HEY!: From TNR:
" I'll tell you why. Because members of the elite media hail from East Coast Ivy League bastions like Harvard and thus remain endlessly fascinated by every burp and hiccup to emanate from such hallowed halls. If the president of Duke or UCLA or Rice or even Stanford had made such a gaffe, The New York Times would have yawned twice and gone back to reporting on Christo's plans to wrap Zabar's in orange cellophane."
Two thoughts:
1. I'm very offended by our being put into the same category as such pedestrian schools as Rice or UCLA (or even Stanford). We're way better than all of those (except for Stanford in political science, but it's only a good school if you hate political theory, and Rice is good, I guess, if you want to go to school in Texas).
2. That's actually not true: Dick Brodhead came to us from Yale, so the NYT could write an article about how he's keeping up the tradition of putting his foot in his mouth (as he apparently did, so the Chronicle informed me yesterday, though on one of those 'let a 60s radical go free'-type stories that the Times likes to portray). So bully for us.
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
25.2.05
24.2.05
LINK: Jane Galt reacts much more eloquently than I to Jon Chait's latest piece. I merely slapped my forehead and went "oy!"
JUST A QUICK THOUGHT: On the ongoing skills requirement debate: As per the (somewhere) below, one semester of stats not taught qua stats would be insufficient to train someone to understand statistics, but, frankly, even two semesters of it can only cover very little ground (probability theory, OLS, and a little bit of probit and logit). If you're a theorist, those requirements may be entirely foreign to what you want to do; if you're an Americanist/quantitativist (in comparative or IR), it probably won't be enough.
Similarly with theory, I think. One class, particularly not taught qua theory, would be almost entirely pointless. Two classes, if you're a theorist, won't be nearly enough, and for non-theorists, would only cover a little bit of ground. This leads me to two observations:
1. There's a tendency to place languages and methods skills in opposition to each other (they're both tools for doing a certain kind of work), but it seems like methods and theory are the more sensible opposites.
2. There are probably pretty good arguments for keeping both as requirements: a theory requirement definitely signals that theory is especially strong and valued in the department, in the same sort of way that a methods requirement would signal that sort of teaching being taken seriously. Both, for a person of a certain type of mind, are choiceworthy for their own sake, and are instrumentally valuable inasmuch as they make it possible for people to talk to each other across the potentially divisive positive-normative divide (I think that the obligation runs equally both ways there). Obviously the value of this one depends on what exactly one's graduate education is supposed to be doing, which has always seemed to me to be one of the great open questions in the discipline as a whole (though I could be wrong about that).
Similarly with theory, I think. One class, particularly not taught qua theory, would be almost entirely pointless. Two classes, if you're a theorist, won't be nearly enough, and for non-theorists, would only cover a little bit of ground. This leads me to two observations:
1. There's a tendency to place languages and methods skills in opposition to each other (they're both tools for doing a certain kind of work), but it seems like methods and theory are the more sensible opposites.
2. There are probably pretty good arguments for keeping both as requirements: a theory requirement definitely signals that theory is especially strong and valued in the department, in the same sort of way that a methods requirement would signal that sort of teaching being taken seriously. Both, for a person of a certain type of mind, are choiceworthy for their own sake, and are instrumentally valuable inasmuch as they make it possible for people to talk to each other across the potentially divisive positive-normative divide (I think that the obligation runs equally both ways there). Obviously the value of this one depends on what exactly one's graduate education is supposed to be doing, which has always seemed to me to be one of the great open questions in the discipline as a whole (though I could be wrong about that).
LINK: Belated congratulations in order to Joe for having been unemployed less in the last year than I have been. Best of luck with the new job!
YOUR TASK FOR THE WEEK:
Explain how this article and this one can help illuminate the difference between liberal institutionalism and realism in international relations.
Explain how this article and this one can help illuminate the difference between liberal institutionalism and realism in international relations.
17.2.05
QUESTION: I'm in my second semester of stats, and I must say, my complaints about last term (all just and true, down to the least of them), I'm actually learning quite a lot, and I think as a consequence, I'm a better reader of all kinds of empirical work (same goes with the effect my game theory class is having). It seems to me that part of the benefit of going through the process is that the expectations are exactly the same of me as for the people who are likely to need to use stats for their work. I think all the people who've encouraged me to keep going in this direction have done so on the premise that it's good to learn statistics the way people who use statistics learn it. So far so good.
But what about a hypothetical course like "statistics for political theorists," where I wouldn't have to actually do any problems, or learn the more complicated concepts, or master anything that wasn't likely to come up in reading a standard IR paper? I'd learn something, sure, but it'd be a more superficial kind of knowledge, no? One that would leave me less prepared as a political scientist to deal with empirical work in a way capable of doing justice to it, right? Just curious.
But what about a hypothetical course like "statistics for political theorists," where I wouldn't have to actually do any problems, or learn the more complicated concepts, or master anything that wasn't likely to come up in reading a standard IR paper? I'd learn something, sure, but it'd be a more superficial kind of knowledge, no? One that would leave me less prepared as a political scientist to deal with empirical work in a way capable of doing justice to it, right? Just curious.
LINK: It could always be worse: Ann Arbor is Overrated discusses the craziness of grad student unions and factionalism within the grad student body, as well as a debate which I can only characterize as being of the "only in Ann Arbor" type.
16.2.05
LINK: It could always be worse: A< HREF="http://www.annarborisoverrated.com/archives/000571.html">Ann Arbor is Overrated discusses the craziness of grad student unions and factionalism within the grad student body, as well as a debate which I can only characterize as being of the "only in Ann Arbor" type.
15.2.05
OH, SNAP!* : Joe Carter:
"Democrats have tried to follow maybe 25 of 27 main values? Which two did they miss? Lord thy God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself?"
*As the kids say
"Democrats have tried to follow maybe 25 of 27 main values? Which two did they miss? Lord thy God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself?"
*As the kids say
13.2.05
11.2.05
LINK: I'd like to point you to this really excellent essay on Lionel Trilling by Gertrude Himmelfarb. To wit:
"What Trilling was now proposing, however, went well beyond the reassertion of that disjunction between literature and politics. Where others found Eliot interesting in spite of his politics, Trilling found him interesting because of his politics: a politics not only conservative but religious, and not only religious but identifiably Christian. And this, to readers who were, as Trilling said in his usual understated manner, "probably hostile to religion" (and many of whom, he might have added, like himself, were Jewish). Where John Stuart Mill had cited Coleridge's On the Constitution of Church and State as a corrective to Benthamism, Lionel Trilling recommended Eliot's The Idea of a Christian Society as a corrective to Marxism. The Left had simplistically assumed that Eliot "escaped" from "The Waste Land" into the embrace of Anglo-Catholicism.
But even if this were true, it would not be "the worst that could be told of a man in our time." Surely, Trilling observed, Marxist intellectuals, who had witnessed the flourishing and the decay of Marxism, should appreciate the intellectual honorableness of Eliot's conversion. They need not follow Eliot's path to theology, but they could emulate him in questioning their own faith.
Marxism was not the only thing that Trilling (by way of Eliot) called into question. He challenged liberalism as well. Totalitarianism, Eliot had said, was inherently "pagan," for it recognized no authority or principle but that of the state. And liberalism, far from providing an alternative to paganism, actually contained within itself the seeds of paganism, in its materialism and relativism. Only Christianity, Eliot argued--the "Idea" of Christianity, not its pietistic or revivalist expressions--could resist totalitarianism, because only Christianity offered a view of man and society that promoted the ideal of "moral perfection" and "the good life." "I am inclined," Trilling quoted Eliot, "to approach public affairs from the point of view of the moralist."
Trilling hastened to qualify his endorsement of Eliot in "Elements That Are Wanted"; he did not believe morality was absolute or a "religious politics" desirable. But Eliot's vision of morality and politics was superior to the vision of liberals and radicals, who had contempt for the past and worshiped the future. Liberals, in the name of progress, put off the realization of the good life to some indefinite future; radicals put off the good life in the expectation of a revolution that would usher in not only a new society but also a new man, a man who would be "wholly changed by socialism.""
"What Trilling was now proposing, however, went well beyond the reassertion of that disjunction between literature and politics. Where others found Eliot interesting in spite of his politics, Trilling found him interesting because of his politics: a politics not only conservative but religious, and not only religious but identifiably Christian. And this, to readers who were, as Trilling said in his usual understated manner, "probably hostile to religion" (and many of whom, he might have added, like himself, were Jewish). Where John Stuart Mill had cited Coleridge's On the Constitution of Church and State as a corrective to Benthamism, Lionel Trilling recommended Eliot's The Idea of a Christian Society as a corrective to Marxism. The Left had simplistically assumed that Eliot "escaped" from "The Waste Land" into the embrace of Anglo-Catholicism.
But even if this were true, it would not be "the worst that could be told of a man in our time." Surely, Trilling observed, Marxist intellectuals, who had witnessed the flourishing and the decay of Marxism, should appreciate the intellectual honorableness of Eliot's conversion. They need not follow Eliot's path to theology, but they could emulate him in questioning their own faith.
Marxism was not the only thing that Trilling (by way of Eliot) called into question. He challenged liberalism as well. Totalitarianism, Eliot had said, was inherently "pagan," for it recognized no authority or principle but that of the state. And liberalism, far from providing an alternative to paganism, actually contained within itself the seeds of paganism, in its materialism and relativism. Only Christianity, Eliot argued--the "Idea" of Christianity, not its pietistic or revivalist expressions--could resist totalitarianism, because only Christianity offered a view of man and society that promoted the ideal of "moral perfection" and "the good life." "I am inclined," Trilling quoted Eliot, "to approach public affairs from the point of view of the moralist."
Trilling hastened to qualify his endorsement of Eliot in "Elements That Are Wanted"; he did not believe morality was absolute or a "religious politics" desirable. But Eliot's vision of morality and politics was superior to the vision of liberals and radicals, who had contempt for the past and worshiped the future. Liberals, in the name of progress, put off the realization of the good life to some indefinite future; radicals put off the good life in the expectation of a revolution that would usher in not only a new society but also a new man, a man who would be "wholly changed by socialism.""
LINKS: We're now on the verge of seeing multilateralist policy with respect to North Korea pay some dividends--in convincing Russia and China to look at their long-term (not merely anti-US) interests, and in getting Japan to play a leading role in setting policy and sanctions.
So, naturally, we should give up while we still can. Indeed.
I don't think the US should really be in the business of annoying crazy (or maybe "not as loony as he seems, that he's well-informed and can behave quite rationally") dictators of repressive totalitarian regimes, but this looks like one of those situations where every move that the US could potentially take can be criticized; I'm not at all sure it follows that the US deserves to be criticized no matter what. I tend to think getting China thinking about its security interests is never a good thing (because if there's anything worse than a repressive totalitarian dictatorship, it's a repressive totalitarian dictatorship with delusions of capitalism), and to this end, Japan's proactiveness is uniformly a good thing. Moreover (and this is a key point for those who want to lambast the Bushies for unilateralism), the problem with switching to (or concurrently running) bilateral talks is that it essentially turns North Korea into the United States' problem; multilateralism in this context relieves pressure on all parties involved and presents a number of options for the non-North Koreans.
So, naturally, we should give up while we still can. Indeed.
I don't think the US should really be in the business of annoying crazy (or maybe "not as loony as he seems, that he's well-informed and can behave quite rationally") dictators of repressive totalitarian regimes, but this looks like one of those situations where every move that the US could potentially take can be criticized; I'm not at all sure it follows that the US deserves to be criticized no matter what. I tend to think getting China thinking about its security interests is never a good thing (because if there's anything worse than a repressive totalitarian dictatorship, it's a repressive totalitarian dictatorship with delusions of capitalism), and to this end, Japan's proactiveness is uniformly a good thing. Moreover (and this is a key point for those who want to lambast the Bushies for unilateralism), the problem with switching to (or concurrently running) bilateral talks is that it essentially turns North Korea into the United States' problem; multilateralism in this context relieves pressure on all parties involved and presents a number of options for the non-North Koreans.
8.2.05
LET A THOUSAND FLOWERS BLOOM: David Rice, ladies and gentlemen...
NOTE: obviously (or as would become obvious reading David's postings (I hope)), we substantively disagree on probably virtually everything, but, you know, following J.S. Mill, it's always good to have ideas out there clashing and whatnot...
NOTE: obviously (or as would become obvious reading David's postings (I hope)), we substantively disagree on probably virtually everything, but, you know, following J.S. Mill, it's always good to have ideas out there clashing and whatnot...
4.2.05
REAL IM CONVESATIONS:
OGIW: have you come up with a unified theory of political behavior yet? because i assume that's what you're working on
Me: well, I'm working mostly in the international realm
OGIW: a unified *global* theory of political behavior would be even more impressive
OGIW: bonus points if it's 25 words or less
Me: the strong do what they can, the weak do as they must
OGIW: that'll do it
Me: thank goodness for Thuciydides
OGIW: i can't tell you how many times in the average day i have that same thought
OGIW: actually... yes i can. it's zero. zero times in the average day.
OGIW: have you come up with a unified theory of political behavior yet? because i assume that's what you're working on
Me: well, I'm working mostly in the international realm
OGIW: a unified *global* theory of political behavior would be even more impressive
OGIW: bonus points if it's 25 words or less
Me: the strong do what they can, the weak do as they must
OGIW: that'll do it
Me: thank goodness for Thuciydides
OGIW: i can't tell you how many times in the average day i have that same thought
OGIW: actually... yes i can. it's zero. zero times in the average day.
3.2.05
QUOTE: Marc Cooper:
"But first let me say I was nauseated and appalled by the cheap trick of Republican congress members flashing their purple-ink stained fingers to the camera. I’m someone who praised the Iraqi elections (scroll down one posting) but this was really crave, stomach-turning exploitation. These congress-twerps who spend their days and night suckling on the special interests tit braved no more than the risk of camera-light sunburn for their efforts. To try and cash in on the heroics of ordinary Iraqis merits endless scorn. Shame on any Republican partisan who even attempts to justify that sickening gesture. Have the honesty to denounce it as the arrogant, self-serving hoax that it was."
I assumed that Mr. Cooper, writing as he does for The Nation, would at least have heard of the principle of solidarity, and would. at the least, be willing to extend the benefit of the doubt on this one.
"But first let me say I was nauseated and appalled by the cheap trick of Republican congress members flashing their purple-ink stained fingers to the camera. I’m someone who praised the Iraqi elections (scroll down one posting) but this was really crave, stomach-turning exploitation. These congress-twerps who spend their days and night suckling on the special interests tit braved no more than the risk of camera-light sunburn for their efforts. To try and cash in on the heroics of ordinary Iraqis merits endless scorn. Shame on any Republican partisan who even attempts to justify that sickening gesture. Have the honesty to denounce it as the arrogant, self-serving hoax that it was."
I assumed that Mr. Cooper, writing as he does for The Nation, would at least have heard of the principle of solidarity, and would. at the least, be willing to extend the benefit of the doubt on this one.
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