What's Up? Doc?

As a person of conservative views on economics and politics who voted for "the other Jo" last month, Dr. Jill Biden's honorific is not the one in her family that bothers me. The "Mr. President" title soon to be assumed by her husband will, I believe, produce many more problems than will her legitimately-acquired academic title.

Joseph Epstein, in an editorial for the Wall Street Journal, disagrees with me at least so far as being unbothered by Dr. Biden's title, and since our modern media is fundamentally unserious this has become a thing and is well on its way to becoming a kerfluffle.

Mr. Epstein's inartfully-made point is that we use the title "Dr." a lot more often than we should. Honorary degrees as well as actual degrees granted after not particularly rigorous work provide people the opportunity to tack those two letters onto the front of their name and lend an air of authority not otherwise justified to their words and opinions. This is why we sometimes see Very Important Writings on some subject or another by a person identified as "Dr." given great weight by people even though they hold a doctorate in an entirely different field.

But because Mr. Epstein used Dr. Biden's title as the hook for his column, cue the hue and cry over his clear and rampant misogyny and sexism. I've no idea whether Mr. Epstein is a misogynist, sexist or rampant. I attended the university where he used to lecture but do not remember ever having taken a class he taught. Perhaps he intended to insult Dr. Biden. Perhaps he only intended to criticize academic title inflation and devaluation. If so, he should have been smarter about his tone because he offered plenty of red meat on which the silly-saurus beast of modern media culture might feast by addressing Dr. Biden in a manner more ribald than respectful.

Although I take sexism seriously (I'm against it) I do not take the dust-up seriously because the people huffing about don't take it seriously. No charges of sexism were leveled at Mother Jones writer Tim Murphy when he said that Michelle Bachmann was falsely calling herself a "Dr." based on her juris doctor degree. Folks who hold a JD rarely use that term and not every state bar association permits it but it is considered by and large legitimate if not advisable. The confusion of doctors with lawyers has happened before.

I'm not much at odds with disliking the over-use of the title "Dr." In the academic settings of the classroom or symposium it fits well. Outside them, I am happy to use the title if someone holding a Ph. D. or other form of doctoral degree requests it. I am also happy to think such a request pretentious. There are a lot of modern academic programs that have given their end-stage degrees "doctoral" statuses they do not really deserve. I can say this because I hold a degree that's been similarly inflated; my Masters in Divinity would have been a bachelor's degree until the early 1970s when a couple of bells and whistles were tacked on in order to raise it to the master status. The work load is today considered masters-level, but I don't know how many modern degrees can compare favorably with the work load of their counterparts from 50 years ago.

If this is all a little TL;DR for you, then I guess I could condense it into this: Mr. Epstein goofed by making his point in a less-than respectful manner but there's still an idea buried underneath the goofiness that could do with some consideration even if it's not all that important of a matter.

Besides, there's only one Doctor. The definite article, you might say.