Power, science, and the academy

Power is the ability to influence what people think, how they feel, and how they act. Power can be direct or indirect, explicit or implicit. Like money and technology, power in itself is morally neutral. Power can be harnessed for good or for evil. Power can be used to protect the weak and to enact justice. It can also be used by the strong to cause untold suffering and injustice.

How does the concept of power play out in science and in the academy? Science and universities are human institutions. Hence, their activities and organisation inevitably involve the exercise of power. Power affects what people believe is true, the narratives they live by, how the social context shapes academia, and whether the strong triumph over the weak. Below I discuss the power of ideas, the power of narratives, how economic power shapes the academy today, and the paradox of the power of the powerless. The latter gives hope in a situation in which it is easy to despair.

Power of ideas

Universities are primarily about thinking. Teaching an academic discipline is ultimately about training students to think in a particular way about a subject, whether physics, sociology, or theology. Research is concerned with thinking about a topic, gathering data, analysing the data, and formulating concepts and theories that make sense of the data.

Ideas are powerful, for better or worse. Ideas can enable us to synthesise and understand vast amounts of information. Academic disciplines begin with new ideas and accelerate when these ideas provide an understanding of a dimension of reality. For example, genetic information is encoded in the biomolecule DNA. 

On the other hand, disciplines stagnate and may become dangerous, when ideas become ideology. Then, an idea becomes an assumption that should never be questioned and is claimed to have universal applicability and validity. For example, Freud's view that the subconscious is shaped by repressed sexual desires and this determines behaviour. Ideology can frame discussions about economics, from both left-wing and right-wing perspectives. Free markets are efficient and produce the best outcomes for everyone. Or, the only way to produce a fair and just society is for the state to control capital and the means of production.

Power of narratives

Stories are powerful. They capture our imagination and frame what we believe is true, what is possible, and how we should live. Individuals, families, institutions, and nations all have narratives that they live by. 

Here are three powerful narratives involving science. These three narratives are interrelated.

a. Over the past two thousand years, Christianity has consistently been opposed to scientific progress. 

Promotion of this narrative began about 150 years ago with the publication of an influential book by John William Draper, History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874). This was followed by Andrew Dickson White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896).

The book is still in print and available on Amazon. The publishers blurb for the 1993 edition states:

“The struggle of science over outmoded medieval concepts is still emerging. Even a century after its publication, White's great work has much to teach us about the dangerous effects of religious doctrinalism on education and moral growth.” (1993 edition)

Scholars of science and religion today accept that this narrative (known as the conflict thesis) is false. See for example, Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion, Edited by Ronald L. Numbers. In contrast, it is accepted that Christianity did not hinder but facilitated the rise of modern science.

Nevertheless, this narrative is still promoted by prominent public intellectuals, such as the New Atheists, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris.

b. Science makes possible certainty in all areas of knowledge. It is the ultimate authority on what is true.

This idea began with Rene Descartes (1596-1650) and continued with Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749-1827). Auguste Comte (1798-1857) was the first philosopher of modern science and a founder of sociology (social physics). He was the founder of positivism, claiming that societies progress through three stages: theological, metaphysical, and positive. These correspond to eras of primitive (Christendom), Enlightenment, and modern science. 

This narrative of increasing certainty through a universal scientific method achieved power and legitimacy due to the successes of Newtonian mechanics. It gave an accurate quantitative description of the motion of the planets and cannonballs. It even predicted the existence of a new planet, Neptune, in 1846.

This narrative led to pressure for the biological, social, and human sciences to be more like the physical sciences and use statistical and quantitative methods. It has led to a marginalisation of the humanities in universities. It promoted liberal theology and doubts about traditional Christian doctrines and the modern relevance of the Bible. 

This narrative promotes the idea that science is the ultimate authority concerning what is true and important. In a desire to seek greater legitimacy in the modern world, attempts are made by apologists for major religions that their ancient texts are actually scientific and even predicted modern scientific discoveries.

c. Progress. Increasing scientific knowledge results in greater human flourishing and less human suffering.

A current proponent of this narrative is the Harvard psychologist, Steven Pinker in his book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. Below is the publishers blurb.

Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing.

This narrative promotes the idea that all social problems have scientific and technical solutions and that any limits on scientific research and the development of new technologies will be bad for humanity. 

The problem with all of the three narratives above is that they are not true. Yet they are appealing and powerful as they promote particular political and philosophical agendas.

Economic power shapes the academy today

All institutions are located in a historical, social, political, and economic context. Today that context is dominated by economic ideology, which has labels such as globalisation and neoliberalism. This ideology promotes the idea that "free" markets produce the best outcomes for all. Briefly, this means that decisions should be made in terms of economics. Students are consumers, faculty are human resources, and universities are businesses. Resources (capital, infrastructure, personnel, influence) are allocated based on what will generate the most income for an institution. The goal of scientific research is to generate technology that will promote economic growth. Researchers are competing with one another to obtain resources. Research is to be managed like a factory production line with well-defined timelines, measurable outcomes, and techniques. Everything has to be efficient.

This all leads to the marginalisation of the humanities and curiosity-driven scientific research. Awe, wonder, collegiality, doubt, and play are cute irrelevancies.

Universities are dominated by money, management, marketing, and metrics.

Like the culture, life in a university is dominated by the relentless pressure of individualism, immediacy, functionalism, and secularism.

This is a dramatic shift from the seven core values that shaped medieval universities, one of which was the notion of "scientific and scholarly knowledge as a public good transcending any economic advantage it might bring".

Derek Bok, a former president of Harvard University, has documented the problem of commercialisation in his book, Universities in the Marketplace, published in 2003.

There are multiple problems with letting economic ideology control universities and science. First, it is inhumane, diminishing the value of people and knowledge, reducing both to economic commodities. Second, it promotes economic inequality and injustices. Universities have become another means for the rich and powerful to increase their wealth and power. Third, this approach will fail to produce the putative desired outcomes of graduates who contribute to society through their creativity, expertise, and service or to produce new scientific knowledge that leads to technologies that benefit humanity. Countless examples of discoveries in science resulted from pure curiosity and had no clear practical application. However, some [but far from all] of these discoveries eventually led to unanticipated industrial applications in computing, communication, materials, or medicine.

The paradox of the power of the powerless

In the long run, the mighty do not triumph. The proud are humbled. All empires fall. This is because of the judgement of God. It is also because they cannot accept the way that the world really is and live by lies. Ultimately, they come up against reality and truth. God has made people and the world in a certain way and to function in a certain way. For those who do not accept this eventually their world unravels. This does not just apply to those with military, political, or economic might. Intellectual rulers (Freud, Marx, Plato, Dawkins) also have clay feet that eventually crumble. Intellectual fashions pass.

I find inspiration in the story of the early church. Their triumph over the mighty Roman Empire has been documented beautifully by Rodney Stark in a fascinating book he published in 1996, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries 

Other inspirations for counter-cultural resistance are provided by Walter Brueggemann in The Prophetic Imagination and by Vaclav Havel, in Power to the Powerless.

This might capture our imagination as to the way forward. I believe it is to form counter-cultural informal academic communities that live by the truth.

This post is part one the session that I will be leading in a Seminar course on Power that my fellow "holy" scribbler is giving this week at Asian Theological Seminary in Manila.

Living as a Christian in the academy

Tonight I am giving a public lecture at Asian Theological Seminary in Manila.

Here are my slides

Here are some related resources

A chapter I wrote, "Living as a Physicist and a Christian", in the book, Why Study? Exploring the Face of God in the Academy, published by Singapore FES.

An article in the IFES Journal Word and World, Towards A Christian Vision for the Modern Secular University

A talk I gave at the IFES World Assembly in 2019.

Is My Phone Changing Me? Digital Discipleship in a Secular Age by Marcus Brooking

This gives a succinct discussion of how smartphones reduce attentiveness and distract us from sustained engagement with others, with ideas, and with God.

Deep Life

Reflecting on trends in society, churches, and universities, a significant challenge and concern is the accelerating rush to superficiality. Constant electronic connectivity through email, texting, and social media promotes urgency, immediacy, oversimplification, fads, and superficiality. Noise, hurry, and crowds push out quietness, stillness, and solitude. The nuance associated with deep reflection is lost and replaced with a Twitter storm of celebrity, "spin", and conspiracy theories. Money, marketing, management, and metrics dominate discussion and decisions.

On the one hand, this reflects human nature. On the other hand, to see the problem is getting a lot worse consider history, whether that of the church or universities. What individuals, institutions, and work (scholarship, art, music, literature) have had a lasting positive influence? 

Who do I admire and respect? I suggest that two essential features are the depth of what was produced and the long and sustained effort (free from distractions) that was required to produce it. The depth may be in insight, creativity, scholarship, personal integrity, engagement, understanding, or relationships. I see this depth in people such as Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, Augustine, Calvin, Karl Barth, Mother Teresa, Einstein, John Stott,...

The figure above shows how some trees have root systems that have a depth greater than their height. The image is from here.

Now I consider how this issue of depth is receiving increasing attention from a range of authors in quite different contexts: business, the knowledge economy, social commentators, universities, and churches.

In the context of the modern information economy the need to turn from "shallow work" to "deep work" has been carefully argued by Cal Newport, a computer science professor, in his 2016 book, Deep Work:

"Shallow work is non-cognitive, logistical or minor duties, often performed while distracted. These efforts require little cognitive effort, tend to create little value, and are usually easy to replicate." Examples include replying to emails, browsing websites, looking at social media, filling in forms, and attending meetings.

"Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”

This ties in with Malcolm Gladwell's argument that the 10,000-hour rule is one key ingredient for professional success.

In a different vein, in The Road to Character, The New York Times columnist David Brooks confesses, “I was born with a natural disposition towards shallowness.” He recounts his efforts to find a way out of shallow punditry and to cultivate personal character, particularly to move beyond "resume virtues", beloved by the modern world, and to move towards "eulogy virtues" such as humility, bravery, and kindness. The book is based on a course that Brooks taught three times at Yale University.

Piling higher

Some of the language that follows may offend some. But consider what the Apostle Paul said in the following verses. Interestingly, most English translations are sanitised. Here are renditions from The Message.

Why don’t these agitators, obsessive as they are about circumcision, go all the way and castrate themselves! (Galatians 5:12)

Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. (Philippians 3:8)

Christian Smith is a distinguished sociologist who has done seminal work in the sociology of religion including adolescent spirituality, racism, and American evangelicalism. (Perhaps I particularly like him because he argues that critical realism and emergence are important in the philosophy of the social sciences). 

Of relevance to this post is that in 2018 Smith published an excellent (but depressing) article, "Higher Education is Drowning in BS: And it’s mortally corrosive to society" in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

 

Harry Frankfurt, a distinguished philosopher at Princeton University, wrote  On BS  that became a New York Times bestseller. According to Wikipedia,

Frankfurt determines that bullshit is speech intended to persuade without regard for truth. The liar cares about the truth and attempts to hide it; the bullshitter doesn't care if what he or she says is true or false, but cares only whether the listener is persuaded.

Anthropologist David Graeber refers to Frankfurt's book in his book Bullshit Jobs, which argues that today, half of the jobs are pointless and are psychologically destructive.

Now I turn to the church in the West. It is embedded in this culture and prone to fads, superficiality, and a focus on the four M's: money, marketing, management, and metrics. In his book, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World, Michael S. Horton expresses concern about the preoccupation in the USA church with the "next-big-thing" that promises radical transformation, and advocates instead "a renewed appreciation of the commonplace."

The pandemic has made this even more urgent and challenging because the world (including everyday life, work, ministry) has become even more complex, unpredictable, and fragile.

Deep Life in the Bible

The Bible addresses the issue of superficiality versus depth, particularly with regard to integrity and relationships. For example, in Isaiah 58, the Israelites complain to God.

"Why have we fasted and you see it not?. Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?"

God responds that their worship is actually superficial and lacks integrity.

Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,

    and oppress all your workers.

4 

Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight

    and to hit with a wicked fist.

Fasting like yours this day

    will not make your voice to be heard on high.

5 

Is such the fast that I choose,

    a day for a person to humble himself?

Is it to bow down his head like a reed,

    and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?

Will you call this a fast,

    and a day acceptable to the Lord?  

“Is not this the fast that I choose:

  to loose the bonds of wickedness,
    to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
    and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
    and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

Matthew 13 recounts Jesus telling the parable of the sower, which describes different responses to Jesus' teaching (the Word).

“A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.

Jesus' condemned the Pharisees, the religious elite of his day, for their hypocrisy, particularly their concern with outward appearances rather than a deep integrity based on a pure heart. For example, in Luke 11 Jesus says,

“Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you."

We don't need just Deep Work, we also need Deep Integrity, Deep Relationships, and Deep Spirituality. I suggest they are often interrelated. Deep Work is concerned with "cognitively demanding tasks" but we also need to set aside time to focus on tasks that are morally, relationally, or spiritually demanding. In different words, this is about Formacion (spiritual formation and discipleship).

Christian leaders in a smartphone world

Is there depth to how I follow Jesus with my heart, hands, and mind? This involves movement and engagement in horizontal, vertical, and inward directions. Is there depth in my relationships: with God, with family, with co-workers, with students, and with supporters?

A deep understanding is required of God's Word, the world, ourselves, our context, and the university. Such understanding can only come with sustained periods of thinking, reading, writing, learning, listening, praying,... 

How can we move in this direction? It is not easy because we are all constantly being pushed in the wrong direction: noise, superficiality, rush, distraction, ... 

Although it is not possible to cut out all the noise and distractions, they can be reduced with planning, organisation, and discipline, from the individual to the institutional level. Many of the practical suggestions that Cal Newport makes about Deep Work are relevant to other areas of life. His suggestions include quitting social media, digital minimalism, and rigorous scheduling of time for deep life.

Institutions are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. As they grow and age they have a natural tendency to lose the passion, commitment, innovation, outward orientation, and flexibility of their founders. Instead, they tend to become self-focused, bureaucratic, inflexible and centred around the careers and interests of their management. 

Institutions and their leaders can move in the right direction by hiring and promoting people with real depth, implementing policies and procedures that shift the emphasis away from the four Ms, and create space for deep life, including by shifting conversations towards deep work, deep integrity, deep relationships, and deep spirituality. 

Counting: the sin of metrics, from King David to modern socieity

One of many strange stories in the Bible is the following from 2 Samuel 24.

Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, ‘Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.’

2 So the king said to Joab and the army commanders with him, ‘Go throughout the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and enrol the fighting men, so that I may know how many there are.’

3 But Joab replied to the king, ‘May the Lord your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do such a thing?’

4 The king’s word, however, overruled Joab and the army commanders; so they left the presence of the king to enrol the fighting men of Israel.

....

8 After they had gone through the entire land, they came back to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days.

9 Joab reported the number of the fighting men to the king: in Israel there were eight hundred thousand able-bodied men who could handle a sword, and in Judah five hundred thousand.

10 David was conscience-stricken after he had counted the fighting men, and he said to the Lord, ‘I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, Lord, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing.’

There are many questions associated with this one. But, a basic one is: why was it sinful to count the fighting men. I presume it is because this reflected David trusting in the strength of his army and not that of the LORD. Such trust goes against what a young David said before he fought Goliath (1 Samuel 17:47)

All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD's,..

Is there something in this passage that is relevant today. Partly with tongue in check, I wonder if it is relevant to the obsession of society today with counting (metrics) to measure performance, particularly in workplaces and sadly often in churches. In this vein, Mike Higton, a theology professor at Durham University, has an article,  The Research Assessment Exercise as sin.

War is Hell. 7.

I enjoyed watching the movie, Tolkien. It represents the early life of the famous fantasy writer. The main elements of the story are his difficult childhood as an orphan, the close bonds he formed with a group of high school friends with a common interest in creating literature, the trauma and tragedy of his experience in the trenches of World War I, his romance with his wife-to-be, and how these all shaped his creative imagination.

For me, the over-riding impression was ``war is hell.'' All Tolkien's friends die in the war, except one who is never the same again. Tolkien only survives because he is evacuated due to illness.



Arguably an important part of Tolkien's education and personal formation was that his school provided the opportunity for him to be part of a small group of friends with a common passion and vision. This highlights several overlooked aspects of most educational institutions, particularly in this neoliberal age, where the focus almost exclusively on measurable outcomes such as test scores, graduation rates, and starting salaries of graduates.

Sometimes the most significant part of education is the informal, not the formal aspects.

Real learning happens in the context of relationships, of students with one another, and with a teacher.

Western culture and thinking are individualistic. Consequently, most leading educational institutions claim to create significant individuals. However, perhaps a goal should also be to create significant informal communities or life-long bonds between students. I really like the book, Five Minds for the Future and am currently re-reading it. However, it is striking to me that the total emphasis is on individuals.

What is the nature of morality without God?

If there is no God, how should we live? What are the foundations and framework for morality? How do we determine what is right and wrong?
Personal conscience, intuition, social consensus, utilitarianism, .... ? How do we decide?
Individuals must decide. Communities must decide, on both social expectations and legal requirements.
To me, the lack of clarity on this issue is one of the intellectual and practical problems with atheism.
In contrast, Christianity provides a clear foundation for ethics and morality. That does not mean that it is therefore true; just that this is an appealing feature.
I recently realised there is more to this issue.

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis considers the problem of morality. In his characteristic clarity he introduces the analogy of a fleet of ships traveling to a destination.
There are three practical issues relevant to a safe and successful journey:

How do you make sure each individual ship is seaworthy?
How do you stop the ships from colliding with each other?
How do you decide on the destination and the route to get there?

A brief summary of Lewis on this is here.

The corresponding moral questions are:
How do individuals decide on their private morality? i.e. what they think and do when alone.
How should individuals interact with each other in a way that is not harmful to one another?
What is our moral vision for society? How do we head in that direction?

Most discussions of ethics and morality, and the relevance or not of God, focus on this second question. However, I now realise that a compelling attraction of Jesus is the vision he offers of a just and loving society, and he claims to offer the power to make it happen. This is the Kingdom of God he talked so much about.

For me competing visions from atheism, materialism, Marxism, neoliberalism, religious nationalism, ... are impoverished.

Jesus does not just offer a foundation for morality but a compelling vision for a moral society.

What does theology have to do with a secular university?

I was asked to write an article ``What is a university for?'' for the journal IFES Word and World. Here is the current version. Comments welcome.
Here is a good video introduction.

Why do university students go on strike?

Previously, I discussed the widespread phenomena in the Majority World of university students going on strike (boycotting classes). Here I address one question I raised there.
There is a range of contributing reasons why these strikes occur. I give the reasons in no particular order.

Frustrated aspirations.
Increased access to university education, means students may be the first in their family to attend university and they may have high hopes about what the experience will be and what it might lead to. However, in the Majority World, they usually encounter institutions which are extremely under-resourced. There are few books in the library, laboratory equipment does not work, lecturers do not show up for work, ....
And then government and university administrators want to increase tuition fees. These fees can be way beyond what students from poor families can afford.

How did it get this way?
Some African context is provided by Joel Carpenter and Nellie Kooistra in Engaging Africa, a report prepared for two philanthropic organisations.

By the mid-1970s and throughout the 1980s, ... African universities suffered deep financial cuts as many countries experienced a crash of commodity prices and the rapid increase of energy prices, resulting in crippling national debts and austerity budgets. World Bank and IMF restructuring programs advised debtor nations to reallocate education spending from higher education to primary and secondary education. Political instability added to the universities’ woes as African nations in the 1980s experienced twenty-one successful coups, and authoritarian regimes became the norm. Rulers suspected their flagship universities of being hotbeds of subversion and slashed their budgets further while building new regional universities to serve favored constituencies. At the same time, European and North American government aid for African universities, which had amounted to scores of millions of dollars over the years, was being sharply curtailed, and so were some major philanthropic efforts... 

These problems continued throughout the 1990s, and to compound them, the World Bank and IMF-predicated emphasis on supporting primary and secondary education was resulting in a surging demand for tertiary enrollments. Governments acceded to political pressure and crowded more students into the older universities....

... conditions proved to be intolerable for thousands of African academics and exacerbated the “brain drain” syndrome as the continent exported talent to wealthier nations. ... Faculty members frequently went on strike for higher wages, while students protested inadequate services. It was becoming clear that the old social contract in higher education—which African governments inherited from the European colonial nations—had broken down. No longer could governments afford to offer free tuitions and subsidies for room and board to all who qualified on their matriculation exams. And these problems were commonly aggravated by universities maintaining large and cumbersome non-academic staffs and infrastructure....

Post-colonialism.
Students and universities are struggling to find a unique identity. There is conflict about what should be done with the legacy (whether statues (Rhodes must fall) or curriculum) of the colonial era of Western dominance.

Corruption.
Sometimes students are protesting about government corruption, as in recent strikes in Papua New Guinea. Other times it is about the corruption that may occur at many different levels within the university. It can range from administrators diverting operating funds to nepotism in hiring to staff taking bribes for admissions or grades.

Inability to resolve conflict.
Some of my friends suggest that conflicts can quickly escalate into strikes due to the emotional immaturity of some students, particularly those from dysfunctional families or from communities in which there are high levels of conflict.

Political opportunism.
Although they may not want to publically admit it, there are outside power brokers who can actually gain from student strikes, and so they may want to prod them along, and even have them escalate to violence. On the left, student protests sometimes bring down governments. On the right, governments can crack down on protests and tap into voter resentment towards students and concerns about public "safety".
You can see this resentment by reading the comments on news stories about student strikes.

For example, Ronald Reagan successfully launched his political career using student protests at UC Berkeley campus as a target.

Smelser, assistant chancellor ... at the time Reagan ran for [Governor of California], recalled that "Reagan took aim at the university for being irresponsible for failing to punish these dissident students. He said, 'Get them out of there. Throw them out. They are spoiled and don't deserve the education they are getting. They don't have a right to take advantage of our system of education.'"

On the student side, many political careers (particularly on the left) have been launched by student activists gaining political experience and a national profile by leading demonstrations.

Why are some communities poor?

Is it due to external and structural factors such as exploitation by foreigners or neoliberalism or racism?
Or, is due to internal factors such as culture and breakdown of families or moral values?
Why did poor working class whites recently help elect a billionaire with a history of exploiting workers to be president of the USA?

For Christmas, I (along with several other family members) received a copy of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance.

I enjoyed reading it and would recommend it for three reasons.
First, it is a fascinating and moving story that is well written.
Second, it does attempt to address the issue of the causes of poverty for one specific community.
Third, it does provide some insight as to why Trump does appeal to some poor working class whites.

It is for the third reason that the book and the author has attracted considerable attention, although Trump's name never appears in the book.

Vance says in his community the view is:

“We can’t trust the evening news. We can’t trust our politicians. Our universities, the gateway to a better life, are rigged against us. We can’t get jobs. You can’t believe these things and participate meaningfully in society.... There is a lack of agency here—a feeling that you have little control over your life and a willingness to blame everyone but yourself. This is distinct from the larger economic landscape of modern America.”

Nick Aroney brought to my attention a very stimulating review of the book by Joshua Rothman in the New Yorker that focuses on the second issue, particularly that of culture vs. economics. Here is one choice quote.

Americans have tended to answer the question “Why are people poor?” by choosing one of two responses: they can either point to economic forces (globalization, immigration) or blame cultural factors (decaying families, lack of “grit”). These seem like two social-science theories about poverty—two hypotheses, which might be tested empirically—but, in practice, they are more like political fairy tales. As Kelefa Sanneh wrote earlier this year, the choice between these two explanations has long been racialized. Working-class whites are said to be poor because of outsourcing; inner-city blacks are imagined to be holding themselves back with hip-hop. The implicit theory is that culture comes from within, and so can be controlled by individuals and communities, whereas economic structures exert pressures from without, and so are beyond the control of those they affect.

Poverty, economics, and culture are complex and interact subtly with one another. To me it is simplistic to claim that poverty is largely due to either culture OR economics. Yet, that is what political conservatives (such as J.D. Vance) and liberals, both respectively do.

How do my Christian values shape my view of the university?

Recently I gave a short talk to a group of academics, many of whom were senior professors, about this issue in the context of how univerisities are changing rapidly.

Universities have distinctly Christian origins, going back 500 years.
Not only was the study and teaching of theology at the centre of the first universities, whether Oxford or Princeton, it underpinned the whole philosophy of institution. The idea of a secular university is an innovation of the last century.
The idea of the university as largely a commercial entity is a product of just the last 40 years.

As a Christian I think there are three core values (scholarship, people, and transformation) that shape my view of what a university should be. It is not necessary to be Christian to have these values. Some humanists would share them. A nice example is the eminent literary critic Terry Eagleton, who is a Marxist and atheist. He recently wrote a nice piece The Slow Death of the University, reflecting similar values.
However, for me personally, these values are deeply rooted in Christian theology.

Scholarship.
All truth is Gods truth and has intrinsic value, regardless of any potential commercial benefit. Yet in a world marred by sin, real authentic scholarship is difficult and plain hard work. It requires sustained effort and support in the long term. It is hard to measure quality.

People.
People are made in the image of God. They have intrinsic value and are to respected, regardless of their gifting, performance, or achievements. People are complex social and psychological beings. They cannot be reduced to numbers, metrics, or commodities. Staff are not “human resources” to be mined, exploited, and discarded. Students are not “customers” who are “always right” and to be pandered to. Nor should they just be seen as a source of revenue.
Universities are communities. This means that democracy, transparency, and collegiality are important.

Transformation.
Education should transform students. The values, goals, convictions, knowledge, and skills of graduates should not be the same as when they first enrolled. Furthermore, education should equip them to serve others, not just advance themselves professionally and financially, or increase their egos and social status. Education is not just about getting a piece of paper that will enable them to get a high paying job. Graduates should serve the common good and transform society.
Research should also transform society, not just in economic terms.
It can increase appreciation of beauty, wonder at the physical universe, heal diseases, create models for conflict resolution, lead to technologies that reduce pollution, …

It should be clear that these values are in complete conflict with the neoliberalism that now rules most universities, and nicely critiqued as a religion by Paul Tyson.

What is a religion?

Traditionally, religions are defined as major historical "institutions" such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, ... that have a common concern with the transcendent [spirituality and God], ritual, revelation, prayer, holy books, morality, worship, ....

Secularists will then claim that "religion" has no role in politics and the "public square" since the religion is not a common value and excludes rationality, tolerance, inclusivity, evidence...

However, an alternative definition of "religion" is a sociological one that highlights communities with shared uncontested assumptions and values [doctrine], revered leaders and books, marginalisation of alternative views [heresy],  defined morality [righteousness], a vision for the future [eschatology], ....

With the latter definition movements and "world views" such as the New Atheism, secularism, Marxism, neoliberalism,  fanatical sports team loyality, Big History [a "secular creation myth"],... are actually religions. Then the "public square" becomes a plethora of competing voices, all of which might be heard and respected.

In this light, there is a fascinating essay, Australian Universities in Transition:Moral, Pragmatic or Religious Drivers? by Paul Tyson. He makes a compelling case that the "neoliberalism" beloved/assumed by many university "managers" is actually a "religion" that defines what is rational, just, and moral.