Ruminations on being an unemployable, opinionated older man and the Peter Boghossian affair.

Aweh dearly beloved fellow Ruminants & Groupies in day 556 of Re-Modified Lock Down Level 1 and with copious alcohol.

Period as a semi-retired pensioner: 177 days

Last week’s blog generated a lot of comments.  Any topic that is related to climate change generates strong opinions. Thank you for your comments. Not everyone agreed with me and that is a good thing. Of course, I am almost always right, but I reluctantly confess I’m sometimes wrong and it is necessary for me to be wrong to be right more often. You learn from being wrong more than from being right. I suspect that those of you who know me would characterise me as (very) opinionated.

Is it a good or a bad thing to be opinionated? After all, we don’t mind opinions when they agree with our own. Jonathon Swift wrote: “That was excellently observed, said I”. Highly opinionated people are also some of the most annoying and irritating people on the planet and have an opinion on everything including, say, early byzantine church music. I will save my strong views on why early byzantine church music, which is associated with the oppressive patriarchy, should be banned for a later blog. Opinionated people also cause offence and hurt people’s feelings. You don’t want them in safe spaces.

Is it not better to keep your opinions to yourself and be agreeable? Just go with the flow and don’t waste your energy on the opinionated. Be limp-wristed. But who runs the show? Hint: It’s not the limp wristed. One of the more recent developments in the world is for organisations to have gender and diversity offices because after all gender and diversity is a very good thing. The people who gravitate to these departments are extremely opinionated.  How much gender and diversity training do you need? Gender studies is a whole new discipline. It is only very late in life that I have learned that there is a lot more to gender than I realised. There are at least 64 terms that describe gender identity and dearly beloved readers I know that every one of you would fail a test on this. https://www.healthline.com/health/different-genders. That is why a 3-day compulsory course with a test is perfectly sensible. You probably need annual refreshers because new genders are being discovered all the time. Surprisingly my suggestion of reciprocating with a 3-day course on thermodynamics with a test has not been well received. Who needs thermodynamics anyway?

In this weeks Economist there is a leader article about the fact that you need to be very careful about gender identity and using the term woman in case you cause offence. The Lancet, a medical journal, thus used the term “bodies with vaginas” instead. This then generated complaints about dehumanising language, so the Lancet apologised. In British maternity wards the term mother or woman is replaced with “birthing people”. Upon reflection I don’t think a 3-day course will be sufficient for me to understand this. Perhaps after 5 days I would start to begin to understand.

This then brings me to the Peter Boghossian affair. Peter Boghossian, an untenured assistant professor of philosophy at Portland State University (PSU), was one of the most vocal critics of post-modern ideology in the academy, until he resigned from his university on September 8th. In 2018 he and two authors tried to publish 20 fake papers, to expose what they saw as a willingness to publish anything that used the right jargon. Seven were published, including one on “queer performativity” in urban dog parks, and one calling astronomy imperialist and suggesting physics departments study interpretative dance.

PSU has a diversity office led by a Vice-President, who earns $262 000 pa, and they took an extremely dim view of Professor Boghossian and instituted disciplinary proceedings against him for “Research Misconduct”. He was found guilty of performing unauthorised research on human subjects (the journal editors). University policy requires that all research involving human subjects conducted by faculty, other employees and students must have prior review and approval by the Independent Review Board (IRB). Would they have approved this?

It is not easy to work in an organisation where you don’t fit the mould and there is a prevailing view of how things work. Those with strong beliefs tend to be admired. The human mind hates uncertainty, so it is comforting to be told what to think, and to form settled opinions. But is this rational? As the philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote: “The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”

There is little doubt that Bertrand Russel was extremely intelligent and there is merit in what he says. He was an extremely influential thinker, and rightly so. Did he behave in a way entirely consistent with his own statement? Not so much. He had extremely strong opinions on certain topics. He was not an agnostic. He was a very outspoken atheist. No sitting on the fence there.

So back to the opening question. Is it a good or a bad thing to be opinionated? I suspect the answer as with many good questions is it depends.

When someone brings me their perpetual motion machine and I’m on the investment committee I would not go with the flow even if everyone else is taken in. My opinion would be strong, and my language could be colourful. There will be no doubt. (Except if my large bonus depended on approving the investment). If I was on the independent review board (IRB) for a research proposal from the gender studies department to explore new undiscovered gender categories I would be full of doubt. I have so much still to learn regarding gender and I wouldn’t want to cause offense.

Thank you for your comments and suggestions please keep them coming.

Regards

Bruce