When recruiting people for administration, administrators very reasonably look for past experience on the administration track. To him that has shall be given, to him that has not, even what little he has shall be taken away. However success at the lowest levels of the administration track is at best a poor indicator of intelligence, and in government, and in large schlerotic organizations choked on red tape, is a strong negative indicator of intelligence. Dumb people thrive in an environment where there are lots of committees, and lots of time is spent attending meetings.
This is a big problem with businesses that are immune from market pressures, businesses that like General Motors are too big to fail, with universities, and of course, with the biggest business of them all: Government. Professors of resentment studies are stupid. Government employees in management positions in the governing apparatus are really stupid, and are even more fireproof than professors of resentment studies.
Three cases that should be studied: The Challenger disaster, Washington Mutual, and Countrywide, where demonstrably stupid people were given power, catastrophically fouled up, and got into trouble for so doing. These are not the most stupid people of course, they are just the most stupid people doing stuff where stupidity can get you into trouble. In most areas of government, stupidity, such as letting the 9/11 hijackers do obviously suspicious stuff, will get you promoted. And no one can foul up resentment studies, even when resentment coursework leads to race hate gang rapes on campus. Recall that the Major Hasan case was supposedly not a tragedy because Hasan murdered a bunch of people. It was supposedly a tragedy because it might cause people to doubt that affirmative actioning Muslims into militarily sensitive positions of power was a good idea. (more…)
