Not that I’m in any danger of becoming a professor but I’ve just been wondering about this. If the parties responsible for awarding tenure don’t favor you because you subscribe to a school of thought that contradicts theirs, doesn’t that create an intellectual monopoly? Suppose you’re an economist of the Austrian school and your peers don’t take you seriously because your work relies on logical inference rather than mathematical modeling. It seems like the tenure system would do more to suppress a competing philosophy than ensure academic freedom.
Academics are pissy and you’d be royally screwed - particularly if the faculty is liberal (meaning just about everywhere).
An example: The Volokh Conspiracy - -
[quote]belligerent wrote:
Not that I’m in any danger of becoming a professor but I’ve just been wondering about this. If the parties responsible for awarding tenure don’t favor you because you subscribe to a school of thought that contradicts theirs, doesn’t that create an intellectual monopoly?[/quote]
Yes, but that’s why you go to a school that supports your research etc… Either that or write a best-selling book and you’ll find someone to give you tenure for the simple fact that you will attract students and money to the program.
Sure, but there is no monopoly on education. *Different school (NYU/GMU).
The biggest barrier to tenure is not being productive enough. Unless you’ve made a radical shift in your research, they like what you’re doing, or they wouldn’t have made you an offer in the first place.
To be fair, your example is pretty horrendous because Austrian economics is a fucking joke.
“Earth to belligerent, come in Belligerent. Belligerent, do you read me?”
“Colonell, I think Major Belligerent snuck another blunt aboard the ship.”
“Why that fucktard”
[quote]belligerent wrote:
Not that I’m in any danger of becoming a professor but I’ve just been wondering about this. If the parties responsible for awarding tenure don’t favor you because you subscribe to a school of thought that contradicts theirs, doesn’t that create an intellectual monopoly? Suppose you’re an economist of the Austrian school and your peers don’t take you seriously because your work relies on logical inference rather than mathematical modeling. It seems like the tenure system would do more to suppress a competing philosophy than ensure academic freedom.[/quote]
Yes, what you say is true. It can conceivably happen based on substantive differences of opinion in the field, or based on political ideology. The latter tends to result in bias against conservatives by liberal-dominated institutions. (This, of course, comes amidst a passion for “diversity” by those same institutions.)
[quote]Dweezil wrote:
To be fair, your example is pretty horrendous because Austrian economics is a fucking joke.[/quote]
But since it doesn’t use numbers and is based on social sciences it “must” be true.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
But since it doesn’t use numbers and is based on social sciences it “must” be true.[/quote]
Economics is a social science, the more quantitative aspects of psychology outside of medicine are defined as social science, the good (which is to say Eastern European, because it sucks in the western world) sociology programs are social science. If there’s one thing generations of study have taught us it’s that it’s impossible to try and quantify human action in a broad swath in a closed system (a market), when taking it as the only variable.
Initially the Austrian school was awful, now it’s a little better, but it’s still essentially based on opportunity cost–meaning it is utterly irrelevant, because graduate economic programs are all about the application and study of mathematical models, not about what an undergraduate considers economics. Like climatologists who don’t believe in global warming (man-made or not, it is obviously occurring) or biologists who don’t believe in evolution they should rightly be laughed out of their profession. There’s not two sides to every story, and you can’t give head-cases tenure just to try and placate some bullshit notion of equity amongst all peoples and views.
[quote]Dweezil wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
But since it doesn’t use numbers and is based on social sciences it “must” be true.
Economics is a social science, the more quantitative aspects of psychology outside of medicine are defined as social science, the good (which is to say Eastern European, because it sucks in the western world) sociology programs are social science. If there’s one thing generations of study have taught us it’s that it’s impossible to try and quantify human action in a broad swath in a closed system (a market), when taking it as the only variable.
Initially the Austrian school was awful, now it’s a little better, but it’s still essentially based on opportunity cost–meaning it is utterly irrelevant, because graduate economic programs are all about the application and study of mathematical models, not about what an undergraduate considers economics. Like climatologists who don’t believe in global warming (man-made or not, it is obviously occurring) or biologists who don’t believe in evolution they should rightly be laughed out of their profession. There’s not two sides to every story, and you can’t give head-cases tenure just to try and placate some bullshit notion of equity amongst all peoples and views.[/quote]
Excellent post.
If you believe that Austrian economics is even remotely analogous to creationism then you are simply too stupid for me to communicate with.
By the way, Alan Greenspan himself has recently stated that he “generally agrees with Austrian economics.”
I’m sure you know better than he does, though.
[quote]belligerent wrote:
If you believe that Austrian economics is even remotely analogous to creationism then you are simply too stupid for me to communicate with.
By the way, Alan Greenspan himself has recently stated that he “generally agrees with Austrian economics.”
I’m sure you know better than he does, though.[/quote]
Considering the initial “players” in Austrian economics is hard to not look at it in the same light as creationism. While there are probably truths to it, and there are no truths to creationism, the people that believe the dogma of it are still generally as fanatical and as stupid. When you’ve got a bunch of obnoxious white men on the internet supporting Ron Paul and the “gold standard” of Austrian economics–people who know nothing about economics, who’ve probably never gotten past an introduction to econ class at a community college at most–it’s hard not to be overly dismissive of the field of thought as as whole.
I wouldn’t involve Alan Greenspan to try and prove a point, though. There are some good things in Austrian economics, and pointing those out is a much better way to go about solidifying an ideal than saying a guy who was asleep at the wheel of mass abuse and speculation in the housing and financial industry while dropping interest rates is a supporter of your cause. Alan Greenspan is also an objectivist, which inherently makes him a stupid person. Anyone that’s an objectivist past the age of say… 22 or so should be mocked endlessly by everyone, right and left wing alike.
Was this a thinly veiled attempt to discuss intelligent design and tenure? Because I do have relevant things to say about that…
If memory serves, the Austrians are responsible for the theory of marginal utility, so no matter how you feel about Chicago you can’t ignore that massive contribution.
[quote]conorh wrote:
Was this a thinly veiled attempt to discuss intelligent design and tenure? Because I do have relevant things to say about that…[/quote]
Intelligent design is creationism with a PR branding campaign. You can believe God played a role in the process of evolution, but ID believes the same things as creationists, and there are plenty of new-world IDers.
[quote]Dweezil wrote:
To be fair, your example is pretty horrendous because Austrian economics is a fucking joke.[/quote]
Which part of it?
For example, marginal utility?
Discovered when and by whom?
[quote]belligerent wrote:
Not that I’m in any danger of becoming a professor but I’ve just been wondering about this. If the parties responsible for awarding tenure don’t favor you because you subscribe to a school of thought that contradicts theirs, doesn’t that create an intellectual monopoly? [/quote]
I can’t speak on the economics side of things, but…
As I understand it, institutions will have a set of criteria they look at when deciding tenure status. At my school, teaching evaluations come in no. 1. Followed by research and advising things. Bigger schools that are more focused on strictly academics may require more research oriented work, rather than stellar teaching reviews. That said, most institutions will look at what you’ve published in the past. Did it get into a respectable journal in your field? What about a book? Etc.
I’m a musician, and it’s a bit different for us. Publishing is important. But the field is so divided into little chunks that it’s not the only thing. Teaching reviews become more important. If you’re a specific performance teacher (eg. applied instrument teacher) it’s important that you’re an active performer in the community in addition to being a teacher. If you’re a musicologist or theorist, publishing/research and teaching take the top spots as far as criteria go.
Most institutions will look more at your research and publishing records and teaching rather than what your interested in researching. Not only that, but it may be possible to contest a negative tenure ruling and get it anyway. There’s a voice teacher at my school who did not receive tenure even though she was more than qualified for the position. She contested the ruling and got tenure anyway, despite the director of choir’s protests (the person who voted her down).
Not sure if that helped, but some thoughts anyway.
[quote]Dweezil wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
But since it doesn’t use numbers and is based on social sciences it “must” be true.
Economics is a social science, the more quantitative aspects of psychology outside of medicine are defined as social science, the good (which is to say Eastern European, because it sucks in the western world) sociology programs are social science. If there’s one thing generations of study have taught us it’s that it’s impossible to try and quantify human action in a broad swath in a closed system (a market), when taking it as the only variable.
Initially the Austrian school was awful, now it’s a little better, but it’s still essentially based on opportunity cost–meaning it is utterly irrelevant, because graduate economic programs are all about the application and study of mathematical models, not about what an undergraduate considers economics. Like climatologists who don’t believe in global warming (man-made or not, it is obviously occurring) or biologists who don’t believe in evolution they should rightly be laughed out of their profession. There’s not two sides to every story, and you can’t give head-cases tenure just to try and placate some bullshit notion of equity amongst all peoples and views.[/quote]
God, I could pick this apart, but, really, why bother.
Yeah, econometrics = economics, so non-econometric economic schools are not economics, even when those models consist to 80% of their theories…
Lord, Lord, Lord, why dhost thou punish me so…
the subjective theory of value=
Useless
the theory of marginal utility=
Hogwash
the law of diminishing returns=
bullshit
the idea of time preference=
obviously nonsense
prices as market signals, entrepreneurs as risk takers:
had Wieser only known that he was wasting his time.
In conclusion, there is obviously nothing that could be possibly gained by trying to understand what human acion is and what the consequences are, thank God we have people now who can push numbers into a computer.
How it is exactly that Austrian economics suck when pretty much all modern economics is built upon it and yet does not suck is beyond me, nor can I explain the revival in the 80s and the emergence of the Chicago school which has obviously nothing in common with the giant suckfest that is Austrian economics.
[quote]beebuddy wrote:
If memory serves, the Austrians are responsible for the theory of marginal utility, so no matter how you feel about Chicago you can’t ignore that massive contribution.[/quote]
Of course he can.
He has a computer. You have to understand that it is not important what a “price”, “loan” or “inflation” actually is when you can calculate it down to twenty numbers after the comma.