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Nonsense. The problem that tenure solves is that politics is the enemy of truth. In any organization without some form of tenure, an individual is going to hav

by api 16y ago

Nonsense. The problem that tenure solves is that politics is the enemy of truth. In any organization without some form of tenure, an individual is going to have to be very political to stay employed, advance, etc. (When I say politics, I don't mean left or right or democrats or republicans. I mean the process whereby humans jockey for position in a social hierarchy.) Tenure is an (imperfect) way to remove people from the political game, thus enabling them to tell the truth and think honestly. It's not perfect or complete, but it works better than nothing and it's simple. Tell me another simple way to enable people to be honest or tell the truth. Edit: there's another related reason, and it came to mind when I was thinking about Paul Graham's latest startup essay about keeping your most important idea in mind... Political maneuvering is hard. Political maneuvering with honesty and integrity is even harder, since lying and deception are often quick and easy shortcuts in political games. (This is why so many salesmen lie so often. Lying is the lazy solution.) What you want academics to be thinking about is their field of inquiry, not politics. But without tenure, politics will get in the way and distract people from doing their real job. Not only that, but those that lie and cheat will find themselves with more free time than those that try to play the political game honestly. Are those the folks that you want as intellectual leaders?

tptacek 16y ago
Did you read the article, or do you just have very strong opinions about tenure? I'm not criticizing what you're saying so much as pointing out that you haven't engaged with any of the points McArdle (or the Thomas H. Benton articles, like "Graduate School In The Humanities: Just Don't Go", that she's clearly drawing from) has made. McArdle isn't arguing that people should be made more accountable to politics. She's pointing out the hard-to-deny fact that tenure has warped the market for scholastic talent. What part of that argument do you disagree with? It's one thing to say that we should make it hard for professors to be fired for saying unpopular things or taking research risks. It's another to say that it's acceptable for a lifetime in academia to require a 15-year longshot gamble that leaves you penniless and unhireable at the end. I think a reasonable person could argue that the latter problem is has a greater chilling effect than the former.
- api 16y ago
  The article talks more about the humanities, but my reaction was based more on thinking about the sciences. The sciences, I suppose, are a far different ballgame... if you don't make it to a tenure track position or want to skip the whole postdoc nightmare altogether, you can always get a good job in industry. That's not necessarily true if you studied, say, medieval literature. But I think what I said still stands. I think that tenure represents an example of a really expensive solution to a nasty problem. The nasty problem is that politics makes it hard to be honest, think unpopular thoughts, speak truth to power, investigate unpopular topics, etc. It's also a huge distraction and time sink. Tenure is the only solution we've come up with to this problem that's workable. It's an ugly and hugely expensive solution, but nature favors ugly solutions over no solution. In other words: it might be worth employing 10 space-filling past-their-prime tenured professors and destroying the careers of 100 aspiring students who don't make it to buy 5 free thinkers with the time and resources to ask tough questions and protection from politics. A very loose but economically similar analogy would be VC investment, where it's worth funding 99 failures to get one Google.
  - starkfist 16y ago
    The sciences, I suppose, are a far different ballgame... if you don't make it to a tenure track position or want to skip the whole postdoc nightmare altogether, you can always get a good job in industry Unless your science PhD is in Biology. People overstate how easy it is for a science PhD to get a "good" job in industry.
    - tptacek 16y ago
      I have a friend with a physics PhD who makes the same observation. The supposed ease with which a postdoc can break into industry may be unique to computer science.
      - api 16y ago
        That's a widespread problem, and I don't see how tenure affects it. The problem there is that we're no longer trying to win a cold war with the USSR, and there's no domestic demand for such things. People don't want to go to the stars. They want to gossip on Twitter.
deleted 16y ago
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jdhopeunique 16y ago
Internet anonymity (or pseudonymity) also enables people to tell the truth without consequence, much like tenure. But also, like tenure, enables people to lie without consequence. Internet pseudonymity is open to all and has produced a much more relevant, efficient system of promoting truth than the closed tenure system which only protects a few. The internet's version of tenure has allowed people to get sexual information, controversial political information, and much more. Internet pseudonymity is a much cheaper and effective tenure system.

by api 16y ago

tptacek 16y ago

Did you read the article, or do you just have very strong opinions about tenure? I'm not criticizing what you're saying so much as pointing out that you haven't engaged with any of the points McArdle (or the Thomas H. Benton articles, like "Graduate School In The Humanities: Just Don't Go", that she's clearly drawing from) has made. McArdle isn't arguing that people should be made more accountable to politics. She's pointing out the hard-to-deny fact that tenure has warped the market for scholastic talent. What part of that argument do you disagree with? It's one thing to say that we should make it hard for professors to be fired for saying unpopular things or taking research risks. It's another to say that it's acceptable for a lifetime in academia to require a 15-year longshot gamble that leaves you penniless and unhireable at the end. I think a reasonable person could argue that the latter problem is has a greater chilling effect than the former.

api 16y ago
The article talks more about the humanities, but my reaction was based more on thinking about the sciences. The sciences, I suppose, are a far different ballgame... if you don't make it to a tenure track position or want to skip the whole postdoc nightmare altogether, you can always get a good job in industry. That's not necessarily true if you studied, say, medieval literature. But I think what I said still stands. I think that tenure represents an example of a really expensive solution to a nasty problem. The nasty problem is that politics makes it hard to be honest, think unpopular thoughts, speak truth to power, investigate unpopular topics, etc. It's also a huge distraction and time sink. Tenure is the only solution we've come up with to this problem that's workable. It's an ugly and hugely expensive solution, but nature favors ugly solutions over no solution. In other words: it might be worth employing 10 space-filling past-their-prime tenured professors and destroying the careers of 100 aspiring students who don't make it to buy 5 free thinkers with the time and resources to ask tough questions and protection from politics. A very loose but economically similar analogy would be VC investment, where it's worth funding 99 failures to get one Google.
- starkfist 16y ago
  The sciences, I suppose, are a far different ballgame... if you don't make it to a tenure track position or want to skip the whole postdoc nightmare altogether, you can always get a good job in industry Unless your science PhD is in Biology. People overstate how easy it is for a science PhD to get a "good" job in industry.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    I have a friend with a physics PhD who makes the same observation. The supposed ease with which a postdoc can break into industry may be unique to computer science.
    - api 16y ago
      That's a widespread problem, and I don't see how tenure affects it. The problem there is that we're no longer trying to win a cold war with the USSR, and there's no domestic demand for such things. People don't want to go to the stars. They want to gossip on Twitter.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

jdhopeunique 16y ago

Internet anonymity (or pseudonymity) also enables people to tell the truth without consequence, much like tenure. But also, like tenure, enables people to lie without consequence. Internet pseudonymity is open to all and has produced a much more relevant, efficient system of promoting truth than the closed tenure system which only protects a few. The internet's version of tenure has allowed people to get sexual information, controversial political information, and much more. Internet pseudonymity is a much cheaper and effective tenure system.