University as Information Traps

By mistake I taped a Charlie Rose interview with the President of Stanford, which was interesting. Rose asked how he would go about improving a school. The answer was rather general, hiring a good dean, hiring great professors which helps attract great students. The implication I drew from the discussion is that it's a circular process, a virtuous circle. Good leadership and one great professor helps attract other great professors and then great students. (He claimed that Stanford was continually raising the number and quality of its applicants.)

It struck me that the whole process has a dynamic of its own. The university invests in the school, the great professor invests by moving to the university, the great students invest by attending--it's to the advantage of everyone to portray the school as great. No alumnus wants to say that her aluma mater was a poor school. The university becomes an information trap, a black hole, in that it captures all negative information and only permits positive information to be aired.

I suspect you could extend the analysis to other organizations. Political appointees in DC are known for going "native" after they're appointed to head agencies. No one who's been in office for 6 months wants to say I head the worst, most disorganized, ineffective organization I ever saw. Perhaps the only exception will be John Bolton if he wins confirmation.

Karl Rove on Mainstream Media

Dana Milbank's report yesterday in the Post caused me to think more highly of Karl Rove (not a difficult job). Rove thinks the mainstream media is more oppositional than liberal:

"His indictment of the media -- delivered as part of Washington College's Harwood Lecture Series, named for the late Washington Post editor and writer Richard Harwood -- had four parts: that there's been an explosion in the number of media outlets; that these outlets have an insatiable demand for content; that these changes create enormous competitive pressure; and that journalists have increasingly adopted an antagonistic attitude toward public officials. Beyond that, Rove argued that the press pays too much attention to polls and 'horse-race' politics, and covers governing as if it were a campaign."

That seems about right to me. Though you have to add in other factors--the MSM don't seem to have had much exposure to the broad scape of America, lack historical and comparative perspective, have neither the time nor expertise to understand the workings of many organizations and institutions, and follow the crowd.

x

Karl Rove Agrees with Harshaw Rule

Dana Milbank covers a Karl Rowe talk to the newpaper people here:

"he [Karl Rowe] proposed a rule: 'Unless you have clear evidence to the contrary, commentators should answer arguments instead of impugning the motives of those with whom they disagree.' "

Though Milbank went on to say the White House didn't follow the rule, it's still worthwhile. I've called it Rule no. 2 here.

Bureaucracy, Presbyterians, and Israel (Revised)

Professor David Bernstein in Volokh.com cited this article in The Jewish Week, concerning proposals among mainline religions to divest stocks in companies working in Israel. From the article:

"But many analysts have been baffled by the timing of the Presbyterian action that opened the divestment floodgates, and which Jewish leaders fear will give new impetus to divestment drives on college campuses and in several cities known for liberal activism.The Presbyterians began their divestment move just as Israel and the Palestinians were moving toward a renewed peace effort and as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon accelerated his plan for withdrawal from Gaza....
The Presbyterians began their divestment move just as Israel and the Palestinians were moving toward a renewed peace effort and as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon accelerated his plan for withdrawal from Gaza.

The article is unfair to Presbyterians on several counts (full disclosure, while a descendant of Presbyterian ministers and brother to a delegate to the 2004 Presbyterian General Assembly, I'm an atheist):

1. First (given the theme of my blog) it ignores Presbyterian bureaucracy. (Ignorance of bureaucracy, of the nuts and bolts that make things happen, is often a problem when an outsider comments on an organization. ) The Presbyterians were one of the first federations in the new United States, with churches joined in presbyteries, presbyteries into synods, and synods into the church, all run democratically, meaning action takes time. The divestment resolution was put on the agenda for the June 2004 General Assembly by an "overture" from a Florida presbytery. It's worth noting that in May 2004 Gaza had exploded, the Israeli army was destroying many houses in Gaza, and the divestment idea was specifically aimed at Caterpillar. The bottom line is the writer's chronology is wrong. Not everyone marches to the same drummer.
   
2. Second, Israel has bureaucracy, the PA does not. That is, Israel has an organized and democratic society. As such, it offers outsiders better pressure points as well as internal checks and balances. (Life is not fair. ) One of the failures of Clintonian Middle East policy was in not developing the PA bureaucracy (see Dennis Ross and "The Missing Peace") so there are few pressure points there. Thus outside groups and governments have more chance of success in pressuring Israel than the PA. It's only coincidence, but the same day the divestment resolution was passed, the Israeli Supreme Court said part of the route of the barrier/wall was illegal. Since then, the Israeli Army has decided that bulldozing Palestinian homes is ineffective as a deterrent to terrorism.
3. Third, you might assume Presbyterians are Johnny-come-latelies to the Middle East, just sticking their long noses into other people's business. Not true. Their ties are intimate and long lasting. Oddly enough, the denomination was represented there before the Zionist movement was founded, notably founding the American University of Beirut. The 2002 General Assembly elected as moderator an Arab-American, who fled his village with his father and seven siblings in1948 (later returned). General assemblies have stuck their nose into the Israel-Palestine issue on several occasions. (Presbyterians are notable busybodies and vulnerable to taking "holier than thou" stances, IMO.) The Pentecostal denominations do not have this history.
   
4. Fourth, while each denomination differs in its policies and approach, for Presbyterians the divestment was mostly directed at Caterpillar, which supplies the bulldozers the Israeli Army used to destroy Palestinian houses, both in retaliation for terror by a family member, and to clear "unauthorized" buildings and safe areas along borders. (Whatever the merits of the policy, "destroying homes" is not good PR.) Presbyterians have already divested any interests in companies supplying military equipment such as Boeing and Lockheed (targets of campus divestment campaigns). Is this because of their involvement with the Israeli military? No, the U.S. military.
   
5. Fifth, the article is unbalanced in that the writer never quotes any Presbyterian, nor anyone else who is on the divestment side of the story. His named sources (he uses several unnamed sources) are two political scientists, a rabbi who's expert on Christian Zionism, and the inter-religious affairs director for the ADL, plus a member of the United Church of Christ who's opposing their move towards divestment. He does not report the conferences after the General Assembly resolution between Presbyterians and representatives of American Judaism.
   
6. Finally, the article says/implies that "cultural war" between Presbyterians (and other mainline denominations) and Christian Zionists is the real issue, and Presbyterian perceptions of the actions of the Israeli government simply a pretext. Presbyterians do have a long history of dispute with the premillenial dispensationalists (both for good theological reasons, and ignoble social reasons, like disdain for less educated clergy). The writer sees this as the true motive because otherwise there's the mystery of why the pressure for divestment just when peace is in the air. As I explained in 1, the chronology is wrong, so there's no mystery to be explained. The truth is that people tend to take positions issue by issue. Presbyterians and organizations like the ADL will agree on some issues, disagree on others. The same goes for the Christian Zionists. (See here for Foxman's attack on one of them and here for the reasons the ADL ascribes for the divestment campaign.) We should resist the temptation to ascribe ignoble motives to opponents. *(Call it Harshaw Rule No. 2) added Apr. 20*
   

I would compare the article to a hypothetical left wing article arguing that Bush invaded Iraq because of the administration's ties to Halliburton and oil. It's an easy way to simplify and mischaracterize a complex situation. It's also very deeply wrong.

DNA--Undercutting Prejudice?

The New York Times reports on a program of DNA testing at Penn State.

"When Don R. Harrison Jr. was growing up in Philadelphia, neighborhood children would tease him and call him 'white boy,' because his skin was lighter than theirs. But Mr. Harrison, a 'proud black man,' was still unprepared for the results of a DNA test, taken as part of a class at Pennsylvania State University, to determine his genetic ancestry.

'I figured it would be interesting. I'm light-skinned and I wanted to know my whole makeup,' said Mr. Harrison, a 20-year-old sociology major. But he was shocked by results showing him to be 52 percent African and 48 percent European: 'which I had no clue about, considering both my parents are black,' said Mr. Harrison. 'So I'm half white.'"

The rest of the article is interesting, suggesting to me that if such testing spreads widely, given $99 per test and human curiousity it should, maybe it will undermine remaining prejudices. When it's no longer a binary, white/black issue, but a spectrum, and when there's surprises (suppose George Wallace had turned out 5 percent black) prejudice at the intimate level will be difficult.

Political Plate Tectonics (Revised)

There was a piece in the NY Times today noting that conservative Catholics and evangelical Protestants were joining forces over the Schiavo case: "a testament to the growing alliance of conservative Roman Catholics and evangelicals who have found common cause in the "culture of life" agenda articulated by Pope John Paul II." The writer recalled the antagonism between the two in 1960 when JFK was running. (Recall his speech in Houston to the Baptists.) One tension in the alliance is the death penalty. The evangelical right tends to support it, the Pope opposes it. Another tension is Iraq. The Pope opposed, the right supported.

But if those two political plates have moved since 1960, so have others. (Of course, talking of "plates" is a metaphor that over-simplifies the diversity among any set of people.)

Among others:

1 Jews and the mainline Protestant denominations. In the 1950's they were united in support of Israel, civil rights, and civil liberties. Since the late 60's the Protestants have turned against Israel, mostly over the occupation of the West Bank. Jews have mostly remained strongly pro-Israel, although some, a minority, have emerged who don't. While Protestants moved on Israel, most have stayed with the liberal civil rights agenda. Some Jews have turned against it, perhaps reacting to the excesses of the 60's. I don't know enough to say whether that ties to currents with Judaism and immigration (from USSR) and perhaps to greater security within the US (a Jewish President of Harvard). The mainline Protestants have also lost clout over the last 50 years so that plate may seem more like an iceberg.

---Revised----
2 The white South. Switched from Democratic conservatism/populism to Republican conservatism/populism.

3 Farmers.

4 Reagan Democrats

[To be filled out as they occur to me. Some may be more flip-flops than tectonics, like the switcheroo on balanced budgets. Others may be just political expedience, like China policy.]

5 A reference to the neocons switching from a Jeane Kirkpatrick realistic opposition to Carter liberal naivete to the Bushian position. There's an argument that it's different people, but Secretary Rice also made the switch.

What is an Import?

From a NYTimes piece

Indeed, the American-made content of a heart stent, a jet aircraft engine, or any imported item might be 50 percent of its value or more. But in the trade statistics, that distinction is not made; the entire value is listed as an import.

The pattern is evident in personal computers, which generally rely on chips from Intel or Advanced Micro Devices for much of their value. Fully assembled computers showed up as a $25 billion item in last year's import bill; the American contribution showed up separately only in export figures."

Sounds like a case where bureaucratic simplicity results in statistics that don't say quite what they seem to. I guess the export/import figures will still work for the economists--if we export $100 in parts for a PC and import a $125 dollar PC, the foreign country does $25 of work. But it's still a reminder to be very careful of statistics, they're often gathered at boundaries between organizations as a byproduct of other processes. So it's very easy to misinterpret.

Great Bureaucrats in History: Benjamin Franklin

Why old Ben, the quintessential American? Because I'll give him credit for creating the Post Office system. He didn't, actually, but was the dominant figure in its early days. The post office was critical in the evolution of America. Think about the situation in 1700--most transportation was by ship between a port in the colonies and a port in Great Britain. That meant communication between colonies was very limited and there was little chance for them to develop a consciousness of themselves as "American".

By 1760 there were roads (or at least a road) connecting the colonies and reasonable mail service. That mail service required setting up routes, hiring postmasters, setting rules and coordinating the whole effort. That was Franklin.

Besides, he was the most interesting American before Lincoln. Our high schools could spend a semester just discussing Ben, his writings, and works. The author of "Fart Proudly" surely can connect with today's teens.

Bureaucratic Sieves, Rape, Applesauce, and Volokh

Eugene Volokh posted here on the issue of false reports of rape with the conclusion:

"the model does illustrate that it's perfectly possible to believe that (1) only a tiny fraction of women would ever lie about being raped, (2) a huge fraction of rapes are unreported (quite possibly even more than 50%, so that rape may be a highly underreported crime by many women, as well as overreported by a few), and yet (3) a substantial fraction of rape reports to the police are false." [Reason being, and I had to do the calculations myself, is that you're talking about two different bases: one is the large number of all women who are sexually active, a few of whom might falsely cry rape; the other is the much smaller number of women who were raped, a large proportion of whom may be reluctant to face the bureaucratic apparatus that deals with rape. ]

This got me to thinking about bureaucratic sieves. In the fall we would go to a nearby orchard, buy 3 or so bushels of apples, and mom would can applesauce. She'd cook the apples, then force the results through a sieve or strainer. What came through the sieve was applesauce to save, what didn't make it was the seeds, stems, bits of peel.

Or maybe I should think about a bloodier metaphor, perhaps a slaughterhouse. (See a Discover May 05 article on Temple Grandin and the relation of autism to the proper design of a slaughterhouse.) View a slaughterhouse as a bureaucratic machine for taking living breathing reality in all its multitudinous shapes and big brown eyes and converting it into steaks, roasts and hamburger.

My point is that sex and gender are various, interactions between male and female are wonderful and terrible and everything in between, and writers will continue to discuss the ins and outs forever. Now we come to rape, the reporting thereof, the writing of entries in blocks on prescribed forms, the conversion of reality into bureaucratic data points and decision criteria. This is one of the things bureaucracies do, transform reality into something that society can act upon.

Another way to make my point is the report of molestation in the Jackson trial. If Jackson is not convicted, was the report false? If the case had been settled out of court, would the report be true? Suppose the boy had never mentioned any of the alleged acts, but they happened, would it be molestation? Assume Jackson were dirt poor. Would the boy and his mother have gone through the bureaucratic process that led to the current trial? If so, would the alleged crime be the same or different (an innocent boy at the mercy of a multi-millionaire celebrity is a different reality than with a man with neither money, power, or (spiritual) authority)

For the purposes of Volokh's discussion, the available data is probably adequate. I maintain, however, that in the back of one's mind you must remember the process that converts apples into sauce, steers into beef, reality into statistics.

Professor David Bernstein (Revised Again*))

Professor Bernstein at The Volokh Conspiracy - commented, back in March, based on a misleading article in the Jewish Week (see this post for the URL and for my discussion of why the article was in error):

"Operating on the theory that the friend of my enemy is my enemy, liberal Christian groups have decided that Israel is the enemy, and that going after Israel is a relatively painless (though, it strikes me, rather ineffective) way to stick it to evangelical Christians and conservative Republicans more generally. Moreover, there is, it seems to me, the implied threat that if traditionally liberal Jewish groups and voters continue to increasingly pursue detente with the right, the American Christian left will join the international left in opposition to Israel. I can't be sure how big a role such considerations are playing in the divestment campaign, but I'm quite certain that I don't recall such overt hostility to Israel from the Christian groups during the Clinton administration. As with the Harvard faculty vote against Larry Summers, this is evidence that the results of the 2004 elections have left many traditionally powerful folks on the left very frustrated, and looking for targets to lash out against."

I think it's fair to say this is an example of how we (humans) tend to grab onto supposed facts that seem to fit our preconceptions. Professor Bernstein is a supporter of Israel and not a supporter of President Clinton or the left. He's also right that the 2004 election frustrated liberals. But he's reaching too far. (The illogic of opposing Israel in order to attack right wing American evangelicals might have been a tipoff the article has major problems.)

The reason that Christian groups were not pushing divestment during the Clinton administration can be stated simply: "Oslo agreement". Following the Oslo agreement, Israel and the PLO were engaged in negotiations through most of the Clinton Administration (see the Dennis Ross memoir). While there were terror attacks, assassinations, and expanding settlements through the 1990's, there was hope until the collapse of negotiations over Arafat's refusal to be a statesman. Even so, the "mainstream churches" were pushing their point of view throughout. (See the ADL publication, "Meeting the Challenge, Church Attitudes Toward the Israeli-Palestine Conflict", dated October, 2002 for lists of the resolutions and letters from the various churches.)

Since the beginning of the second intifada, the level of violence has reached unprecedented levels. From the Israeli viewpoint, it was forced into responding with military force and its responses were measured and limited. Some Protestant groups think otherwise and have increased their engagement with the situation since September 2000. So have some Catholics. Even the ADL sees them as concerned with justice for the weak and oppressed. Of course, Mr. Foxman believes they (referring to the Presbyterians) have swallowed the Palestinian narrative whole, but that's very different than a Machiavellian swipe at the "Left Behind" right.

What bothers me is the harm to dialogue among serious people. We have to be careful not to jump to conclusions, particularly when they fit our prejudices. In the words of Cromwell addressing the Scottish Parliament: "In the bowels of Christ, I beg you to consider you may be wrong."

* I've struggled with this post, and the associated one on the Jewish Weekly article, trying to get the tone and content right, and also handle the links. (Remember, I'm still learning this blogging.) One asset of being a new, unread blog is you can experiment.