Egypt: Coup? Or Saving Democracy's Chances?

From the New York Times and David Brooks:

Those who emphasize process have said that the government of President Mohamed Morsi was freely elected and that its democratic support has been confirmed over and over. The most important thing, they say, is to protect the fragile democratic institutions and to oppose those who would destroy them through armed coup.  

Democracy, the argument goes, will eventually calm extremism. Members of the Muslim Brotherhood may come into office with radical beliefs, but then they have to fix potholes and worry about credit ratings and popular opinion. Governing will make them more moderate.  

Those who emphasize substance, on the other hand, argue that members of the Muslim Brotherhood are defined by certain beliefs. They reject pluralism, secular democracy and, to some degree, modernity. When you elect fanatics, they continue, you have not advanced democracy. You have empowered people who are going to wind up subverting democracy. The important thing is to get people like that out of power, even if it takes a coup. The goal is to weaken political Islam, by nearly any means.  

World events of the past few months have vindicated those who take the substance side of the argument. It has become clear — in Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Gaza and elsewhere — that radical Islamists are incapable of running a modern government. 

---“Defending the Coup,” by David Brooks, New York Times (7.4.2013)

A good article timely written. I often agree with David Brooks on substantive issues about democracy and democratic processes. I agreed with his piece in 2011 on the inherent failings and predictable failure of direct or plebiscite democracy (vs. the resilience and strength of representative democracy, a republic). And ample philosophical and practical support can be found for that position in the writings of Edmund Burke and James Madison (The Federalist Papers), among others (See my link below¹).

Unsurprisingly, then, I also agree with Mr. Brooks on this issue, at least his basic analysis and conclusions. But we are unlikely to find much written about this issue by the founding fathers of the United States or early thinkers about democracy. That no such threat could arise among the political parties and interests under the new U.S. Constitution appears a common assumption shared largely without question. That is notable because the Federalist Papers considered a long list of potential threats to the proper functioning of government to be addressed by the proposed new constitution, a constitution to provide for a republic based on democratic processes and protected by a thoughtful balancing of federal and state powers. Yet it does not seem to have been seriously contemplated that there would be any threat to government or the republic, to democratic principles or processes, arising from non-democratic or totalitarian views of those parties and interests forming the government or elected to lead or participate in it.

And that was quite reasonable since there were no participating parties or factions advocating against democracy or for a totalitarian government in the young American republic (the monarchist Tories having badly lost the day). But today, even in some vocal quarters in the U.S., that same assumption appears to proceed without question in regard to new or struggling democracies in other countries, even where there are clearly substantial factions and parties which would seek elected leadership in order to undermine or rescind fair and effective democratic processes.

So simplistically black-and-white, so uninformed and unquestioning are so many in their understandings about the basic conditions required for democracy’s success, that blind support and defense arises for most any political process involving a popular vote. For far too many, any popular voting process is considered “democratic” and  defensible in principle, regardless of structure or the nature of the contending parties, and further, is unquestioned in its expected efficacy. This is true whether it is a dysfunctional direct or plebiscite form of democracy, which is likely to fail, or a doomed process that involves the election of a party that disrespects or is set on subverting properly structured and functioning democratic principles and processes.

It is the latter condition that was allowed to take hold in Egypt. Expanding on my agreement with Mr. Brooks, I would  argue his same points, but restate them this way: it is definitionally axiomatic that a totalitarian party or faction elected in a democratic process will not voluntarily give up power, which also means it will not again allow itself to be subject to a true, fair and authoritative democratic process. Is a religious party or faction by definition totalitarian? And when it governs, is the state by definition a theocracy? No, not necessarily; that depends entirely on its nature, dictates, and the larger body politic. But in the cases involving extremist Islamist political movements, whether elected or not, their avowed political interest and set direction for the state is toward an Islamist state, Sharia law, and the type of fundamentalist theocracy that is totalitarian indeed.

Is the Muslim Brotherhood different, as many have argued? Perhaps, but it now appears that if so, it was only in their patience and the time they were willing to invest to more effectively undermine the democratic process and move Egypt toward a more totalitarian Islamist state. In his article, Brooks cited several events and new directions authored by Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood backers that provide ample warning that they were moving faster than expected toward their goal—and doing it without inclusion, compromise, or apology. But in that accelerating process, Morsi has undermined himself and his apologists who hoped for a slower process of assuming and carrying out government responsibility, a process that might moderate their Islamist identity, make them more open to a pluralistic, democratic body politic, and bring them to effectively work within it. It appears that was never in the cards.

Now we have only questions. What role the military in the shorter and longer term, and will elections be held again anytime soon? The military-appointed interim president, Adli Mahmoud Mansour, says, yes, and has proposed a six-month time table for new elections. But no details about the process have been released. In setting expectations for the elections, is the interim president charged to move government back toward one better reflecting democratic values and processes? We must hope so. Are most of the people of Egypt now committed to both democratic elections and electing a government that will support and honor democratic institutions and processes? Have all sufficiently learned their lessons? Or is it too soon to expect Egypt’s political parties, factions and interests to be sufficiently healed, properly readied, and committed to assuring and respecting an effective democratic election and government process?

And will the Muslim Brotherhood be allowed to run candidates for office again? How can they, if the Brotherhood's demonstrated purpose is to subvert democratic institutions and processes and move toward a more Islamist state? If not, will they merely run proxy candidates under different organizational identities? If they do run again, officially or unofficially, and win, what then--yet another military take-over, and yet another military controlled government? And wouldn't that still be better than an increasingly antagonistic, Islamist government? Those are some of my questions.


1. (For access to my post on direct democracy, click here:

Hyde Park's Corner: "Direct" Democracy's Erosion of Representative Democracy--and the Republic .)

 

Visiting With Walt Whitman

From Wikipedia:

Walt Whitman has been claimed as America's first "poet of democracy", a title meant to reflect his ability to write in a singularly American character. A British friend of Walt Whitman, Mary Smith Whitall Costelloe, wrote: "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass... Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet... He is America." Andrew Carnegie called him "the great poet of America so far".

The literary critic, Harold Bloom wrote, as the introduction for the 150th anniversary of Leaves of Grass:

If you are American, then Walt Whitman is your imaginative father and mother, even if, like myself, you have never composed a line of verse. You can nominate a fair number of literary works as candidates for the secular Scripture of the United States. They might include Melville's Moby-Dick, Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,  and Emerson's two series of Essays and The Conduct of Life. None of those, not even Emerson's, are as central as the first edition of Leaves of Grass.

---Walt Whitman, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I’ve been spending some time with Walt Whitman lately—with his poetry, that is. Why it has taken me so long to become better acquainted with his verse, I do not know. I’ve shared with you before “O Captain! My Captain!” and excerpts from “To See God,” some of the best of what little I've more recently read. I’d read much of the rest of Leaves of Grass, but 45 years ago, retaining little. I am reading it again, patiently. More, poets I’ve been reading in recent years—Ralph Waldo Emerson and Mary Oliver, particularly—have approvingly pointed me in his direction, urging me to go deeper. So, today I share some more of his verse with you from Walt Whitman: The Complete Poems (2004).

 

Roaming in Thought

(After reading Hegel)

 

Roaming in thought over the universe, I saw the little that is

   Good steadily hastening towards immortality,

And the vast all that is call’d Evil I saw hastening to merge

   Itself and become lost and dead.

 

Thought

 

Of obedience, faith, adhesiveness;

As I stand aloof and look there is to me something

   profoundly affecting in large masses of men following the

   lead of those who do not believe in men.

 

Beautiful Women

 

Women sit or move to and from, some old, some young,

The young are beautiful—but the old are more beautiful

   than the young.

 

Thought

 

Of Justice—as if Justice could be any thing but the same

   ample law, expounded by natural judges and saviors,

As if it might be this thing or that thing, according to

   decisions.

 

Visor’d

 

A mask, a perpetual natural disguiser of herself,

Concealing her face, concealing her form,

Changes and transformations every hour, every moment,

Falling upon her even when she sleeps.

 

Thought

 

Of Equality—as if it harm’d me, giving others the same

   chances and rights as myself—as if it were not

   indispensable to my own rights that others possess the

   same.

 

Gliding O’er All                          

 

Gliding o‘er all, through all,

Through Nature, Time, and Space,

As a ship on the waters advancing,

The voyage of the soul—not life alone,

Death, many deaths I’ll sing.

 

Gods

 

Lover divine and perfect Comrade,

Waiting content, invisible yet, but certain,

Be thou my God.

 

Thou, thou, the Ideal Man,

Fair, able, beautiful, content, and loving,

Complete in body and dilate in spirit,

Be thou my God.

 

O Death, (for Life has served its turn,)

Opener and usher to the heavenly mansion,

Be thou my God.

 

Aught, aught of mightiest, best I see, conceive, or know,

(To break the stagnant tie—thee, thee to free, O soul,)

Be thou my God.

 

All great ideas, the races’ aspirations,

All heroisms, deeds of rapt enthusiasts,

Be ye my Gods.

 

Or Time and Space,

Or shape of the Earth divine and wondrous,

Or some fair shape I viewing, worship,

Or lustrous orb of sun or star by night,

Be ye my Gods.

 

Good-Bye My Fancy

 

Good-bye¹ my fancy--(I had a word to say,

But ‘tis not quite the time—The best of any man’s word

   or say,

Is when it’s proper place arrives—and for its meaning,

I keep mine till the last.)

     1. Behind a Good-bye there lurks much of the salutation of another
         beginning—to me, Development, Continuity, Immortality,
         Transformation, are the chiefest life meanings of Nature and
         Humanity, are the sine qua non of all facts, and each fact.

            Why do folks dwell so fondly on the last words, advice, appearance,
         of the departing? Those last words are not samples of the best, which
         involve vitality at its full, and balance, and perfect control and scope.
         But they are valuable beyond measure to confirm and endorse the
         varied train, facts, theories and faith of the whole preceding life.

 

 

More, another time, other faces of Whitman. For there appear many to the man credited with being the bridge between Emerson and the transcendentalist school, which characterized much of his early work, and the realist school of poetry of which he became a leading figure and which characterized much of what came later.

 

Van Morrison: Caravan (Unplugged In The Studio)

Just another take on a great Van Morrison song. One of my favorites. But the unplugged version is a different experience--like Layla and Layla unplugged by Eric Clapton. Both great, just very different in mood and tone.

Christie's Approach and Appeal Rise Above Polarized Politics

What a breath of fresh air: a practical politician who does his job with honesty, integrity and reasonable compromise in serving his constituencies' best overall interests. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

And he works with whomever he has to in order to get things done, whatever their party or their policy positions. I may have some things to disagree with Governor Christie about, but not his open, get-things-done leadership style. If he can get past a GOP primary and nominating process dominated by the take-no-prisoners extreme right--and that's a big "if"--we could have an incredibly interesting, voter-energizing contest for president in 2016. It could be a race that will draw all candidates more toward the center and practical compromise in a return to politics that embraces a more bi-partisan process. 

It is possible. See this June 4th NBC news article and the unique bi-partisan respect for Christie reflected in the polling numbers. People want this kind of political pragmatism and accountability from politicians of both parties. And it is possible.

Link to NBC article:

Christie’s appeal rises above polarized nation, NBC/WSJ poll shows

Unwanted Care: Not the Way to Die

My attention today is turned to the "Conversation," the conversation that should take place between medical professionals, patients and their families, the conversation about terminal conditions, how long the patient might yet live—and under what conditions—and how the patient wants to die. Yet, we are told, that conversation most often does not take place, and too often aggressive, unpleasant medical procedures and treatments delay death and prolong suffering as long as possible. This story is also personal to me, as it is to many others. And if it is not yet, it may someday be personal to you, too.

 

This story is also about two Harvard doctors who are trying to change that. Drs. Angelo Volandes and his wife, Aretha Davis, are trying to produce clear, simple, matter-of-fact videos that effectively present the facts and care choices that the conversation might be expected to provide to terminal patients. But getting hospitals and doctors to use them is an uphill battle. Dr. Volandes:

[…] 'I think we're probably the most subversive two doctors to the health system that you will meet today,' [Dr. Volandes] says, a few hours before his shoot begins. 'That has been told to me by other people.' 

'You sound proud of that,' I say. 'I'm proud of that because it's being an agent of change, and the more I see poor health care, or health care being delivered that puts patients and families through—' [replies Dr. Volandes.] 'We torture people before they die,' Davis interjects, quietly. Volandes chuckles at my surprise. 'Remember, Jon is a reporter,' he tells her, not at all unhappy with her comment. 

'My father, if he were sitting here, would be saying 'Right on,'  I tell him. Volandes nods. 'Here's the sad reality,' he says. 'Physicians are good people. They want to do the right things. And yet all of us, behind closed doors, in the cafeteria, say, Do you believe what we did to that patient? Do you believe what we put that patient through? Every single physician has stories. Not one. Lots of stories.' 

--"How Not to Die," by Jonathan Rauch, The Atlantic (May 2013) 

It is also my father's story, and how and I finally came to have the conversation with him when none of the doctors did, when I could not watch his slow, suffering death-march any longer—and how, sadly, the author's father, among so many others, didn't have the conversation or any choices at all. The article moves us on:

'In the health-care debate, we've heard a lot about useless care, wasteful care, futile care. What we'—Volandes indicates himself and Davis—'have been struggling with is unwanted care. That's far more concerning. That's not avoidable care. That's wrongful care. I think that the most urgent issue facing America today is people getting medical interventions that, if they were more informed, they would not want. It happens all the time.' No one knows its extent, and few people want to talk about it.  

The U.S. medical system was built to treat anything that might be treatable, at any stage of life—even near the end, when there is no hope of a cure, and when the patient, if fully informed, might prefer quality time and relative normalcy to all-out intervention.   

In 2009, my father was suffering from an advanced and untreatable neurological condition that would soon kill him. Eating, drinking, and walking were all difficult and dangerous for him. He ate, drank, and walked anyway, because doing his best to lead a normal life sustained his morale and slowed his decline. "Use it or lose it," he often said. His strategy broke down calamitously when he agreed to be hospitalized for an MRI test. I can only liken his experience to an alien abduction. He was bundled into a bed, tied to tubes, and banned from walking without help or taking anything by mouth. No one asked him about what he wanted. After a few days, and a test that turned up nothing, he left the hospital no longer able to walk. Some weeks later, he managed to get back on his feet; unfortunately, by then he was only a few weeks from death. The episode had only one positive result. Disgusted and angry after his discharge from the hospital, my father turned to me and said, "I am never going back there." (He never did.)   

What should take place is The Conversation…[where] a doctor or a social worker sits down to explain, patiently and in plain English, his condition and his treatment options, to learn what his goals were for the time he had left, and to establish how much and what kind of treatment he really desired… Alas, evidence shows that The Conversation happens much less regularly than it should,…and when it does…patients and family don't really understand."  

[…] "Though no one knows for sure, unwanted treatment seems especially common near the end of life." [Which is doubtless a large part of the reason that over 40% of healthcare cost are incurred in the last year of life. GH] 

My father died just a year ago, ending a full life just a week short of 94 years. He was in an assisted-living community with my mom, who has dementia. He had COPD and was on an oxygen breathing tube continuously. His heart was functioning at about 25% and he had congestive heart failure. His kidneys were also functioning at 25%, and between that and the congestive heart failure, he retained liquid, lots of it. His hands and feet would become distended to the point of deformity, and his lungs would fill with liquid to the point that he struggled for enough oxygen to stay alive. Periodically, when his struggle and suffering became obvious enough, he would be sent to the hospital where they would remove a pint or so of liquid from his lungs with a large syringe. They would then keep him there for a few days and send him back until his suffering again became open and obvious.

Years earlier, my parents and I talked about the terms of their wills, and they both felt strongly that they did not want any heroic or artificial measures taken or equipment employed to sustain life. The term used in their living will was "do not resuscitate." But this was not a case of resuscitating my father, it was just about keeping him alive a little longer through a cyclical process that could not end his suffering, and when temporarily lessened, it returned faster the next time than the last. I bluntly asked the doctors, and they were candid with me about his terminal condition. A wonderful nurse, saddened by my father's suffering and clear fate, suggested I have the conversation with him, put his care in the hands of Hospice, and change the terms of his care to include, "do not hospitalize."

I sat with my father and had that conversation about his condition and choices: "You are dying, Dad, and the only question is how you want to spend the time you have left—going back and forth to the hospital ever more frequently with increasing suffering until you die in a hospital bed or, in the alternative, in your own bed with mom, your children and Hospice care. He chose "do not hospitalize" and Hospice care. He spent part of each day holding hands and talking with my mom. He received great, attentive care from Hospice who generously but responsibly assured painkillers eased his discomfort and suffering. When the time was near, my brother and I attended to him 12 hours on and 12 hours off along with the Hospice and assisted living staff. He died early one morning with the Hospice chaplain holding one hand and I the other as we prayed for him and our family.

He died about two weeks after his decision not to be hospitalized again, and not without some struggle and suffering, but not as much or as long as if he had continued the more desperate process of cycling in and out of the hospital until he died there.

I call that dying with dignity, and with the greatest comfort and most loving atmosphere for the man we all loved. It was that for him, but also for us. But it is not only patients and their non-medical families that have difficulty dealing with this most challenging and controlling process. Doctors' families do, too.

[A similar experience related by the author:] A few years ago, at age 94, a friend of mine's father was hospitalized with internal bleeding and kidney failure. Instead of facing reality (he died within days), the hospital tried to get authorization to remove his colon and put him on dialysis. Even physicians tell me they have difficulty holding back the kind of mindlessly aggressive treatment that one doctor I spoke with calls "the war on death." Matt Handley, a doctor and an executive with Group Health Cooperative, a big health system in Washington state, described his father-in-law's experience as a "classic example of over-medicalization." There was no Conversation. "He went to the ICU for no medical reason," Handley says. "No one talked to him about the fact that he was going to die, even though outside the room, clinicians, when asked, would say 'Oh, yes, he's dying.' " 

If it is this hard for doctors to navigate their parents' final days, imagine what many ordinary patients and their families face. "It's almost impossible for patients really to be in charge," says Joanne Lynn, a physician and the director of the nonprofit Altarum Center for Elder Care and Advanced Illness in Washington, D.C. "We enforce a kind of learned helplessness, especially in hospitals." I asked her how much unwanted treatment gets administered. She couldn't come up with a figure—no one can—but she said, "It's huge, however you measure it. Especially when people get very, very sick."

But why? Why is this simple exercise in thoughtful, helpful candor, this "conversation," so difficult for doctors and hospitals to embrace and take responsibility for? And if they just have neither the personality nor temperament for it, then why not embrace enthusiastically the videos so thoughtfully and competently prepared by Drs. Volandes and Davis? That just seems so clear and right to me. So, let's hear more about those videos:

The first film [Dr. Volandes] made featured a patient with advanced dementia. It showed her inability to converse, move about, or feed herself. When Volandes finished the film, he ran a randomized clinical trial with a group of nine other doctors. All of their patients listened to a verbal description of advanced dementia, and some of them also watched the video. All were then asked whether they preferred life-prolonging care (which does everything possible to keep patients alive), limited care (an intermediate option), or comfort care (which aims to maximize comfort and relieve pain). The results were striking: patients who had seen the video were significantly more likely to choose comfort care than those who hadn't seen it (86 percent versus 64 percent).

Volandes published that study in 2009, following it a year later with an even more striking trial, this one showing a video to patients dying of cancer. Of those who saw it, more than 90 percent chose comfort care—versus 22 percent of those who received only verbal descriptions. The implications, to Volandes, were clear: 'Videos communicate better than just a stand-alone conversation. And when people get good communication and understand what's involved, many, if not most, tend not to want a lot of the aggressive stuff that they're getting.'

His finished videos look deceptively unimpressive. They're short…bland…and meant to be banal. 'Videos are an aesthetic medium; you can manipulate people's perspective,' Volandes says. 'I want to provide information without evoking visceral emotions.' Any hint that he was appealing to sentiments like revulsion or fear to nudge patients toward a certain course of treatment would discredit his whole project, so Volandes does all he can to eliminate emotional cues. 

The typical video begins with Davis explaining what the viewer is about to see, stating plainly facts that doctors are sometimes reluctant to mention. She says, for example: People with advanced dementia usually have had the disease for many years and have reached the last stage of dementia. They are nearing the end of life. The video cuts to a shot of a patient. Then Davis outlines the three levels of care, starting with the most aggressive…Then she describes limited care and comfort care, again speaking bluntly about death. People who choose comfort care choose to avoid these procedures even though, without them, they might die. She concludes by recommending The Conversation.

 So, it would appear there is a clear, if not desperate, need for the videos. They are professional, understandable, and produced at very low cost. Most important, health facts and care choices are communicated with efficacy. So, again I ask, why not? The author:

[…] Routine use [of the videos], however, is far, far away. According to Volandes, only a few dozen U.S. hospitals, out of more than 5,700, are using his videos. I spoke with physicians and a social worker at three health systems that are piloting them, and all were very enthusiastic about the results. 

[…] The problem is not his product but the peculiar nature of the market he wants to push it into. His innovation is inexpensive and low-tech, and might avert misunderstanding, prevent suffering, improve doctor-patient relationships, and, incidentally, save the health-care system a lot of money. He goes out of his way not to emphasize cost savings, partly because he sees himself as a patients'-rights advocate rather than a bean counter, and partly because it is so easy to demagogue the issue, as Sarah Palin did so mendaciously (and effectively) in 2009, when she denounced end-of-life-care planning as "death panels." Anyone who questions medical maximalism risks being attacked for trying to kill grandma—all the more so if he mentions saving money. For all its talk of making the health-care system more rational and less expensive, the political system is still not ready for an honest discussion. And the medical system has its own ways of fighting back.

 But isn't it also worth noting that the practical result if these videos and the "Conversation" becoming routine is that a lot more hospital beds will likely be empty for longer periods, a lot more medical procedures will likely not be done, and less time will be consumed by doctors, nurses and technicians? But if that would mean less cost for patients and insurers, it would also mean less revenue for those hospitals and other medical and testing facilities, and less income for those doctors (or fewer doctors, nurses and technicians needed). Do you think that might cloud the thinking of those financially interested medical facilities and professionals, perhaps more than just a little?

 

Again, I repeat what I noted only in passing earlier: over 40% of all healthcare costs are incurred in the last year of life. And this whole process of dealing with diagnosis and terminal condition, alternatives for treatment, and the home comfort and pain-management approach with Hospice, may play a significant role in reducing those costs. But I don't expect the medical community to be enthusiastic advocates. Do you? For reasons of both medical culture and business culture, neither does the author:

During my visit, I realized that I had encountered Volandes's type before, but in Silicon Valley. Volandes has entrepreneurial obsessive-compulsive disorder: the gift, and curse, of unswerving faith in a potentially world-changing idea. 

It is not a huge exaggeration to say that obsessive entrepreneurs, from Cornelius Vanderbilt to Steve Jobs, made America great. It is also not a huge exaggeration to say that health care, more than any other nongovernmental sector, has made itself impervious to disruptive innovation. Medical training discourages entrepreneurship, embedded practice patterns marginalize it, bureaucrats in medical organizations and insurance companies recoil from it. And would-be disrupters are generally disconnected from patients, their ultimate customers: they have to take their innovations to physicians, who are notoriously change-averse, and then they must get the government—Medicare, first and foremost—to approve and pay for them. Imagine that Jeff Bezos, when he was starting Amazon, had needed to ask permission from bookstores and libraries. 

Volandes, therefore, will fail. That is to say, he will fail if success means revolutionizing the doctor-patient relationship and making the "Conversation" ubiquitous within five years. Meanwhile, if the American health-care system does not learn how to harness the energy and ideas of people like Volandes, it will fail. Somewhere between those failures lies a path forward. We know medical culture can change for the better; it takes the treatment of pain much more seriously than it used to, for example, and it has embraced hospice care. 

[…] I think of Dr. Woody English of Providence Health and Services, who is 67 and wants to make a difference before he retires. At his instigation, Providence has begun using Volandes's videos. "The changes will come locally," English told me, "not nationally." When I look at him and Volandes and the others, I see not only a test of whether the health-care system's medical culture can change but also a test of whether its business culture can change—and that change may, in the end, be even more important.

It's both. It has to be.


Link to The Atlantic article:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/05/how-not-to-die/309277/

 

Advice to Poets (and Others): Merwin On Berryman

This is about some advice given by poet John Berryman to student poet W.S. Merwin, and the poem Merwin later wrote about it. I share the poem here because there are elements of that advice that might speak to more of us than just the poets, writers and artists. But first some reflections on poets and mentors, especially Merwin and Berryman.

 

I have focused before on the mentoring influence of great poets on the work of great poets who came after them. But to be distinguished from the powerful and influential way that the poetry and prose of Ralph Waldo Emerson spoke across the centuries to Mary Oliver, is the influence of John Berryman on W.S. Merwin. Only 13 years older, and yet a generation apart, he was teacher and mentor to Merwin at Princeton. And how do we know the depth of the influence and regard felt for their respective mentors, regardless of the proximity of time or place? In the cases of Oliver and Merwin, both wrote insightful, honoring introductions—tributes really—to recently published editions of the work of Emerson and Berryman, respectively, and made reference to them in their own poetry. (And yes, such a poem by W.S. Merwin will follow.)

 

Berryman’s poetry can sometimes be difficult and often doesn’t appeal to me. Some would say that the strength of his poetry was uneven over the course of his career, with some earning little praise and some earning him the Pulitzer Prize. Most would agree, I think, that foremost among Berryman’s body of work is The Dream Songs, the related collection of poems which Merwin says, “suddenly arrived like a force of nature, unique and new.” But yet, I don’t see much of Berryman in Merwin’s work, earlier or later. Some might say Merwin’s work can also be a little difficult at times, but I don’t see that either, at least not in the same way.

 

But reading his introduction to The Dream Songs, you cannot doubt Merwin’s high opinion and importance placed on Berryman’s poetry, even among the work of an extraordinary generation of poets: “Berryman’s poetry, I believe, is among the major achievements of his gifted and bedeviled generation, and The Dream Songs—intimate, elusive, wild, unbearable, beautiful—are its summation.”

 

So, Merwin offers us a poem sharing and honoring some of the advice given him by Berryman about pursuing his art, about confidence and patience, about believing in yourself and your work, even when affirmation and assurance from others is in short supply. But yes, I find wisdom and direction here that speaks to all who feel a vocational calling or personal gift that begs for expression in a world that is largely indifferent to our decisions and pursuits. It’s the gift one Pulitzer-Prize-winner-to-be gave to another.

 

BERRYMAN*

 

I will tell you what he told me

In the years just after the war

as we then called

the second world war

 

don’t lose your arrogance yet he said

you can do that when you’re older

lose it too soon and you may

merely replace it with vanity

 

just one time he suggested

changing the usual order

of the same words in a line of verse

why point out a thing twice

 

he suggested I pray to the Muse

get down on my knees and pray

right there in the corner and he

said he meant it literally

 

it was in the days before the beard

and the drink but he was deep

in tides of his own through which he sailed

chin sideways and head tilted like a tacking sloop

 

he was far older than the dates allowed for

much older than I was he was in his thirties

he snapped down his nose with an accent

I think he had affected in England

 

As for publishing he advised me

to paper my walls with rejection slips

his lips and the bones of his long fingers trembled

with the vehemence of his views about poetry

 

he said the great presence

that permitted everything and transmuted it

in poetry was passion

passion was genius and he praised movement and invention

 

I had hardly begun to read

I asked how can you ever be sure

that what you write is really

any good at all and he said you can’t

 

you can’t you can never be sure

you die without knowing

whether anything you wrote was any good

if you have to be sure don’t write

 

 

I find in this a reminder that sometimes you just must do it (whatever it is), and do it with passion, because that is who you are, because it’s what you’re called to do, because it’s your journey. And you know it because it speaks to you from some unknown place at the core of your identity, and that is assurance enough. To ignore it is to become in some important way lost to who you are—and to leave a hole in the affairs of your time where you and your work were supposed to be.

 

*from Migration: New & Selected Poems, by M.S. Merwin (2005)

 

For the Anniversary of My Death

About this poem by W.S. Merwin. With its fateful title and first lines, it begins with resigned acceptance of the inevitable, of what endures and all that passes, then reflects on the strangeness and surprising realities of this earthly sojourn: the small joys of life, our love, but also our profound failings. Yet in the end, he feels the rightness of a figurative nod or bow to the sensed but unknown authorship, creation’s process and purpose, whatever that may be. Or so he says to me.

 

For the Anniversary of  My Death*  

 

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day

When the last fires will wave to me

And the silence will set out

Tireless traveler

Like the beam of a lightless star

 

Then I will no longer

Find myself in life as in a strange garment

Surprised at the earth

And the love of one woman

And the shamelessness of men

As today writing after three days of rain

Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease

And bowing not knowing to what

 

 

(W.S. Merwin, a favorite, is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and a former Poet Laureate of the U.S.)

 

*From his collection, The Lice (1967)

 

Toomey: Background Check Plan Failed Because of Anti-Obama Republican Politics

It is what it is--or what it has become--but it's neither honorable nor defensible, nor in service of our country's express desires or best interests. It's ugly and disreputable, but it's apparently good politics in much of the Republican Party. It's part of what government has become in the US. And at it's heart, it's about denying a black, Democratic president with an African father and name any chance of leading or sharing in responsible government. With other Democratic presidents, these kinds of agreements have been easily brokered. But not with this president. The unspoken difference, the unspoken truth--in part at least--is that this time it is about a black president.

 

After all, this was not about denying hunters or gun enthusiasts any particular type of weapon, including assault weapons with high-capacity magazines, or the right to keep a weapon in one's home for protection. This was simply about extending the requirement for background checks required for sales by legitimate, registered gun shops to gun shows and on-line sales, the dark frontiers where anyone can buy any kind of weapon or ammunition without a background check.

 

And it should come as no surprise that those persons of questionable associations, convicted felons and the unstable will avoid legitimate gun shops and repair to those don't-ask-don't-tell sites to purchase their weapons of choice, and be exposed to no background check at all. That 90% of Americans, including American gun owners, supported this bi-partisan legislation brokered by Senators Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) should have been an overwhelming mandate for passage. You'd think. But in the end even the will of the people didn't matter.

 

That's because this was principally about one thing: denying a black, Democratic president with an African name any success at all--not even shared success in a negotiated deal brokered by bipartisan leadership, not even if those hurt most or put most at risk are the American people at large, and not even if the American people overwhelmingly supported the legislation.

 

Sen. Toomey shares with us the reasons for his failed initiative to broker what should have been an easy deal to reach. And in the past, with a different GOP and a white president, it would have been easy. But today, in the context of this Republican Party and this very talented, if very different president, there is no such thing. 

Link to article:
 

Toomey: Background check plan failed because of Republican politics

( http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/01/18003597-toomey-background-check-plan-failed-because-of-republican-politics?lite )

Children of Older Fathers At Increasing Risk of Autism, Schizophrenia & More

A biological clock is ticking for men, too; they just don’t know it. It turns out that those legions of male sperm are more fragile than women’s ova, much more. Research indicates that the mutations in a woman’s ova are the same—15 on average—regardless of age. But the mutations in an average man’s sperm increase from 25 at age 20 to 65 at age 40! That is, there are more mutations in sperm to begin with and they increase about 260% between age 20 and 40. More, they have identified mutations that showed up only in autistic and schizophrenic children and the sperm of their fathers, mutations and risk that increase dramatically with age. They concluded that, “97% of the relevant genetic errors were attributable to the dad alone.” And there’s more, it’s not just about autism and schizophrenia. From the article:

"Men have had this 'I'm invincible' theory when it comes to reproduction," says social psychologist Susan Newman, who has written more than a dozen books on parenting and relationships. "The only thing they needed to worry about was sperm count." But for reasons both social and scientific, men may soon be worrying about a good deal more.  

Last August, a study in Nature found that older fathers face a significantly increased risk of siring a child with autism or schizophrenia, with mutations in sperm that may contribute to these conditions doubling for every 16.5 years a man ages. That paper followed an April 2012 study, also in Nature, that found older fathers are four times as likely as mothers to pass on autism-related genetic glitches, with the risk becoming especially acute after men turn just 35--precisely the age at which the ostensibly more-fragile female reproductive system is said to enter the danger zone. Between those two reports came a May study in the American Journal of Men's Health linking a father's age to preterm birth, low birth weight and stillbirth.  

These and other papers, some showing possible links between older dads and the occurrence of cleft palates and certain cancers, are leading to the inescapable conclusion that late fatherhood isn't just the amusing indulgence of an old man with a willing young wife but also a true health peril for kids, perhaps worse than those caused by an older mom. 

"The biological clock was always there for me," says Antoinette Vitale, 47, a former CPA and now a full-time mother living in Westchester County in New York. Vitale had her three children when she was 38, 40 and 42--the age range at which doctors and well-meaning relatives start sounding alarms. Her husband, who's a year older, was spared such procreative prodding. The next generation of fathers may not have it so easy. "Men haven't paid much attention to their biological clocks," says Newman, "and now they have to." 

---“Too Old to Be A Dad?” by Jeffrey Kluger, Time (4.22.2013)

 

But this is the first time I’ve heard or read this—and I hear and read quite a lot from all kinds of news sources, including reporting on health and science. How many times have you heard or read anything about increasing genetic deterioration in men’s sperm as they age, and the increasing danger to children they might father? How many understand this? I’m guessing most other men have not heard of this research either. As Ms. Newman is quoted, above, "Men haven't paid much attention to their biological clocks," and now they have to." But first, they have to educate men. And that would require broad-based educational programs, national programs, to inform men, women, couples—all who share in the responsibility for bringing children into the world. Shouldn’t all understand the elevated levels of risks contributed by older men, risks that appear as great or greater than those contributed by older women?

 

Still, before we get too exercised about the risks involved, let me note that the absolute risks of an older father or a younger father having an autistic or schizophrenic child are not provide in the article. We are not told what a “significantly increased risk” is. Does a doubling or tripling of mutations in sperm mean a 10% increase, a 50% or 100% increase in the incidence of autism, for example? And, again, what is the baseline risk, what level of incidence is it an increase over, .1% or 1% or 10%? The CDC (Center for Disease Control) website reports that the incidence of autism was 1 in 88 births in 2008, about 1.1%, indicating a strong upward trend from the 1 in 150 births in 2000, .6 of 1%. But that doesn’t tell us what the incidence is for younger fathers or older fathers. The answers to those questions really make a difference in how much more at risk you really are, don’t they?

 

And yes, there are many more cases of autism diagnosed today than there were only a decade or so ago. Is that attributable to many more older dads in those more recent years? It’s hard not to think that, and it does seem implied by the data, but the article does not go that far. But the article does give many examples of older men, including many celebrities, having children that appear to be perfectly normal and healthy. But having shared that qualifying perspective doesn’t change the conclusion that older men have more children with these problems, even if we are not told just how many more or what percentage increase that might be.

 

The Time article moves toward conclusion reviewing those other factors that bear on the wisdom of later-in-life fatherhood, including the challenges for older fathers in rearing children. And while there are some other factors that can make older dads better parents, there are others that may limit their effectiveness, most of which have long been understood. It’s a fascinating article—an attention grabber, really—especially if you’re a man. But surely it’s just as important a concern to the wives of older men, regardless of which of them has decided they might like to be a parent (again?) after all? It’s an article worth reading and understanding by everyone.

 

 

Addendum (5.2.2013)

 

An anonymous commenter picked up on my cautionary paragraph addressing the absence of clear data or conclusions in the article about the rate of increase in the incidence of autism for older fathers. He referenced a New York Times article that he said concluded that the risk to older men was still very low. I found the article, and indeed that's just what it concludes:

Experts said that the finding was hardly reason to forgo fatherhood later in life, though it might have some influence on reproductive decisions. The overall risk to a man in his 40s or older is in the range of 2 percent, at most, and there are other contributing biological factors that are entirely unknown. 

---"Father's Age is Linked to Risk of Autism and Schizophrenia," by Benedict Carey, New York Times (8.22.2012

Still, there are some men and women who might pause for more reflection at the prospect of even a 2% probability, especially if the prospective mother was older and brought her own additional risks or vulnerabilities to the process. And then, from a broader perspective, the article adds that the significant increase in older men fathering children has materially contributed to the increase in the incidence of autism cases over the most recent decade or so, accounting for 20-30% of the increase. My cautionary stance remains sound: older prospective parents (and their doctors) should assure that they are well informed about the most recent research in this area and how that translates into risk for them, and be sure it is a level of risk they can be comfortable with.

Rejecting the Wrong Kids: Zakaria on College Admissions

The evolving criteria for college admissions has long been an area rife with controversy. But it is most controversial when it reduces the influence of objective measures of merit in favor of social, financial or prejudicial considerations that either favor or exclude groups of applicants disproportionately to their objective measures of merit. Sometimes there is good social and educational reasoning that motivates it, or at least there are assumptions of good intentions. But this is not always true, and sometimes it is clearly not. Sometimes it reflects social prejudice, financial or other values inconsistent with the notion of merit, either objective academic merit or social merit. As is often the case, Fareed Zakaria makes us think about things that are not so easy to hear, and less easy to remedy.

 

In an article for Time magazine, Mr. Zakaria identifies a few such areas that, by implication, are worthy of our attention. The first mentioned is state universities’ and colleges’ financial preference for out of state students.

State universities--once the highways of advancement for the middle class--have been utterly transformed under the pressure of rising costs and falling government support. A new book, Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality, shows how some state schools have established a "party pathway," admitting more and more rich out-of-state kids who can afford hefty tuition bills but are middling students. These cash cows are given special attention through easy majors, lax grading, social opportunities and luxurious dorms. That's bad for the bright low-income students, who are on what the book's authors, Elizabeth Armstrong and Laura Hamilton, call the mobility pathway. They are neglected and burdened by college debt and fail in significant numbers. 

---“The Thin Envelope Crisis: America’s universities are rejecting the wrong kids--and undermining the idea of merit,” by Fareed Zakaria, Time (3.15.2013)

But what of all the financial aid provided by most universities and colleges to accepted students with financial need? A point of pride in the provision of equal educational opportunity to a diverse college population, these values have not been abandoned have they? No, but there are apparently many more such students and much less money to offer them. And then there is the issue of admissions limiting quotas for Asians. Mr. Zakaria:

The Country's best colleges and universities do admit lower-income students. But the competition has become so intense and the percentage admitted so small that the whole process seems arbitrary. When you throw in special preferences for various categories—legacies, underrepresented minorities and athletes—it also looks less merit-based than it pretends to be. In an essay in the American Conservative, Ron Unz uses a mountain of data to charge that America's top colleges and universities have over the past two decades maintained a quota—an upper limit—of about 16.5% for Asian Americans, despite their exploding applicant numbers and high achievements.

[…] Two Ivy League admissions officers estimated to me that Asian Americans probably make up more than 20% of their entering classes. Even so, institutions that are highly selective but rely on more objective measures for admission have found that their Asian-American populations have risen much more sharply over the past two decades. Caltech and the University of California, Berkeley, are now about 40% Asian… The U.S. math and science olympiad winners are more than 70% Asian American. In this context, for the U.S.'s top colleges and universities to be at 20% is, at the least, worth some reflection.

Test scores are only one measure of a student's achievement, and other qualities must be taken into account. But it's worth keeping in mind that the arguments for such subjective criteria are precisely those that were made in the 1930s to justify quotas for Jews. In fact, in his book The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale and Princeton, scholar Jerome Karabel exhaustively documented how nonobjective admissions criteria such as interviews and extracurriculars were put in place by Ivy League schools in large measure to keep Jewish admissions from rising.

A margin note in Mr. Zakaria’s essay states that a 2009 study reported that Asian Americans on average needed SAT scores 140 points higher than white students to have the same chance of admission to elite private universities. But that isn’t the most troubling merit issue in college admissions, not according to Mr. Zakaria’s data. That distinction, in surprisingly disproportionate numbers and percentages, belongs to college athletes. From Mr. Zakaria:

Then there's the single largest deviation from merit in America's best colleges: their recruited-athletes programs. The problem has gotten dramatically worse in the past 20 years. Colleges now have to drop their standards much lower to build sports teams. These students, in turn, perform terribly in classrooms. A senior admissions officer at an Ivy League school told me, "I have to turn down hundreds of highly qualified applicants, including many truly talented amateur athletes, because we must take so many recruited athletes who are narrowly focused and less accomplished otherwise. They are gladiators, really." William Bowen, a former president of Princeton University, has documented the damage this system does to American higher education—and yet no college president has the courage to change it.

Another margin note informs us that athletes make up 25% to 40% of the student body at Division III colleges, and 20% to 30% at Ivy League universities. And we all know why no college president has the courage to change it. The alumni. They love their alma mater’s athletic teams, and their alma mater, too, when they are successful. And when they are, so many alums are disposed to be their most generous. College athletics are also considered by many an important part of the experience of college life. In traditional, residential colleges, particularly those with successful athletic programs in major sports, that is not likely to change soon.

 

Mr. Zakaria closes by reminding us that the decline in America’s economic mobility is the most troubling trend in recent years—and that our colleges and universities play a leading role in opening the doors of opportunity to new generations of Americans. But if they are not providing access based on merit, at least in large part, then economic mobility in America will continue to decline, and the American dream will continue to be more likely realized elsewhere. But his conclusion sounds to me more like a portentous pronouncement, an elegiac epitaph, already written in different ways by so many others. And while the problems of American higher education are considerable, and the challenges formidable, the intersection of need and innovation has already brought the power of creative and corrective forces to bear on reimagining higher education.

 

So, if it all sounds a little too defeatist, a little too despairing, it is. Allow me to offer another perspective, one elaborated on in my last post, “The Future of Higher Education,” Hyde Park’s Corner (4.4.2013). American higher education is already well into a process of change, some would fairly assess it as a process of “disruptive innovation.” Central to the coming changes are the continuing improvements and innovations in on-line education—and more recently the evolution of massive, open, on-line courses (MOOCs) and works-in-process like continuing education through just-in-time mini-courses.

 

That doesn’t mean the complete demise of traditional, residential colleges, especially the well-heeled elite schools. But it does mean that many if not most will change dramatically or fail, that many will evolve hybrid programs, and that the new mainstream will likely be a very effective and cost-efficient set of on-line alternatives offered in a variety of settings for a variety of purposes. I can’t speak to the future of college athletics, but I find it hard to conceive of it surviving in anything like it’s current role or status. Yet, access will not be denied for any of the reasons that so rightly concern Mr. Zakaria. There are no physical limits or created barriers that would deny merit or broader access a place at this new table.

 

I have often referred to the evolution of this range of on-line higher education possibilities as the affordable education lifeboat for the nation’s lower- and middle-income students and families who can no longer afford the traditional, residential college experience. But it could be much more than that, more and better. Early research indicates that on-line education is very quickly becoming much more effective and efficient than most people understand, and that on-line students perform every bit as well and often better than students in traditional, residential classrooms. And it will only get better and more cost-efficient.

 

Yes, it will take time. And the changes, the failures and dislocations, will be as painful for many as the new alternatives are hope-filled and promising for so many more. Buckle-up, pilgrim.

 

The Future of Higher Education

I've written on this topic before—about the evolving role and potential of on-line education from the perspective of “disruptive innovation.” Disruptive innovation is a research-based business theory about the evolution of new products and business models that replace those that have become staid, unresponsive to need, or failing. It is based on the work and writing of Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen and a Harvard Magazine article he wrote in 2011 explaining how that process is playing a key role in the evolution of new models for higher education. I quoted liberally from his article, Colleges in Crisis: Disruptive change comes to American higher education, written with Michael B. Horn. My conclusion was as follows:

As the authors made clear, we are just in the early stages of this process. But the pace of the process will likely quicken as the increases in cost and tuition at colleges and universities continue unchecked--and as the greater demands of America's public, economy, and government policies continue unmet. But no one yet appears able to see just how it will all unfold, the timing, or exactly what it all will look like when all the change has had its way. Still, if you sense authority or prescience in this article by Christensen and Horn, then expect to see these kinds of changes occur more visibly and at an increasing rate, as we also see an increasingly troubled and failing traditional higher education model. 

---See my “Disruptive Innovation: Re-Shaping American Higher Education?” Hyde Park’s Corner (7.2.2011)

In less than two years, we can see that the pace of the process has quickened, that serious players are now engaging that process, and that progress is being made. And interestingly, it is not the business or for-profit sector that is leading in innovation (although they are playing their role). It is elite American Universities that have taken up the gauntlet, accepting the challenge to lead and protect their higher education franchise as it moves into a new era of dramatic change. It includes the Harvard-MIT joint venture, EdX, Coursera and Udacity, among others. The new thing in on-line higher education are “MOOCs”, the mass, open, on-line courses. And they are free, at least in this early experimental phase. Then, as Professor Christensen suggests, the next new thing may be what he calls “just-in-time mini-courses.”

 

But first, let’s listen as Drew Faust, President of Harvard University, shares some of her thoughts on progress made, likely applications, and how it will change even the elite, traditional residential colleges like Harvard. Ms. Faust:

In January, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, I participated in a panel discussion on MOOCs—massive open online courses—and the future of education. Massachusetts Institute of Technology President L. Rafael Reif and I had the opportunity to share our thoughts on edX, the nonprofit organization created by Harvard and MIT to make high-quality [free] educational content and courses available online. EdX will enhance our understanding of learning and teaching on our campuses at the same time it brings knowledge to individuals across the globe. 

Nearly 200,000 people, half of them from outside of the United States, enrolled in the initial edX courses taught by Harvard faculty this fall—Introduction to Computer Science I and Health in Numbers: Quantitative Methods in Clinical and Public Health Research. I expect to see even larger enrollments in the next slate of Harvard offerings, which includes an introduction to moral and political philosophy, an examination of global environmental change, and an exploration of the law of copyright. In The Ancient Greek Hero, the platform’s first humanities course, students will encounter the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey—and related art, film, and music—throughout time and across space, considering enduring characters and questions in an entirely new context. These courses are not lectures delivered through the web, but active learning experiences where students are asked to demonstrate understanding and connect with others to form participant communities. 

Increasing access and making knowledge from diverse fields and disciplines much more broadly available are important aims, but there are other motivations for launching edX. We intend to leverage observations made in the digital space to understand what we might do better in our own classrooms and classrooms around the world—an aspiration that is already being realized...Higher education will continue to be advanced by digital innovations. The edX partnership is an opportunity for Harvard and MIT, together with a host of partner colleges and universities, to encourage new approaches, to develop new methods, and to drive assessment—all pursued in a spirit of boundless curiosity and an abiding openness to the wider world. 

MOOCs and their potential captured considerable attention at Davos as business and political leaders speculated about the future of residential education, a conversation that will continue in the months and years ahead. I believe that online education offers us possibilities we have just begun to imagine for sharing knowledge more widely and teaching more effectively. But the power of residential education and interaction will not be undermined. Bringing thinkers and doers together is uniquely generative. Every day the magic that happens inside a Farkas or Paine Hall rehearsal room; across an i-lab whiteboard or a House dining room table; in a Law School classroom or a stem cell laboratory or dozens of other settings across our campus reminds us of the uplifting and transformative power of the company we are so lucky to keep. 

---“The Future Of Education” by Drew Faust, Harvard Magazine (March-April 2013)

It is clear, then, that President Faust sees a strong future for elite residential colleges and universities, places like Harvard and its peers, places with large endowments and considerable resources. She sees Harvard’s joint venture with MIT and the other peer initiatives evolving the residential college experience into a better, more effective educational experience, and likely one that is operated on a more cost-effective basis. But their future and fate may dictate a very different model for the elite universities as well. Regardless, for the great majority of residential colleges with resources that do not run nearly so deep, financial struggles will likely follow soon enough; and unable to muster innovative ideas or new resources, they are unlikely to survive this change process without moving to an on-line or hybrid model, too.

But President Faust does not speak of the real crisis in higher education: evidence mounts that without scholarship grants, fewer and fewer poor and middle-class students will be able to afford a residential college education. Nonresidential, on-line degree and training programs will likely provide the educational life boat these students and their families need. And it appears from the pace of progress, it will likely provide a competent, cost-effective education, one that meets the needs of students and families, businesses and government, the individual and collective calls to creativity, innovation, and productivity.

How good have on-line courses already become? I read of an experiment at an elite university where one-half the students were assigned to a typical, residential classroom; the other students took the class on-line. I’m sure you’ve already guessed the result: the students taking the on-line version of the course outperformed those in the classroom. Unsurprisingly, many colleges have for some time offered courses that may be taken on-line for credit. And more and more, on-line degree programs are respected by employers as providing an effective education.

So what are Mssrs. Christensen and Horn now thinking about the progress of “disruptive innovation” in U.S. Higher education? In two related pieces in the February 2013 issue of Wired magazine, they offer some of their thoughts. The first article is a longer interview with Professor Christensen about transforming capitalism, from which I’ve extracted his comments on higher education. From that interview:

Howe: If you had to list some industries right now that are either in a state of disruptive crisis or will be soon, what would they be? 

Christensen: Journalism, certainly, and publishing broadly. Anything supported by advertising. That all of this is being disrupted is now beyond question. And then I think higher education is just on the edge of the crevasse. Generally, universities are doing very well financially, so they don’t feel from the data that their world is going to collapse. But I think even five years from now these enterprises are going to be in real trouble. 

Howe: Why is higher education vulnerable? 

Christensen: The availability of online learning. It will take root in its simplest applications, then just get better and better. You know, Harvard Business School doesn’t teach accounting anymore, because there’s a guy out of BYU whose online accounting course is so good. He is extraordinary, and our accounting faculty, on average, is average. 

Howe: What happens to all our institutions of advanced learning? 

Christensen: Some will survive. Most will evolve hybrid models, in which universities license some courses from an online provider like Coursera but then provide more-specialized courses in person. Hybrids are actually a principle regardless of industry. If you want to use a new technology in a mainstream existing market, it has to be a hybrid. It’s like the electric car. If you want to have a viable electric car, you have to ask if there is a market where the customers want a car that won’t go far or fast. The answer is, parents of teenagers would love to put their teens in a car that won’t go far or fast. Little by little, the technology will emerge to take it on longer trips. But if you want to have this new technology employed on the California freeways right now, it has to be a hybrid like a Prius, where you take the best of the old with the best of the new. 

---“Clayton Christensen wants to transform capitalism,” an interview with Clayton Christensen, Wired.com (2.12.13)

 Now, more about MOOCs and just-in-time mini-courses. We’ve read President Faust share some truly exciting anecdotes about the early successes of the EdX MOOCs. From all I read and hear from friends who’ve taken one, the same is being experienced in Coursera’s and Udacity’s and others’. From Mssrs. Christensen and Horn:

Everyone’s going MOOC-crazy these days. From frequent media coverage of online courses and platforms like Coursera, edX, Udacity, and Udemy to discussions about the complexities and business models of online education, the excitement around MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) has finally “bubbled” over. 

The question is not just whether MOOCs are going to disrupt traditional education, but how. Is it just about lower costs and access? Is it really going to be a Napster-like moment with entrenched “Teamsters in tweed” worried about the erosion of their research, publishing, and teaching? 

This is where we can leave the realm of hype and commentary to draw on our own years of research into disruption theory. Because the curious thing about the MOOC wave of disruption is that the market leaders — not just upstarts from the edges — are the ones pioneering it. And that rarely happens. 

But First: Are MOOCs Really ‘Disruptive’? 

Yes, the word “disrupt” is overused. But it has a specific meaning when we’re talking about it. And MOOCs do bear the early hallmarks of a disruptive innovation: 

Serves non-consumers. MOOCs are limited in the services they provide compared to traditional colleges, yet at the same time they are free and more accessible — which allows them to serve those who couldn’t otherwise access traditional higher education. Similarly, Toyota’s early cars didn’t match the reliability of Detroit’s automobiles. But they were more affordable and convenient, so the company first served people (“non-consumers”) for whom the alternative was, quite literally, nothing. 

Marches upmarket. Instead of serving the same customers at the outset or competing head-on with established products, disruptive innovations improve over time to march upmarket. Eventually the quality becomes just good enough for the established customers to flock to it. It’s worth noting that the upmarket march is enabled by some key technology — such as bandwidth, video quality, online sharing tools, etc. — which is why MOOCs may now be having their moment, even though they’ve been around for years. 

Redefines quality. Eventually, the disruptive innovation changes the very definition of quality in a marketplace. In the current university system, for example, most faculty are rewarded for the quality of their research — not for the quality of their teaching. But the medium and scale changes things; in the future, courses might be offered based on employer demand, not faculty research interests. MOOCs are already evolving in some ways away from traditional educational constraints: Udacity’s courses, for example, have shifted from a time-controlled to a more competency-based learning model that takes advantage of the online medium. 

Does Who Is Doing the Disrupting Matter? 

Given the above criteria, it’s unusual, and remarkably difficult, for established market leaders to pioneer — or even catch up — with disruptions. 

Yet interestingly, the big, reputable universities are the ones leading the MOOC wave. This includes MIT and Harvard (through edX) as well as Stanford, whose groundbreaking AI course morphed into Udacity (and whose professors independently founded Coursera). 

It’s not that established players can’t see the disruptions coming; they almost always do. There are just several other forces at play that cause market leaders to ignore them. For example, disruptive innovations don’t look that attractive, profitable, or prestigious early on. Or the company’s best customers signal that they don’t care for them (at least initially). But universities are likely investing in MOOCs now because disruption theory is finally widely enough understood that astute leaders know how to identify and chase opportunities early. 

When established players want to (successfully) catch a disruptive wave, however, they have to set up an autonomous business model with different resources, processes, and priorities. Otherwise, the very capabilities that serve them well in their traditional business can represent liabilities in the one they’re disrupting. This is how IBM was able to go from the mainframe to personal computing business in the ’80s and ’90s, and it’s why MOOCs have done well in spinning themselves off into separate entities. 

Although the big three MOOCs — Coursera, edX, and Udacity — all leverage capabilities from their “parent” universities, they still have to be careful about which ones to adopt and which ones to avoid. Ideally, they should be able to pull what they want instead of having their university parents push resources (like administrative processes) to them. 

The only place the direction of this relationship doesn’t matter, according to our research, is brand. Being associated with the likes of Harvard, MIT, and Stanford doesn’t hurt, especially when it comes to signaling quality (i.e., “endorser” brands), as long as the disruptor can signal some separation for a job well done (i.e., “purpose” brands) in the new disruptive realm — hence the power of the “X” in edX. Leveraging its brand helped IBM move through multiple disruptive waves. 

So What Comes Next for the MOOCs? 

The need for customization will drive us toward just-in-time mini-courses. 

MOOCs can be much more than marketing and edutainment. We believe they are likely to evolve into a “scale business”: one that relies on the technology and data backbone of the medium to optimize and individualize learning opportunities for millions of students. 

This is very different than simply putting a video of a professor lecturing online. 

The initial MOOCs came from a “process business model” where companies bring inputs together at one end and transform them into a higher-value output for customers at the other end — as with the retail and manufacturing industries. 

But over time, an approach where users exchange information from each other similar to Facebook or telecommunications (a “facilitated network model”) will come to dominate online learning. This evolution is especially likely to happen if the traditional degree becomes irrelevant and, as many predict, learning becomes a continuous, on-the-job learning process. Then the need for customization will drive us toward just-in-time mini-courses. 

In this case, facilitated networks or adaptive learning platforms — like Khan Academy and Knewton — may actually be better positioned than MOOCs (in their current forms) to improve learning and serve massive numbers of students with tailored offerings. Such a transformation is not unlike what happened in the car industry: The Ford Model T dominated the American car market … until General Motors brought forth choice and variety. 

---“Beyond the Buzz, Where Are MOOCs Really Going?” By Michael Horn and Clayton Christensen, Wired.com (2.20.13)

Christensen appears to me right when he speaks of most traditional, residential colleges failing to perceive the strength and immediacy of the threat, how quickly the waves of their reshaping or demise are rising and lapping up against their doorsteps. And for the simple reasons cited by Christensen, most will not respond in a timely, effective way. Yet, it is impressive—isn’t it?—how some of the best of America’s higher education institutions have understood, and timely and effectively responded. There is still quite a way to go, yes, but it appears from our recent experience, and the projections of Christensen and Horn, that the distance will continue to be consumed at a faster and more efficient pace with each unit of time passed. I’m excited to consider what I may be writing about this process two years from now, even if it will likely include the continuing failings and increasing failures of more of our traditional residential colleges and universities.