August 07, 2007

Ezra Klein comments on Ayn Rand

Ezra Klein, a prominent liberal blogger, recently posted the following:

Reading this perfectly serious attempt to lay out Ayn Rand's objections to utilitarianism, I'm reminded of how utterly astonishing I find it that anyone takes her seriously. Listen to this stuff: "The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice - which means: self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction - which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good."

Do people really find that compelling?

Ezra is one of the most intelligent and fair-minded liberal bloggers out there, so I thought I'd take his question at face value and respond, with the following in his comments section:

Hi Ezra,

As a regular reader of your blog, I thought I'd chime in to say that I do find Rand compelling.

Yes, I first discovered Rand when I was fairly young, when I was about 17. Interestingly, I had already read a lot of philosophy by that time. I had just finished reading A Theory of Justice and considered myself to be a pretty serious advocate of Rawlsian liberalism. So I wasn't exactly approaching Rand as a complete know-nothing.

I only picked up The Fountainhead in the first place because I thought writing an essay for the Ayn Rand Institute's contest would be an easy way to help pay for college. I didn't expect to agree with Rand's philosophy. But I actually ended up liking the book, and didn't even bother entering the essay contest. I later started to read her nonfiction, including books by her students, and found their arguments compelling. That is the main reason I continue to like her.

There's been a lot of Rand-bashing in the blogosphere as of late, regarding the motivations of the people who read her and what they're trying to rationalize. I think it's unfounded:

http://www.noumenalself.com/archives/2007/07/im_kind_of_a_ph_1.html

Sanpete mentions an Objectivist philosophy grad student who doesn't fit the stereotype of obnoxious "selfishness." I've met many of these non-stereotypical Rand admirers in my travels through the Objectivist movement. But WB Reeves is correct that Objectivists "range from princes of character...to venal buffoons of the lowest rank." The same is true, I imagine, for individuals who adhere to many ideologies.

There is some confusion in this comment section about how Rand's advocacy of selfishness could be consistent with an Aristotelian approach to virtue. I could say a number of things here, but instead I'll just point Ezra's readers to *Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist*, a recent book from Cambridge by Professor Tara Smith:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0521705460

Not exactly 17-year-old fare. But to give a short answer myself: I think you'll find that Aristotelian ethics in particular would find the concept of an ethics of self-sacrifice to be incredibly alien. Aristotle thinks that the virtuous man is a lover of self. And this is compatible with love for others: we have friends, Aristotle says, because they are like "another self." Aristotle's ideas are not entirely consistent with Rand, but there is a significant amount of overlap.

Likewise, Ayn Rand though that self-interest was a far richer concept that is conventional to believe. Self-interest is not reducible merely to economic calculus, but is constituted instead by values like reason, productive work, and self-esteem. This includes the values of love and friendship. The boundaries of the self are wider than many would admit, but they are not infinitely elastic. There is still such a thing as self-sacrifice, and it is morally corrupt. It is a virtue to give up money to help your sick wife. It is a vice to sacrifice that money to help a stranger's sick wife and let your own die.

As for those who are contending that Rand's philosophy was just some kind of response to her life under communism: She denied this, and her biography suggests that she held many of her central ideas before the 1917 revolution. Surely her experience in Russia informed her worldview, but it certainly didn't stop her from critiquing the ills of American society that she encountered when she got here, even though it was the anathema of Soviet Russia. Careful readers of The Fountainhead will notice a Sinclair Lewis-style satire of American commercial culture.

NS

I encourage other Objectivists to add their own polite and evenhanded comments.

Posted by admin at 02:19 PM | Comments (2)

July 26, 2007

I'm kind of a philosopher, and I love Ayn Rand

This little item just popped up on my Google news alert for the keyword "philosopher." Steve Gimbel, philosophy professor at Gettysburg College doesn't much like the progress Objectivists are making in academia. I registered a few choice comments:

I’m “kind of a philosopher” myself (Ph.D. 2007 from a major program), and I happen to like Ayn Rand very much. I don’t think it’s because it rationalizes my place in society. As an adjunct professor who makes less than $20,000 a year, there’s not much of a position to rationalize.

One of the things I learned in my education as a “kind of philosopher” is that I shouldn’t make serious comments about philosophers I haven’t read. I especially shouldn’t speculate about the psychology of people who like to read those philosophers. Yet your post provides no evidence of ever having read (much) Ayn Rand, save perhaps for secondary commentary. If you had, you’d realize that she does not object to caring for others.

What she does object to is people who regard sacrifice to others as a kind of moral virtue. And she thinks that nobody should ever sacrifice, whether they are specimens of human excellence or not. Even the meekest adjunct professor has a right to pursue his happiness, and shouldn’t sacrifice it, even to those above him with tenure. Mutatis mutandis for the meekest plumbers, whom Ayn Rand thought were usually of greater productive virtue than most tenured professors. See the character of Eddie Willers in Atlas Shrugged (which I’m positive you haven’t read).

Readers, especially of the academic inclination, are encouraged to join the chorus.

Posted by admin at 04:17 PM | Comments (0)

January 16, 2007

Tracinski on the population bomb

In the second part of his What Went Right? essay, Robert Tracinski begins to formulate an explanation for why he believes civilization has not collapsed. Of course in my first essay, I was unwilling to concede Tracinski's rosy picture of the world. I would not go so far as to say that civilization has indeed collapsed, but I like Secular Foxhole's characterization: civilization is "hanging by a thread."

In any case, here is the first component of Tracinski's explanation for why things are not as bad as some Objectivists allegedly allege:

The evidence of the current state of the world tells us that every thinking man who does honest work in his own field is our ally and is helping to move civilization forward. The work of such men is not mere cultural "momentum" from a previous era, but an active addition to human knowledge and achievement. And whatever their philosophical errors, in their professional work these men are creating valid and important ideas that do change the course of events.

As before, there are elements of truth and falsehood in Tracinski's approach here, and in this post I will tease them apart.

To begin with, let me pause to ask if Tracinski really thinks that every thinking man who does honest work in his own field is "our ally." Surely he is being imprecise here. If John Smith is an excellent accountant, but also a serial killer in his spare time, surely he is no ally. Likewise for any economists who murder. Probably Tracinski is conflating the evaluation of a man's work with that of his character. But these are distinct issues, and most of the evidence he presents in his essay is only relevant to the first, not the second.

(I would not have mentioned this, except that elsewhere in his series Tracinski confuses the two issues in his interpretation of the Objectivist theory of history. He discusses important cultural achievements that were not inspired by the work of any particular philosopher. But of course Objectivism doesn't say that philosophers are the fundamental movers of history, but that philosophy is--and philosophy can be an agent of change through means other than the ivory tower.)

So I will charitably assume that what Tracinski means is that honest work in any field is a contribution to the advance of civilization, a contribution that is not overridden by the philosophic errors of the contributor.

As evidence for this claim, Tracinski offers examples of two economists who he argues have helped to "save the world" through their theoretical work, work that has proceeded without positive philosophic influence. The first is Julian Simon, whom Tracinski credits with having refuted Malthusian concerns with overpopulation and inspired confidence in the "ultimate resource" of the human mind left free to produce. The second is the current premiere of India, Manmohan Singh, who was instrumental in having deregulated India's economy.

One question to ask is whether these theorists really had the kind of impact Tracinski claims they had. I have questions in particular as regards Julian Simon. Without intending to trivialize the significance of his work, it is important to note that refuting the Malthusian doomsayers should not have required and probably did not require a lot of sophisticated economic theory. Malthus' original predictions were clearly refuted by the rising standard of living accompanying the Industrial revolution, and modern Malthusians (like Paul Ehrlich) consistently and famously proffered false predictions of doom and gloom. So just as the spread of free markets was a default consequence of the collapse of Marxist theory, so too could economists come to accept population growth as a consequence of the collapse of Malthusian theory.

Now it is true that there have been more positive developments in economics than simply the refutation of false theories. Tracinski notes some of them in his reference to David Warsh's Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations a history of how modern economists came to recognize knowledge and ideas as factors of production, in the same way as Simon came to see human beings as a the "ultimate resource." But--and admittedly I am speaking here as an amateur about economics--it seems that this should have been obvious.

Ayn Rand herself claims that she needed to know about the Industrial Revolution to formulate her principle that reason is man's fundamental means of survival. It is shameful that economists have only in recent decades admitted knowledge as a factor of production--and even then only as one factor among many. It seems likely that it took the "Information Age" for economists to realize this, and then perhaps only because the kind of intelligence implemented in modern computer technologies is so rarefied and abstract that they could scarcely excuse it as genuine knowledge, in the way that some might have excused the theoretical knowledge needed for the Industrial Revolution. If I knew more about economic history, I might even propose that it was a philosophic bias--from Marxism and behaviorism--that prevented economists from considering factors like ideas as scientifically respectable in the first place.

So of course this point regarding population is not deduced from philosophy--Ayn Rand's or anyone else's. I don't know any longtime Objectivist who would claim it. Indeed it is Leonard Peikoff who has, more than anyone else, trumpeted the inductive basis of philosophy, and reminded us about the role of the Industrial Revolution in Ayn Rand's discovery of her philosophic principles. Yet it is Peikoff whom Tracinski is implicitly targeting: it seems quite likely that it is Peikoff's DIM hypothesis about the role of philosophy in history that Tracinski wishes to offer an alternative to, given that this hypothesis was one of Peikoff's reasons for objecting to the election of a man who "who holds a mixture of American individualism and Christian altruism."

So yes, economists working without a proper philosophy can discover important truths of economics. The fact that knowledge is a factor in production is, after all, an economic point. Without a proper philosophy, however, they cannot discover the truth when irrational philosophies (like Marxism and behaviorism) rule out certain types of inquiry a priori. If those irrational philosophies collapse, economists still cannot apply their discoveries properly or consistently. Let me elaborate on this last point.

Consider the fact that economists still do not seem to appreciate that the intellect is the fundamental factor of all production. If they did understand this, there would be more support for the strict enforcement of intellectual property rights among economists. Yet many economists today see patents and trademarks as forms of "monopoly power" that depart from the ideal model of "perfect competition" and hinder growth and innovation. They are unaware of the faulty philosophic premises behind the concept of "perfect competition," and of the philosophic package-deal involved in the modern concept of "monopoly." More broadly, they do not appreciate that long-term innovation is guaranteed by the kind of capital accumulation made possible when companies like Microsoft dominate marketshare, and that this innovation is threatened by antitrust laws. More broadly still, they do not appreciate the full relevance of the principles needed to assess long-term consequences, because of widespread acceptance of utilitarianism and pragmatism.

At one point in his essay, Tracinski writes "there is a certain temptation to declare that the bad ideas cancel out and make irrelevant the good ideas." He implies that this is false, but never shows exactly why it is false. Yet the above considerations show, I believe, that it is true. We need philosophy to apply and integrate the discoveries of the specialized sciences. And this has implications for the theory of history. Insofar as special sciences make concrete discoveries that can improve human life, civilization will move forward in concrete ways. But insofar as greater and greater abstractions are needed to apply knowledge of concretes to new and difficult situations, there is greater and greater room for error, either because of ignorance or because of the influence of bad philosophy. So as the discoveries of science become more abstract, philosophy is needed more and more. If a rational philosophy is not present, the fundamental course of history will not be positive, or if it is, it will be so only by accident.

At present, any progress in civilization continues by grace of three important accidents: the accident of our history (the fading rays of the Enlightenment), the accident of the collapse of Marxism, and the accident of the continuing incompetence of Islamic barbarians. Economists who discover some important concrete facts will only be able to go so far with them, particularly when the field of economics itself is so beset by mathematical formalism (another problem it inherits from very bad philosophy of yore, logical positivism) as to discourage some of the most promising students of economics I've known to alienate themselves from the field.

Having mentioned the Islamic barbarians, let me mention one last way in which philosophy is needed to apply the discoveries of economics. Consider Simon's view that human beings are the ultimate resource, as presented in the Wall Street Journal editorial referenced by Tracinski: "More bodies means more minds, more innovation, more dynamism, and more progress." More bodies does mean more minds, but does more minds necessarily mean more innovation? It depends. What are these people doing with their minds? Are they choosing to think, or are they evading the facts and living in the mystical fantasy world of religion? Is the growth of population an unqualifiedly good thing if only the Islamic population grows while Western innovators find themselves in a "birth dearth"? How long can a growing population sustain itself if the mystics parasitize and later destroy the innovators?

All of this, once again, makes me think that all of the population growth and economic discovery doesn't help the advance of civilization in a fundamental way if it is done in a philosophic vacuum. If economists endorse the shackling of capitalists with antitrust laws, the crushing of industry with emissions caps, and meanwhile occupy themselves with mathematical formalism likewise practiced by their colleagues in physics, such that all scientific theories become further and further detached from the facts--and all the while the philosophers are unable to persuade them to return to the facts, much less to defend themselves proudly against the Islamic hordes--then the spread of free markets in India will not be enough to save the world. The fundamental course of history will not have been changed, not until the thinkers of the world begin to consider facts well beyond the narrow facts in their particular fields. Not until they learn how to integrate facts from disparate fields, and how to use fundamental principles to do this. Not until, that is, they appreciate the power of philosophy.

Posted by admin at 12:29 AM | Comments (5)

January 13, 2007

Tracinski on the non-collapse of civilization

I have decided to write a series of posts addressing Rob Tracinski's "What Went Right?" series in TIA Daily. Without saying much more, let me begin at the beginning.

Tracinski writes:

In order to understand why the absence of a civilizational collapse is such a big story, it is important to remember the first half of the 20th century. During those years, civilization was collapsing. It was collapsing culturally, with such trends as the rise of incomprehensible, non-representational Modernist art, unintelligible Modernist literature, and the screeching dissonance of Modernist music—all of it a precipitous collapse from the high achievements of 19th-century art and literature. But most of all, it was a political and economic collapse, with two World Wars, the Great Depression, and the rise to power of two totalitarian movements, Fascism and Communism.

...

Then something remarkable happened: civilization did not collapse.

From about 1980 to today—a period of a quarter century, too long to be a mere blip or historical detour—it was the enemies of civilization who collapsed. And more: civilization has not merely avoided a collapse. It has grown and expanded. It is thriving.

This basic premise, that civilization is not collapsing, is what forms the basis for Tracinski's subsequent theorizing. Since Objectivism has not taken over, and since philosophy is supposed to be the fundamental motor of history, Tracinski's puzzle is: why is civilization not collapsing? He proceeds to develop a hypothesis about history according to which major philosophic change is not needed for historical progress. In framing this hypothesis, Tracinski draws on some important, perhaps even unappreciated truths. However I think that the balance of his presentation is unconvincing.

I would like to tease apart the true and the false from Tracinski's presentation by doing the same for his major premise: that civilization is not collapsing. I might have agreed with him on this premise about ten years ago, during the height of the 1990s boom. Most of the rest of this essay draws on facts that one might just as easily have observed in the 1990s: concerning the collapse of communism, the spread of free markets around the globe, and the absence of global war. These three achievements are real and undeniable. But how permanent are they? Let me consider each in turn.

Communism has indeed collapsed, both politically and intellectually. This is cause for celebration insofar as it has removed a major military threat and opened the door to the spread of free markets and prosperity. And it is also true that communism did not collapse because of a philosophical revolution in the East or in the West. Communism collapsed because of the "facts on the ground" that communist theory could not countenance: centrally planned economies cannot produce as promised, and regimes defaulting on this promise cannot retain the moral sanction of their citizens.

But what do we get in place of communism? Tracinski acknowledges that there is some reason for concern about the future of "Russia and a few former Soviet republics," but never to worry, a bunch of Eastern European states are okay. I find it stunning that the return of Russia to authoritarian rule should be so easily dismissed, when that country is brimming with nuclear weapons and newfound oil wealth. China's future is likewise uncertain, for reasons not needing elaboration.

The spread of free markets is also surely a result of "facts on the ground," not necessarily ideological revolution. Global statist policies led to stagnation, and it did not take philosophy to realize this. But the collapse of the old system does not guarantee its replacement by something better--or permanent. In much of the third world, collapse of state socialism has been accompanied by anarchic mafioso economics, not by the rule of law and a system of property rights (as has been well-documented by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto).

This and other forms of corruption have fueled a global anti-capitalist ("anti-globalization") movement, lead by American intellectuals, which is now seeing its first victories in Latin America. One by one we have seen leftist politicians--and dictators--assume power in countries that once promised free market reform: Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador. At one time it was fashionable to think of Fidel Castro as a throwback to a bygone era, the last stubborn relic of the socialist past. Who would have thought in 1997 that Fidel would inspire a new generation of Latin American socialists--and that the United States would be so impotent to oppose them? It is probably not insignificant that the new Latin American socialist revolutionaries have succeeded in fusing socialism with Christianity--a force that has never lost ideological power in that part of the world.

And now for the widespread peace of the last few decades. It is true that humanity has managed to avoid another war on the scale of the first two world wars. And it is also true that this has not been a result of any special philosophic revolution. Wars have become limited in scale because of the increasing economic integration of the major powers, and probably more importantly, because of the deterrent power of nuclear weapons. Just as communism collapsed because of its failed promises, so too has the ideology of militarism. It has become too obvious that one nation cannot prosper by destroying its neighbors. War has simply become unthinkable for civilized men.

But what about uncivilized men? The most stunning omission from Tracinski's essay is any discussion of the significance of the terror attacks of September 11th, 2001. It is difficult to imagine how one could project such optimism about the "non-collapse of civilization," when each of us witnessed the literal collapse of some of civilization's most cherished symbols on that infamous day.

Rob Tracinski thought that Islamism was sufficiently dangerous to justify voting for welfare-statist, religionist "compassionate conservatives," on the doubtful chance that they might fight the war better than the liberals. Elsewhere I have challenged this conclusion. But how is it that Tracinski could simultaneously recognize that threat as a factor in the election, but fail to see its significance for the decline of civilization?

Because of its philosophical heritage, Western civilization has produced wealth and technology on an unprecedented scale--to the point where this wealth and technology begins to act as an insurance policy against future threats. But this is an insurance policy that can only be cashed in for a limited time. For just as wealth and technology transfer the intellectual power of the past to contemporaries who do not understand the cultural achievements that made it possible, so too can they transfer power to enemies of those achievements. Uncivilized men are not deterred by economic integration or mutually assured destruction. Left unchallenged, they will use the fruits of their enemy's system to destroy it.

There have been many civilizations in the past which, for a time, produced wondrous technological achievements and, by their example, spread prosperity and civilization to their neighbors. But without a philosophical conviction of their rectitude, they could not survive. The resentful barbarians had other plans.

Posted by admin at 03:45 PM | Comments (2)

September 05, 2006

NS touches a nerve

My post asking critical questions about the new Founders College proposal has raised the dander of some internet critics. I expected there to be disagreement among cheerleaders for the project, but I didn't quite expect condemnation.

Over at the "Forum for Ayn Rand Fans," Stephen Speicher wrote the following:

"[I]nteresting perspective" would not be my choice of words. That piece is one extended smear by implication and innuendo. And, as it has so properly been characterized to me by another, it is a piece worthy of modern skeptics. Note the skeptic's favorite epistemological trick: arbitrary questions designed to instill doubt in the unfocused reader.

The "interesting perspective" of that piece is worthy of the tabloid journals, not mention on THE FORUM. I only allow the reference now so that those who would be so unfortunate to see it anyway, have the benefit of my relegating that piece to the trash heap in which it belongs.

Perhaps Mr. Speicher thinks he is refusing to sanction my post by not deigning to justify his conclusion that it is "trash," but it is hard to see how anyone could justify that conclusion.

It is claimed that my piece is "smear." This is a curious, question-begging charge. A "smear" is a slanderous defamation of someone's reputation, a malicious falsehood spread to hurt the good name of another. The point of my post is precisely to question whether there is evidence that the Founders principals have earned the kind of reputation needed for their project, as many Objectivists presume they do. It is not a "smear" to ask for the evidence of someone's reputation. And it is not helpful to respond to such inquiries by alleging malicious intent of the inquirer, rather than providing the evidence he seeks.

More importantly, it is claimed that my piece relies on the use of arbitrary questions intended to induce skeptical doubts. This is a maddeningly ironic response. The "arbitrary" is the defiance of the need for evidence. The point of my post was precisely to ask for evidence of how the Founders project could possibly achieve its stated goals, given what we know about its available resources. Now it would be arbitrary to wonder whether Founders is lying about its financial resources or whether it might really be planning on being an Objectivist college after all. There is no special reason to raise these doubts. But there is a special reason to ask for evidence that Founders' goal of "igniting an education revolution" can be achieved: the fact that given what we know, this is a very difficult goal to achieve, particularly for individuals with no established record of success on such matters, and particularly given the kind of obstacles Founders has erected for itself (e.g. the rejection of the tenure system). In fact, given everything we know, it would be arbitrary to give this project the benefit of the doubt--which is what many (at least on the internet) seem to be doing.

"Tabloid journalism" is sensationalistic, non-objective reporting. Ask yourself who in this matter is making the sensationalistic unverified claims.

Posted by admin at 03:02 PM | Comments (4)

August 23, 2006

Founders College?

What should we think when we hear news that an Objectivist intellectual, long associated with the Ayn Rand Institute, is trying to start up a private, for-profit liberal arts college?

At first it sounds pretty good, no? We all like to see Objectivism--or at least Objectivists--advancing in the culture. We deplore the liberal orthodoxy of higher education, and would like to see colleges teach core ideas of Western civilization, instead. We assume that an Objectivist philosophy teacher shares our convictions. And surely we've all had our dreams about how great it would be to attend Patrick Henry University with a real live Hugh Akston.

This, I would imagine, is the likely first impression of a typical Objectivist on hearing news that Gary Hull is trying to start up something called Founders College, which is being bankrolled by some mystery person willing to front $12 million to purchase a campus in Virginia.

So what exactly is Founders College supposed to be, and what should we think about it? First of all, what exactly is the relation of this college to Objectivism? There's been a long series of confusing reports on this question. Original reports quoted the articles of incorporation of an associated group, the "College of Rational Education," as planning to provide "a reality-based, rationally grounded education, by applying Objectivism, the philosophy of Rand, to all of the Corporation's activities and undertakings." But later reports quote Hull as insisting that the Ayn Rand angle is one that "fell by the wayside," and that the college would have "no particular ideology."

Of course there's no reason to think that a good college must be based on Objectivism, or even that an "Objectivist college" would necessarily be better than an ordinary one. But it is odd that Founders couldn't get its story straight at first, particularly since one would hope that a project serious enough to warrant spending $12 million would have a clearly defined mission. In any case, what they're pushing now is a general liberal arts curriculum, which is a fine way to organize a college. But then the question is, what reason do Objectivists have to think this college will be so spectacular? Founders claims that it is "igniting a revolution in higher education," that it plans on sparking a "life-long passion for knowledge." How do they plan on igniting this revolution, and are their plans credible?

The Founders web site lists a great many things which they will not do. They will not be like the colleges that offer an "indiscriminate smorgasbord of random liberal arts courses." They will not offer courses that are "packed with propaganda." They will not offer tenure for their professors. Of course stating what the school won't do doesn't say much about its positive marks of distinction. What are these, and should we believe them?

Founders claims that it will offer courses focusing on "the great ideas and significant events that shape both an individual’s life and entire civilizations," and courses teaching "thinking and communication skills to excel in any profession." Of course there are already a number of "Great books" schools, like St. John's and Thomas Aquinas College which offer this. There are also many other schools where one can take courses covering the same material, even if it is not part of a mandatory curriculum, and is of varying degrees of quality. So what reason do we have to think Founders can compete with existing "Great books" programs in quality?

Probably the biggest distinction Founders claims for itself is a "state-of-the-art program to train our professors to be superlative teachers." One report even claims they will feature a "rigorous 60-hour teacher training program"). This raises a number of questions.

First, if Founders needs to give a 60-hour training program to its teachers, does this imply it doesn't already have a large stock of experienced professors ready in the wings? Indeed we know of no experienced professors, Objectivist or otherwise, who have signed on to this program, besides Hull himself. If there are experienced professors already on board, why have none voiced support for the college? If there are no experienced professors on board, is it realistic to think they will become "superlative teachers" just by taking a teacher training session? Who will teach it if there are no experienced professors already on board? "State-of-the-art" suggests that this program has already been tested and proven. Now Gary Hull has been teaching for several years at Duke, but what reason do we have to think he has enough experience to give 60 hours of state-of-the-art material and create a whole new staff of superlative teachers? And why think that experienced teachers would want to work for a program subjecting them to training like this, when Hull has no special reputation as a teacher of teachers?

Given that a new college can't create superlative teachers ex nihilo, what reason is there to expect that Founders can attract already experienced teachers? Founders is taking pride in the fact that it will have no tenure system--even though the possibility of tenure is usually an incentive attracting the best quality job candidates. Academics go through many years of schooling and poverty before finding a job, and need the prospect of job security to motivate them to complete this ordeal. Surely, the current tenure system has many flaws, especially its focus on research at the expense of teaching. But why not simply reconfigure the standards for tenure to reflect teaching qualifications? The prospect of tenure is no different from other fringe benefits, such as insurance or stock options. Law firms and other professional firms regularly offer tenure or senior partnerships. Doing so not only motivates the staff, but gives them a professional stake in the success or failure of the institution. It also helps to establish the stability and credibility of the institution, insofar as it demonstrates that experts in their fields are making hiring and curriculum decisions. Tenure is a good thing: it's just not handled well in the current system.

If quality professors will not be attracted by the prospect of tenure at Founders, what will attract them? This is a very serious question, because there will already be strong disincentives for working at a school like this. Besides the rather negative press it has so far generated, there is the fact that the only known faculty member (Hull) has no reputation outside of Objectivism, and no record of success in college administration. There is the fact that the success of a new institution like this is highly uncertain, so even those motivated to join up without the prospect of tenure will be risking a lot by lining up with a controversial project that may not even last. And there is the fact that teachers will have to take a 60-hour training program, which would certainly be an off-putting requirement to any teachers who already have significant teaching experience. Perhaps new professors will be paid very well for the time they are there, but many academics are motivated only by long-term financial considerations (if they were interested in making only fast money, they wouldn't go into teaching). All told, there is currently little reason to think this institution will be able to attract teachers capable of "igniting a revolution," regardless of how "state-of-the-art" they claim their training program to be.

Besides Founders' claim about creating superlative teachers, it also claims to offer a distinctive curriculum, the coursework of which "sequentially builds a superior foundation that is greater than the sum of its parts." But we have few details about how this curriculum will build this superior foundation, or what it consists of beyond a list of subjects ("economics, philosophy, history, literature and the arts, and an education certificate") which are standard liberal arts fare. Of course there may be good reasons not yet to release the details of the curriculum (it is alleged to be "copyrighted"). But what reason do we have to think Founders principals have the qualifications to create such an outstanding curriculum? When this stopped being an "Objectivist college," and started being a general liberal arts program, Gary Hull lost the only possibly relevant qualification he might have had: being an Objectivist philosophy Ph.D. Surely, a philosopher is in something of a special position to evaluate and integrate knowledge from various disciplines. But the philosopher's perspective isn't enough: where is the evidence that Hull has experience to make decisions about the various subjects, or even the knowledge/connections to pick the right people who could make these decisions?

When Lisa Van Damme began her academy, she did it after having proved her ability to develop a curriculum (in a homeschool setting). Likewise the LePort Schools began as successful Montessori schools before branching into elementary and middle-school education. Where is the proof that Founders College principals have established the same kind of track record?

Of course, one might wonder, if everyone needs to have established a track record before they're given a chance, nothing innovative will ever be created. Could Gary Hull be the Howard Roark of higher education? Well, Roark didn't start out by talking about the revolution he would ignite. Mainly, he showed us his drawings. He offered substance, not hype--evidence of his competence, not marketing rhetoric. It would be one thing if Founders were renting out a few rooms in an office suite somewhere, and offering us a quality education for a bargain price (which, I think, could actually be done). But it is quite another thing to purchase a $12 million campus, with private rooms and gourmet meals, and charge students $28,000 in tuition. Pardon me, but there is a big difference between bold innovation and delusions of grandeur. Why is Founders expecting so much from so many without demonstrating any details of its actual merits? (And why--all things considered--does the mystery investor actually think he can make a profit supporting this venture??)

So what should we think when we hear that some Objectivist is starting up a private, for-profit liberal arts college? The fact that he's an Objectivist by itself should offer us very little solace. We should evaluate the proposal like we'd evaluate any other school or business proposal, by looking for evidence of its merits. So far, there is no credible evidence that Founders College has the potential to ignite any kind of revolution. Why have so many Objectivists been so uncritical about this?

UPDATE (9/5/06): Readers directed from the Speicher Forum may read my reply to my critics here.

Posted by admin at 07:49 PM | Comments (11)