Redefining the PhD

Germany is in an uproar. The great shining light, the One True Hope, the messiah of conservatism, our one and only defense minister, Karl Theodor von und zu Guttenberg (or KT, as he is known to friends and admirers) seems to have plagiarized large parts of his dissertation. And thus, it seems apt to talk about the institution of the PhD itself, and how it has to change in today's marketplace. In this discussion, I want to show that Guttenberg did nothing wrong. Until he fucked up.

In Germany, the PhD becomes somewhat of a prerequisite at a certain level. A career in higher management is certainly possible without one, but at a certain point you are somehow expected to have one. From this point on, a bit of doublethink is necessary. On one level, the PhD has to mean that its holder has more knowledge about his chosen field than a guy who "just" spent four years studying at uni. People assume that the holder worked for years, studiously, exhaustively, at his thesis, becoming an expert on a tiny field or singular topic to the point of nerdiness. He is a critical thinker and "knows how to do science". Also, he adheres to some code of ethics - no copy/paste, check your sources, that kind of thing. And that he could do it again, because, by now, he has the necessary mindset and methods at his disposal. In GURPS-terms, this definition of the PhD could be represented by a one-point advantage, a perk giving you a tiny reaction bonus with some parts of the general population. You got if for free when you put those eight skill points into Mayan history.

The redefined, career-optimizing PhD has a completely different prerequisites and also says different things about its holder, which are, by the way, much closer to the demands of a position in management.

- You know how to delegate the stuff you can't do yourself: No way you are spending hours and hours over some political or economic topic (let's face it: a career-optimizing PhD probably won't come from other fields). You probably could whip up a dissertation yourself, but then your "real" projects would suffer - or maybe you just can't do it, you couldn't do it at uni when it was just forty pages and now you are completely out of your depth. So you do what any competent manager does and farm the sucker out to some schmuck who knows how to handle this kind of thing.

- You know the right people: Not only do you have the ear of a sympathetic professor who will read the bundle of paper, basically, any bundle of paper, you present to him and declare it a scientific breakthrough, but you also know how to contact a trustworthy and competent ghostwriter. This is where Gutti probably dropped the ball: He knew enough willing professors in Bayreuth alright, but when it came down to slumming, he was not able to find a ghostwriter worth his money. Or maybe he already fumbled in step one: delegating responsibility for things you can't do yourself. If you get your PhD this way, you show that you have one serious rolodex on your desk, and you are who you know, right?

- You have some savoir-faire: You won't just buy a title from some fly-by-night uni in Hungary or Nigeria. You know people in the right unis in Germany or USA, unis with some name-recognition oomph.

- You have some money: A good ghostwriter doesn't come cheap, so the the true poor are excluded. Of course, getting your PhD the hard way also burns resources, but this is more in the vein of money not made, instead of a lump sum spent. A bought PhD shows that you have some wealth to burn for self-fashioning and representation, and that you are eager to spend money on the image you present to the world.

- You are able to live with the doublethink: You are able to balance the old image of the PhD as outlined above with your new shiny PhD, at the same time, without experiencing the conflicts between those two concepts. You are able to work and talk with others being in the same doublethink-space without experiencing unease or moral qualms. Self-explanatory.

- Now you can be blackmailed! If you want to become a member of an exclusive club, this club may also want to have some power over you. So, if at some point in the future, you regret the moral implications of your work, the people who know you best will be able to discredit you as a fraud with the push of a button. Your loyalty is assured, the right people can count on you. This makes you a member of the team, baby!

So there you have it. I think that most attacks on Guttenberg miss the point: He didn't go for an old-fashioned PhD, but for a degree that would further bolster his career and his shot at he chancellorship. Thus, he should not be castigated for plagiarizing or hiring a ghostwriter per se, but rather for not delegating responsibilities or hiring the wrong people for the job. Those are flaws disqualifying him as an apex manager, so I guess that the outcome should be the same.