BlogWonks

Larry Summers of Harvard is gone. He is not dead, he is quite alive, he just isn’t leading as president of Harvard. It was just a few days ago when he tendered his resignation. In a letter posted on Harvard’s website in which he says that he did this reluctantly, gave reasons, and said “I believe, therefore, that it is best for the University to have new leadership.”, and now that’s what Harvard will have.

If you go to the Harvard web site, click on the link with his picture, the one thing you will find out clearly, after reading what is there, is that Harvard is losing a really good president. They are losing a president that the corporation in their letter said “Larry Summers has served Harvard with extraordinary vision and vitality. He has brought to the leadership of the University a sense of bold aspiration and initiative, a prodigious intelligence, and an insistent devotion to maximizing Harvard’s contributions to the realm of ideas and to the larger world.” Take some time to read his CV. Pretty impressive for a college president, in fact pretty impressive compared to pretty much anyone. Summers was Chief economist for the World Bank, teacher at MIT, treasure secretary, and more. If you can be like this and still have to leave, that’s a problem.

What the heck did he do?

He didn’t molest a child, rape anyone, embezzle, harass his secretary, or was even a skinhead. What he did was be willing to embrace any piece of knowledge in an effort to understand and translate that understanding to better solutions. He refused to pretend there is this elephant in the room. Committed to making things better, he was also committed to exploring all the possibilities. Even if these points taken from medical studies, were not appealing to a powerful subset of women in our culture. Women who have taken it upon themselves to expurgate persons that say things they have declared wrong by fiat (pretending that they have the sanction of everyone).

Larry Summers believes or at least inquired as to the innate ability of the sexes. While ideology declares we are the same and only victims of “culture, and everything else”. The ladies on high have declared long ago that the sexes are the same; the most extreme of the group go so far as to ignore even physical differences (which is sometimes shared by government, this is why they let a small older woman guard a really big violent felon who could not be restrained due to legal reasons). Once this was declared, every shoe horn that ever existed has been trying to cram that idea into place, especially where it doesn’t fit or might be found out in some way that sticks.

However let’s take it one step further and skip over the information and pretend that it’s true and pretend that it’s false. If it’s false, then what? It then has no answer to the question of fewer women; it also gives no justification to take action in their favor. The culture of “equals” traps things both ways in unintended consequences. We are the same, we spend more on women, give them more opportunities, and yet there are a lot less at the top. We are the same, and so we can’t keep giving them more and make that claim, so which will give first, ideology or…? I will tell you so you’re not in suspense. It won’t be the ideology; they will come up with another non solution that doesn’t get near the elephant. They will keep the things that don’t work in place claiming things would be worse if they removed them. More of what doesn’t work doesn’t lead to something that suddenly works. It’s not an issue of “not enough medicine”; it’s an issue of “wrong medicine”, no matter how much wrong medicine we take, it will not cure our ills.

Now, what if Summers question is true? (Hypothetically of course, I need my job and my CV is not as impressive). The feminists want you to believe that if we find that women have a math deficit that is innate to women, that we would give up on them and walk away. Do you really think that would be the case? Does anyone without an agenda? Would it pay to support lots of programs that aren’t working, to pretend to get more women into the math department? Could you declare the programs to be failures then redirect the money away?

What things COULD be done, that CAN’T be done now, because the elephant is watching the door? We can make math testing harder. We could try to identify the fewer women that can make it and get a more solid line on who is capable of what. Right now testing is soft, so we come out more the ‘same’ than find out who is exemplary. Hard testing and merit programs bring out those that can excel in something special, EARLY. It’s that ability to distinguish yourself and to do so by expressing something special about you that helps a child want to excel (despite a leveling force). If a child can do exceptional math, then a meritocracy will distinguish her, and she will have things move out of her way. Not any different than the men would have.

The funding taken away from the other programs could then be spent finding out WHY it’s different. Is it innate ability? Is it interest? For even geniuses don’t work on things they are not interested in with much zeal. Is it lifestyle? As Larry Summers actually asked, but that was after a feminist had palpitations and borderline fainting spells (I kid you not).

Today you can’t even ask those questions. Don’t believe me? Then why are you here reading about the president of Harvard stepping down because he asked ONE of those questions? So you know now that the second line of questioning is VERBOTEN. Its forbidden knowledge and speech unprotected by the constitution.

On a larger view, we can’t produce the people that we used to do. Even corporate America has complained in their points on outsourcing. We haven’t had a real meritocracy in schools for a long while. Feminism killed ‘women only’ schools before they knew that women did better in them (with fewer distractions, math is hard, distractions are not helpful). They killed real meritocracy so girls who have talent rarely get to show it off (and fewer boys do too). One must have ones mettle tested to find out if one is able; some positions in life can’t be stepped into with success expected. Under the guise of protecting self esteem, and other things, they have inserted bad methods to produce damaged goods to ‘prove’ their point. New York City just put in a program where the less able students get an extra half hour of tutoring. Meanwhile, you guessed it, the more able students get time off so the teachers can do this leveling operation getting us to fudge out more as the same. You can’t make dumb kids smarter, so you have to make smart kids dumber.

The real reason we can’t find more female math experts is because the feminists don’t really want you to find them. While such math experts might do nice to prove that women can do what men can do (not as fashionable as it was, nor as productive as they thought), they also are a testament to the fact that we are not equal in ability and therefore can’t be equal in outcome. More exceptional people would show that people are not the same and the truth that many of us are not that way and will never be that way (no matter how much we think it and can bend in yoga class). Such women would show that every job can’t be done by every person interchangeably, again leaning hard on the concept of equal outcome. And so on. So as I asked before above: which would suffer in the case of ideology vs. some benefit? It’s the same as above, ideology wins, Summers is out, the mystery remains, more money is allocated, and the women that can do the work, will not get to do the work (preserving ideology as what’s not found will not be known).

So ultimately Harvard not only loses a great president, but it also loses a whole line of inquiry. Harvard actually will lose those women that they are seeking to fill spots in mathematics. They will spend a lot of money, but they will not be more effective than they are now in suddenly finding the hidden cache of female math experts. They are not hidden; however they are probably busy doing other things (like “hooking up”). Summers I know will be on to other things. I am sure that even if he retires it will be better than leaving a long arduous stain on his record as Harvard declines. I wonder what will happen in five years and a few hundred million later when they don’t have more lady math experts of caliber. I also wonder if anyone would even acknowledge a problem then. I guess this is the first Summer of many summers passing before we know.