“PhDs are not real doctors” day 2 – this is reactionary politics at its worst and the Right is burning its credibility like a forest in California
We have entered day two of “PhDs aren’t really doctors.”
Objectively I don’t understand why this is a hill the Right feels it needs to die on, but it does.
This is what reactionary politics has wrought. Some jackass said something stupid about Jill Biden in the Wall Street Journal.
The Democrats rushed to defend the incoming First Lady, therefore the Right must attack because that is the nature of reactionary pop-culture politics.
Tucker went on a rant on his show last night about how Jill Biden is barely more of a doctor than Dr. Pepper.
Ben Shapiro, who I used to have some respect for, decided to die on this hill as well.
If you’re at a dinner and somebody introduces himself as “Dr. Smith,” you’d be rather upset to learn that he had a doctorate in musicology if you were to suffer a stroke at the table.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) December 14, 2020
This is the dumbest of takes. “Without context, let’s just assume anyone who calls themselves doctor can respond to a medical emergency” is the lowest form of lowest common denominator, anti-intellectual, populism.
Furthermore, to compare a doctorate in education (or law, for that matter) to a medical degree is the height of absurdity. Having watched my wife do the latter, it simply isn’t comparable.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) December 14, 2020
I generally hate this term, but here it feels like he’s just simping for his wife.
I just love that in a time when medical doctors should be revered as never before — we’re in the midst of a global pandemic — we’re now standing strong for the proposition that people who get doctorates in education should also be called “doctor.”
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) December 14, 2020
This one really frustrated me because I have written post after post on doctors and nurses violating HIPAA and every canon of ethics dancing and engaging in histrionics on TikTok from inside hospitals.
Matt Walsh, who is the worst part of the Daily Wire had this stupid take:
If I was a master carpenter and insisted that you address me as “Master Walsh,” you would think I was insane. I feel exactly the same way about people without medical degrees insisting that I call them doctor. In fact it’s even crazier. At least the carpenter has a useful skill.
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) December 14, 2020
I’m glad every science, math, and engineering PhD I ever studied under has no useful skills.
The closest thing I’ve seen to conceding the point that earning a doctorate entitles one to be called doctor is “well… inside the halls of academic, under limited circumstances…”
Good, then MDs get to be called doctor in hospitals and clinics only.
Then I’ve seen the point swing wildly far in the other direction where dentists and podiatrists shouldn’t be called doctor either.
And if you don’t think that podiatry is life-saving medicine, you don’t know someone over the age of 40 with Type I diabetes.
This is an unserious point that these people on the Right are making just to be fucking petty.
If you want to argue that the Left overindulges in credentialism and that they love to call upon “experts” who are not experts and whose “conventional wisdom” on topics is flat fucking wrong, that’s a debate worth having.
I’ve written several posts on precisely that when it comes to Trump’s handling of the Middle East.
But this “anyone who isn’t an MD isn’t a doctor” just to dig at Jill Biden is as shallow a thought as anything AOC had Tweeted as clapback.
All the Right is doing is burning any credibility that they have as being anything other than anti-intellectual, shit-kicking, knuckle-draggers.
There are bigger battles worth fighting but the Right has to be fucking stupid.
For the love of all things good and holy, let us not develop some form of BDS (Biden Derangement Syndrome), which it really seems like we are doing with attacking Jill Biden’s Ed.D being the first symptom.
