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Roots of Unity by Mike Allen, Guild President |
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Mike Allen,
President, |
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Serpents and Doves "O be ye as shrewd as serpents, and innocent as doves."—Matthew 10:16 |
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I've just completed my first year
as president of the Guild and, as you might expect, some aspects of the
job were exactly as advertised while others were more a surprise. One
of the surprises was how much time I have spent dealing with people who
only follow one half of the advice above, which the Gospel writer
attributes to Jesus. That is, I spend a lot of time reining in serpents
who are far from innocent, and trying to rechannel doves who choose
self-defeating tactics. Another pack of serpents are those faculty who seek special deals for themselves by pressuring upper- level administrators, and retaliating with sloth if they are unsuccessful. The administration sometimes gives in to these folks, illegally ignoring the Guild's role as exclusive bargaining agent for the faculty, and violating campus governance policy to boot. Beyond the hit to our college budget, the exposure of these deals has a negative impact on the morale of others who aren't as shameless and well-connected. But those doves should not wallow in resentment. I believe that the approach one needs is that which is called "second naivete" by some. We all start off as naive in the first, or normal sense of the word. Disillusionment comes when we learn of the cynicism of others, but one should not stop there. One must push through to second naivete, where one is aware of the serpents and their machinations, recognizes the difficulty of thwarting them, but strategizes to do just that in the name of the goals one had when one was naive in the first sense. This often takes the form of acting as if one expects good behavior from someone not known for it, taking necessary precautions in case they don't live up to these expectations. My area of study is rational choice theory, a field based in my disciplines of mathematics and philosophy, but having found its most famous applications in economics (and to a lesser extent, the other social sciences). Many people recoil from mathematical models of human behavior in part because they think economists, for example, actually believe that humans are creatures that focus their unbounded rationality on calculating the course of action that will net them the most money. Instead, economists use this model, known as "homo oeconomicus," merely as a simplification to make the mathematics more tractable. This is a common strategy in mathematical modeling, and once preliminary results are obtained with a radically simplified model like this, changes in the direction of greater realism can be made where the greater mathematical complexity can be handled. One of the first changes usually made to this model is to focus instead on a creature still (unrealistically) assumed to have unbounded rationality, but who calculates the course of action that will net him the most utility, rather than money. Utility can be derived from many things other than money, such as contemplating a beautiful vista, chatting with a friend, satisfying one's sense of justice, or even by giving away money to a worthy cause. With this single shift, all of the analysis performed by rational choice theorists is available to the shrewd dove, and not just the money-grubbing serpent. This is what we need, rather than giving up and spending most of our time bitching. I hope you all have a summer that is, at least, less stressful than our 9-month academic year. There are many different political scenarios that can play out this summer, and the environment come September is anyone's guess. We must be shrewd, and prepare for every contingency. I will be working this summer to do just that, and hope you will help as needed. &
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