WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Time To Cut Government Funding For Political Science Research?

As we’ve had occasion to note here at Via Meadia, the US currently produces far too much “academic research,” and much of it is worthless. Some of the worthless research is directly subsidized by government grants; some of it is indirectly subsidized by academics in taxpayer supported universities whose job descriptions divide their responsibilities between teaching and research; some of it is paid in the form of tuition by students and parents on the same basis. And finally, some of the worthless research is produced on their own time by academics trying to beef up their prospects for promotion and tenure.

There is a real baby and bathwater problem here. While much academic research is so worthless that not even other academics in the same field bother to read it, some of this research represents high triumphs of the human spirit, opens the door to new medical treatments, or otherwise deepens our understanding of the world around us and increases our ability to live richer, better lives.

The reconstruction of the American university is going to take some time, and nobody knows now exactly how the new system should look. In general, Via Meadia thinks that the “research model” works less well in the humanities and in most social sciences than it does in the natural sciences. In many cases, undergraduate teaching could be separated from scholarly research with no loss to the quality of undergraduate education — and perhaps a substantial gain.

If he keeps this up, Mead may be burned as a heretic.