So far this blog has ascribed the quietude of the faculty amid corruptions and injustices to competing responsibilities to family, research, or life. That may seem too polite an explanation. Indeed, the last three entries may incline reader and blogger alike to reconsider that polite verdict. How many times has each of us heard that faculty go along with injustices and chicanery because they are “born, bought, or beaten” into silence and submission? Maybe it's not our fault!
It is our own fault. Let's see why "born, bought, or beaten" excuses accomplices' languor.
One problem with “born, bought, or beaten” is that it phrases as alternatives what in practice are sequential complements. Passive, quiescent colleagues tend to be born [that is, created through recruitment and socialization] then to be bought [that is, tenured, promoted, honored, and well paid] but only to be beaten [that is, penalized, disciplined, or spurned] if the breeding and buying of inertia and resignation succeed too little or too seldom. Administrators and apparatchiks cannot do all the work! They require accomplices to form an approving audience.
Faculty are born and bred to regard meekly going along with half-truths as the essence of professionalism [see the immediately previous entry in this blog]. Once a rambunctious graduate student in hot pursuit of truth has been “raised” to assume the position of sober professional craving a good reputation among peers but especially among superiors, the seeker of truth commits suicide [perhaps via Flavor Aid – Rev. Jim Jones did not dispense Kool-Aid] and becomes born again in the wonders and beliefs of the Puget Sound congregation. The baptism of hiring leads to confirmation through tenure as colleagues decide that someone has the personal and professional characteristics to fit in – which is to say, lacks the personal and professional wherewithal to be reasonably skeptical, critical, or sentient – rather than to impede injustice, to expose deceit, or to indulge in other impieties.
A congregant, believer, and accomplice having been born and bred, positive and negative sanctions reinforce orthodoxy and orthopraxy. The roles of administrators and apparatchiks are obvious. The FAC enables raises, bestows awards, recommends tenure, and promotes accomplices, although quiet agnostics may survive when noisy infidels would perish. No less important, administrators and apparatchiks may withhold favors, moneys, and reappointments.
One problem with “born, bought, or beaten” is that it phrases as alternatives what in practice are sequential complements. Passive, quiescent colleagues tend to be born [that is, created through recruitment and socialization] then to be bought [that is, tenured, promoted, honored, and well paid] but only to be beaten [that is, penalized, disciplined, or spurned] if the breeding and buying of inertia and resignation succeed too little or too seldom. Administrators and apparatchiks cannot do all the work! They require accomplices to form an approving audience.
Faculty are born and bred to regard meekly going along with half-truths as the essence of professionalism [see the immediately previous entry in this blog]. Once a rambunctious graduate student in hot pursuit of truth has been “raised” to assume the position of sober professional craving a good reputation among peers but especially among superiors, the seeker of truth commits suicide [perhaps via Flavor Aid – Rev. Jim Jones did not dispense Kool-Aid] and becomes born again in the wonders and beliefs of the Puget Sound congregation. The baptism of hiring leads to confirmation through tenure as colleagues decide that someone has the personal and professional characteristics to fit in – which is to say, lacks the personal and professional wherewithal to be reasonably skeptical, critical, or sentient – rather than to impede injustice, to expose deceit, or to indulge in other impieties.
A congregant, believer, and accomplice having been born and bred, positive and negative sanctions reinforce orthodoxy and orthopraxy. The roles of administrators and apparatchiks are obvious. The FAC enables raises, bestows awards, recommends tenure, and promotes accomplices, although quiet agnostics may survive when noisy infidels would perish. No less important, administrators and apparatchiks may withhold favors, moneys, and reappointments.
Peers and departments sometimes play crucial roles in assisting or obstructing decision-makers “above” the departmental level. Peers and departments look for, among other positives, a reputation for responsible criticism [that is, discovering not yet articulated arguments for what departmental elites have advocated] and demonstrated reliability [that is, predictable responses that serve departmental elites] as well as collegiality [that is, a willingness to commit or condone injustice in return for rewards]. More dysfunctional departments operate in a more defensive manner, ever watchful lest truth-tellers or whistle-blowers be rewarded or anointed. Truly dismal departments are quite bristly: negative sanctions descend on those who “unprofessionally” deconstruct departmental misbehavior.
“Born, bought, AND beaten” may seem to explain quiescence, but that formula misses the sheer expense involved in sanctions and socialization if faculty are the least bit aware or incredulous. Sooner or later all faculty learn of some injustice done in their name, or a faction that helped fire “those” women are “shocked! shocked!” when “their” women are similarly mistreated. The suddenly attentive and alert colleagues are neither reborn nor re-bought nor re-beaten, for such practices take time and work best behind the scenes. Instead, once and future accomplices are re-educated.
As we have seen often in entries of this blog, procedures for appeals exist to reassure all who are utterly ignorant of the facts that fairness has prevailed and that decisions are justified. Administrators and apparatchiks assure the temporarily discombobulated that only confidentiality keeps the insiders from demonstrating just how right their decisions were. Veteran accomplices join this chorus of nonsense, resounding hymns such as “When We Have Fired Folks, They Invariably Go On to Do Nothing” or "A Mighty Fortress is Our FAC."
Colleagues accept soothing twaddle because to do otherwise would require great efforts that would ultimately be unavailing. Worse, to admit that the Faculty Advancement Committee or the Professional Standards Committee [PSC] or an administrator is misleading the faculty would be unpleasant and would mark one as lacking in civility. Why did an ad hoc committee learn about multiple acts of malfeasance by the PSC but avoid public documentation of such missteps so something might be done about them in the future? Perhaps they stifled themselves because accountability and candor might alienate colleagues and endanger reputations for reliability and responsibility. The safer course was to praise “forward looking” policies [almost none of which, quite predictably, have been discussed in the Faculty Senate or passed by the faculty] and to divert colleagues from corruption, deception, and dereliction in their governance.
“Born, bought, AND beaten” may seem to explain quiescence, but that formula misses the sheer expense involved in sanctions and socialization if faculty are the least bit aware or incredulous. Sooner or later all faculty learn of some injustice done in their name, or a faction that helped fire “those” women are “shocked! shocked!” when “their” women are similarly mistreated. The suddenly attentive and alert colleagues are neither reborn nor re-bought nor re-beaten, for such practices take time and work best behind the scenes. Instead, once and future accomplices are re-educated.
As we have seen often in entries of this blog, procedures for appeals exist to reassure all who are utterly ignorant of the facts that fairness has prevailed and that decisions are justified. Administrators and apparatchiks assure the temporarily discombobulated that only confidentiality keeps the insiders from demonstrating just how right their decisions were. Veteran accomplices join this chorus of nonsense, resounding hymns such as “When We Have Fired Folks, They Invariably Go On to Do Nothing” or "A Mighty Fortress is Our FAC."
Colleagues accept soothing twaddle because to do otherwise would require great efforts that would ultimately be unavailing. Worse, to admit that the Faculty Advancement Committee or the Professional Standards Committee [PSC] or an administrator is misleading the faculty would be unpleasant and would mark one as lacking in civility. Why did an ad hoc committee learn about multiple acts of malfeasance by the PSC but avoid public documentation of such missteps so something might be done about them in the future? Perhaps they stifled themselves because accountability and candor might alienate colleagues and endanger reputations for reliability and responsibility. The safer course was to praise “forward looking” policies [almost none of which, quite predictably, have been discussed in the Faculty Senate or passed by the faculty] and to divert colleagues from corruption, deception, and dereliction in their governance.
“ … I always knew what the right path was.
Without exception, I knew, but I never took it.
You know why?
It was too damn hard.”
Al Pacino, Scent of a Woman
It’s also not pleasant, not cordial, not collegial, and not proper to speak truth to power, so lazy and depraved or scared and depressed faculty choose silence and impotence and thereby make themselves accomplices after the fact. Awareness of and familiarity with the actual conditions of one’s employment imperils tenured professionals as much as union apprentices if either is inclined to articulate what he or she sees or hears. To make the most obvious observations or deductions is in extremely poor taste and indicates a rotten attitude and perhaps a self-destructive tendency. To utter such observations in a forum supposedly designed for faculty self-governance reveals some deeply personal shortcoming and is therefore utterly unprofessional.
To get along, go along. The Emperor is not naked. He is wearing loafers.
Relax! If you knew what your betters knew, you'd see that they're right, so really there is no reason for you to look into the matter. The confidants cannot tell you what they did to whom or why, but if they could you would swell with admiration for their wisdom, so why not just swell with admiration now and skip the intermediate fact-finding?
Everything is alright. Pretend you are at another Fall Faculty Conversation. Blather and shibboleth waft to the rafters. You are mesmerized by the majesty of intellectual discourse when you eschew disruptive reason and discordant reflection. There are no problems except faculty who identify problems.
Pay no attention to the apparatchik behind the curtain.
The winged monkeys are merely dispensing justice.
Sip some more Lotus Flavor Aid.
Ain't intellectual life grand!
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