How much weight we should give credentials is always an open topic for discussion; Does having a degree, or even an advanced degree in a subject, make you somehow more qualified to discuss the subject than a well read layman? How about a subject that maybe just abuts your own area of specialty?
Georgetown Professor of Islamic Civilization Johnathan AC Brown clearly believes that his opinion has more weight because of his credentials, it seems.
Israel has been engaged in a genocidal project for decades. I’m a full professor.
— Jonathan AC Brown (@JonathanACBrown) November 9, 2023
Now granted a professorship in Islamic Civilization does give him some cachet in the area of Middle Eastern history, but the cock-sure attitude that he brought to this response as though it was the end-all-be-all of statements on the subject based on his status a 'Full Professor' made a good target for derision.
Oh man a FULL professor?
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) November 10, 2023
youre a full clown
— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.today (@JordanSchachtel) November 9, 2023
Sure, Pepsi is fine. I’m a full professor.
— Jay Collinwood (@collinwood_j) November 10, 2023
Well who's going to argue with that, coming from a full professor and all?
You are embarrassing to our profession. I am a "full" professor too. Are there half professors? A quarter?
— Curtis Walker (@CWalker39786) November 10, 2023
I just went back for seconds at the Shoney's breakfast bar. I'm a full professor.
— Cardinal Curmudgeon (@Gimblin) November 10, 2023
You're a Islamacist profesor.
— Pesach Lattin (@pesach_lattin) November 10, 2023
This is actually hard to argue with. Brown's full title is 'the Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.' We'll forgive you if you don't recognize the name 'Alwaleed bin Talal', but perhaps you'd recognize who he is based on his full name (which Georgetown seems to have shortened for some reason): Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud, grandson of Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud, founder of the state of Saudi Arabia. So we think you'd agree that to say that Prof. Brown doesn't have the appearance of something of a vested interest the side of the Muslim world on this issue wouldn't be entirely out of line.
Lord, grant me the confidence of a "full professor" of an *entirely different subject* opining on Israeli policy. https://t.co/HS6fwKTPPc
— Mike Coté (@ratlpolicy) November 10, 2023
The Rise of Skywalker was the best Star Wars. I’m a full professor. https://t.co/Gxu0HVWWjc
— BloomStreetBlues (@grenwuld) November 10, 2023
Never go full professor. https://t.co/xu8qOOQPIw
— Hooch (@CompanyHooch) November 10, 2023
Of course the person who Brown had been responding to, Bloomburg View columnist Eli Lake, got the last word in here.
Your students should demand a refund. https://t.co/EgRpfyGOfa
— Eli Lake (@EliLake) November 9, 2023
Ouch.
No one would say that having achieved an educational capstone like a PhD isn't something that you should be proud of, and certainly in your specific field of study your opinion on a topic may carry more weight than most, simply because you'd be expected to be well read in the area. But Prof. Brown here exemplifies the large difference between being smart and being wise... because part of being wise is learning to have a modicum of humility and to understand your own limitations.
Neither of which are things we normally expect to see out of those in the hallowed halls of the academy these days, of course.
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