Koch Foundation Hires and Fires Economists at Public University (via Wake-up Call)

It is questionable morally to use money and influence to diminish or destroy the rights of Americans. It is questionable morality to subvert or buy the media to prevent unfavorable stories or to spread lies and misinformation. And it is questionable morality to buy influence at American universities so that your perverted economic doctrines can become mainstream, to use public institutions as private breeding grounds for followers, to pollute the social science with the continuous contributions of bought academics, not searching for the truth, but in opposition to it.

Shall large Christian denominations dispose of evolutionary biology using the same methods? Shall opponents of gay marriage dispose of social scientists using the same methods? Shall we give up the field of criminology, after high dollar contributors insist that crime is produced by demonic possession?

Think of the possibilities! These independent researchers, these tenured beasts, all brought to heel. Is global warming a problem? Buy enough academics and it disappears. Some damn nosy professor says dumping radioactive material can damage our genetic heritage, that can be fixed. We can buy as many professors as we want. History can become what we want. The very definition of reality can be changed, literature and painting cleansed of subversive influences.

Are public universities in need of money? Let them get money the old-fashioned way. Haven’t people justified their immoral actions by saying they did it because it was part of the job and they had to feed their families? Haven’t people said they had to do it, it was part of the job? Let’s put academics in that same boat. They shall have their jobs only if they give the proper respect to the contributors, only if their search for truth is predetermined, I promise you that every university in this nation will be rolling in money the moment they realize just like Florida State University that selling the “right” kind of education is more profitable than the pursuit of knowledge. Educating the young has never been very profitable.

We can double, triple administrative salaries. We can build new buildings and a first class physical plant. There will be stadiums and first class football teams at the smallest of institutions. No more begging to the state legislatures, the money will never stop. Donors will compete against each other for professors. If one gets five, then the other must have six.

We can price them. The more influential the professor, the more money they will be worth. It’s easy to measure, who’s on television more often. Who testifies before Congress the most. Whether or not they teach or get published is insignificant. Who wants to buy that?

We have sold so much in this country. Let’s follow free market economics to their logical conclusion.

The brave new world of green is out there waiting for us. Let us walk forward bravely, open palm extended, to sell our last possession, our integrity.

James Pilant

by Rebekah Wilce on May 12, 2011     PR Watch     According to news reports, the Charles G. Koch Foundation has bought “the right to interfere in faculty hiring at a publicly funded university.” Kris Hundley of the St. Petersburg Times reports that the elder Koch brother’s foundation “pledged $1.5 million for positions in Florida State University’s economics department. In return, his representatives get to screen and sign off on any hires for a … Read More

via Wake-up Call

The Myth of Morality (via Patrick Nathan)

I found this an interesting review with many references to morality. Take this quote below -

Everyone agrees that The Pale King enshrines boredom. What has been glossed over, however, is how fiercely and unrepentantly American these pages are. Yes, the book expounds upon the marvels of boredom and the “heroic” nature of doing a quiet but necessary task without audience or recognition, but juxtaposed are endless descriptions of bureaucracies, American culture at its most dysfunctional, and even extended Platonian dialogues about the decline of American society, complete with terms that never fail to surface in today’s news: “liberal individualism,” “corporations,” “conservatives,” “founding fathers,” “consumer capitalism,” etc. “Americans are crazy,” one character remarks to another: “We infantilize ourselves. We don’t think of ourselves as citizens—parts of something larger to which we have profound responsibilities. We think of ourselves as citizens when it comes to our rights but not our responsibilities.” The selfishness described here again harkens back to Wallace’s speech, in which he revealed that our “natural, hardwired default setting” is to be “deeply and literally self-centered.”

If the reference is to our ethical and moral responsibility, I quite agree. However, the “hard wired” setting to be deeply and literally self centered, is ridiculous, we are just as hard wired to be cooperative and self sacrificing. That being deeply and literally self centered is an American doctrine used to justify cruel and immoral policies and actions. If humans are self centered monsters salivating after every last moment of pleasure and every conceivable possession, than we can justify every kind of lie and cruelty in the name of social control.

Nevertheless, I very much enjoyed the review and I would like you to read it.

James Pilant

My thanks to Patrick Nathan

In 2005, novelist David Foster Wallace was invited to give a commencement speech to the graduates of Kenyon College. Captivating, inquisitive, and in no way didactic, Wallace unveiled to them the oncoming drudgery of adult life and all its routines—certainly nothing an ambitious twenty-two year old wants to hear. But Wallace offered an alternative to mental and emotional atrophy. The liberal arts degree, he said, not only teaches us how to think … Read More

via Patrick Nathan