Honey versus Vinegar, Part II

Posted yesterday on Prof. Leiter's views on the relative merits of persuasion versus yelling in the blogosphere. Robert KC Johnstone at Cliopatria blogs on the proper role of collegiality within academia. He sees it as overrated, leading to a bunch of nice people who downplay good research for getting along. He comments on this post at Inside Higher Ed :: Collegiality -- the Tenure Track's Pandora's Box, which includes 15 steps for being collegial and getting tenure. It boils down to:

"Common sense and self-control. Exercise both. Concrete manifestations of common sense and self-control require several tactics. Here are some things to try. Most of these tips are obvious..."

Johnstone sees some of the steps as advice to suck up to those in power. I have to say I'm more with Mary McKinney, the writer at Inside Higher Ed, than with Johnstone. It's an old controversy though--there are those who modify their behavior on the basis of other people's concerns and those who don't. I'm reminded of criticism of Benjamin Franklin, who might have originated the saying: if you can fake sincerity you have it made. But William James observed that if you act as if you believe something, you often come to believe it. And George Washington studied, not how to be nice to people, but how to impress them.

To quote my mother: "be nice". To quote my father: "there's more than one way to skin a cat" [and win approbation]