Campus Log

Stephen Hawkins wants to quit Britain if the country continues to be apathetic towards higher research or research in general. The question is, where will he then go? For an average English person (though SH is in no way an “average” person), crossing the channel is a dream – it’s only us, Indian, who think that the English actually must be hating the English speakers across the so-called ‘pond’ for whatever (their uncouthness, mainly) – Mr Blair was thus not an exception but in fact, the rule. Gone are those days (of Churchill) when the Americans were considered to be a bunch of upstarts. They in fact were, but so what Mr English? Also gone are the days when the vulgarity of the average nouveau-rich America was genuinely hated in Britain. Now it is the Brits who are only too willing to follow the Americans in e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.

So it’s really a dream for the average English person to cross the channel and settle somewhere in America with a job. After my PhD from the UK in late 90s, I was interviewed for a job in the New York University over the telephone. One of the questions which I still remember being asked was, how would I deal with students who express doubts about the subject. I also remember telling them that I’d in fact tell the students what the reality was, in terms of jobs, career etc., but will also tell them about the pleasures of doing Linguistics along with the pains. There was silence, I remember. Of course, I didn’t get the job – though needn’t be for this particular answer – but certainly, I feel, it had a role to play. It was therefore surprising for me to come to know that, years later, in fact, this year, one of the interviewers still remembers me and the interview. But of course, she is a Hungarian and probably had lent a sympathetic ear to me. In general, it was believed at that time that the average American College is suspicious of the British education system; for example, one of the brightest guys in Linguistics in the job market around that time – who also had a paper in the famed Linguistic Inquiry and NLLT – failed to get selected for a position a the Harvard (he was selected as a young lecturer at UCL the same year when I was about to complete my PhD).

Anyhow, the point I am trying to make is the, sort of, role-reversal that is so clearly visible in the conduct of each country. In fact, I’d think that the Americans have been rather polite not to blatantly ignore opinions expressed by British statesmen which, in truth, they don’t much care about. They would take statements by the Chinese statesmen much more seriously as lot is at stake in Sino-American relation. The Brits even know how spineless their leaders have been in the recent past but they don’t seem to mind much. With such a background, it’s not at all surprising that America would seem like a dreamland for the average Briton.

Stephen Hawkins, though not an average Briton, still, probably has the USA in his minds. And why not? For higher research, it is a dreamland for the many, the research scene in the USA is of a very high standard. No doubts about it. In fact, it is only expected. Pure research requires money and America has plenty of it. Otherwise, who is going to be interested, for example, in the clause-internal complementizers in Bangla — just to take a random example from Syntax (Linguistics)? Well, the Germans were. I did exactly that research sitting on the 9^th floor of a modern building in the former East Germany. And you could do it equally well in the Netherlands as well, I am sure. Not so in the Latinic cultures like the French and the Italians where the questions similar to that of Britain (and India) will be raised with regards to the viability and adaptability (for the greater good) of the research being done. And rightly so. So, what is it then? It doesn’t seem to be money that facilitates research. It must be the way of thinking in the culture, in the society at large, they values ascribed to higher research. And this is I where, I think, higher research in the USA and either in the Germany/ NL differs. In the latter, research, first of all, has a very long tradition – it has been almost the way of life in the academics. Secondly, research has not been directed towards applicability but rather as a form of furtherment of knowledge in its highest form. If it then also fulfils applicability, well and good, but the goal of research should never be the applicability of the idea in the society at large, the most crucial research of the past centuries would then reduce to nothing. So, it’s the attitude and the way of thinking that ails the society (as in the UK and India) from shirking away from state-sponsored higher research. I wouldn’t be surprised if Stephen Hawkins does in fact cross the pond soon.