Tag Archives: philosophy

Battering elite universities.

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The Second Addams Administration is pounding on Science. On the one hand, there’s R.F.K., Jr. “Nuff said there. On the other hand, the handful of “elite” universities (the Ivy League, the “public Ivies,” and the other great private universities like Stanford and Chicago) are all being menaced with loss of government research dollars and with investigations.

I suggest, just for the sake of argument, that there is a difference between the two prongs of the offensive. Kennedy’s actions pose a serious threat to public health. We’re talking about the increased potential for dead children and other living things.

The attack on the universities is different from this. What Trump and Republicans really want is to put a stop to the left-wing tilt in liberal arts and humanities faculties and in law schools. The great problem here for the administration is that the government doesn’t have much purchase on these people. The amount of public money spent on support for the liberal arts and law schools is minute in comparison to the money spent on Science and Engineering. There are the miniscule (but very welcome) sums paid by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. There are the miserly sums dispensed to support National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The latter amount to welfare for the intellectual left middle class. These are the parts of the universities and public culture that produce and disseminate D.I.E. scholarship and teaching. Turn off the tap on these funds and universities won’t even blink. “Professor Smithers, you have to be willing to sacrifice for your lonely pursuit of Truth and Beauty.”

If the administration wants to force universities to snap a choke chain on D.I.E. stuff, then it has to act like Willy Sutton. Go “where the money is.” Which it is doing by withdrawing funds for scientific research. If the universities want to tap turned back on, then they need to correct course in the liberal arts and the law schools. Sure, it’s humiliating to bend the knee to someone like Donald Trump. What’s more important to the universities, scientific research on cancer or an inter-sectional reading of bell hooks?

Civil Society.

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            “The order [halting government payments to external bodies] sparked chaos at universities, charities, local government, and other bodies reliant on federal funding,…”[1]  Sort of an off-the-cuff statement that arouses no alarm unless your ox is one of those getting gored.  Still, it’s worth thinking about a little bit. 

            One way of thinking about the issues is the following.  Jurgen Habermas (1929– ) is a brilliant German philosopher.[2]  OTOH, so was Karl Marx.  What did that get us?  “Boiler suits, prison camps, and a damn long march to nowhere.”[3]  One of the many interesting ideas propounded by Habermas, on the basis of deep learning in a host of areas, is the distinction between the “public sphere” and the “private sphere.”  He defined the “public sphere” as “made up of private people gathered together as a public and articulating the needs of society with the state.”  The “private sphere,” in contrast, the place where “an individual enjoys a degree of authority and tradition, unhampered by interventions from governmental, economic or other institutions.”  Religion, family life, sexual relations in private are current examples of this “private sphere.”[4]   Taken together, they create “civil society.”  By “civil society” is meant “1) individuals and organizations in a society which are independent of the government or 2) the aggregate of non-governmental organizations and institutions that advance the interests and will of citizens.”[5] 

            In recent-for-me times, the Czech writer and dissident (even when he was in power), Vaclav Havel[6] used the term civil society to describe all the groups menaced by Communism’s relentless drive to subordinate every person and group into conformity with the state’s wishes. 

            Here’s the thing: “universities, charities, local government, and other bodies” is pretty much an operational definition of “civil society.” 

            The institutions of civil society are supposed to be “individuals and organizations in a society which are independent of the government.”  The fact that they are “reliant on federal funding” indicates just how deeply the institutions of “civil society” have been penetrated and compromised by the State.  With the money comes regulations, requirements, audits. 

 Yet, “the aggregate of non-governmental organizations and institutions” are supposed to “advance the interests and will of citizens.”  They are supposed to engage in discussion and even confrontation.  Hard to do when you’re the hired help. 

None of this is the product of a sinister conspiracy.[7]  It’s just convenience, then inertia. 

[1] “Trump orders cause whiplash in Washington,” The Week, 7 February 2025, p. 4. 

[2] Jürgen Habermas – Wikipedia

[3] Jim Prideaux in John Le Carre, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974).    

[4] However, these things can shift over time.  For the Greeks and for Europeans in the Reformation, religion was a public concern that required continual and public assent, but the authorities didn’t much care if you whacked your kid.  “Boys have always been beaten and it would be a bad day for the world if boys ceased to be beaten.”  C.S. Forester, Lieutenant Hornblower.  The statement is made during the run-up to the murder of a sadistic Navy captain.

[5] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_society  NB: I reversed the order of the terms because I want to consider a particular point. 

[6] Guy reminds me a bit of Roger Williams.  Turn left when everyone else turns right.  Turn left because everyone else turns right.  “Let us honor if we can the vertical man, though we value none but the horizontal one.”—W.S. Auden. 

[7] Regardless of what Republican or Democratic activists may believe. 

Populo-phobia and Progresso-Normativity.

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            Historians often read stuff from the many-days-ago.  While looking for something else, I came across a curious article.[1]  The article is an exercise in dystopic futurism.  It defines some terms; then extrapolates from events in the first half of the Twentieth Century. 

“Populo-phobia” is the hostility and disdain felt toward “the People” collectively asserting themselves against “the Elites.”[2]  Populism is often attacked as a collection of “anti” movements.  It is anti-elite, anti-intellectual, anti-complexity, anti-foreign, anti-change in some ways, and anti-system in the sense of believing that “working within the system” leads nowhere.     

“Progresso-normativity,” sprang from this “Populo-phobia.”  It is the concept that Progressivism is the “normal” political orientation.  It assumes a partisan binary in which Progressivism is empirically and morally correct and Populism is empirically and morally incorrect.[3] 

            Honey draws his evidence from the impact of the Depression and the Second World War.  First, the era witnessed a vibrant rhetorical faith in “democracy” combined with a suspicion of “the people.”  By the middle of the Twentieth Century, many examples could be offered of the ability of charismatic leaders to mobilize mass enthusiasm for destructive purposes.[4]

Second, there had been a huge expansion of government’s role.  On the one hand, this meant managing the economic environment to create material prosperity.  In this effort, independent central banks and, in some places, national planning authorities played an important role.  Government’s expanded role led to a great and continuing increase in bureaucracy.  This began to shift the balance of power between the Executive and Legislative branches of government.  On the other hand, the acceptance of social change through “social evolution” gave way to change promoted by public authorities.  This meant a turn to laws and courts (hence lawyers and judges), and regulations (hence experts and bureaucrats).  All these were seen as too complex for the ordinary understanding. 

Fourth, Honey applied the ideas of Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci to the modern elites.[5]  Gramsci argued that, through their control of media and education, the dominant minority sold its own values and culture to the mass of people.  The People’s acceptance of this culture made them conform, rather than resist.[6]  In this effort, education and the media are vital. 

Fifth, Honey conjectured that both the post-Second World War “G.I. Bill” and the foundation of the Educational Testing Service (1947) might create an enlarged and different “Elite.”  On the one hand, it could create a “Confucian” America where social advancement depended upon standardized examination testing.  On the other hand, Honey feared a compartmentalization of American society.  This might leave Progressive-Americans cut off from the lives of “ordinary” people. 

The effects of societal “Progresso-normativity” on Conservatives, Independents, and Populists has been labeled “Progressive privilege.”[7] 

[1] Theodore Honey, “Populo-phobia and Progresso-normativity,” Journal of Relatively Advanced Concepts, August 1948.

[2] This extends to individuals who self-identify or are read as being Populists. 

[3] To be fair, Honey also argues that Progressives view Conservatism as substantially unjustified. 

[4] That is, Mussolini, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. 

[5] On Gramsci, see Joseph Buttigieg, Gramsci’s Political Thought (1992). 

[6] To offer one example drawn from a later period, watch a few episodes of “All in the Family” (1971-83). 

[7] “Progressive privilege” is a sub-set of the larger concept of “Societal privilege.”  “Societal privilege” describes the advantages or benefits received by members of some groups which are denied to other groups.  These benefits, it is theorized, are received as a function of a person’s membership in such a group, rather than as a function of individual merit or action.  “Privilege” often runs hand-in-hand with various types of power: social, cultural, economic, and political.  However, people with some “privilege” tend to not understand that they are “privileged.”  They see themselves and the members of their group as “normal.”  “Privileged” people often deny the existence of an entrenched institutional “privilege.”  Those without “privilege” are seen as deviant.  That deviance may be either willful or the accidental result of misinformation.