Doing What Job?
Stanley Fish has an interesting take on the Larry Summers matter. (You don’t mind if I call him Larry do you? Everyone else does. I’m not pretending I know him, it’s just that it’s easier than trying to remember whether he spells it Laurence or Lawrence. Plus it sounds so much more friendly, and knowing, and American, and as if I might be important enough to know him, which I’m not.)
It is only if Summers’ performance at the January 14th conference (where he wondered if the underrepresentation of women in the sciences and math might have a genetic basis) was intentional — it is only if he knew what he was doing — that he can be absolved of the most serious of the charges that might be brought against him. And that is not the charge that his views on the matter were uninformed and underresearched (as they certainly were), nor the charge that he has damaged the cause of women in science (which he surely has), but the charge that he wasn’t doing his job and didn’t even seem to know what it was.
Hmm. It’s not absolutely clear why the last charge would or should be more serious than the second, for intance, or who would be bringing these conditional mood charges, or whether different parties bringing these charges might have different ideas of which ones are more important. But anyway –
Larry Summers is no more free to pop off at the mouth about a vexed academic question than George Bush is free to wander around the country dropping off-the-cuff remarks about Social Security or Islam…The constraints on speaking that come along with occupying a position have nothing to do with the First Amendment (there are no free-speech issues here, as there almost never are on college campuses) and everything to do with the legitimate expectations that are part and parcel of the job you have accepted and for which you are (in this case, handsomely) paid
Wait. Yes he is – more free to pop off at the mouth. Of course he is. Larry Summers isn’t elected, he’s not answerable to the populace as a whole, he’s not accountable in the same way. We didn’t hire Larry Summers. Somebody did, but we didn’t. So these ‘legitimate expectations’ – they’re the concern of Summers’ employers, not the populace at large. Sometimes those two groups have sharply differing expectations. Think whistle-blowers, think union organizers, think Mafia underlings who go to the police.
Those expectations (and the requirements they subtend) are not philosophical, but empirical and pragmatic. They, include, first and foremost, the expectation that you will comport yourself in ways that bring credit, not obloquy, to the institution you lead. That doesn’t mean that there are things you can’t say or things you must say. Rather, it means that whatever you say, you have to be aware of the possible effects your utterance might produce, especially if those effects touch the health and reputation of the university.
So…my employer right or wrong? Is that what he’s saying? Well, as a matter of fact, yes. Which is fascinating. Suppose Summers were the CEO of a tobacco company, testifying to a Congressional subcommittee, and he raised his right hand and swore that he did not believe that nicotine was addictive. He’d be doing that, no doubt, because of his awareness of the effects his utterance would produce on the health and reputation of his company. Good for the company – but not so hot from other points of view. ‘I was just doing my job’ is a pretty discredited defense these days. Enron executives were doing their best to do their jobs as they saw them, but sadly that involved shafting large numbers of employees and investors. Golly. Maybe ‘doing your job’ isn’t really the last word in moral responsibility. Walmart managers give their workers more to do than they can finish on their shifts, with the result that they are forced to work unpaid overtime – not occasionally and by accident but systematically and routinely. That seems to be the managers’ job, from the point of view of whatever next-level managers who are telling them to do it. Does that make it a good thing to do?
As a faculty member you should not give your president high marks because he expresses views you approve or low marks because he espouses views you reject. Your evaluation of him or her (now there’s a solution to Harvard’s problem) should be made in the context of the only relevant question — not “Does what he says meet the highest standards of scholarship?” or “Is what he says politically correct or bravely politically incorrect?” (an alternative form of political correctness) or even “Is what he says true?” but “Is he, in saying it (whatever it is) carrying out the duties of his office in a manner that furthers the interests of the enterprise?”
Ah. The interests of the enterprise. So – when employees of shipping companies dump oil into the ocean, when employees of chemical plants dump toxic sludge in rivers, when extortionists succeed in extracting large sums of money, when engineers in Detroit build ever larger more inefficient more murderous automobiles, when advertisers persuade gullible fools to buy those immense cars by telling them that otherwise everyone will think their penises are too small, when managers of poultry plants and garment factories hire immigrants and pay them less than the minimum wage because they can get away with it – the only relevant question is whether or not they’re carrying out the duties of the office in a manner that furthers the interests of the enterprise? That’s the only relevant question? Why? Why, exactly? Fish doesn’t say. Why doesn’t he? I don’t know. I find it rather baffling.
Well, [the ability to encourage difficult questions] may be the strength of the academy, but it is not the strength sought by search committees when they interview candidates for senior administrative positions. No search committee asks, “Can we count on you to rile things up? Can we look forward to days of hostile press coverage? Can you give us a list of the constituencies you intend to offend?” Search committees do ask, “What is your experience with budgets?” and “What are your views on the place of intercollegiate athletics?” and “What will be your strategy for recruiting a world-class faculty?” and “How will you create a climate attractive to donors?”
Yeah. So what? Fish is not the search committee, so why is he doing their talking for them? Why is he talking as if their point of view is the only one? Why on earth is he talking as if their point of view is the one we should all have? As if the interests of the people the ‘enterprise’ has an effect on are entirely beside the point – not just to the search committee, but to everyone? That’s the silliest argument I’ve seen in awhile. Morris Zapp would be embarrassed.
It seems to me that Fish is assuming that the adverse reaction was justified. Personally I don’t think it was, so his argument goes down the tubes for that reason alone. If the reaction were justfied and it did impact on Harvard, then maybe he’d have a point, but I suspect that if that were the case, the point would be obvious .
What bothers me though is that he doesn’t seem to realize that the whole thing is a tempest in a teapot Then again maybe he does, but it serves an ulterior interest for him to write the article in the way he did.
BTW, do you really mean to lump the Detroit engineers and the advetising agencies in with the others you mention? Seems to me that what they’ are doing is different, because for one thing they’re acting legally.
Yup, I meant to lump the engineers and advertisers in. Because my point is that there are many standpoints from which one can object to and criticise various courses of action, policies, institutions, arrangements. We don’t have to be someone’s boss or hiring committee to criticise, and nor do we have to be the cops. Sure, what Detroit engineers do is legal, but that doesn’t render it beyond criticism.
Fish seems to be saying, very oddly, that only a boss can criticise anyone, and the boss can only criticise an employee. I’m making a Cat Can Look at a King argument.
“his views on the matter were uninformed and underresearched (as they certainly were)”
Eugh. He’s either a liar or an idiot.
Actually, Summers’ views on the matter WERE uninformed and underresearched. They were, in fact, the usual unsupported tripe that usually comes from innate sex difference “science” types: “Oh we’re just investigating sex difference as SCIENTISTS, yesirreebob, no agendas here. By the way, men are just sperm donors and women can’t do math. Or so our purely objective research into innate sex differences tells us. Well, except for not having done any research that would eliminate any of the alternate hypotheses, like acculturation and sexism. We actually just kind of assume the innate differences up front, then look for evidence to confirm our assumptions. That’s science, right?”
No. It isn’t.
And if even if this were a matter of real science, Summers – WHO IS AN ECONOMIST NOT A SCIENTIST – probably wouldn’t be in the best position to evaluate and present this evidence.
What Fish is saying – and I think he’s right about this – is that even if Summers had a real foundation for what he said, it would still be in the best interests of the institution (the best interests of which he is highly paid to represent) to find a better frickin’ way to talk about the subject. Or perhaps the thing to do, if he was genuinely convinced that this was a real issue, was find some other person (an actually qualified researcher, perhaps?) to raise these controversial points on the institution’s behalf. Because he isn’t the right person for the job. Presidents should delegate.
And the comparisons to tobacco executives and such-like are not relevant. He isn’t a tobacco executive. He is the President of Harvard University. It’s not inherently bad to serve the interests of Harvard. It is inherently bad to make a profit by selling people addictive poison. Bad analogies don’t bake any bread, OB.
Perhaps I’m just cranky because it’s late, but it seems to me this anti-Fish post was dangerously close to argumentum ad Hitlerum, if you catch my drift. New rule: The first person to cite tobacco companies in an argument buys the next pitcher.
Trouble is, G, that fourth paragraph of yours says what you say Fish is saying better than he says it in the whole article. To put it another way, if that is what he’s saying, then he should have said it.
I know Summers is not a tobacco exec. That’s not the point. The point is that Fish’s argument, the way he states it, would apply just as well to tobacco executives or anyone else with a ‘job’ to do. I’m not in the least arguing that it’s bad to serve the interests of Harvard, I’m arguing that Fish’s argument – the way he made it, not the way people can with effort and dedication interpret it – is so broad as to be absurd. I really don’t know if Fish was being sloppy or disingenuous, but I’m pretty sure he was being one or the other.
It’s not an anti-Fish post though. I don’t care about Fish one way or the other. But I do care about the idea that ‘doing your job’ is some sort of ethical standard that should 1) trump others and 2) rule out unrelated kinds of criticism. As far as I can see, that’s what Fish was saying. Can you give me a quotation that shows he wasn’t?
Hmm. I may have been reading (or reading into) Fish’s article the perspective I agree with and not so much recognizing the vagueness of his argument. Reading too charitably, if you will.
But one can read too uncharitably as well. And if Fish didn’t rule out tobacco executives or anyone else, it may be because he thought he didn’t need to. He was, after all, speaking specifically about the job of a university president, not the fulfillment of professional responsibilities in some general sense.
But you may be right that he was expressing the standard in such a generalized way that your conclusion, if not exactly warranted, is nontheless more plausibly drawn from his argument than he (or we) ought to be comfortable with.
Perhaps teaching Kant this past month has made me too ready to read absolutely implausible arguments in a charitable fashion so I can at least try to explain why someone might have thought such a thing.
;-)
Ha! I’ve been doing some of that lately too. Practicing my charitable reading skills. Maybe I read Fish too uncharitably by way of vacation and recreation.
I actually don’t think he meant ‘my job right or wrong’ – that was putting it too definitely, you’re right. But I think he should have noticed that that idea needed ruling out.