Chicago’s humanities and social science programs obviously do neither for their students. Why would anyone pay a dime, let alone $50,000 a year, for such an “education” is beyond me.

Elsewhere, he observed that “Whatever a theologian regards as true must be false.”

I can’t quite say that these are my views on Dr. Bruce Lincoln. After all, as teenage Americans are fond of saying, “Hell, I don’t even KNOW the guy”. Plus, even though attached to the Divinity School, Dr. Lincoln is probably not really so much a “religious” man or even a theologian as he is a general interest scholar.

But if they don’t equal my views, Nietzsche’s words at least inform them to the extent that I have any opinions at all on the professor.

Yet I must say that after a quick reading and study of his academic background and accomplishments, I’m left with an abulic sense of distaste and mistrust.

It’s like when I come upon the works of the sociologist Richard Sennett; the words are all within the reach of a good high school student, the sentences are all grammatically correct and the syntax conforms to accepted norms of written discourse.

And yet, in the end, I can’t really summarize what was said or what conclusions were drawn – often, I can’t even put my finger on what exactly was being discussed.

Many things are said to be greater than the sum of their parts (like the Eiffel Tower or the US Constitution), but with the works of Dr. Lincoln (and Dr. Sennett), I get the uncomfortable impression that although the parts may have some merit, the sum really amounts to a big fat zero.

Take Dr. Lincoln’s resume, for example, which can be found at
http://divinity.uchicago.edu/faculty/lincoln_education.shtml

At the very bottom, you will see the final section of his resume entitled “Languages”. Now, the field of languages is something I DO know about.

Anyway, Dr. Lincoln admits to, or rather, boasts familiarity with 24 (twenty-four….2,4 !!!) languages (25 actually, if you include English), ranging from the unremarkable Welsh to the unrecognizable Tokpisin.

(Tokpisin, although now considered a full-fledged language, was until recently a pidgin or creole based largely on English. Most of its vocabulary is English based. Example: English: “Finish your story now” – Tokpisin: “Yu pinisim stori nau”).

(Were you an academic in the linguistic field, you would guffaw that one of your collegues would list “Tokpisin” on his resume as one of his linguistic competencies).

True, his list makes it clear that he only has a “rudimentary knowledge” of 10 of these languages. That still leaves 14 that presumably he can use with some academic competency.

So what’s my point? My first point is this. I myself work in academia in the general field of languages and linguistics. In my field, any academic who’d have the gall of listing ON HIS RESUME languages he knows at the “rudimentary” level, would be considered a laughing stock – worse, a charlatan.

As a Foreign Service brat, I happened to be raised in the Andes region of Peru and Bolivia and all my nannies spoke Quechua or Aymara so I retain “some” “competency” in those two native-American languages.

During my travels and education, I picked up some “rudimentary” Chinese, Urdu, and I can curse in Korean. And I can recite the Greek alphabet a mile a minute.

But I would never dream of listing these languages on my resume.

My second and final point is this: Dr. Lincoln’s aversion to the Milton Friedman center at the U of Chicago is pure blather.

I’ve known dozens of “Lincolns” during my academic career and to a man, their rantings are really cover-ups for either incompetence, charlatanry or quackery. Or, surprisingly, boredom.

I don’t know offhand if Nietzsche had anything to say about academics, but had he lived now, he would be having a field day.