The Right's Academic Universe

What is the purpose of the universe, anyway? I hadn't started reading the Sunday papers with this question in mind, but after slogging through mass rapes in Congo, bombings in Baghdad, and K-Fed'€™s worthiness as a father, I could no longer dodge it. Then, in the middle of the New York Times Week in Review section -€“ some of the priciest real estate in the print industry -€“ I came across a two full-page ad under the headline "Does the Universe Have a Purpose?"€

The text of the ad was the responses of 12 scientist and philosopher-types, ranging from the purposeless (biochemist Christian de Duve), to the purpose-driven (Jane Goodall) and the just plain whiney, as in astronomer Owen Gingerich'€™s "œFrankly, I am psychologically incapable of believing that the universe is meaningless." (Suck it up, Owen, it's the only universe you've got.) I was miffed that I had not been asked to contribute my theory that this is a trial universe which has turned to be defective. But I was even more distracted by the sponsor of the ad - the John Templeton Foundation.

Just a couple of weeks ago the Templeton Foundation had showed up in the news in a somewhat less exalted context. John M. Templeton Jr., the president of the foundation, turns out to be one of the funders of Freedom's Watch, the new rightwing group which has been running pro-war commercials conflating Al Qaeda with whomever it is we're fighting in Iraq. You may have seen the one in which a veteran complains that stopping the war now would render the loss of his legs meaningless, much like the universe itself.

This is not John Templeton Jr.'€™s first or only venture into rightwing politics. In 2004, he started the group Let Freedom Ring, aimed getting out the evangelical Christian vote for George Bush. He recently joined the Romney campaign'€™s National Faith and Values Steering Committee, a group which includes an anti-abortion activist and a fellow from the Heritage Foundation.

So the real question may be, "What is the purpose of the Templeton Foundation?"€ Founded by John Templeton Jr.'s father, Sir John Templeton, the investor, the foundation set out to bridge science and spirituality while -€“ on a not obviously related track -€“ promoting free enterprise. In just the last ten years, it has become a serious force in the academic world, generally funding anything too soft and fuzzy for the governmental grant-makers -€“ studies, for example, on optimism, happiness, character, forgiveness and faith. This year, its $1.5 million annual Templeton prize went to Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, who states, on the foundation's website, that "We urgently need new insight into the human propensity for violence."

Maybe he should have started by querying John Templeton Jr. on that one. Or maybe there was a mistake, and the foundation had intended the award, not for the Canadian philosopher, but for the Liberian warlord Charles Taylor.

And what are we to make of Templeton's stickiest project of all - an $8 million grant to create the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, that last being defined by Templeton Sr. as "total constant love for every person with no exception"? Are there some major oedipal issues between the Templetons Jr. and Sr., or is the universe just a little too tricky for me?

But the Templeton's most famous baby is the young field of Positive Psychology, launched by University of Pennsylvania's Martin Seligman after his five-year-old daughter accused him of being a "grouch" and he resolved improve his outlook. Pos Psych carves out everything ordinary Psych, with its bent toward pathology, ignores, which is in itself an admirable ambition. In practice though, it tilts dangerously, for something that considers itself a science, toward the prescriptive. If you'€™re not happy -€“ or optimistic or upbeat - you better get to work on that now, and we have the "coaches" to help you.

Put all this happiness and optimism together with John Templeton Jr.'€™s political agenda and you could come up with some pretty paranoid scenarios: For example, that the Templeton Foundation is a plot to numb Americans into smiley-faced acquiescence to the status quo. And could it be a coincidence that Templeton helped finance the re-election of the most optimistic president we've had since Ronald Reagan?

So I attended the 6th Annual International Positive Psychology Summit conference in Washington DC last week to see what was up, and am happy - make that also optimistic, hopeful and almost positive - to report that this Templeton-spawned group could probably not plot its way out of a paper bag. The presentations I sampled occupied the full range from mediocrity to silliness. At the mediocre, or sub-mediocre, level was a paper on the effects of a Christian summer camp on teenagers, suggesting that it enhanced such virtues as self-control and patience. For silliness, you couldn't beat a couple of sessions featuring "€œcoaches" and management consultants using their power points to illustrate how to make corporations more "positive" and "€œstrength-based."

Strangest of all, Pos Psych'€™s founder Martin Seligman appeared, to the dismay of many in the audience, to renounce the whole enterprise, stating from the podium that "I'€™ve decided my theory of positive psychology is completely wrong, so I've put forth a different notion." All I can report is that the new notion expands Pos Psych's jurisdiction to include anthropology, political science and economics, and seems to be based empirically on Seligman's love of bridge - the card game, that is, not the link between the spiritual and the scientific. Beyond that, my lengthy and detailed notes offer no enlightenment.

When that session came to an end, I cornered the young psychologist who had been appointed by the Templeton Foundation to give out this year's Martin E.P. Seligman Award for Outstanding Dissertation Research in Positive Psychology. "What about John Templeton’s funding of pro-war commercials?" I asked him. "No comment," he responded at great length, mentioning along the way that he'€™s been asked that question before.

And well he might be. The Templeton Foundation's academic beneficiaries include not only opportunists and self-help gurus, but some serious scientists, and they need to dissociate themselves from the reckless belligerence of John M. Templeton Jr. I'm not saying they should return their grants, just chip in a little of that Templeton largesse for a full-page ad in the New York Times with an intriguing headline like "What Is the Purpose of Science? Clue: It'€™s Not War." Charles Taylor, with his $1.5 million award, should organize the effort.

Comments

[Dave]

Barbara, your comments are the greatest! And I say that without having any connection to the Positive Psychology movement which, considering it's pro-war sentiments seems more like a Cognitive Dissonance Society.

[Lulu Maude]

Dang! We were in DC and missed this banner event! Why was I not told? And how did you get in, my dear??

It's too bad that your supposition is probably correct. I'd love to see some scientific support for joy. Instead I just see catalogs full of crap (think Sky Mall) as its substitutes.

[Marc]

Almost everything with the Templeton Foundation's imprimateur seems to have about it the whiff of woo.

BTW, I think you meant Charles in that last para? James Taylor's a musician, I think.

[Red Paw]

Jung thought that if you rejected or refused to be responsible for your dark thoughts and impulses, you stuffed them in your unconscious and then would project them on others. Seems we have a huge movement in our country to make that worse and I can't think of any other reason we're at war (well, ok, money). I read one analyst who said that if someone had good fortune that week, they were automatically assigned cleaning the cat box and taking out the trash, to keep them balanced and keep their ego from thinking that they "deserved" their good fortune. The "think good thoughts only" coalition frankly terrifies me.

[Justin K.]

wow

[Scott]

Barbara,
Your normally credible thought process is absent from this piece and contributes to a distortion of facts and inconclusive links. By highlighting the negative aspects of Templeton and mentioning Positive Psychology in the same article, you paint them both with the same brush. It is a semantic trick any novice can see through. However, I applaud your identifying the negative aspects of some of the Templeton funding. As for Positive Psychology, alas, you obviously have a bone to pick. The reports from the conference identify the challenges to peoples' survival and growth on a global scale and create a dialogue on how to help people have a better quality of life. That is what Positive Psychology is up to and we need more of it.

[Proletarian Librarian]

How can an organization in support of an "Institute for Research on Unlimited Love" also fund pro-war commercials? Only in the incredibly disconnected universe of right-wing politics.

[Anarcissie]

Science _is_ war, isn't it? Science is knowledge, knowledge is power, power is for war, the state, and all that, no? Anyway, someone said something like that -- Donna Haraway maybe. And Petter Holm and Kåre Nolde Nielsen say so at http://www.cyborg-fish.net/index_files/Science%20Politics%20project%20description.%20Final..doc
(warning -- it's a Micro$oft document). I think this was a cult-crit staple of the bygone Postmodern age. Cutely it is from some Norwegian fish institute -- must be the set-up for some kind of ethnic joke, but I'm not sure of the punch line.

Kudos for being able to sit through a whole conference of the Templeton Foundation and positron psych, though. That's some real trench fighting.

[Tom]

Having inordinate amounts of money sometimes DOES something to people's ability to reason and be kind, generous, and sane. Yes, there have been wonderful wealthy philanthropists, but most have
a sordid past. The modern rich are meanspirited "god-wannabes." Think of all the good that could be done with the same amount of money we're waisting in Iraq in one week. If we were all good, kind, and generous with each other, if we took care of each other and our environment there would be a lot less problems.It's sad isn't it, what humanity has descended to?

[roger]

i have nothing whatever to say about the "universe" that barbara imagines/contrives.

that tom depicts all wealthy folks as all meanspirited god wannabes is at once violence and injury to the english language and a preposterous generalization. he appears to desire to sell the notion that the rich would prefer to fund the war in iraq than to be good and kind and generous to the vast unwashed masses. the thing fails logic. one pays taxes and the govt uses these funds in the way that fools and thieves use someone elses money. the results are evident. absent some evidence of a private fund which the wealthy contibute to which funnels wealth into the war effort i cant see how his allegation holds water.

be relieved and grateful that you have the relatively benevolent ruling class that you have. for contrast research the carnage and genocide in any number of african countries beginning in rwanda.

[Larry In Lethbridge]

Roger: use your shift key to provide capital letters used at the beginning of sentences and used in names for instance. I find this preposterous.

Otherwise your writing is good, but this really is annoying me.

[Acacia Parks-Sheiner]

Were we at the same positive psychology conference last week? The one where almost nothing was funded by Templeton, and where the name "Templeton" was only mentioned once, during the introduction of the dissertation award (which was given to someone whose research had nothing to do with any of Templeton's agendas)? Just because you seem to have the preconceived notion that all happiness is fake and stupid doesn't mean that all efforts to study it are useless (nor are the vast majority of people who choose to study it stupid, though you seem to think so). I will concede that there were a couple of wacko talks, but every conference I have ever been to has had a couple of wacko talks -- the bigger the field gets, the higher the chances that a few nutjobs will make it in. The conference had its corny moments, but I don't think that your characterization is at all accurate. And the worst part is, most of the people who have commented on this post seem to have taken your word for it! Way to spread misinformation by beating up on straw men.

[Toon]

The rich do not fund the war. They funded the case to go to war through think tanks. They now more than make that money back through their investments. We all now fund the war, or more properly, we pay the interest on the debt, our children are left to pay off the principal.

[Toon]

The rich do not fund the war. They funded the case to go to war through think tanks. They now more than make that money back through their investments. We all now fund the war, or more properly, we pay the interest on the debt, our children are left to pay off the principal.

[Porlock Junior]

"...my theory that this is a trial universe which has turned to be defective."

Results from Fourmilab (on no account to be confused with Fermilab) point in the same direction. http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/eht.html

[Pamela Thompson, John Templeton Foundation]

There are several seriously false assumptions made in this article.

The Foundation is, and always has been, run in accordance with the wishes of Sir John Templeton Sr, who laid very strict criteria for its mission and approach. Most importantly, the Foundation is a non-political entity with no religious bias. Our mission is to support projects which seek to provide answers to life’s biggest questions through rigorous scientific research and related scholarship.

To be absolutely clear, the John Templeton Foundation is totally independent of any other organization and therefore neither endorses, nor contributes to political candidates, campaigns, or movements of any kind.

Pamela Thompson
John Templeton Foundation

[roger]

again i am not willing to address the quality of barbara's recriminations. it is worthy to note however that if the thing looks religious or conservative or traditional then the commonly instantaneous reaction from the left is to reject and ridicule the notion. it is equally shallow for conservatives to reject inclinations which speak to questions of actual, authentic social justice and measured protection by law. it is unfortunate that media and special interest cannot look at the societal needs with clear and nonpartisan eyes.

[roger]

"a group which includes an anti-abortion activist and a fellow from the Heritage Foundation."

oh no, a guy who opposes the method of collapsing the skull of a full term fetus by cranial evacuation for the purpose of committing a late term gender preference abortion and a guy who believes that income which he earns should not be confiscated by the govt to fund bridges to nowhere. these guys probably pray with their families over their quiche in the morning. how will the republic ever survive.

[Anarcissie]

roger: '... it is worthy to note however that if the thing looks religious or conservative or traditional then the commonly instantaneous reaction from the left is to reject and ridicule the notion. ...'

Well, naturally. One of the fundamental ideas of the archaic Left, absorbed and promoted by liberalism, is that of egalitarianism; another is personal liberty. Tradition, organized religion and conservatism are usually edited by the present and past ruling class to justify inequality and authority, for obvious reasons. Occasionally there are exceptions -- religion and the Civil Rights movement for example -- but they are the kind that prove the rule.

[Peter K.]

"I was miffed that I had not been asked to contribute my theory that this is a trial universe which has turned to be defective."

Porlock Junior:

“Quantum nonlocality is a bug.”

Or, Earth is a planetary insane asylum-colony, kind of like how Australia started off as a prison colony.

[Ron Davison]

Barbara,
You're against positive psychology and war? What are you then left advocating in your personal philosophy of life - kvetching over coffee? Seriously, if you're going to dis' guys like Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, you have to offer something other than ennui and angst as an alternative. Or at least read something like Flow or the countless books on Happiness before you show contempt for people who think that such a goal might be worth pursuing. You think that you're superior to the neo-cons who clamor for war, and you are. But if you're contemptuous of happiness you're not that much superior.
Sorry to be so pissy, but it bothers me that these guys are so ignored and then get mentioned in a such an off-hand way.

[Chickensh*tEagle]

roger: "...oh no, a guy who opposes the method of collapsing the skull of a full term fetus by cranial evacuation for the purpose of committing a late term gender preference abortion..."

Right, I can just see all those full-term women lined up around the block at the clinic to get their babies' brains sucked out because they're the wrong gender. They waited until they were full-term just so they could get it done that way.

Admit it: you don't want women to have control of their reproductive function and you're grasping at straws.

[Barbara E]

Against happiness? My latest book is "Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy." Please distinguish between happiness and "positive thinking."

As for Pamela at the Templeton Foundation: I didn't say the Foundation has a rightwing political agenda. I said John Templeton Jr. does. Unfortunately, however, that reflects on the foundation over which he presides.

[roger]

dilation and etraction abortion is commited by delivering the legs and the torso of the fetus in breech presentation and piercing the head at the base of the skull. the puncture is enlarged and a suction tube is inserted into the pucture. the head of the fetus remains in the vaginal canal of the woman. i do not use the word mother in this instance as the delicious irony would not overcome the falseness of the description. the women will not be a mother as the baby will be deceased. the suction is activated and the contents of the cranium are exacuated. the head then collapses and is able to pass through the undialated cervix. now my question would be is the thing any more admissible if the fetus were 8 months or 6 1/2 months developed. would the violence be less a burden to you if the reason for commiting this procedure was not gender preference but that the woman did not want strech marks or wanted to punish the father or simply could not/would not put her precious career on hold. i would suggest to you that my apprehension is not related to trying to control reproductive function but rather the pain the fetus feels and the evil of the procedure committed. i might remind you that the fetus is four inches away from being born vaginally and thus in theory having equal human rights comparable to the woman. is this concern also to be dismissed and ridiculed as right wing political agenda.

[roger]

i have misspelled the term. it is intact dilation and extraction abortion.