Beware the Crushing Oppressive PhD Program

I don't really like this time of year. Last night we took the four boys to have their picture taken and the waiting room was filled with "cute" (read - snot dripping, yelling and demanding) little people of which my boys were a part. To much green and red, way to many dripping sweet Christmas songs and more smiles than I could handle. Bah says I. Bah!

In order to clean the system of the Christmas crap that I had visually and aurally ingested last night while putting two of the boys to sleep I read some of the Ramblings of Samuel Johnson, a sensible chap, and this morning I read an essay by William James of which I will comment. After this time of blogging I will read a nice surprise article in the AAR, "What Cultural Theorists of Religion Have to Learn from Wittgenstein; Or, How to Read Geertz as a Practice Theorist" by Jason Springs. If that doesn't get the grime of the time off of me I don't know what will.

William James wrote a tight little essay in the March 1903 Harvard Monthly titled "The PhD Octopus." In this article he bemoans the emergance of a desire for smaller institutions of higher learning to be sure that all of its professors have a PhD James is observing how the PhD is becoming a flashy title that people seem to earn in order to garner respect, a degree program with considerable hoops to jump through (examins and the like) in order to cut people down, and a requirement for teaching even if the individual is not teaching in the area that his or her PhD is in. The original purpose of a PhD, James claims was:
"instituted for the laudable purpose of stimulating scholarship, especially in the form of 'original research.'"
James' worry was that the PhD would become a badge or a trophy that all ambitious individual would try to obtain and others would expect regardless if the individual had the skills, the passion or the drive.

Whenever I meet with someone who is considering the ministry (God help them) I tell them, very openly that if they can do anything else with their lives, then they should. If they can go down any other vocational path, then they should. The ministry, while rewarding at times, is also very demanding and is not the place for someone who is not fully called and committed. When I was considering PhD work I asked myself the same question, "can I do anything else?" Do I have to engage in this level and depth of study? I admit that I have not been as vigilant in posing the same question to others. If some have an itch for higher learning I have been encouraging them to enter into the hellish world of the PhD student. Perhaps I should listen to James, and my own advice. The level of study, the exams, the work is all important and necessary for "original research," but it is not for everyone. One may have a sharp mind and an inquisitive nature, but may not need to do the original research. The PhD is not for everyone.

Perhaps we should not place the degree on a pedestal. We should respect the work that the degree demands and the knowledge the individual has obtained, but perhaps we should not elevate an individual because he or she has earned a specific degree. As James says, "They ought to guard against contributing to the increase of officialism and snobbery and insincerity as against a pestilence; they ought to keep truth and disinterested labor always in the foreground, treat degrees as secondary incidents, and in season and out of season make it plain that what they live for is to help men's souls, and not to decorate their persons with diplomas."

The irony that my blog is titled "Theological Snob" is not lost on me.