Spew-Anniversary Time: Less Frequent, Still Generalizing But Now Generalized

Fourteen years flies by, eh?  I started blogging after peak blogging declined and while twitter was hip and fun and snarky.  Now, twitter is toxic, ok, it's owner is toxic, and blogging is hip again although folks tend to call it Substack.  I went from writing about anything sometimes four times a day to now writing far less frequently--sometimes four times a month.  I write less partly because I can just refer to an old post rather than rewrite the same thing over and over again. 

On the occasion of the 14th anniversary, I thought I would write something to keep up my monthly totals and to consider some of the ironies relating to my first post long ago and in a city not so far away (I am convinced that I write less because I am complaining about Quebec and its politics far less).

In my first post, I was reacting to two pieces I read and that were getting much play: one by Joseph Nye arguing that political scientists are not policy relevant and one by Francis Fukuyama about the need to get rid of tenure.  Let's take those in turn.  

I argued in the original post that the interest and willingness to engage the policy world varies among scholars, and that there are plenty of folks doing so.  Since then, the Bridging the Gap folks have not only produced many cohorts of folks interested in doing so, but this organization is now taking the next step with some others, pondering about the do's and don't's and the ethics of engagement.  DoD is populated by a bunch of political scientists these days, while DND (the maple version of DoD) killed their engagement program, the Security and Defence Forum, and then started a new one, Mobilizing Insights for Defence and Security or MINDS, that now funds nine networks on a range of topics.  We built the Canadian Defence and Security Network to foster greater engagement among the different parts of Canada's defence and security community, and after four years, I think we have been quite successful.

Of course, the question is whether policy-types listen to the academics or are they just checking boxes?  Hard to tell ultimately, but I do know that two of Arbour's recommendations came from one academic, and she consulted many during her review.  I also know that crises provide opportunities for outsiders to engage, and, yes, the Canadian military has been crisis mode for at least two years.  Anecdata is just that, but I have found that folks in government do listen to our BattleRhythm podcast, as I get calls when I say stuff that is out of date.   

Tenure is also in the news, as GOP-dominated state legislatures are attempting to wipe out tenure in Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and elsewhere.  People have always doubted whether the academic freedom that tenure was designed to protect was actually protected and deployed.  That is, people wondered whether academics might be trained to be uncontroversial through the probation period which then sticks, that profs do not really need academic freedom because they never really make use of it.

Dan Nexon commented on my first post, and it was most prescient:

those who say that the "free speech" issue isn't so important anymore only think that because tenure has protected it for so long. Abolish tenure, and things will get ugly very, very quickly.

Well, we may have a "natural experiment" where profs in GOP-dominated states will have different pressures/constraints to compare with those elsewhere.  Fukuyama was wondering if tenure caused stagnation as it reduced the incentives for profs to produce and to push.  He wasn't wondering about the punishment that may visited upon those who dare to dare.  Given how partisan, how ideological this current anti-tenure effort is, can we doubt at all that those in tenure-less places will have toe the line for fear of getting fired?  Just mentioning racism, which is an important topic in any number of history and social science classes, might be enough to get one fired, not to mention researching those in office right now who are white supremacists.  So, yeah, tenure is more relevant than ever, and the concern that it might cause some folks to become deadwood is far offset by the real threat of ideological conformity imposed by the far right that now dominates too many political systems (watch out, Albertan profs, you may be next).  

Finally, one of the themes of that first post was that I was originally miffed about folks generalizing about profs, but then I realized I am a professional generalizer.  I take ideas that I know well and apply them all over the place, to see what is common and what is not so common.  The funny thing is that I have recently taken umbrage at generalizations hurled at my kind--that some folks question the integrity of profs because they engage the policy community and even take money from the government, gasp!  As a good prof, I should be less concerned about folks thinking critically of my kind and more concerned with them doing the work as they criticize. That is, read our stuff and judge then if we are shills for whoever.  I do have 14 years of stuff right here.  Of course, some might think that this is a Steve Bannon-esque strategy of flooding the zone with shit.  Maybe?

There are many things people don't understand about professors, but two of them are:

a)  we don't pocket grant money--we use it to pay for research assistants (students), travel, access to data, equipment/software, and the like.

b) we spend our entire careers being criticized--the most valued publications are those that go through peer review, and peer review is often pretty brutal.  So, we tend to develop thick skins, as rejection is inherent in our enterprise, as I keep saying (I am 0 for 2 this spring in sabbatical fellowship applications, waiting to hear about a third).  

Of course, those are two generalizations that are mostly true but not always.  I hate when folks question my integrity, that kind of criticism does rankle.  So, my skin is not always as thick as I would like.  I am also easy trolled.  But that is a topic for another day.  Perhaps before the next anniversary.

One last thing: even though I have been doing this for fourteen years, I am always a bit surprised that people read my musings here.  The typos in many posts should remind folks that this outlet is for the half-baked.  The spew is only semi-finished.  Which may be for the best as my mistakes and my omissions have led to lots of interesting conversations.  Thanks for reading and engaging me.  While this thing may have started out as narcissism--my ideas are really important--this blog has really helped me engage my curiosity, learning much stuff along the way.