Harald

I idled away some travel time yesterday reading sections of King Harald's Saga, available, inter alia, on Kindle from Penguin. There must be a market for such accounts Viking of derring-do: Penguin seems to keep quite a number in print. Myself, I have several weathered paperback editions around the house although I'm not sure I ever actually read any before: always one of those things I would get to next year, after finishing Clarissa for example, or Finnegans Wake (the answers are no, and no).

I suppose I'm sorry I waited. The Saga is a rattling good story, with superb intro material by Magnus Magnusson and Herman Pálsson (on Magnusson's own remarkable career, go here; Pálsson's equally distinctive bio is here). Harald the protagonist has story enough to fill out any self-respecting saga: he saw service in Byzantium and Kievan Rus and died fighting another Harald—rather, Harold—at Stamford Bridge in the North of England in 1066 (the winner went on to lose the Battle of Hastings to William of Normandy, aka William the Conqueror). But in addition to Harald the protagonist, the editors introduce the reader to another, perhaps even more interesting, character: Snorri Sturluson, author of the saga and himself an important player in the tumultuous and violent public life of Scandinavia in his time (Snorri died in his basement at the hands of an assassin: it is said his last words were Eigi skal höggva!—"Do not strike!"). Just off hand, can you think of any other major historian who was both a writer and an active politician? The standard model would seen to be Trotsky or Thucydides, both writing in enforced idleness after their political careers had ended.

But I digress; back to Harald. The really extraordinary fact about this book is the utter absence of anything remotely resembling a “public purpose” in Harald's career (at least not as seen by Snorri). It's all hackin' and hewin', life in tooth and claw, triumph and disaster, betrayal and vengeance. 

Which brings me to one reason why it is so interesting to study the Scandinavian record: we can observe, at least dimly and inadequately, the emergence of something you might call “a modern state” (well: states) out of the turbulent stew of what came before. One is necessarily tempted to try to find some quick-and-dirty Twitter-style summary of the transition, and good luck with that. One is tempted, I suppose, to say “the coming of Christianity,” and I suppose there is something to the suggestion though not, perhaps, the way it is commonly understood. It certainly not the case that the Vikings woke up won day and said “Oh! We're Christians! Let's put down our swords and love our neighbors as ourselves!” No: the very process of Christianization was long and painful full of wrong turnings (though not so painful, perhaps, than the transition that led to the 30 Years' War on the Continent, nor the Civil War in England).

But perhaps you can say this much: perhaps what Christianity did do for Scandinavia is to bring on board a fully-developed bureaucratic apparatus with a priestly class, with bishops and archbishops (the Swedes seem even more serious about this sort of thing than the Anglicans). But that's not so much “Christianity” per say as a tradition that extends that right back past the beginning of Christianity to the Roman empire itself. And they do say all roads lead there.

Liberal Academe

My friend Marie showcases a study purporting to explain why so many academics are liberals:

A recently released study ... concludes that 43 percent of the political gap between academics and a random population sample can be attributed to four factors more common among academics: 1)high levels of educational attainment; 2) disparity between levels of educational attainment and income; 3) self-identification as Jewish, non-religious, or a member of a faith that is not theologically conservative Protestant; and 4) high tolerance for controversial ideas.

The authors of the study, Neil Gross and Ethan Fosse [also] see intellectuals as defined by "possession of high levels of cultural capital and moderate levels of economic capital." [French Sociologist Pierre] Bordieu asserts that this structure shapes intellectuals' political views. ".... Deprived of economic success relative to those in the world of commerce, intellectuals are less likely to be invested in preserving the socioeconomic order, may turn toward redistributionist policies in hopes of reducing perceived status inconsistency, and may embrace unconventional social or political views in order to distinguish themselves culturally from the business classes."...

A whole bunch of thoughts. First, as to educational attainment and income, two points: one, I'd say that professors are on the whole pretty well paid. They can envy their former roommates who went into investment banking, but we all envy somebody. I suspect the vast majority of profs enjoy family incomes above the national average, with intangibles to boot. Second, the proponents may have forgotten that the taste for "redistributionist policies" is almost inverse to actual income. The richest Congressional districts in the country--Manhattan Upper West Side, West LA--are among the most "redistributionist;" the poorest--Eastern Kentucky, Western Kansas and Nebraska--are somewhere to the right of Ivanhoe.

And what's this stuff about "high tolerance for controversial ideas?" When was the last time anyone spotted a controversial idea around a faculty lounge? My impression is that virtually every faculty homogenizes inside two tenths of a decimal point on a 10-point scale. I should think this would be true independent of your position on the political spectrum: you'd never mistake Chicago for Yale, but it would be hard to mistake either for anybody else.

Finally, I trust the authors of the study recognized that they can sustain their case if at all only within the humanities and social scientists. The hard scientists are by almost any measure still a pretty conservative bunch. Come to think of it, I wonder if the hard scientists might show actually a broader "tolerance for controversial ideas" than their colleagues in the lib arts?

H/T John for the pointer.

Afterthought: I guess I'd agree that economists are special. They tend to be secular, wet on social issues (gay marriage, dope-smoking, etc.). But they believe in a lot of things that the standard liberal agenda does not embrace--markets, lower trade barriers. Yes, even the "liberal" economists. So I don't think they are on this chart at all.

Academics and Journalists

These folks are making an honest effort to sort out the issues that cause friction between academics and journalists. I've been both an academic and a journalist, so let me add a tidbit: specifically, there is all the difference in the world between two different types of journalist jobs. One is the guy (guilty, your honor) who calls up up on deadline and just wants you to utter a memorable sentence--and may have the sentence prepacked to slip into your mouth.

The other and very different character who will call and talk for one-two-three hours at a time as they really try to make sense out of something. You can lose patience when you've got bluebooks to grade and kids to feed, but we ought to regard these guys as the journalists of our dreams with the time, the patience and the resources to do their job right.

There have never been many. Used to find some of them at the Los Angeles Times. Wonder where those guys work now?