Books, etc.

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman.  New York: Farrer, Straus and Giroux, 2011.  499 pages. Sacred Heart University Library: BF441 .K238 2011

Kahneman, a Nobel Prize winner in in Economics, assembles much of his life's work in this accessible, entertaining, and thought-provoking book.  It's not short, but it's worth it.  His main target is the model of rational decision-making assumed or implied in many fields: economics, public affairs, diplomacy, psychology, even politics, sociology, and meta-scientific discussion (where "the rational person would ... [fill in the blank]").

Kahneman instead finds two systems that drive human behavior, thinking, and decision-making. "System 1" is fast, emotional, intuitive, reflexively automatic, and constantly monitors the surroundings for changes, threats, opportunities, and emotional signals.  "System 2" is slower, logical, deliberative.  Everyone has a lively and functioning System 1, but System 2 can be trained, influenced by education and life-experience, and varying levels of self-awareness.  System 2 can be inordinately influenced, however, by assumptions, intuitions, and consequent deliberative errors to which System 1 is prone, and System 2 can merely authorize, validate, and intensify decisions resolved by System 1.

These two systems are "characters," easily discernible shorthand for a congeries of mental habits, neurological links, learned behavior, and physical states.  In short, easily read chapters Kahneman discloses numerous fallacies, biases, and heuristic errors to which even highly-trained, logical people are prone.  The "availability bias," jumping to conclusions, the "halo affect" and numerous other well-studied behaviors not only unduly influence personal judgments and biases but influence political deliberations, financial calculations, and above all economic policies.    The self-destructive ways that human fall apart (sometimes, especially, powerful ones), the unintended, sometimes disastrous consequences of well-meaning policy shifts, and other human ills are illuminated if not quite completely explained.

Occasionally Kahneman falls into an unintentional paternalism of asking set-up questions at the beginning of a chapter to induce the reader towards an error.  Fun to read, sometimes these questions seem too clever by half and take advantage of critical but unexplored ambiguities.  For example, in Chapter 14 (page 146) "Tom W is a graduate student at the main university in your state."  The reader is asked to "rank nine subsequent fields of graduate specialization in order of the likelihood that Tom W is now a student in each of those fields." Fields in not-quite alphabetical order are listed, one of them is "humanities and education."  (--Interesting to combine both of those in one line when some would say they differ substantially.)

I'm a reader in Connecticut.  What is the main university of my state?  by USNews rankings, Yale? or by the enrollment numbers, UConn?  I happen to know, however, that Yale doesn't teach education at a graduate level, and surely has an above-average graduate enrollment in the humanities.  Meanwhile, UConn has numerous graduate students in education, because all teacher certification in Connecticut is channeled through fifth-year "graduate" education programs.  So what is the answer to Kahneman's ambiguous and simple question?

Kahneman tells us that the key to the answer is the relative size of enrollment in different fields.  That still doesn't tell me which is the "main university" in my state --and pity the poor reader in California or New York.  Which is the "main university" in Connecticut?  I know already that total enrollment at Yale is smaller than UConn.  When the reader is subsequently given more personal information about Tom W, it is given to suggest occupational stereotypes associated with fields of graduate study.  The reader is paternalistically manipulated into speculating that Tom W is a computer science student.  He was written up as an "anti-base rate" character, deliberatively suggestive of smaller-enrollment fields of study and unlike stereotypes of larger fields.  

The lesson is to discipline the practice of predicting by representativeness by recourse to rules associated with Bayesian statistics.  (Kahneman explains all this, p. 154)   But I was left with a sense that the example was set up simply to illustrate where Kahneman was heading anyway, and I would just as soon have followed him there without the suggestive manipulation of a deliberately ambiguous example.

Despite all this, I enjoyed the book.  I wish it had been shorter, and that Kahneman actively solicited errors of judgment less.  They occur anyway --give the reader a rest, sometimes.  I learned a great deal, however, and I watched the "availability heuristic" guide a University deliberative meeting while I was reading it.  It was an eerie experience, and well explored in this book.

--Gavin Ferriby

The Swerve: How The World Became Modern

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, by Stephen Greenblatt.  New York: Norton, 2011. 356 pages. 

Stephen Greenblatt is a literary mandarin --editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature, The Norton Shakespeare (etc.), and author of Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare and other well-received works on early modern culture and the beginnings of "modernity."  The Swerve turns to Titus Lucretius Carus (99-55 BCE), and the extraordinary story of Lucretius himself, the career of his poem De rerum naturae, ancient Epicureanism, its eclipse and return in early modern culture.  

The critical link, Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459), was a papal secretary, humanist, and adventuresome bibliophile extraordinare.  He discovered an obscure medieval manuscript of Lucretius' only work in the aftermath of the Council of Constance, 1414-1418, where his boss, Baldassare Cossa (the first Pope John XXIII) lost his job.  With an ability to copy quickly and beautifully (his handwriting was a significant source for Roman type-font), Poggio was a natural manuscript-hunter.  The beauty of Lucretius' language matched the power of Lucretius' critique of religion and other ancient philosophies such as Platonism and Stoicism (which contributed so much to Christianity).  This critique in turn contributed to writers as diverse as Shakespeare, Niccolò Macchiavelli, Montaigne, and Thomas More --as well as exposing many others to condemnation by the Inquisition or other guardians of orthodoxy.  Whether Poggio himself really understood the power of the text he unearthed is an open question.

Greenblatt's makes very clear his sympathy with epicurean-tinged atheism and distaste for mainstream varieties of Christianity.  He is occasionally tone-deaf to options within Christianity as well unaware of Christian critiques of theologies of substitutionary atonement (what is means to say that "Jesus died for our sins--Abelard's, for example) --theologies which have been enormously influential but that have never had an exclusive lock on Christian self-understanding.  Occasional trivial errors mar Greenblatt's text, such as the slightly snarky "As every pious reader of Luke's Gospel knew, Jesus wept ..." (p. 105) --no, an accurate reader of Luke's Gospel knows that Greenblatt is referring to John's Gospel, 11:35 --couldn't a fact-checker have caught this?  

Greenblatt's account of the murder of Hypatia at the hands of thugs clearly inspired and maybe ordered by Cyril of Alexandria brings further public light to re-assessment of a complex and violent Patriarch too often given a pass.  The gradual disappearance of the great Library of Alexandria (Museon and Serapeon) has to force a re-assessment of the passage from late antiquity to Christian and Muslim medieval worlds (beautifully rehearsed in Matthew Battles' Library: An Unquiet History, 2004).  As a scholar of the Renaissance, Greenblatt has a vested interest in narratives of ancient decline, and more than once he tiptoes on the edge of caricature.

Greenblatt's fascinating story becomes marred, in his later pages, by his tendency to claim too much for Lucretian influence.  Such influence is conclusive and well-documented in works by later Renaisance figures noted above.  But later influence --Galileo, Newton, Jefferson, Darwin-- seems over-emphasized.  Those were all complex figures with layers and layers of divergent pulls at work in their thinking and writing.  Even if Jefferson owned five copies of Lucretius, does that really demonstrate influence?  He was also very fond of Tacitus and Cicero, two writers quite unsympathetic to the Epicureans, and he owned multiple copies of their works as well.

Greenblatt also commits intellectual slight-of-hand when he occasionally links ancient atomism and modern atomic physics.  He correctly notes that ancient atomism was completely theoretical, and that Einstein's work in particular was founded on quite different sources.  Did Epicurean speculation really set the stage for atomic physics? (page 262) --that's quite a claim and needs further exploration.  Readers of Hawking, Brian Greene, and Leonard Susskind might indeed be led to think that ancient atomism in fact obscures those elements of modern physics which suggest worlds, influences, and physical motifs that move well beyond atomistic reductionism.  Only when influence such as Lucretius was overcome could ninetheenth-century physics move on.

I enjoyed this book immensely.  I came away unconvinced that a reductive atomism explains very much about the world and what makes a human life worth living.  What about genuine philosophical problems of language, the existence of other rational minds, and character of justice?  How are or is mathematics possible?  The Lucretian episode in early modern Europe was a fascinating stage and important stimulus for enormous creativity --but ultimately was superseded by a world of Scottish philosophies, Keynesian economics, and quantum physics.  As an undergraduate I read Lucretius in the Latin (well, some of it) and never forgot the hypnotic beauty of the poetry.  The philosophy that animated the poetry I always found as unconvincing as many of Plato's myths.  They were brilliant thinkers, but have no more monopoly on truth than anyone else.  Things have moved on, even for atheists.

--Gavin Ferriby

The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity

The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity, by Jeffrey D. Sachs. New York: Random House, 2011 (paperback ed. with preface, 2011). 328 p.

This timely book sets current political, financial, and cultural conflicts and questions in the context of many American's experiences since the 1970s. In part one, The Great Crash, Jeffrey Sachs (Earth Institute at Columbia University) outlines the numerous economic and political fallacies which have governed discussions of public policy since Reagan, and he sees the Clinton presidency as an episode in a long-lasting ideology of free markets, minimal market or financial regulation, maximal entrepreneurial financial returns, and stifled public discussion. In part two, The Path to Prosperity, Sachs outlines what he considers to be more comprehensive, germane, and accurate diagnoses of major issues such as financial trust, global economic development, global climate change, and education. He concludes with what he believes to be practical steps in a realistic timeline to restore prosperity to the broad swath of the American middle class, and to ensure middle-class economic viability with technological skills and global awareness.

Conservatives (especially libertarians and "cultural" conservatives) will not like Sachs' account of American decline since the 1970s, and most centrist liberals will not appreciate his linking them with a political emphasis instituted by Ronald Reagan. The real question is whether Sachs' account of the world and recommendations for change are accurate diagnoses and helpful suggestions for the present discussion. The similarity of Sachs' discourse with President Obama's agenda as advocated in the 2012 election cannot be missed, and Sachs would not (I believe) deny it. Sachs' rejoinders to conservative icons such as Friedrich Hayek, Reagan, Alan Greenspan, Lawrence Summers, and the Tea Party (and whether it has a clear and consistent agenda) are well worth pondering.

Sachs by no means lets ordinary people off the hook, either. His subtitle Reawakening American Virtue takes on the "distracted" society and wide-spread withdrawal from politics, economics, and even practical discussions. Sachs advocates not only political and economic ideas but mindfulness, an individual ability to pay attention, think clearly, act responsibly, and maintain viable plans for the future. He recognizes that American prosperity will not be ensured without change not only to American politics and economic policies, but with changes to individual behavior and turning away from the anti-policy, anti-intellectual posturing of too many "leaders" and media elite.

Do any of Sachs' suggestions stand any chance of discussions, let alone adoption? Sachs rings all the alarm bells, and the problems (global economic shifts; climate change; decay of the American physical infrastructure) are hardly state secrets. The powerful interests who deny these problems will not simply give up and melt away. Sachs seems to come away with continued bewilderment that American political discourses (or what passes for it) fails to respond to the expertise and advice present in America's highly trained workforce. He places his hopes in the Millennial generation which tends, he believes, to be more tolerant, better educated, socially liberal, and more trusting of government. (Those who teach at SHU may not always share that assessment.)

The four issues that Sachs identifies-- education, environment, geopolitics, and diversity-- will indeed be decisive in establishing the character and achievements (or lack of them) of the next decades. A liberal arts university can do much to foster serious discussion of all those issues. But will hearing Sachs' alarms summon a serious American response?

--Gavin Ferriby

From Command to Community: a New Approach to Leadership Education in Colleges and Universities

From Command to Community: a New Approach to Leadership Education in Colleges and Universities, edited by Nicholas V. Longo and Cynthia M. Gibson.  Medford, Mass.: Tufts University Press, 2011. 277 pages.  Accessible to SHU students, staff and faculty through ebrary as an e-book.

This book emerged from papers and conversations from a national symposium on redefining leadership education in higher education, held in 2008 and sponsored by Tufts University, Miami University of Ohio, and Public Allies, a non-profit in Milwaukee, WI that seeks to advance new leadership to strengthen communities, nonprofits, and civic participation.  As a set of essays, the book explores the change that is happening now, as notions of leadership move from ideas derived from the "great man" principle (a compelling leader who commands his followers --the choice of masculine pronoun is intentional!) to community-oriented views of adaptive leadership, citizen-centered, engaged in civic processes, and change-oriented.

The first of three broad sections attempts to "define" (more accurately, describe) "the new leadership and what it looks like in the context of higher education." (p. 14)  The second section of the book puts such leadership and civic engagement in higher education into historical and contemporary contexts.  Case-studies and examples of new leadership education models comprises the third section.  A final section grapples with the question, "What does this all mean, especially for the future?" (p. 19)

The academic prose is usually graceful, but in the end the (usually) vivid descriptions of particular programs, events, encounters, and examples remain more memorable than the necessarily more diffuse secondary description and analysis.  The book attempts to narrate and analyze a kind of change in leadership climate which is both welcome and confusing; a common note among the students is their realization of the overwhelming complexity and ambiguity of the world.  

In particular the closing essay by Stephen Smith ("a former student leader who helped to mobilize Harvard's well-publicized living wage campaign") is a vivid challenge to educators. Organizing 101: Lessons I Wish I'd Learned On Campus tells about his frustration with Ivan Illich's famous 1969 speech "To Hell With Good Intentions" that (brutally) chided college students about to embark on a service trip to Mexico.  When Smith experienced an alternative --living for twenty-one days in the (Harvard) University President's office protesting below-poverty wages.  (Note to SHU students: the University President respectfully requests that you do not do this at home.)  Responding to the protest, Harvard agreed to pay a "living wage" of $11.35 plus benefits.  Smith found a way forward towards genuine participation in social change.  He found his way to Saul Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) and found the right questions, the right answers, the right relationships.  This IAF model has helped to train César Chávez and Barack Obama, amongst others, "by each of us telling our stories and inviting others to tell theirs too." (p. 236)

The first essay of the book ends with a student's last Letter Home ("Letters Home" is a format to try to make sense of the experience of engaged leadership) that begins:

I'm not quite sure what to make of the past ten months as a close off this chapter of my life.  I'm a little more conflicted than I had expected.  I thought that those internal battles I was having with myself would end after a while, as the bigger obstacles of life revealed themselves to me, but I am finding more and more than the battles that happen inside are 99 percent of what happens outside.  All those ideas about courage, strength, bravery, virtue, principle, and any other adjective meant to describe a great human being are all descriptions of things that happen inside a person.  Everything else is just epilogue.

A part of me has been lost, just as another part of me has grown.  I can't pinpoint what it is, but something about the world is decidedly less romantic, while the ability to be astounded by the complexity and immensity of the world has increased …

Take and read --the rest of this letter is worth reading the whole book.

--Gavin Ferriby

 

 

 

The Innovative University: changing the DNA of higher education from the inside out

 The innovative university : changing the DNA of higher education from the inside out, by Clayton M. Christensen and Henry J. Eyring.  San Francisco: Josey-Bass, 2011.  475p.  SHU Library: LA227.4.C525 2011

This book has been widely acclaimed and is almost required reading for faculty and senior staff at many universities today.  Christiansen's strength is his very influential analysis of disruptive change in various industries such as electronics and automobiles.  Eyring provides a narrative history of  Brigham Young University (Idaho) which the authors contrast with a long history of Harvard University.  The text is cumbersome to read, however, suffering from repetitive points and a lumbering style which reminds one of less successful articles in scholarly journals.

 The central idea is that in "the DNA" of universities is a desire to be like Harvard: wealthy and comprehensive.  BYU/Idaho represents a completely different strand of "DNA" in how it serves students by a combination of distance learning, on-site learning, and lower-cost alternatives to residential college.

 "DNA" is obviously a metaphor: only living organisms have it, not organizations --and therein lies a weakness in the authors' argument.  "DNA" implies a set of biological determinations that are both inescapable (such being born with a color of hair) but which are further shaped by culture in how the biology becomes interactive socially (such as jokes about blonds: or Nazi ideology about "pure" blonds).  But organizations --even Harvard-- change, sometimes radically, in response to changing conditions.  Harvard is no longer a Puritan or Evangelical training ground for clergy; neither is it a pocket of rich people's inherited privilege and wealth; in these times even Harvard is examining which subjects it should be teaching and how to finance them --with sometimes painful consequences such as the reorganization (right now) of Harvard University Libraries).

 Organizations are human constructions and can and do change.  Christiansen and Eyring seek not the extinction of higher education but its wiser practice, and seek to free leaders of organizations from the presumption that they have to imitate Harvard.  How many organizations ever really wanted to do that?  Some, to be sure, but others have sought distinctive patterns such as professional schools, undergraduate-only liberal arts colleges, and schools with special clientele such as Gaullaudet University or even St. John's College (Annapolis and Santa Fe).  Even University of California (Berkeley) is re-evaluating its mission in light of radically reduced state funding.

 The book speaks hardly at all about the tenure process, the administrative burden imposed by governmental standards and expectations, information technology, and the problems and opportunities posed by too many courses taught by adjuncts.  Discussion of online or distance learning is remarkably slight.  The authors note the rapidly rising costs of higher education but offer no fresh comments about what can be done about it.  The authors also minimize the substantial portion of funding for BYU (Idaho) comes from tithes to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints --and very few academic institutions elsewhere have such percentage of operationaL funding from a faith-based or sponsoring group.  Tuition per semester for full-time LDS students is $1,785; for non-LDS students $3,570.  (99% of its 15,100 students are LDS members; admission (acceptance?) rate is 97%: see BYU-I Quick Facts.) 

The Innovative University is a worth-while read based on the reputations of its authors but those inside academia will not find particularly fresh insights or deep discussions.

 --Gavin Ferriby