. Other nations suffer terribly from the Mandarin disease.
Does anyone know what this use of "Mandarin" is supposed to suggest? It sounds like a sort of Orientalist fear of exotic diseases, but seems like it could refer to something more specific. Just curious.
[+] [-] danielvf|9 years ago|reply
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination
The comparison the article is making is that the selection process is entirely orthagonal to the job, and the hoops that needed to be jumped through precluded any actual study of the things that mattered.
This was regarded at the time of the article as a really bad idea both within and outside China, and ended two years later after 1,700 years of use.
[+] [-] zamfi|9 years ago|reply
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_(bureaucrat)
[+] [-] ihm|9 years ago|reply
The relevant definitions are
1. (in the Chinese Empire) a member of any of the nine ranks of public officials, each distinguished by a particular kind of button worn on the cap.
6. an influential or powerful government official or bureaucrat.
It connotes a kind of bureaucratic meritocracy.
[+] [-] knome|9 years ago|reply
Judging by the etymology presented here, meaning officials, "mandarin chinese" being then "chinese as spoken by officials", I would take it as simply a rewording of his condemnation of the tendency for admiration of title in place of admiration of the title holder, which he otherwise goes on about.
A disease of officiality.
I don't know if an overtone suggesting a cultural judgement over some perceived chinese tendency for admiration of title is intended or not.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] bitwize|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sebcat|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wackspurt|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] morugin|9 years ago|reply
The other interesting thing was how the third class of persons obtains a phd is subjective. "Thus, partiality in the favored cases; in the unfavored, blood on our hands; and in both a bad conscience,--are the results of our administration."
Interesting thoughts from a man who has "distinguished intellect"
[+] [-] master_yoda_1|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dnautics|9 years ago|reply
The other half of the ads are for "Graduate School" which is some sort of organization that confers masters and phds. Perfect for the aspiring bureaucrat that needs to check that qualification off the list.
I had a friend pulled in to one of these "health policy PhD" (she wasn't in the DC area) and she was excited to be in a degree program with high ranking bureaucrats in the HHS.
Edit: found a link to the organization, apparently they don't give out masters and phds... How confusing! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduate_School_USA
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] samirillian|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lewis500|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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