The Volokh Conspiracy

Hunter S. Thompson wrote a lot of great stuff, but I'll be damned if I'd ever have trusted his opinions on anything serious...

By the commenter's own logic, Galileo was wrong, and the Earth did/does not revolve around the Sun after all; the collective credentials of the people opposing that theory were far more impressive than those of the lone man propagating it.

Who is read by more people daily, Lileks or Vonnegut? I'd guess Lileks, even with the popularity of Vonnegut's novels.

More than one way to measure these things.

If we are treat this as an argument from authority, given that the question is the morality of suicide bombings, I suppose we should first compare how many times Vonnegut and Lileks have successfully committed suicide by bomb, and weigh their opinions accordingly.

So Vonnegut has, in essence, just given a more respectful and sympathetic analysis of suicide bombers than anything he ever saw fit to grant his fellow American veterans.

Charming.

The trick, I think, with maintaining the right-wing "angry" man pose, is the absolute refusal to understand an opponent's point of view.

Vonnegut is willing to try to understand someone else's point of view.

Lilek is unwilling to understand Vonnegut's point of view, and is angry that Vonnegut would try to understand the point of view of an enemy. Nothing he says about Vonnegut is particularly accurate, or expresses much of anything, except unenlightened anger. Lileks does not know anything about Vonnegut's literary achievements. And, Lileks is ill-mannered.

Vonnegut is willing to try to understand someone else's point of view.

But is Vonnegut trying to understand another point of view in order to better defeat them or to better enable us to change or alter that perspective and thus mitigate deaths?

Or is he simply an addled, spoiled leftist nihilist who hates his country and wills nothingness rather than nothing?

According to Miss Manners, only MDs are properly referred to using the honorific "Dr." PhDs (and, presumably JDs) use the standard "Mr./Ms." I think there may be an exception if you are actually in a class taught by someone with a non-medical doctorate, but I'm not sure about even that.

And, yes, dammit, this is an appeal to authority. Etiquette is the only subject in which appeals to reason are inappropriate.

Jack, I don't know about Ms. Manners, but having spent more than my fair share of time in the academy, and perhaps more than is good for me, I can provide at least anecdotal evidence those with Ph.D. degrees are almost always referred to as "doctor" unles they indicate otherwise. I've never heard a J.D. referred to that way. (Those with a Ph.D. have a better claim on the title doctor than an M.D. or J.D. in any event, if they are instructors.)

The trick, I think, with maintaining the right-wing "angry" man pose, is the absolute refusal to understand an opponent's point of view.

Well, if that were something resembling an argument, I'd take it apart (what's the secret to left-wing angry man? See e.g. Dr. Howard Dean). Maybe some people are just pissed. But, having spent more than my fair share of time trying to understand opposing points of view, the one that continues to escape me is "kill people who disagree with me." You'll forgive me, I hope, a little anger toward those who do hold that belief since the very idea of debate and disputation is negated by those who would use force to convince others.

Vonnegut is willing to try to understand someone else's point of view.

Yes, and that's useless without the ability or willingness to evaluate it. The point of view "kill people who disagree with me," is repugnant and wrong, and in no way admirable. How's that for a value judgment?

I refuse to try to understand the view of someone that would blow up children. I refuse to try to understand the view of someone that would condone blowing up children. Some things are that simple.

Sorry, this was supposed to appear between the brackets in the foregoing post:

As a wise giant said in “The Princess Bride” – “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

The trick, I think, with maintaining the right-wing "angry" man pose, is the absolute refusal to understand an opponent's point of view.

On the contrary. A good understanding of the opponent's view is always useful when it comes to figuring out the best way to kill them.

A JD is a master's degree.

I went to UVA and we have an unofficial rule that professors are referred to as Mr./Ms. unless they hold an MD. This is supposedly because Thomas Jefferson, the founder of the University, did not hold a Ph.D, but I find that it has an appropriately humbling effect on those professors who have unusually high opinions of themselves.
As for Kurt Vonnegut, it doesn't take an understanding of the motives of suicide bombers to produce this sort of drivel. One could throw in a couple of key hippie-dippy phrases and produce the same thing without any actual knowledge of the subject. I would say that he knows his audience before I said he knew his topic. Also, Vonnegut is a novelist and as a whole that group of intellectuals isn't exactly known for their measured analysis of contemporary international relations.

Some lawyers and law schools wanted graduation from law school to carry more prestige than graduation from a college. Their argument was that most lawyers earned their LLB after they already had gone to college for four years and that the additional three years of law school merited a higher degree. So, beginning in the 1960s, some law schools began awarding the JD degree. The three-year course of study for law school was standard, however, long before the JD degree came into being.

The LLB (Bachelor of Laws) degree was the only one offered at Harvard Law School, and many other older law schools, until some time in the 1970s. HLS finally yielded and changed the degree to J.D. because government pay scales were higher for those holding the JD degree than for those having the bachelor of laws degree, although they represented precisely the same achievement. Tradition gave way to monetary considerations.

All we older graduates received a letter giving us the chance to convert our LLB degrees to the JD. Many of us did not bother. I thought then, and still think now, that calling it a JD degree is fraudulent foppery. And so I am still LLB, Harvard Law School, 1968. I could still get it changed, but I see no reason why I should barring the unlikely event of a switch to government employment at age 62.

Check out the asterisked footnotes at the beginning of law review articles and you will find some of the older authors still list themselves as LLBs.

When I said, in the message above, that the bachelor of laws degree was "the only one" offered at Harvard Law and other older law schools until the early 1970s, when the J.D. degree was adopted, I meant for the intitial three-year course of law study. These schools, of course, offered master's and "real" doctor's degrees in law long before the 1970s.

Lucky for readers of Mr. Vonnegut, he's had more than one idea in his life, and he deserves to be evaluated in resolution quite a bit higher than than a few choice quotes can provide.

That's not to say you shouldn't voice disagreement with what he said. But I would hope the politics of outrage don't trap folks into thinking Mr. Vonnegut doesn't have anything to say worth hearing. Old men (even smart old men) say nutty things once in a while, and I can disagree with Mr. Vonnegut on this point without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

That said, there's something in what Mr. Vonnegut said that reminds me of a perfectly valid point Bill Maher made - one that got him canned from ABC. Basically he said, and I paraphrase, that to call suicide bombers cowardly was indicative of a fundamental misunderstanding. They may be "evil," but they don't lack for bravery and they aren't irrational or insane. Theirs is a war based on principle, principles in direct opposition to our own.

Are we "morally superior"? Maybe. Probably. I think we are. But they believe they are morally superior. Just knowing we're right doesn't actually help us win. We must prove that superiority to history. I think that aim is best served by avoiding the deaths of innocents. If we kill as many as they do, it's tough to judge us by our fruits.

To me this is the problem involved when we frame our own killing of innocents as morally superior to those who intend to kill innocents. It's true, there are times when killing an innocent may be necessary for the greater good. But once this is admitted, the justification may become increasingly attenuated as the distance grows between the decision maker (i.e., the person doing the killing) and those persons bearing the risk of death. This is why the highest honor is reserved for those who sacrifice themselves.

When others decide that people must die in order to further a greater good, we who survive can safely measure the intent and moral justification. We may perceive some distance between terrorists and ourselves. But I don't think we can demand agreement from those who pay the terrible cost.

From Wikipedia. Neat. Apparently in Italy, you may address me as "Dr."

Academic doctorates and usage of "Doctor" as a title of address
Although medical doctors and some other health professionals with the above medical degrees are addressed as Doctor (e.g., "Doctor Smith" or "Dr Smith"), medical degrees are not usually doctorates, except in the USA and Canada, where they are considered first-professional (as opposed to research-oriented) doctorates.

The most advanced academic degrees in any discipline, including the medical disciplines, are referred to as "doctorates" and represent the highest earned degree in a given area of the sciences or humanities. The most common of these is the Ph.D., but there are many other research-oriented doctorates with different designations.

In much of the world, holders of doctoral degrees are generally addressed as Doctor. In the USA, however, while the Juris Doctor or J.D. is indeed a professional doctorate, by custom and legal convention lawyers do not use the title of doctor. Lawyers who hold another doctorate such as the J.S.D. (Doctor of Juristic Science), L.Sc.D. (Doctor of the Science of Law), Th.D. (Doctor of Theology), or the LL.D. (Doctor of Laws) may use the title of doctor. In an academic setting, where the educational background of the individual is of course salient, doctor is the term of address and title used by holders of a doctoral degree; however, the rank of professor often takes precedence and may be used as a title. Academics below the rank of professor who do not hold a doctoral degree are referred to as Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms.

It is also true, however, that the usage of doctor as a title also varies by country and culture. While the title Doctor (abbreviated Dr) is used in the United States, the UK and Germany for most people holding a doctorate, in some other countries, such as France, it is generally not used except for physicians and thus has become a synonym for "physician". In certain countries, for members of certain professions, the title of doctor may be used even when the academic qualification of doctorate is not held: for instance, in Italy, for holders of a Laurea.

The commenter got it wrong about Lileks; he doesn't write cookbooks. I guess the Gallery of Regrettable Food could be described as an anti-cookbook, viz. "Egads, don't cook this!"

Vonnegut? Ezra Pound Revisited. But at least he'd been interned first.

Huh, I think you are wrong about calling suicide bombers "cowards". In the West, courage has always been considered to involve fighting face-to-face, man-to-man, in a "fair fight." That is why sneak attacks, and many similar tactics, admired in many cultures, are generally disfavored in western tradition. By this measure, suicide bombers, who are not engaging in a fair fight, face-to-face, are cowards.

As holder of both a J.D. and a Ph.D., I'd like to point out that the real meaning of Ph.D. is not "teacher of philosophy," as stated earlier, but "teacher of the love of wisdom." Is there any higher calling?

Huh, an even larger point to be made is that little is gained by promoting the moral equivalence of suicide bombers intent on imposing a theocratic fascism and (what I hope even you would agree) the necessary American response, even if imperfectly implemented.

Can you wrap your mind around that? Can you see how pernicious it is to engage in this backbiting? It's almost as if the people on this board defending this pissant author (he wrote books! He must be worth listening to!) just can't bring themselves to just come out and say: "I hope our side wins" without adding a big "BUT we're just as bad as they are in our own way..."

esquire works as a designation. i like to be on notice as to whether or not the correspondence i receive is in fact from an attorney. in a practical sense...the use of "doctor" by attorneys in my area of practice could lead to confusion. my firm requires it to be used on all outgoing correspondence...though my card actually just reads "attorney".

AppSocRes gets it right. Vonnegut was making a literary reference. He is saying that war is not fun, and implying that the suicide bombers are deluded. Lileks took it literally, and was pleased to write many angry words about it.

So, stand down, patriots, no need to issue a fatwa on this one.

Bruce Wilder:

And, not unrelated to why Osama still walks the earth.


Are you arguing that the kind of cheap, rhetorical "understanding" Vonnegut offers is the key to getting Bin Laden? How, exactly?

John Jenkins, The only faculty members on any campus I've heard of who want to be called Dr. are those in the department of teacher training who hold a Ed.D. It goes without saying that they are the butt of campus wide jokes.

I think Eugene is correct about credentials having a narrow importance that doesn't necessarily transfer to broader issues. As for selling books, I think Danielle Steele has sold several gazillion books, would that make her more of an authority on literature than James Lileks, brilliant raconteur of modern life. Here's a clue, he doesn't write book books.

Getting back to old Vonnegut. He's on a book selling tour and knows what to say to get the media interested, so they can help him drum up interest in his fifty year old oeuvre.

Any Ph.D. that insists on being called Dr. is insecure. Getting a degree is only an entry into the profession. What matters is what you accomplish after that.

Nevertheless, I have to admit I like the way the Germans do it. That is, you just keep adding titles. So a professor is Herr Doctor Professor Smith (don't know about the spelling) or Mr. Doctor Professor Smith, and I think his wife is Mrs. Doctor Professor Smith. This level of formality is so over the top it's kind of cool.

Wow, Bob. Where did the moral equivalency accusation come from? Are you answering an earlier comment?

And for the life of me, I can't follow your argument that while we mustn't think that Vonnegut is saying a bunch of nonsense to sell his wares, but, "… we must seriously entertain the argument that Lileks is highly likely to (1) misunderstand something that a respected author says and (2) flip out about it."

What evidence is there that Lileks is likely to misunderstand a respected author or flip out about it? He's one of the sharpest observers on the scene today and you must be new to The Screed because as they go, this one's very mild.

It's more in sadness for old unfanged lion still out there pretending to be meaningful. In this we disagree. Lileks thinks he's senile, I think he's cynical. Great minds don't always agree.

In my graduate-school days at the Univ. of Chicago, I don't think I ever heard a faculty member referred to as "Doctor," and "Professor" wasn't that common either, at least in my division (Humanities). It was always "Mr." or "Ms."

I think it's more a matter of local custom than a real rule of etiquette.

Ex parte McCardle:

U. Chicago is unusual but not quite unique in this respect. By an odd coincidence, I got all three of my degrees at schools that make a point of calling everyone Mr. or Miss/Ms./Mrs.: St. John's College (BA), U. Chicago (MA), and U. Virginia (PhD). Off hand I can't think of another.

Even some high schools use 'doctor' for PhDs. I teach at a tiny 'classical Christian' high school in the south -- more classical than Christian, it even offers four years of ancient Greek -- and the teachers with doctorates (about half of us) are always called 'doctor'. That was the headmaster's idea, though he's a 'mister' himself. I think it's partly to let the students and parents know that we know what we're talking about, and to help attract more students.

My what a tangled thread we weave when first we practice to discuss Vonnegut and Lileks. I've read them both since college (Lileks was a couple years ahead of me at the U of MN) and frankly both their opinions are worth exactly the same thing to a third party. Nothing at all. These are opinions, not court decisions, lighten up. I suspect that they'd both agree with me, but that's just my opinion.

On the subject of being addressed as Doctor, both of my in-laws who taught at Northwestern University and Northeastern Illinois, insisted on the honorific, despite not being M.D.s

"I agree with Huh. America isn't better than the suicide bombers because we say we are, or even because we elect our leaders. We're better than them because we're horrified at what they do, and they think it's a good idea.

The moment we use their actions to act down to their level, we lose our moral superiority and become big bullies undeserving of the benefit of the doubt."

No, we're better than them because after the war is over and we've won, we'll be living in the wealthiest and most technologically advanced civilization the world has ever known, celebrating religious tolerance, individualism, reason, and political equality. While if the war is over and they've win, we'll be living in huts, stoning gays, and committing honor killings.