Goals, Compromise, Leadership.
by Josh Ober
(with an assist from Edmund Burke)
Guest Blogger
Note: Josh responded some while ago to the discussion on this blog of resilience, especially at the institutional level. I found his comments so important that I asked his permission to post them as a free-standing post. Let us hear what you think about it.
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I agree strongly with Bob Kaster on the need for a set of shared principles - which does not mean shared ideological or partisan commitments all the way down - but does mean having a basis for making reasoned and ethical choices, together, on a grounds of something other than “the strong win.” And on shared goals - which do not have to be all singing in the same pedagogical choir, but do have to add up to something like your notion of adding to technical skills training (those engineering courses Denis Feeney alluded to…), the goal of "individuals [students] developing capacities they will need for a productive and rewarding life.” I suppose that those capacities prominently include the ability to compromise, and to do so in a principled way.
I just came across this quote from Edmund Burke (“Speech on conciliation with the colonies,” March 1775: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5655/5655-h/5655-h.htm):
"All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter. We balance inconveniences; we give and take; we remit some rights, that we may enjoy others; and we choose rather to be happy citizens than subtle disputants… But, in all fair dealings, the thing bought must bear some proportion to the purchase paid. None will barter away the immediate jewel of his soul.”
So here is my current worry: Burke's statement is NOT likely to be endorsed, or even taken seriously as a matter for discussion, by some of those engaged in the current academic Kulturkampf, either because compromise is considered immoral (that is: all rights are inherent and inalienable and so none may ever be “remitted” ) or because Burke’s opinions are not worth of attention because he was conservative/ imperialist/ otherwise intolerable.
In re. Brook Manville on the essential role of insightful leadership: fully agreed both on the necessity and on your addendum concerning the distinctive form of academic leadership. You and I have both chaired academic departments (in my case both Classics and Political Science) and we both know that chairing is fundamentally "all responsibility/no power." A department chair can try to model the right kind of shared principles, goals, pedagogy, but if one’s colleagues don’t want to be led, they don’t have to be: chairs have very limited carrots and no sticks. Perhaps it is different at “higher” administrative levels, where incentives can at least be offered. But there are no effective sanctions for faculty who choose rankly uncooperative factional behavior that rejects the possibility, indeed the value, of shared principles and goals (unless they are, without compromise, principles and goals of the faction).
I do not think the situation is hopeless. My (perhaps Pollyanna-ish) hope is that at least some students are sufficiently fed up with polemics, and sufficiently eager to gain something of value (beyond technical training), that they will gravitate to courses and to teachers who aim at helping them to develop capacities for flourishing lives. And that academic leaders will reward those teachers and incentivize faculty to offer such courses. We’ll see how that goes.
by Josh Ober
(with an assist from Edmund Burke)
Guest Blogger
Note: Josh responded some while ago to the discussion on this blog of resilience, especially at the institutional level. I found his comments so important that I asked his permission to post them as a free-standing post. Let us hear what you think about it.
--
I agree strongly with Bob Kaster on the need for a set of shared principles - which does not mean shared ideological or partisan commitments all the way down - but does mean having a basis for making reasoned and ethical choices, together, on a grounds of something other than “the strong win.” And on shared goals - which do not have to be all singing in the same pedagogical choir, but do have to add up to something like your notion of adding to technical skills training (those engineering courses Denis Feeney alluded to…), the goal of "individuals [students] developing capacities they will need for a productive and rewarding life.” I suppose that those capacities prominently include the ability to compromise, and to do so in a principled way.
I just came across this quote from Edmund Burke (“Speech on conciliation with the colonies,” March 1775: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5655/5655-h/5655-h.htm):
"All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter. We balance inconveniences; we give and take; we remit some rights, that we may enjoy others; and we choose rather to be happy citizens than subtle disputants… But, in all fair dealings, the thing bought must bear some proportion to the purchase paid. None will barter away the immediate jewel of his soul.”
So here is my current worry: Burke's statement is NOT likely to be endorsed, or even taken seriously as a matter for discussion, by some of those engaged in the current academic Kulturkampf, either because compromise is considered immoral (that is: all rights are inherent and inalienable and so none may ever be “remitted” ) or because Burke’s opinions are not worth of attention because he was conservative/ imperialist/ otherwise intolerable.
In re. Brook Manville on the essential role of insightful leadership: fully agreed both on the necessity and on your addendum concerning the distinctive form of academic leadership. You and I have both chaired academic departments (in my case both Classics and Political Science) and we both know that chairing is fundamentally "all responsibility/no power." A department chair can try to model the right kind of shared principles, goals, pedagogy, but if one’s colleagues don’t want to be led, they don’t have to be: chairs have very limited carrots and no sticks. Perhaps it is different at “higher” administrative levels, where incentives can at least be offered. But there are no effective sanctions for faculty who choose rankly uncooperative factional behavior that rejects the possibility, indeed the value, of shared principles and goals (unless they are, without compromise, principles and goals of the faction).
I do not think the situation is hopeless. My (perhaps Pollyanna-ish) hope is that at least some students are sufficiently fed up with polemics, and sufficiently eager to gain something of value (beyond technical training), that they will gravitate to courses and to teachers who aim at helping them to develop capacities for flourishing lives. And that academic leaders will reward those teachers and incentivize faculty to offer such courses. We’ll see how that goes.