The English department at Northwestern also posted a statement: “The Department is aware that a former adjunct lecturer who has not taught here in nearly 20 years has published an opinion piece that casts unmerited aspersion on Dr. Jill Biden’s rightful public claiming of her doctoral credentials and expertise. The Department rejects this opinion as well as the diminishment of anyone’s duly-earned degrees in any field, from any university.”
Why exactly should I give a rat's ass what people like this think?
Moreover:
… Jill Biden’s habit of calling herself a doctor had caused real confusion. Last March, Whoopi Goldberg suggested on The View that, in the case of a Biden victory at the polls, Jill should be named Surgeon General because she’s an “amazing doctor.”
All of which goes to demonstrate Epstein's "actual, and serious, subject. And that subject was the increasing meaninglessness of advanced degrees in the humanities and social sciences."
It may be that some medical, philosophy, education, and science doctors have doctoral degrees that are "meaningless". It may also be true that such a meaninglessness is becoming more prevalent, but I do not know this. It may be that where the statement made by Northwestern stated that we should not diminish "anyone’s duly-earned degrees in any field, from any university," it should have said "accredited university."
ReplyDeleteWe might then look at the accreditation process, because it is just this accreditation that gives Northwestern its rodential posterior. Such a rat's ass university or college then bestows the sundry doctoral degrees, and thus bestows the honorific "Doctor" in front of a student's name. No one else can.
It certainly is not the doctor's problem. Unless we can show that Dr. Jill Biden somehow did not properly earn her doctoral degree, that instead she somehow (brilliantly) cheated throughout, then it has nothing to do with her. By earning her doctoral, she rightfully is called Dr Biden.
Again, unless it turns out, that the University of Delaware was giving doctoral degrees away for a hundred bucks each or something, or that cheating took place, then there is no debate that has anything to do with Dr. Biden. She is simply called Dr. Biden, what she has earned, and what has been bestowed upon her. It is neither pretentious, nor arrogant, but true, a societal fact. Indeed, being a fact, the degree is something that can never be taken away. It's impossible to steal.
That you were Philly Inq's book editor can never be taken away from you. That Dr. Biden received a dotoral degree from an accredited university can never be taken from her either. We may debate the judgment or the process of the Inquirer or the University of Delaware. But the facts remains, and no scandal is evident in either case.
The debate is, then, with the education of people such as Whoopi Goldberg it seems, who apparently conflated a medical doctoral with an educational doctoral. How presumptuous. In such a case, the joke is on Whoopi. Hopefully now she knows better. It would be like putting a medical doctor without the Ph.D. in epidemiology or virology in charge of a pandemic. The joke is on the one who makes such an error.
Yes, the flip side of this, is when many in society conflated doctors of epidemiology, which is a Ph.D. public health degree, with an M.D. -- thinking that doctors of medicine would have expertise in the spread of a deadly pandemic. They do not -- unless they hold both doctoral degrees. Medical doctors, depending on their specialty, may treat the virus once it has infected a patient -- something epidemiologists cannot do. These medical doctors may then follow CDC guideines and advise their infected patients to be on isolation for however many days the ediemiologists have determined to be safe for public health purposes. Because when dealing with the public health policies, on how to fight the pandemic, we should be listening to epidemiologists and virologists, not neurologists, not cardiologists, nor general practitioners.
Pity he wasn't around to defend the title from Samuel Johnson, who didn't even complete the A.B.
ReplyDeleteI've had a look at a few excerpts from from the dissertation. It's not very well written, but I'm not in a position to judge its contents. Nonetheless, I agree that this is a kerfuffle and suspect that most people chiming in are less concerned about Biden using her title than advancing their own agendas.
ReplyDeleteWhatever might such an agenda be? That universities have turned away from education to being accreditation machines? Albert Jay Nock predicted that would happen in The System of Education in the United States, written in the 1930s. So we have someone with a doctorate who doesn't write very, but wants to be honored for the letters after her name. Well, anyone who wants to so honor her is free to do so.
ReplyDeletePossible agendas? Try an anti-Democratic stance, for one, or an anti-intellectual bias (which doesn't mean that Biden is actually an intellectual), or yes, a need to demonstrate one's own superiority--and please note that I haven't even mentioned misogyny (whoops, now I have).
ReplyDeleteSomeone may not write very well but have done solid research or developed an original thought--or two, imagine that! Whether Biden has an education a la Nock or merely advanced accreditation in education is not for me to say, nor do I really care. The fact is, she has the right to use 'Dr', which hardly grants Epstein the right to mock her as 'Dr. Jill', or worse, 'kiddo.'
We have entered an age of ego-privilege, privilege that runs amok in people's imagination. People are now above the law in their minds, not because they are citizens who can go to town meetings and change an ordinance, or because they can vote out a representative whose laws they disagree with, or in this case, change the accreditation process, but because they can break the law instead and yell at others who challenge them, or write an article that speaks to the ego-privilege of a known or like-minded ego-driven readership and make money at it.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't change that Dr. Biden is a doctor. No law gets truly revoked. Representatives can now be threatened instead of voted out. This appeals to people's egos, my way or the highway, such that they do not have to go along with anything, certainly not some ordinance they decide they can proclaim is based in a hoax -- when confronted by good citizens who still know better. Why be bothered with being a good citizen any more? No need. Go about your selfish business, and dream up privileges for yourself, and reasons why they are yours, and how you have a constitutional right to your own ego rules. It's easy for everyone.
I just wrote an essay about this: U.S. Citizenship, with Extra-Citizenship Privilege -- and come in here, to see that it applies to this subject as well. Just get enough other egos who do not want to be the good citizens to enact change the Constitutional way, go on TV as if there is a real debate to take sides on, appeal to those who would rather redefine in their minds what immunity and privilege means, et voila, doctorates revoked, ordinances revoked. Poof. But not really, not really.