Groupthink in Academia: screw the minority opinion :-(

“Generally speaking, we can observe that the scientists in any particular institutional and political setting move as a flock, reserving their controversies and particular originalities for matters that do not call into question the fundamental system of biases they share.”
—Gunnar Myrdal, Objectivity in Social Research

“Perhaps we avoid studying our institutional lives because such work is not valued by our colleagues. The academy is, after all, a club, and members are expected to be discreet. Like any exclusive club, the academic world fears public scrutiny. Research is in the public domain. Outsiders might use what the research reveals against the academy.”
—Richard Wisniewski, “The Averted Gaze”

“The thousand profound scholars may have failed, first, because they were scholars, secondly, because they were profound, and thirdly, because they were a thousand.”
—Edgar Allan Poe, “The Rationale of Verse”

In baseball, fans of different teams can agree on general issues concerning rules, umpiring, and performance evaluation because such matters are separable from support for a specific team. In academia, however, we find that rules and standards for performance are not separable from support for specific beliefs. Ideological sensibilities and commitments in academia tend to be bound up with notions of the whole academic enterprise. Thus, one’s positions on how performance should be umpired or evaluated and one’s support for a certain “team” are not separable.

We think that discussion of ideology in academia is itself bound to be ideological and that good scholarship calls on us to declare that our principal motivation for the present investigation is our belief that, by and large, professors in the humanities and social sciences are weak in certain sensibilities that we ourselves hold. In particular, classical liberalism has few adherents among academics.

Need I say more? :-) Read the entire essay, by Daniel B. Klein, Charlotta Stern, from which I have excerpted the above.
via: Peter Gordon

Nandan Nilekani v. Deepak Chopra

The mustache is the difference; otherwise they look alike?

Guns don't kill people

Manufacturer Recalls Hollow Point Bullets That Fail To Explode Inside Targets

Quote of the day!

Going after Jim Cramer is like trying to fix your marriage by getting new drapes.

That was Megan McArdle.

I suppose we want a punching bag, and we have made available a few of them. Meanwhile, the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan is systematically escalated; social security crisis gets ignored; the youth and the children get stiffed with bills that they are not really responsible for .....

Oh well!

When humans live near leopards' territory ....

From The Hindu:

Three persons sustained injuries when the panicked animal attacked them while being chased by the residents. The leopard too sustained injuries in stone-pelting by residents.

Divisional Forest Officer, Assam State Zoo, Narayan Mahanta told The Hindu that the animal had been kept under observation and was being treated for external wounds caused by stoning. With this the number of rescued leopards in the zoo has gone up to 14.

Difficult task

“Tranquillising the leopard in the open area was really a difficult task as our forest staff had to be fully exposed to the threat of being attacked at any time by the panicked big cat. However, our men displayed courage by taking all risk and successfully tranquillising it,” Mr. Mahanta added.

He said the hills surrounding the city have a sizable population of leopards which often come down to nearby residential areas in search of food, and prey on dogs, goats and chickens at night. They return to their habitat before dawn.

Academic life: worth more than what I get paid for :-)

There are times when I wonder if the academic life is worth it. Hey, I am human with feelings!
And that is when emails like this one (from a student) pep me up .... thanks to that student

[GEOGxyz] was unlike any other class I've had at Western. At times, it was both interesting and challenging. Keep up the good work Dr. Khe!

Wish you well,

The Ides of March

From Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:
Act 1, Scene 2:
Soothsayer

Beware the ides of March.

CAESAR

What man is that?

BRUTUS

A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.

CAESAR

Set him before me; let me see his face.

CASSIUS

Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.

CAESAR

What say'st thou to me now? speak once again.

Soothsayer

Beware the ides of March.

CAESAR He is a dreamer; let us leave him: pass.

And, later in Act3, Scene 1:
CAESAR

[To the Soothsayer] The ides of March are come.

Soothsayer Ay, Caesar; but not gone.

and a little later in the same scene:
DECIUS BRUTUS

Great Caesar,--

CAESAR

Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?

CASCA

Speak, hands for me!

CASCA first, then the other Conspirators and BRUTUS stab CAESAR

CAESAR

Et tu, Brute! Then fall, Caesar.

Dies

And then in Act 3, Scene 2:
ANTONY
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men--
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

The coming benign authoritarianism in India

Over the last couple of years, every time I visited India somebody or the other commented on how I look like Narendra Modi--the chief minister of Gujarat. Sometimes it was just the beard that triggered such a comparison. They thought it was a compliment, and I always had to smile outside but cringe inside! As a visitor, the last thing that I wanted to do was pick a fight on this.

Why cringe? This is a guy who oversaw the worst communal violence when, as Robert Kaplan writes, "More than 400 women were raped; 2,000 people, overwhelmingly Muslim, murdered; and 200,000 more made homeless throughout the state." All in a matter of hours :-( The US government, at least in this context, has done the right thing by denying Modi visa to visit the US.

But, Modi is a popular guy in India. He is one mix of contradictions. In a land of corrupt politicians, Modi is known for high levels of fiscal integrity. A workaholic's schedule he has. Has created a business-friendly environment in Gujarat. Has a reputation for being an authoritarian leader. And, yes, has a strong anti-Muslim outlook. I was visiting India during his recent re-election. With all the election noise in the background, one television news channel, mimicking the hysterical news shows in the US--more like Hardball--had one of the most bizarre and awful discussions ever. The topic, if I remember correctly, was "All Muslims are not terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims." Talk about (ir)responsible journalism!

I won't be surprised at all if Modi, or somebody like him, becomes the prime minister really soon. Kaplan echoes the sentiments I have heard all too often in India--both when I was growing up there, and during my recent visits, when he writes:

India’s rise as an economic and naval power has invited frustrating comparisons with China: whereas the authoritarian government in China can make things happen, development happens in India mainly in spite of the government. Hanif Lakdawala told me that, especially because of the nightmarish chaos of Indian cities, “there are some in this country ready to accept a fascist, or at least a very strong dictator.”

Not a fascist, in my opinion, but certainly someone like Modi. As Vimal Ambani, a prominent, liberal-minded Gujarati businessman, told me, “At the end of the day, Modi still offers the best model for governance in India.”

Because, the reality is that most Indians are sick and tired of the lack of governance, and corruption, which they correctly perceive as holding them and the country back from a much more rapid advancement. What good is a right to vote when the choice is between tweedledum and tweedledee and when even water is in shortage, is a typical comment.

I am afraid that the collapse of Pakistan will not only embolden the likes of Modi, but that a larger number of Indians will also prefer that kind of a "stronger" leader. When that happens, Francis Fukuyama can write about why history did not end, and is being re-written!

Photo of Modi: The Atlantic

The failing state of Pakistan

Pakistan might very well turn out to be the crisis that the bumbling Joe Biden said will happen within the first six months of Obama's presidency.

I wonder whether all the people--which includes Obama--who pressed for Musharraf's ouster are ok with the level of chaos and disorder in Pakistan now. No, I am not a Musharraf fan; far from that. But, I did not want him gone abruptly because I worried about the collapse of the state.

Oh well. Nobody listens to me :-)
Photo: BBC