Planet Gore reports on the reaction of folks who live closest to the University of Tennessee about their plan to award AlGore an honorary doctorate.
They are not amused!
It's a tiny example of the disconnect OS ruminated on in his previous post.
In Tennessee, UT is for many folks a near-religious institution in their lives, an icon. If your kid gets to go to UT Knoxville, your family has achieved something, by golly. If your kid gets to play football for UT, you are local demi-gods.
Even so, times are tight. Tuition is way up, state money is down, and the dream is becoming more distant for many families.
So, the faculty and board decide to give AlGore (who wants to gut everything that makes life good in Tennessee for the sake of his nutter GlobalWarming rants), an honorary doctorate!!!
What are they thinking?
The additional expense of security at the commencement will be huge. Those dollars could have a better home, people might say...
Of course, this could be a tit-for-tat, with a significant chunk of money headed for the UT endowment from the Gore family. Of course, the announcements of the two events would be, shall we say, tastefully separated by time, so as to remain, well...tasteful. A follow-up building dedication may be in order, or perhaps a university presidency?
There's a move afoot in the Tennessee legislature that would specifically waive any academic requirement in order to serve as president of a state university. The sponsor cheerfully admits it's being done for an unnamed friend. AlGore, with his B.A., would certainly fit the description.
There's a search on for a new UT President. They've had a run of bad fortune in the position, but that's another story. And here we have AlGore, with his bright and shiny doctorate, and his tarnished Nobel Prize.
Hmm....what are they thinking?
The disconnect is breathtaking.
Showing posts with label PeopleInChargeOfSuchThings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PeopleInChargeOfSuchThings. Show all posts
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Why ThePeopleInChargeOfSuchThings Are Viewed With Such Suspicion
David Brooks, columnist at the YewNorkTimes, offers some wry thoughts on a subject that bears consideration.
That general, undefined group of ThePeopleInChargeOfSuchThings seem to garner less and less of our respect. You know, the people who run banks, businesses, institutions that need more than anything to remain stable. Things like universities, electric utilities, school boards, churches, foundations, etc. For many years, in town after town, state after state, a person could wander into such an institution and see the portraits of such people on a wall somewhere. In a lot of places they remain on display. It matters a lot in America, which is such a cauldron of rapid change, that an image of stability be projected.
Inevitably, the portraits are of middle-aged white guys, and they project an image of absolute boring stability. If you're going to borrow money for a house, farm and tractors from this guy, you'd better have a long and wide good family reputation, and a demonstrated ability to make money at farming, by golly. If you're going to propose a change in course of educational policy at this university, you'd better have your ducks in a row, 'cuz we're doing just fine thank-you-very-much.
It's like everyone strove to look and act like Truman, Eisenhower, or even Truman's VP Alvin Barkley.
It was a badge of honor.
Brooks notes how this has changed, and why it may have contributed to our present unease:
[T]his new system has created new social chasms. In the old days, there were obviously big differences between people whose lives were defined by ''The Philadelphia Story'' and those who were defined by ''The Grapes of Wrath.'' But if you ran the largest bank in Murfreesboro, Tenn., you probably lived in Murfreesboro. Now you live in Charlotte or New York City. You might have married a secretary. Now you marry another banker. You would have had similar lifestyle habits as other people in town. Now the lifestyle patterns of the college-educated are very different from the patterns in other classes. Social attitudes are very different, too.
Too much in the essay to do it justice by pulling one quote. But he's right, in many ways, and like all good writers, he is able to put clear words to unclear intuitions.
OldSouth circulates, quietly, amongst folks in the New Managerial Class. Sometimes he wonders if they possess either souls or common sense. Here they are, making big decisions in their little worlds, and they seem oddly, wierdly disconnected from the context in which they daily live. To quote a grumpy neighbor: 'These people make me nervous!'.
OS does not wish to return to a world where being female, or black, or any number of other variations of the human condition automatically excludes one from opportunity. That is purely immoral. But there might much to learn from those grey, boring faces who stare out at us from the hall portraits, about attitudes toward life, duty, honor, and stability.
That general, undefined group of ThePeopleInChargeOfSuchThings seem to garner less and less of our respect. You know, the people who run banks, businesses, institutions that need more than anything to remain stable. Things like universities, electric utilities, school boards, churches, foundations, etc. For many years, in town after town, state after state, a person could wander into such an institution and see the portraits of such people on a wall somewhere. In a lot of places they remain on display. It matters a lot in America, which is such a cauldron of rapid change, that an image of stability be projected.
Inevitably, the portraits are of middle-aged white guys, and they project an image of absolute boring stability. If you're going to borrow money for a house, farm and tractors from this guy, you'd better have a long and wide good family reputation, and a demonstrated ability to make money at farming, by golly. If you're going to propose a change in course of educational policy at this university, you'd better have your ducks in a row, 'cuz we're doing just fine thank-you-very-much.
It's like everyone strove to look and act like Truman, Eisenhower, or even Truman's VP Alvin Barkley.
It was a badge of honor.
Brooks notes how this has changed, and why it may have contributed to our present unease:
[T]his new system has created new social chasms. In the old days, there were obviously big differences between people whose lives were defined by ''The Philadelphia Story'' and those who were defined by ''The Grapes of Wrath.'' But if you ran the largest bank in Murfreesboro, Tenn., you probably lived in Murfreesboro. Now you live in Charlotte or New York City. You might have married a secretary. Now you marry another banker. You would have had similar lifestyle habits as other people in town. Now the lifestyle patterns of the college-educated are very different from the patterns in other classes. Social attitudes are very different, too.
Too much in the essay to do it justice by pulling one quote. But he's right, in many ways, and like all good writers, he is able to put clear words to unclear intuitions.
OldSouth circulates, quietly, amongst folks in the New Managerial Class. Sometimes he wonders if they possess either souls or common sense. Here they are, making big decisions in their little worlds, and they seem oddly, wierdly disconnected from the context in which they daily live. To quote a grumpy neighbor: 'These people make me nervous!'.
OS does not wish to return to a world where being female, or black, or any number of other variations of the human condition automatically excludes one from opportunity. That is purely immoral. But there might much to learn from those grey, boring faces who stare out at us from the hall portraits, about attitudes toward life, duty, honor, and stability.
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