An excellent post from Mr Zero at the Smoker— brave, too, considering the kind of folks who comment around there.
If you care about justice–if you care about whether people are being treated the way they ought to be treated–you care about this.
But you should also care about this if you care about philosophy in itself; if you care about discovering philosophical truth; if you care about reading insightful philosophy papers; if you care about being made aware of novel philosophical ideas; if you care about solving philosophical puzzles. We should want as many smart people as possible working in philosophy. But a prominent group of people are being systematically edged out. This is bad for the people who are being edged out–it’s a serious injustice that I don’t mean to minimize–but it’s also bad for us men. It is as bad for us as the Negro-League era was for Major League Baseball. Think of it: in 1945, Jackie Robinson tried out for the Boston Red Sox, and the Red Sox did not sign him. So in 1946, when the Red Sox were losing the World Series in 7 games to the Cardinals, Jackie Robinson was playing for the Montreal Royals. This situation was, obviously, extraordinarily bad for black people who wanted to be professional baseball players. It was bad for Cool Papa Bell; it was bad for Josh Gibson; it was bad for Buck O’Neil. These players were victims of a profound injustice. But it was also bad for Ted Williams and Bobby Doerr, who were, to a lesser extent, also victims of this injustice. Women and minorities have actual philosophical contributions to make. Many of these contributions are going unmade because the people who would make them are being edged out of the profession before they have a chance to do it. It’s not fair to them, and it’s not good for us. It’s bad for everyone.
NUS and UCU are jointly organising a national demonstration – ‘Fund Our Future: Stop Education Cuts’ – to take place on Wednesday 10 November 2010. Meet at Horse Guards Avenue – 11.30am.