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you are a steady NRO reader — and our gratitude if you are
— you may have noticed a piece of mine Friday called “Is
There a Dr. in the House?” It dealt with the issue of Ph.D.’s
and who’s called “Dr.” — and why. You’d
be surprised how much that is imbedded in the American psyche is
brought out by this single, seemingly simple little issue. The article
provoked so much mail — and so much interesting mail —
I thought I’d devote an entire column to airing a little of
it. You will find many interesting thoughts, insights, stories,
admissions, and remarks. I have not included any names; these letters
come from a diversity of Americans who represent many Americans.
I will begin
with something a friend of mine told me: that the story is told
at Harvard — probably apocryphal, but still fun — of the
young man who, on the first day of class, addressed his professor
as “Dr.” The professor said, “Where does it hurt,
sonny?”
My friend also
said that he knew a professor at Harvard who, much to the consternation
of everyone, insisted on being called “Mrs.” Not “Ms.,”
not “Professor,” and certainly not “Dr.,” but
“Mrs.” This blew everyone’s mind, because they were
used to thinking of “Mrs.” as insulting — isn’t
that incredibly weird? Whenever someone said “Ms.” —
which the modern, PC-directed mouth moves to form — the professor
issued a correction: “Mrs.” Now there is a liberated woman,
and a non-conformist.
On to some
letters, which may be subjected to some interjections from me.
“I recall
seeing Huey Newton (of Black Panther fame) referred to as ‘Dr.
Newton’ in his New York Times obituary. Now, if that
doesn’t take the cake.”
Huey Newton
was, indeed, referred to as “Dr. Newton” in the Times.
He received a Ph.D. in “social philosophy” from the “University”
— sorry, University — of California, Santa Cruz. Now that
does take the cake.
Can anyone
think of a more suspect Ph.D. than one in social philosophy from
the University of California, Santa Cruz? What do you have to do?
Hate Reagan, recite a little Marcuse, and vote for Angela Davis?
That letter
has a P.S.: “Before being called to active duty in the Navy,
I worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where the only
person, including the director, who is referred to as ‘Dr.’
is, of course, Dr. Teller.”
Seems more
natural to call Old World Europeans like Teller “Dr.”
Has the feel of Herr Doktor, as I pointed out in my original
article about Kissinger.
From an editor
at a “major metropolitan newspaper,” as they say:
“We strictly
confine ‘Dr.’ to physicians and dentists — though
I remember that earlier on an exception was made for ‘Dr. Kissinger.’
I also remember Dixie Lee Ray, when she was alive, complaining bitterly
about that, not having been granted the same exception.”
Have another:
“You should
follow your article up with one on the incredible proliferation
of doctorates from Arab universities, as we see with ‘Drs.’
Erekat and Ashrawi.”
From the South:
“Down
here, the real sign of status is when you’re called ‘Colonel.’”
Yes, indeed.
I don’t have much patience with the comedian Chris Rock, but
he did say something that will always endear him to me: “Al
Sharpton’s a reverend like Col. Sanders is a military hero.”
“Let’s
give all the ‘doctors’ their due reward. But wait! Aren’t
we indulging in elitism? Let’s give all graduates their
rightful place in the sun. As the proud recipient of an MBA, which
I worked darn hard for, I feel that it is only appropriate that
I be addressed as ‘Master.’ Works for me!”
“It is
indeed curious, the conceits that people hold regarding their —
or others’ — doctorates. From my own experience, I think
Ph.D.’s in biochemistry are more knowledgeable than medical
doctors in the body’s chemistry but feel they must fight for
equal respect when they work, as they often do, alongside MDs in
medical research. And having a son and daughter-in-law who have
just finished their doctoral work in music composition, I am amazed
that they don’t want to bother with the gowns and caps that
to me are the delightfully pompous trappings of high academic standing,
and aren’t particularly concerned about how they are addressed.”
We interrupt
these comments to remind you that, in my article, I averred that
the best line in either Austin Powers movie belongs to Dr. Evil,
who says, “I didn’t go through six years of evil medical
school to be called ‘mister,’ thank you very much!”
A reader says to me, No: The best line is, “Ow, you shot me,
you a-hole.”
To continue:
“Anyone
who has ever met Larry Summers has to smile inside when reflecting
on the utter intellectual mismatch between him and ‘Dr. West,’
et al. I think Summers has gotten some things wrong in his work,
professionally and academically, but he’s one of the smarter
people on the planet. If West were a student in one of Dr. Summers’s
classes — oh, the joy that mental picture brings!
“I have a Ph.D. in economics from NYU; I spent half my 20s
getting it. I don’t insist on the title ‘Dr.’ except
in professional communications, and that’s largely a function
of my fellow economists’ not taking anyone seriously without
it. One of my jobs is to do scholar recruitment for think tanks.
If I write a letter to a fellow economist and I don’t reveal
the credential, sometimes I’ll be handled like an interested
lay person when what I need is the math.
“I don’t mind being called ‘Dr.’ (especially
around my mother), and I can understand why some people insist on
it in all but informal settings — when the print and broadcast
media care more what Sean Penn, Ben Affleck, and Jon Stewart think
about economics than I do, it is perhaps necessary to reinforce
that there are some professional standards left, and that some people
have in fact worked harder than others to understand certain issues.
If it has to come down to the fact that I have a credential and
those jackasses don’t, well, at least the shorthand isn’t
completely useless.”
Yes, but how
to handle the fact that the guy who owns the gas station may know
more about (practical) economics than, say, John Kenneth Galbraith
or Lester Thurow?
“I am
from Mississippi, and I went to Mississippi State (electrical engineering).
I never heard anyone call a professor anything but ‘Dr.,’
and that includes other professors. I never heard anyone get corrected
for calling someone ‘Mr.’ because I never heard anyone
make the mistake. That’s how things were.
“At home
in the small town of [Smallsville], Miss., my parents also required
me to use ‘Dr.’ for Ph.D.’s (except for preachers,
who were always ‘Brother’), but they constantly poked
fun at them (especially Ph.D.’s in education). They saw it
as a sign that old so-and-so was getting too big for his britches.
I don’t know who actually coined the phrase, but my dad used
to say that Dr. [Smith], my high-school principal, had been ‘educated
beyond his intelligence.’”
I simply love
that phrase: “educated beyond his intelligence.” I’ll
look for excuses to use it.
Another correspondent
says:
“I find
the whole ‘call me doctor’ controversy half maddening,
half amusing.
“I’m
an MD and a tenured associate professor of medicine. I never
refer to myself as ‘doctor’ outside the hospital, and
rarely inside it. In fact, when I return pages from the operators,
I usually say, ‘Hi, this is [John Smith] from Gastroenterology.
I was paged.’
“I developed
this practice because of my absolute loathing for those who use
their membership in the profession for social leverage. It is a
seal of approval, to be used sparingly, to reassure frightened,
desperate patients that I have the necessary training, not to get
a table at the Russian Tea Room.”
“Some
wag once observed that there was a linear relationship in the use
of ‘Dr.’ from the hard sciences, through the soft sciences,
culminating in the Graduate School of Education. As he put it, ‘I’ve
never met a Ph.D. in physics who used “Dr.,” and I’ve
never met a Ph.D. in education who didn’t.’ I repeated
this joke in a lecture once, forgetting that there was a grad student
in education in the back of the room. He blushed bright red, left,
and never came back. I am truly sorry I offended him, but sometimes
the truth . . .”
“You mentioned
Einstein. I have a book of amusing stories of scientists (Absolute
Zero Gravity) that relates a supposedly true story of Einstein’s
later years in Princeton. He would apparently wander through town,
lost in thought, and then walk up to a random person and ask for
directions back to the university. On one occasion, he awoke from
his reverie to find a young lady in front of him. ‘Hello, little
girl,’ he said. She replied, ‘Hello, Einstein,’ and
gave him directions. She ran inside to tell her mother what had
happened. Her mother was mortified: ‘You should have said “Dr.
Einstein”’! The girl responded, ‘But Mom, you wouldn’t
call Napoleon “Mr. Napoleon,” would you?’
“For now,
I’m just a little nobody with an empty bank account and a ‘Dr.’
Perhaps someday I’ll have discovered something neat enough
to go back to ‘Mr.’ But if I truly hit the scientific
jackpot, perhaps I could join Einstein, Napoleon, Alexander, and
Cher.”
“I hope
you’ll revisit the subject in the next few days to examine
the silly (northern, it seems) practice of lawyers’ adding
‘Esq.’”
“Your
article reminded me of the Seinfeld episode in which the
conductor of a small local orchestra insisted on being called ‘maestro.’”
“When
Henry Kissinger was appointed secretary of state, reporters at a
press conference asked if he wanted to be called ‘Secretary
Kissinger’ or ‘Dr. Kissinger.’ He replied, grinning,
‘You can call me “Excellency.”’”
This reminds
me — it’s me, Jay again — of the time I heard Vice
President Bush speak at the University of Michigan. The occasion
was a ceremony to honor the 25th anniversary of the Peace Corps.
There were assorted officials there, including some from African
nations. There was also, of course, a very hostile and leftist crowd,
ready to boo and jeer the vice president. The hostess, introducing
one of the Africans, said, “And now, His Excellency . . .,”
and the kids were so dumb, they started booing, thinking that the
woman was introducing Bush.
Amazing.
Back to a letter-writer:
“In Ph.D.s,
there is a difference between scientists and humanists. Scientists
work to reveal basic facts of nature based on strict standards of
proof. Humanists play mind games with man-made things. Scientists
include mathematicians, physicists, chemists, etc. Humanists include
sociologists, economists, drama teachers, etc. Scientists work long
and hard to contribute something indelible to the human understanding
of the universe — which goes unappreciated by much of American
society. And not just anyone can get a Ph.D. in science. These folks
deserve the honorific ‘Dr.’ As for the humanists —
well, they dispense opinions (interpretations), which cannot really
be proved one way or the other. Pretty much anybody can do that.
As for physicians, who get the ‘Dr.’ as a matter of course,
they fall somewhere in between.”
“I would
swear the consistent ‘Dr.’ reference to Martin Luther
King started after his death. I’m going from strict childhood
memory. Before, it was always ‘the Rev. Martin Luther King,’
and he was clearly a religious figure. I remember, in Sunday school,
learning about ‘the other Martin Luther,’ who was a religious
figure.”
“I grew
up 50 years ago in the Deep South. There were rules and we learned
them. The two honors that were never granted blacks, because they
would have been tokens of equality, were a handshake and ‘Mr.’
or ‘Mrs.’ Naturally, this created awkwardness in the case
of recognized community leaders. So, the preacher was called ‘Reverend
So-and-so’ or ‘Dr. So-and-so.’ The attorney, ‘Lawyer
So-and-so.’ The college authority, ‘Professor So-and-so.’
As far as I’m concerned, through a long and agonizing process,
Cornel West has earned the right to be ‘Mr.’”
“I’ve
had some up-close-and-personal experiences, married to a math professor
as I am. When my wife received her Ph.D., I sternly informed our
daughters, then 5, 10, and 12, that henceforth their mother was
no longer just ‘Mom,’ but ‘Dr. Mom’. Now the
10-year-old has embarked on her own quest for a Ph.D. No doubt when
that’s completed I’ll be told I have to call her ‘Dr.
Daughter’. Hey, I never asked anyone to call me ‘Dad,
MBA’!
“Actually,
the whole of it comes down to the instructions that a football coach
gave his players about post-touchdown celebrations: ‘Act like
you’ve been there before.’”
“As a
southerner, I grew used to calling my undergraduate professors ‘Dr.’
I must admit, however, to having developed thin skin over the indiscriminate
use of this term. I’m a lawyer, and I worked very hard to earn
my J.D. My children’s elementary-school principal has a Doctor
of Education degree from some mail-in university down in Florida,
and she routinely introduces herself to parents as ‘Dr. X.’
I have known her since she was a little girl, and I swear that she
walked up to me once and said, ‘[John], I’m Dr. X.’
I was sorely tempted to reply, ‘[Lulabelle], I’m Lawyer
John.’”
“I have
a friend who is applying to get into a Ph.D. program, and he said,
‘I can’t wait until I have a Ph.D. so people will have
to call me “Dr.”’ I responded that I’ve known
him to be a jackass since the day I met him and that he will therefore
never hear the word ‘doctor’ come from my tongue in reference
to his personage. I’m standing firm even if he someday goes
to med school just to spite me. I have forwarded him your article
and expect I’ll soon be rewarded with great wailing and gnashing
of teeth. Thanks very much!”
Let me interrupt
again — this is Jay — to say that I had some interesting
letters from professors who insisted on the “Dr.” distinction
to fight against a false egalitarianism and a loss of respect for
authority — a loss of a proper deference. I’m afraid I
can’t find those letters at the moment, and am too lazy to
look for them, but I have conveyed the spirit of them.
To resume:
“I’ve
been teaching math at a rural Texas high school for six years, after
careers in the Air Force and private industry. Public-school administrators
with Ph.D.’s in education, probably the least challenging Ph.D.
I can think of, routinely are referred to as ‘doctor.’
And of my motorcycle-riding buddies, several are medical doctors,
and never refer to themselves as doctors in conversation or e-mails
on the many motorcycle lists to which we all subscribe.”
And finally,
a letter I especially love, and agree with, entirely:
“I’ve
always thought that the coolest honorific one can have is ‘Coach.’
It was just bestowed on me this year, as I’m coaching my four-year-old’s
T-ball team. When you have a bunch of kids and parents calling you
‘Coach [Smith]’ or just ‘Coach,’ it makes you
feel pretty good. Forget all that ‘Dr.’ bunk; ‘Coach’
is where it’s at!”
Anyone who
has read to this point has earned, from the Impromptus Graduate
School of American Society, an honorary Ph.D. Congratulations, doctors.
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