{"id":73,"date":"2011-04-07T23:38:09","date_gmt":"2011-04-07T22:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jbsumner.com\/blog\/?p=73"},"modified":"2011-04-08T11:47:21","modified_gmt":"2011-04-08T10:47:21","slug":"i-shant-tell-you-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jbsumner.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/i-shant-tell-you-again\/","title":{"rendered":"I shan’t tell you again…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Curious announcement from the AHRC<\/a> today.<\/p>\n

Devoted readers will recall that body\u2019s Important Statement<\/a> of 28 March, which rebuts a confused and confusing allegation made recently in an article in the Observer<\/em>. The new statement focuses, rather oddly, on repeating the rebuttal in substantively the same terms as before.<\/p>\n

Any humanities academic with experience of reading student drafts, particularly at PhD level, must have come across the problem of tactfully getting people to follow what\u2019s known (or if it isn\u2019t, it should be) as the Byrne Criterion<\/a>: \u201cSay something once \u2013 why say it again?<\/em>\u201d Words, in other words, are not to be wasted. Why is the Council telling us twice?<\/p>\n

The answer appears to lie in a glide of topic (end of first para into beginning of second) from the reliably unreliable Observer<\/em> piece, to the letter signed in the names of 188 academics \u2013 not all from the humanities \u2013 and published in that newspaper on 3 April (as released<\/a>; and with the actual list of signatories<\/a>, which the Obs<\/em> stuffed up somewhat).<\/p>\n

Is this conflation fair? (Clue to putative reader who needs everything explained twice: I\u2019m about to argue that it isn\u2019t. Pay attention<\/em>!) The letter could hardly be clearer in its opening:<\/p>\n

We were appalled that the Arts and Humanities Research Council intends to promote research on \u201cthe big society\u201d as part of its current funding settlement [and here the Obs<\/em>, as per usual editorial practice, inserted a reference to its story]. That the AHRC has apparently volunteered to do this is all the more craven.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You see that tharr second sentence? That\u2019s a different claim from the erroneous one in the Obs<\/em> of 28 March. Indeed, it contradicts it.<\/p>\n

To the best of my knowledge, in fact, nobody <\/em>has ever intentionally claimed that the AHRC is acting under direct duress. Pleasingly to me, though more by accident than by design, the blog you\u2019re reading now hosts what seems to be the least-worst approximation to an unravelling of how the story came about (see here<\/a>, here<\/a>). The most vocal members of the concerned camp (see shovelfuls of links in my previous<\/a> two<\/a> postings) have also been the most scrupulous in pointing this out, before turning to the real problems. The real problems, what with being real and everything, are distinctly more subtle.<\/p>\n

In sum:<\/p>\n

We\u2019re not getting worked up about this.<\/a><\/p>\n

We\u2019re getting worked up about this.<\/a><\/p>\n

Which might also be an egregious misrepresentation of AHRC policy. But, as it\u2019s an AHRC policy document, that\u2019s also a wee bit suboptimal.<\/p>\n

Capisce? <\/em><\/p>\n

Good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Curious announcement from the AHRC today. Devoted readers will recall that body\u2019s Important Statement of 28 March, which rebuts a confused and confusing allegation made recently in an article in the Observer. The new statement focuses, rather oddly, on repeating … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jbsumner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jbsumner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jbsumner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jbsumner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jbsumner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.jbsumner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75,"href":"http:\/\/www.jbsumner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions\/75"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jbsumner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jbsumner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jbsumner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}