… but over the course of writing this blog she’s come to some tentative conclusions about some basic human motivations.
Many of the, er, troubled university people UD follows on this blog share two defining motives:
1. Greed
2. Status.
Greed’s straightforward, although the depth of greed many of these people exhibit startles UD. No dollar amount is enough, and they seem willing to ruin their lives, and undermine the integrity of their university, in search of more.
Status is a little trickier, but it’s basically a gnawing need to feel that they belong to exclusive groups with access to information other people don’t have. Scroll down to a recent, typically pathetic example: Ex-Speaker Sansom.
Or think of the thousands and thousands of fools at Florida country clubs and Manhattan hideaways desperate for access to the exclusive inner circle of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC.
You can watch – if you have a daily blog like mine – university reforms wither on the vine because of greed and status.
See, for instance, how administrators and professors at the University of Minnesota medical school, even in the face of national scandal, do everything they can to resist reductions in money and status.
University of Minnesota Medical School Dean Dr. Deborah Powell is moving the institution toward weaker ethics reform than her own task force previously recommended, an unreleased draft report obtained by The Minnesota Daily indicates.
Incorporating some, but not all, aspects of what many viewed as hard-line and progressive recommendations by the school’s conflicts of interest task force, Powell’s draft moves the long-coming policy reform in a much softer direction than expected, sources close to the reform said.
… [C]ritics of Powell’s report point to a disconnect between the task force’s recommendations and the draft, saying the dean has eliminated some of the strongest and boldest recommendations with little to no explanation.
… [T]he controversy from Powell’s latest reform proposal is just the most recent example of a tenure at the school that been mired in questions over her position on the board of directors for Pepsi Co. and conflicts of interest concerns.
Even the Medical School task force’s co-chairman, Dr. Leo Furcht, a Powell appointee, was disciplined for severe violations of the University’s conflict of interest policy in 2004 – a fact that was not disclosed to other members of the task force until reported by the Star Tribune late last year.
An inquiry panel then stated Furcht “at a minimum should not be allowed to perform the conflict of interest responsibilities of a department head.”
… Key elements of the task force’s recommendations, believed by some to be among the most needed changes, are notably absent from Powell’s draft, among them a recommendation to sever financial ties between industry and continuing medical education programs.
… Powell also rejected the task force’s recommendation to eliminate the level at which Medical School faculty and staff would be required to disclose financial relationships with industry.
Powell recommended lowering the school’s current $10,000 threshold to $500, while the task force sought to do away with it all together.
The task force recommended that faculty fully disclose the source of research funding as well, particularly those with clinical trials funded by industry, something Powell did not include in her recommendations.
Although the task force filed its recommendations to AHC leadership last summer, some members of the task force and faculty at the school contacted by The Daily were unaware the new draft existed.
Schwitzer said he felt in the dark, and news of Powell’s draft report “blindsided” him.
Powell’s draft, dated January 2009, has been circulating through the Medical School at the discretion of the department heads who received it.
… As of late Thursday Portz had not confirmed which department heads had received Powell’s draft report.
Powell’s recommendations are weaker in many ways compared to those from the conflict of interest task force, Gabriel Silverman, American Medical Student Association Scorecard director, said.
Still, even Powell’s recommendations are an improvement from the current conflict of interest policies, which earned a ‘D’ from the AMSA Scorecard in June of last year.
In an interview with The Daily last month, Silverman said AMSA would commend the school if it enacted the task force’s recommendations. Now he’s not so sure.
“It’s certainly not as strong as the initial recommendations, “ he said. “Whether I would call it a strong policy overall I’m not sure.”
They’re “borderline,” he added.
Silverman also pointed to the loss of the provision separating industry ties to continuing medical education at the school as a concern with Powell’s recommendations.
The education program is the best way for doctors to stay current on medical advancements, he said, calling it “irresponsible” to allow that [industry] relationship to continue.
“If a doctor in the community can’t go to a prestigious public university like Minnesota for continuing education programs that are free from industry sponsorship, then where can she go?” he asked.
They say that as people are dying, their hearing is the last thing to go. For the – let’s continue calling them troubled – university people UD follows on this blog, the last thing to go is greed. Greed will be their valedictory, their epitaph, their message to the world, as, out of one job after another, they wave goodbye.
February 6th, 2009 at 10:58AM
Interesting. How would you factor in things like cowardice, or self-deception, or even diagnosable categories — personality disorders and so on? Absence of conscience, and associated narcissism, seem so characteristic of the kinds of personalities you chart here. (This is not to suggest that such people are not responsible because they are "sick," but rather to wonder about how certain kinds of personalities play themselves out almost predictably in certain kinds of settings … )
February 6th, 2009 at 11:11AM
"the exclusive inner circle"
UD, you’re not exactly a C S Lewis fan, IIRC, but his thoughts on the Inner Ring are well worth reading:
"I believe that in all men’s lives at certain periods, and in many men’s lives at all periods between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the local Ring and the terror of being left outside. This desire, in one of its forms, has indeed had ample justice done to it in literature. I mean, in the form of snobbery. Victorian fiction is full of characters who are hag-ridden by the desire to get inside that particular Ring which is, or was, called Society. But it must be clearly understood that "Society," in that sense of the word, is merely one of a hundred Rings and snobbery therefore only one form of the longing to be inside. People who believe themselves to be free, and indeed are free, from snobbery, and who read satires on snobbery with tranquil superiority, may be devoured by the desire in another form. It may be the very intensity of their desire to enter some quite different Ring which renders them immune from the allurements of high life. An invitation from a duchess would be very cold comfort to a man smarting under the sense of exclusion from some artistic or communist coterie."
and
"It would be polite and charitable, and in view of your age reasonable too, to suppose that none of you is yet a scoundrel. On the other hand, by the mere law of averages (I am saying nothing against free will) it is almost certain that at least two or three of you before you die will have become something very like scoundrels. There must be in this room the makings of at least that number of unscrupulous, treacherous, ruthless egotists. The choice is still before you: and I hope you will not take my hard words about your possible future characters as a token of disrespect to your present characters. And the prophecy I make is this. To nine out of ten of you the choice which could lead to scoundrelism will come, when it does come, in no very dramatic colors. Obviously bad men, obviously threatening or bribing, will almost certainly not appear. Over a drink or a cup of coffee, disguised as a triviality and sandwiched between two jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know better still-just at the moment when you are most anxious not to appear crude, or naif, or a prig-the hint will come. It will be the hint of something which is not quite in accordance with the technical rules of fair play: something which the public, the ignorant, romantic public, would never understand: something which even the outsiders in your own profession are apt to make a fuss about: but something, says your new friend, which "we"-and at the word "we" you try not to blush for mere pleasure-something "we always do." And you will be drawn in, if you are drawn in, not by desire for gain or ease, but simply because at that moment, when the cup was so near your lips, you cannot bear to be thrust back again into the cold outer world. It would be so terrible to see the other man’s face-that genial, confidential, delightfully sophisticated face-turn suddenly cold and contemptuous, to know that you had been tried for the Inner Ring and rejected. And then, if you are drawn in, next week it will be something a little further from the rules, and next year something further still, but all in the jolliest, friendliest spirit. It may end in a crash, a scandal, and penal servitude: it may end in millions, a peerage and giving the prizes at your old school. But you will be a scoundrel."
full essay here
February 6th, 2009 at 11:39AM
Actually, what comes through most strongly to me, Erin, is conformity. The cowardice you mention would come out of a kind of inner emptiness coupled with an anxious scrutiny of what other people are doing.
And of what other people have. Economists report that one’s estimate of one’s wealth is almost exclusively comparative. It’s about what other people around you have, not what you independently want or need.
As to the cause of this conformism: Well, everything about American consumer culture fosters it — the restless desire to have the hot thing other people have…
One of the things a serious higher education is supposed to give you, of course, is precisely the confidence, the intellectual and moral clarity, to be an individual. What’s “sick,” then, isn’t the fact of conformity itself, but the fact that so many conformists are inside the university itself. Running it.
February 6th, 2009 at 11:57AM
UD…"Well, everything about American consumer culture fosters it — the restless desire to have the hot thing other people have"…do you really think Americans are more conformist than people in other societies? Or might it be that conformism just takes different forms in different places?
February 6th, 2009 at 1:30PM
David, Lewis’ essay reminds me that the Devil very much works on the installment plan.
February 6th, 2009 at 1:38PM
I think that most Americans are just as conformist as most other nationalities.
What sets us apart is that we do occasionally produce independent thinkers.
Lots of American universities have gadflies on their faculty — tenured professors the administration really hates — and these people (Nathan Tublitz at Oregon, Bill Gleason at Minnesota, John Bahnzaf at UD’s GW) – can be counted on to make a fuss about greed and corruption. They’re not perfect, these folks, and they by definition lack the smooth smiling personality of the conformist. But without them our universities would be as disgustingly corrupt as the Greek and Italian universities.
Because American University, down the street from GW, has no gadflies, their last president took much of the school’s money for himself before angry students and unrelenting press coverage forced him out. It took an anonymous tip – probably from one of his chauffeurs – to get the ball rolling on that man. Not a peep from the trustees, who loved him and kept shoveling money at him.
February 6th, 2009 at 3:25PM
David,
Your mention of C.S. Lewis made me think of his remarkable riff on pride in Mere Christianity:
And so on.
In Lewis’ framework, greed and the desire for status are manifestations of a more primary character flaw, overweening pride. It’s interesting to think about cowardice, conformity, and absence of conscience in that context. Margaret, your mention of the competitiveness of the conformist fits nicely, too.
February 6th, 2009 at 3:27PM
Woops — looks like Wordpress ate my blockquote tags. Here’s the quote again:
"it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind. … Does this seem to you exaggerated? If so, think it over. I pointed out a moment ago that the more pride one had, the more one disliked pride in others. In fact, if you want to find out how proud you are the easiest way is to ask yourself, ‘How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronise me, or show off?’ The point is that each person’s pride is in competition with every one else’s pride. It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise. Two of a trade never agree. Now what you want to get clear is that Pride is essentially competitive – is competitive by its very nature – while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone. That is why I say that Pride is essentially competitive in a way the other vices are not. The sexual impulse may drive two men into competition if they both want the same girl. But that is only by accident; they might just as likely have wanted two different girls. But a proud man will take your girl from you, not because he wants her, but just to prove to himself that he is a better man than you. Greed may drive men into competition if there is not enough to go round; but the proud man, even when he has got more than he can possibly want, will try to get still more just to assert his power. Nearly all those evils in the world which people put down to greed or selfishness are really far more the result of Pride. … Take it with money. Greed will certainly make a man want money, for the sake of a better house, better holidays, better things to eat and drink. But only up to a point. What is it that makes a man with œ10,000 a year anxious to get œ20,000 a year? It is not the greed for more pleasure. œ10,000 will give all the luxuries that any man can really enjoy. It is Pride – the wish to be richer than some other rich man, and (still more) the wish for power. For, of course, power is what Pride really enjoys: there is nothing makes a man feel so superior to others as being able to move them about like toy soldiers. What makes a pretty girl spread misery wherever she goes by collecting admirers? Certainly not her sexual instinct: that kind of girl is quite often sexually frigid. It is Pride. What is it that makes a political leader or a whole nation go on and on, demanding more and more? Pride again. Pride is competitive by its very nature: that is why it goes on and on. If I am a proud man, then, as long as there is one man in the whole world more powerful, or richer, or cleverer than I, he is my rival and my enemy."
February 6th, 2009 at 4:39PM
Part of Wick Sloane’s essay today at Insider Higher Ed is apposite:
http://insidehighered.com/views/2009/02/06/sloane
He makes a point I’ve always thought was correct: excessively high salaries (as for university presidents) don’t in fact attract the best people; they actually attract people whose values are less likely to be a good fit for a non-profit, tax-exempt, educational institution.
February 6th, 2009 at 5:07PM
Erin,
If you haven’t already read it, you might enjoy Lewis’s novel "That Hideous Strength," in which the Inner Ring critique is further developed. (The novel is part of a trilogy, but is self-standing, and indeed I haven’t read the other 2 books.) The protagonist of "Hideous Strength" is a sociologist (probably Lewis’s least-favorite form of academic) who suffers from a strong desire to penetrate the Inner Ring…and gets his wish.
I like this passage:
"..his education had had the curious effect of making things that he read and wrote more real to him than the things he saw. Statistics about agricultural laboureres were the substance: any real ditcher, ploughman, or farmer’s boy, was the shadow…he had a great reluctance, in his work, to ever use such words as "man" or "woman." He preferred to write about "vocational groups," "elements," "classes," and "populations": for, in his own way, he believed as firmly as any mystic in the superior reality of the things that are not seen."
February 6th, 2009 at 10:46PM
"Statistics about agricultural labourers were the substance: any real ditcher, ploughman, or farmer’s boy, was the shadow"
This is Seeing Like a State — the anti-individual perspective that is fundamental to much of the modern industrial world, and that is associated with Taylorism in management and manufacturing (an outlook UD and I are noted for opposing).
February 7th, 2009 at 8:07AM
What a spectacular set of comments! And the post ain’t bad, either. Montaigne is a good aspiration.
Greed and urge for status won’t go away so my nostrum is governance, how you set the conditions so that greedy and status-seeking people will act as they should. What can be done? Invasive and proscriptive accreditation teams. Rework the criteria for USNews & WR ranking of colleges to give credits for fraction of budget going to faculty salaries versus central administration. Ding them for high percentage of adjuncts, so you get "these people (Nathan Tublitz at Oregon, Bill Gleason at Minnesota, John Bahnzaf at UD’s GW)" to afflict the powerful, instead of powerless recent PhDs sucking up and putting up with it. I think the UD role as national scourge is pretty great, and it is helping me think about which colleges may be good for my middle school kid to attend.
February 7th, 2009 at 11:30AM
I think "National scourge" needs to go on the sidebar.
February 7th, 2009 at 12:11PM
David — Many thanks for the tip. I’ll put it in the stack, just after Updike’s Month of Sundays.