This post doesn’t have much to do with policy, though it is about one of my favorite essays on higher education and status. Jay Nordlinger wrestles with this question: should you call a person with a Ph.D. a doctor, or is that an affectation?

I’m thinking of this on the occasion of fellow policy guru David Hogberg earning his Ph.D. this week. (Look over to “Cornfield Commentary” in the left side of this page.)

Here are some of my favorite lines from the Nordlinger essay.

  • “First, the Times seldom refers to any Ph.D. as “Dr.” The head of Mt. Sinai Hospital, yes; the Nobel Prize winner in physics, perhaps. But an English prof or a sociologist or a drama teacher or something? Unusual.”
  • “Arthur Schlesinger Jr. — by the way, again — has fought all his life against being called “Dr.” He never earned a Ph.D., having been made a Harvard professor without one. Come to think of it, this may speak well for a Ph.D.)”
  • “As for the Wall Street Journal, the stylebook says that a Ph.D. is called “Dr.” “if appropriate in context and if the individual desires it.” The editorial page, however — always independent and (gloriously) contrarian — won’t give you “Dr.” unless you wear a white coat and stethoscope.”
  • “The queer practice of “Dr. Castro” lives on among certain leftists …. Of course, absolute rulers are always lavishing titles on themselves (including “General,” although, as many have noted, it’s strange that Col. Qaddafi never moved himself up).”
  • “In 1986, the Times achieved something of a stylistic breakthrough, assenting to “Ms.” This allowed Gloria Steinem to utter what must be the best line of her career: “Now I don’t have to be ‘Miss Steinem from Ms. magazine.’”
  • “Condoleezza Rice, the current national security adviser, is “Ms. Rice” — her choice. Yet White House spokesmen routinely refer to her as “Dr. Rice.”
  • Many years ago, another NR senior editor, Rick Brookhiser, surveying all the mail sent to Bill Buckley, adjudged that the most interesting letters were those from prison. And the least interesting? The ones from people who signed themselves “Ph.D.”

Two personal comments. First, I’ve been close enough to the work required for a Ph.D. that if someone who earned it wants to be called “doctor,” I’ve got no problem with that. (I would, though, agree with Buckley’s comment about preferring the rule of a random selection of citizens pulled from the phone book over that of the Harvarad faculty.) Second, I spent a week in Vienna some time ago. The Ph.D. came, of course, from the Germanic world. Even so, I was surprised at how many times I encountered Herr Doktor. A few weeks ago, at a meeting in a small town in Michigan, I met the director of the Hayek society in Vienna. Of course–she was a Ph.D.