I think bullying and gender issues are just a symptoms of a deeper problem nobody of the responsible likes to admit: academia has a strong hierarchical structure of power which necessarily leads to abuses of this power. We already solved this problem for politics long time ago by inventing democracy.
You really think democracy solved these? The Greeks had their demagogues, and today we still have political elites. Even a "perfect" democracy would still be majority rule (as benevolent it voluntarily might act towards the minorities).
Hierarchies save us from chaos and anarchy. And at the same time they open us up for abuse and make everything less democratic.
In practice, we seem to strive to find a balance where we allow some hierarchy to avoid chaos (representatives in our democracy, chain of command in governments) while we simultaneously try to cap the powers of such hierarchies and also establish competing hierarchies so they can check each other (e.g. separation of powers in most democracies).
However, we did not really solve anything, but created a system we constantly try to re-adjust once it tilts too much to either direction, and from which we try to eliminate bad actors.
I wonder what a good approach would be for academics. There's already a very strong and I think unavoidable have/have-not divide between those who have knowledge (faculty) and those who don't (students, who go on to become teaching & research assistants).
And many academic institutions even add another power structure: non-academic administrators, whose primary incentive is to expand non-academic administration, build buildings &c.
And then there are collegiate sports. I don't even know why those exist, but for some reason they do, and for some reason they are an important power base in an American university or college.
I think it would make sense for a college or university to be primarily run by the tenured faculty: they do, after all, have the knowledge which is the whole reason that a school exists. They don't necessarily have administrative skills, so it makes sense that there be some sort of executive, accountable to the school government.
Perhaps there could be a tricameral school government: tenured-faculty senate, non-tenured employee representatives, student representatives. Assign certain decisions to each; make certain decisions decidable by two out of the three and others requiring all three to agree. Make administrators accountable to all three, perhaps on a sliding scale such the the chief administrator can be removed by one house but the lowest level of employee needing censure by all three to be removed.
I think there are pro's and con's when it comes to democracy. All I tried to point out that we theoretically have a solution to the problem that people have personal biases which potentially makes them abuse their power. And this solution is simply a majority vote where personal biases average out.
If only it was so easy. History is chock-full of examples where the majority made minorities or individuals suffer for no apparent reason other than ideology, bias and/or outright moronic beliefs.
Emphatically, this is untrue to an almost hilarious degree. It's not even unusual to hear about cronyism and weird individual biases influencing almost every layer of the political machine (both in the EU and the US, the two big "democratic" powers).
Definitely spend some time interacting with people that work in the space and listen to their stories, you'll quickly find out exactly how fair a democracy inherently makes things (not at all fair, in other words).
Quite right. It should be expected that democracy is imperfect and requires at least these three things to work at all:
1) A unifying incentive that makes people cooperate (prospects of improvement, opportunity, economic growth).
2) Mechanisms of removing bad actors.
3) Free speech that allows a constant re-negotiation of ideals, values, interests etc. Don't expect a single formula or law is going to solve everything for good, but expect a constant dialogue which allows to adapt to constantly changing requirements even though it may seem tiring.
Decentralizing decision power alone does not cut it as people are going to be sneaky and selfish.
Then all democracy on Earth today fails the first point you made. People are doomed to disagree on incentives. Improvements, opportunities, growth, yes, all good, but for who? That is the problem. There are so many differentiators like races, regions, religions, etc, etc.
> academia has a strong hierarchical structure of power which necessarily leads to abuses of this power. We already solved this problem for politics long time ago by inventing democracy
And societies are now egalitarian without hierarchical power structures?
I suppose that depends on what you understand as "egalitarian". Lots of dictatorships could advertise as "flat hierarchies (dictator > military > everyone)".
Most democracies have a lot of hierarchies, both on the government levels (federal, state, county, city etc) and in the political parties that make up those governments. Democracy formalizes decisions and transitions, but I haven't seen a lot of hierarchies removed.
Sorry, I should have added 'in theory'. Of course there are still hierarchical power structures in practice, but we know how we could get rid of them in theory.
And consequences to one's actions in the professional world. People get written up and fired for misconduct, or criminally charged if it crosses the line.
Does that mean you would prefer an autocratic system with codes of conduct and laws where authorities might get fired or even criminally charged if they cross a line over a democratic system? I could imagine that in terms of efficiency it would actually be preferable.
Yes, the Chinese seem become more and more efficient when it comes to... uhmmm... "influencing" "for the better" their citizens' behavior, e.g. with their social score system.
