Everyone on the college circuit has been hearing about Lawrence Summers' recent controversial remark on innate differences in the sexes. The exact incident and statement are hard to reconstruct, but we can make a reasonable estimate as to what transpired. Summers was giving a speech at a meeting of economists adjourned for the purpose of researching issues relevant to women and minorities in science and engineering and, according to event organizers, "was asked to be provocative." He was invited to speak as a scientist and economist, not as a Harvard official. Therefore, his words are correctly interpreted as being stated within the interest of science by a scientist. In this light, you can do a fairly good job of reconstructing what was said and in what context. According to cnn.com, Summers suggested that "innate differences between the sexes could help explain why fewer women succeed in science and math careers...[and] also questioned how great a role discrimination plays in keeping female scientists and engineers from advancing at elite universities." Additionally (all from CNN) he also cited the "possible factor that he cited was mothers' reluctance or inability to work 80-hour weeks."
The thing is, no one knows what the cause is. It's a hypothesis, stated by a scientist, at a conference of scientists, to discuss science. Although I'm personally inclined to disagree, lots of people speculate that it may be true, and no one has done enough research on it yet, so is it wrong to suggest that this area of scientific research be explored? Physical differences exist between men and women in the body, is it so unreasonable to suggest that they exist in the brain as well?
The reaction from inflamed PC patrollers is predictably absurd. "It is so upsetting that all these brilliant young women (at Harvard) are being led by a man who views them this way," says Nancy Hopkins of MIT.
Summers' own explanation is perfectly explanatory. From CNN:
I apologize for any adverse impact ... on our common efforts to make steady progress in this critical area.
I suppose the offended people would prefer that researchers not make progress in this area. But what makes this different from people trying to stop stem cell research for religious or political reasons? In this case I'm going to have to come down and say Summers did the honorable thing of putting his being a scientist before his being a University president in a politically-hypersensitive culture. I personally am extremely happy to see that someone like Summers as the head of a prominent university, because hopefully his example of putting fact before political correctness will make college culture a less annoying and unendurable thing for future generations of college students.
Update: Noted Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker (via Andrew Sullivan) says "First, let’s be clear what the hypothesis is—every one of Summers’ critics has misunderstood it. The hypothesis is, first, that the statistical distributions of men’s and women’s quantitative and spatial abilities are not identical—that the average for men may be a bit higher than the average for women, and that the variance for men might be a bit higher than the variance for women...Second, the hypothesis is that differences in abilities might be one out of several factors that explain differences in the statistical representation of men and women in various professions...Look, the truth cannot be offensive. Perhaps the hypothesis is wrong, but how would we ever find out whether it is wrong if it is “offensive” even to consider it? People who storm out of a meeting at the mention of a hypothesis, or declare it taboo or offensive without providing arguments or evidence, don’t get the concept of a university or free inquiry." With the additional great line, "Good grief, shouldn’t everything be within the pale of legitimate academic discourse, as long as it is presented with some degree of rigor? That’s the difference between a university and a madrassa."
Second Update: Here's a really interesting link to a "Ph.D" blogger who humbly has chosen to remain anonymous. "Well, I've got news for you, Larry. My son, whose father took him to see the first X-Prize launch, calls SpaceShipOne the 'Mama Plane' and the 'Baby Plane.' So I think maybe a little more research needs to be done on this topic before your darling daughter--who I'm sure was raised in a completely non-sexist environment (not)--can really serve as definitive proof that girls can't do math and science. Dumbass."
I got an interesting comment on my quick post on the gay marriage debate and I've been meaning to respond to it. It comes from a self-proclaimed evangelical who agrees with my speculation that the religious majority opposing gay marriage and other issues of interest to the gay community are doing so out of animus to the concept of homosexuality:
First, I think you are accurate when you suggest that a lot of people react to any advancement of the "gay rights" agenda out of sheer animus. I am an evangelical Christian, unashamed to say so, but it grieves me when I see this kind of thinking. I supported, for instance, President Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell"--unlike most of my evangelical friends, because to me it hit the right balance: why should homosexuals not be allowed to serve in the military if a structure is put into place whereby military readiness will not be compromised thereby? If you are homosexual, but no one knows it, it's hard to see how the military is compromised, such as studies have suggested it might be in the event this were known.
...
I think that evangelicals have lost credibility by opposing anything/everything that might in some way benefit homosexuals; I for one do not think that that is right or wise.
I can actually think of reasons why having even undisclosed homosexuals in the armed forces could compromise operational effectiveness. If part of the idea of keeping women out of the armed forces is to eliminate the distractions that come with the presence of romantic relationships among the soldiers (and I think this is a good reason) then the same can be said for homosexuals in the military. But I guess the "don't ask don't tell" policy presumes that the sexuality of the soldiers will be subsumed enough in service-type situations that the issue of any kind of relationships among soldiers, heterosexual or homosexual, will be non-existent.
The reader brings up the common issue of legislating morality, as it is called. He writes,
Further, I don't think it ought to be illegal for people to engage in homosexual sex. The fact that I consider it immoral doesn't mean it ought to be against the law. There are many things that are NOT immoral that are illegal (driving on the left side of the road) and others that are clearly wrong (lying to your boss) which shouldn't land you in court. Most evangelicals are against removing laws that prohibit homosexual sex, but I am not.
This brings to mind that there are possibly two ways that something can be "immoral." Something can be immoral on a personal level. Thus I may see someone as immoral because he eats dairy products with bacon, doesn't shower, and doesn't believe in a god. Usually, immorality in this way seems to derive from failure to live up to some kind of pre-conceived standard of personal behavior or criteria for the Good life. It lies in the individual failing to live up to a code of good behavior usually designed to ensure individual well-being. Then something can be immoral on a social level. Murder, theft and basically any kind of crime fall under this category. In this case the thing is immoral, or perhaps you could loosely translate as "bad," because of the way it is harmful to other people. Looked at this way, social immorality can be seen as a coercive social construct designed to ensure optimal social conditions.
What kind of morality should we legislate, if any? My gut feeling is that only morality that is based in social well-being is the kind of morality we should legislate. Without a doubt, many thinkers have mulled this very question over for ages. Perhaps Jung can give us a primer on the various philosophical attempts to answer this question.
Even using the assumption that morality of social consequence is the only thing we should ever legislate, the issue of gay marriage is not settled. My guess is that a good number of people who support legislation like the Marriage Ammendment do so not out of policy considerations or legal prudence, but rather as a moral reaction to homosexuality. Others, however, have genuine concerns about the social byproducts of something like gay marriage. A libertarian point of view would say that whatever people choose to do in the privacy of their own bedroom is free game, because as long as there is active consent involved it doesn't hurt anyone or anything else. A more institutional thinker can find ways in which gay marriage can affect the integrity of our society overall, whether it's via homosexuals seducing other people into their sinful lifestyle, contributing to the demise of family structure and familial values, or lowering the assessment of the human race in the eyes of God...any number of things. Conservative blogger and outspoken advocate for gay issues Andrew Sullivan has framed his entire argument for gay marriage around the issue of systemic social effects, and how instituionalizing gay marriage would actually be beneficial. He argues that instituting gay marriage will encourage the gay couples out there to be more monogamous and form stabler family structures, and that the lack of ability to marry is currently a big obstacle in the way of stability, family values, and moral values for the gay community. I tend to think that he's right, and that marriage would help to ameliorate some of the socially troublesome aspects of the gay community.
Other people foresee that the opposite would occur, and that legalizing gay marriage would diminish the strength of the institution of marriage. In one way or another, all these arguments seem to boil down to something about demeaning the fundamental sacredness of the covenant of marriage. If gays are allowed to marry, the argument goes, people will find the bond of marriage less sacred, and will be less willing to enter into marriage themselves, thus undermining the whole purpose of the institution. Of course for some people, homosexuality is fundamentally unsanctified. It's an unholy and depraved social phenomenon and its existence is an intrinsic social problem, end of story. If you suppose this, then it's inevitable that you would oppose legalization of gay anything, and I think the comment I received confirms that this is a very real rationale for a substantial portion of the country.
People can debate whether or not there is a personal moral failing in homosexuality, but of course this shouldn't dictate legislation. These matters are for good reason left to the religious institutions and the individual to decide. The Declaration of Independence says that every man should be free to pursue happiness, as long as he is not hurting anyone else. In philosophical terms, this means to me that government powers in the United States are intended to be limited to those issues with direct social ramifications. That is, I can't use the law against someone because they are a "bad person" but only because they have done something bad, in the sense of done something socially harmful. In practice, will this result in an any less moral world? Are we losing the opportunity to uphold morality? I don't think so. I mean, if someone is really a bad person, any social circle they encounter will shun them, the teachings of their religion and religious figures will attempt to correct them...there are plenty of ways for misguided people to "get the message" other than through government mandate.
It's been a long time since I updated - I know. Fear not readers - this blog is still alive and kicking. So vacation is over. We're back in the school grind once again, which is interesting if you own a blog because of all the random hits coming in from frenzied students on some random last-minute research spree. Apparently, I've now become an "information source" (so all appropriations of information contained within this site must be formally cited) on turn-of-the century psychologists, along with some "Continental" (not sure if that's the correct terminology...) philosophers thanks to Jung (i.e. Arendt, Hegel, Locke). I've also learned that misspelling commonly misspelled words is an extremely good way to find a market niche as a struggling blogger, since search engines don't correct spelling automatically in their searches, only suggest alternattive spellings (I'll probably get ten additional hits for that misspelling alone.)
I've gotten into listening to jazz again (jass - it's authentic Creole, and it will score you some bonus hits -- pub ), and might begin to play it again somewhat seriously, which means playing with the express goal of getting better, not just to have fun. I took out a whole bunch of jazz CD's from the public library to blatantly illegally burn them onto my computer. Which reminds me of the following public service announcement: libraries are quite amazing and everyone should use them instead of bookstores. But back to the message. I picked up some Dizzy Gillespie big band, Dave Brubeck, and Wynton Marsalis. Anyone who knows anything about my personal opinions knows that picking up a Wynton ( how about 'Winton' - there's no standard spelling for "Wynton" anyway right?) Marsalis CD strongly violates my musical ethic, because Wynton is an annoying person, at least when he's speaking.
Among some of the more annoying things he has done was his work as the main musician interviewee and designated "creative consultant" for the PBS Ken Burns Jazz series, which ended up biasing the whole thing towards a) black people b) people who have never experimented with electronic instruments c) himself. Let's be fair. Black people should obviously get the large majority of the coverage in a documentary on the origin of jazz, since their cultural contribution is undoubtedly more than fifty percent of the art form. However, many whites made great contributions to jazz, including George Gershwin, Bill Evans, and Chick Corea (who's actually Hispanic...), although these greats were hardly mentioned. The project was essentially a statement on black oppression and slavery, which is a good and important message to emphasize in a development on the origins of jazz, but not as much as they did. On many occasions, jazz was referred to as "great black music," or something to that effect. I know this is a Ken Burn's documentary; therefore it is dumbed down a little bit. In fact I really wouldn't care if it were not for the fact that this kind of thinking is entirely consistent with Marsalis's very outspoken view of jazz as an ethnically supremacist music, if one can use the term.
Marsalis has cast himself as the protector and guardian of pure jazz, which is floundering amid all the experimentation with unholy forms of music and white people (Ok, I'm exaggerating the last part a little.. On numerous occasions in the documentary, he literally says only black people can play jazz. He routinely regards himself and possibly also his brothers as the greatest hope jazz has to "stay alive" in this terrible age of crisis. He discards entire branches of development in jazz as illegitimate. Hence his personal and professional vendetta against Herbie Hancock, the far superior musician and artist, and his getting less than a minute coverage in the documentary. The great thing though is that, despite his tendency to deviate from orthodox jazz at times, at the end of the day Herbie Hancock is the one who has written scores of enduring jazz standards. Wynton is a good musician, great performer, questionable commentator, but he has contributed little to the art form creatively. In fact, even his albums are virtual recyclings of other musicians' arrangements of various songs.
The truth is he really has become, more than many other superior musicians, the face and voice of contemporary jazz, and he has filled the role quite effectively. At first glance it seems odd that someone with only modest contributions to jazz at best has arrived as it's most prominent public figure. But there are a few reasons I can think of for why this is:
The first explanation comes from an observation that I've made repeatedly over time while playing with jazz musicians: for some reason, as a breed, jazz musicians are seriously inarticulate. I have no idea why this is. Wynton is highly verbal, articulate, and erudite, so he fills the void for spokesmen left in jazz quite nicely.
The second is that good musicians would rather spend their time working on their art than talking about it. I'm sure he still gets some playing in there, but it's true that Marsalis has a kind of second job of professional spokesman for jazz. Other musicians either have different priorities or don't see that as the role for a musician.
The third explanation is that jazz has deteriorated in some sense to the point where so little is going on creatively that a guy who talks a lot about how great jazz used to be becomes the modern day prophet. This is possible.
One other major thing that Wynton has going in his favor is his family name, of course. His father and several siblings are all respectable musicians and jazz figures in their own right. His brother the saxophonist Branford, is at least as good a musician in my opinion, and almost as well-known.
Anyway, I say all this because I just listened to a few of Wynton's latest CD's, and can recognize for the first time that he is really good. He's not very original, and doesn't write many good songs from what I can see, but his technical and musical skils are considerable. His music is probably the best example of what good contemporary jazz that hasn't changed style or done anything innovative in the last forty years should sound like. There's something about straightforward jazz with no frills that's easy on the ears and appealing. He definitely has something to teach about how to play so it's listenable.
...As a fairly bizarre aside, has anyone ever noticed how artists are
always in the most unnatural poses on the cover of albums? It's like,
they're either wearing absurdly reflective glasses and staring out into
the distance in some direction, or looking at the camera with their arms
in the most contorted, unnatural position, or something. If I ever made
an album, I would just be staring right into the camera and smiling.
Like Pee Wee Herman, but one level more cool. But it's not nearly as
strange as most of the other album covers out there, if you really look
at it...
I know I'm three weeks early but that's the point. This way I get to take credit for correctly predicting that the Patriots will in fact be Super Bowl Champs.
Note: My personal affiliations and geographic location have nothing to do with my prediction. Absolutely nothing.
I want to make this blog about more than just theory, and lately there has been a lot of it, so. I want to keep this blog accessible to the masses ("the masses" don't read your blog yet -- pub). More to the point, this post is a shameless attempt to get more girls to read and be interested in this blog. If you're a girl and reading, then this is your day (thanks to reader Jennifer [who is too cool to get her own blog] for her expert input on this subject). Even guys know about the show "Sex and the City." Even if you haven't watched it, chances are you are subjected to quotes from it on a fairly regular basis courtesy of your female friends who happen to be really big fans. I've watched the show. Not in a weird, "I'm obsessed with it" kind of way, just a few times out of curiosity. I mean, I don't like the show. I find it offensive, it's completely geared towards women, the morals it promotes are horrible, it does a better job objectifying men than Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition does objectifying women. All the guys are tools. The only things that are purported to matter are the stereotypical things a female would care about: how "successful" he is, is he an "eligible bachelor," does he have a big d*ng. It plays shamelessly to all kinds of stereotypes. But still, it's such a cultural phenomenon that you have to give it credit and wonder how it got to be so successful. Obviously I'm going to be getting most of this stuff wrong but...There a few things I can think of that account for this show's catastrophic success:
It engages girl viewers with their sexual selves through its storylines telling of the sexual adventures of the main women characters, and as such is highly liberating. The premise of the show, which is women empowering themselves by having sex, offers a big escape from the usual stigma that says that for women to be interested in sex, they have to be slutty. This is the "why women like to watch it" theory.
Alternatively, it gives men a window into women's sexual lives. This is the "why men might like to watch it" theory. On a purely sexual level, as a piece of...I don't know the word, pornography, erotic arts...the show is pretty pathetic. If you get the show at all, then that means you get HBO, which means that you might as well get Skinemax, which would be much better if that's what you're interested in. And its not as if the characters are "real," so no one's getting a voyeuristic kick out of it. But there is good reason to think that if so many women follow the show so religiously, how far from the truth in terms of the female psyche can it be?
It's a good show. And by this I don't mean to say I like it. I mean to say it's well-written, well-cast, well-acted, well-shot. I'm no literature major, but I would be so bold as to say the characters seem well developed. The characters' parts are written very plausibly and realistically. The characters visibly go through changes on screen. The four different types of person embodied in the characters do a good job of representing the variety of female "types" out there. The acting is good. Personally, I think the Samantha character is hilarious. The actresses have a great on screen rapport.
The message: it seems to be: "at the end of the day, your friends are who will be most important." Kind of the opposite of the "bros before hoes" doctrine. It's a very sweet message. That is all I have to say about that.
It is somehow culturally very apposite at this point in time. I don't live in the big city so I don't know, but are good men hard to find in the city? Are gorgeous, successful women endlessly cycling through one-night stands? Have the women in New York City become so cynical romantically that they are going around indulging in meaningless and excessive sex with multiple partners on a (weekly) basis? If true, then perhaps I should reconsider my living arrangements. If partially true, then it would have great resonance with people out there if you made a show about it.
Any girls out there who would like to share their thoughts / feeling /experiences feel free to chime in. (No Jung, you don't count).
