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Thursday, February 16, 2006
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Academic Hierarchies Now that the merde has decisively hit the ventilateur for Harvard’s president, all sorts of perfectly ordinary higher level administrative statements and actions of his are being brought to the newspapers and presented as more shocking evidence of incompetence. UD’s come to the conclusion that Summers should go -- I mean, he has to, because the institution’s increasingly unable to function -- but she’s unable to get indignant about this sort of bean-spilling, from a Boston Globe interview with a disaffected ex-dean (via Shots in the Dark): “President Summers asked me, didn't I agree that, in general, economists are smarter than political scientists, and political scientists are smarter than sociologists?" Ellison said. ''To which I laughed nervously and didn't reply." The way to respond to this sort of absolutely typical academic sally is to laugh. Not nervously. Just laugh. The hierarchy Summers sketches, after all, seems about right. |