Complain to Joe if you have a problem with this

Way back, when I lived in California and was regularly contributing to the local newspaper, I wrote a piece that was not published.  It was about the bizarre practice in the US to address people by their political job titles even when they were no longer on the job.  Like "Ambassador so-and-so" or "Senator so-and-so," as if those titles were lifelong.

I argued in that unpublished essay that in a democracy we should be able to address them by their first names, especially if they did not respond with Ms. so-and-so or Dr. so-and so.  It always pissed me off when the reporters were addressed by the first names by those big chiefs!

Did I tell you already that the essay was not published?

As a university professor (the days are numbered!) I always gave students the option to address me by my first name.  The logic was simple: In most work places, the supervisor is addressed by the first name.  

Two professors have tacked this very topic in different ways.  "Professor" Dan Drezner offers this thesis in arguing why an honorific is needed--because "the academy is a hierarchy":

in academia, as in many other social systems, of course there is hierarchy and an imbalance of power. My role is to educate and mentor students, to make them intellectually (but not personally) uncomfortable at times, and then to grade them based on their intellectual growth. No amount of “keeping it casual” eliminates that fundamental bargain. Power imbalances are inherent in the system.

Pretending hierarchy does not exist does not erase it; it merely obscures it for the uninitiated. One advantage of formality is that it makes the rules of the game more explicit for those who might otherwise have difficulty parsing everything out

As if hierarchy and power imbalance exists only between a professor and the student, and that there isn't any such structure in the vast world of employment outside higher education!  Despite the power difference of the hierarchy in the office, even an intern addresses the boss by the first name.  Why then the deferential "Professor" or "Doctor"?

"Professor" Tyler Cowen takes a position more like the one that I presented in the unpublished essay from more than two decades ago: "I don’t for instance think we should address senators as “Senator.” Just choose “Ben” or “Mr. Sasse,” depending on which is appropriate."

In the example that Cowen provides, I would rather refer to that senator as a spineless pontificater!