Joseph Epstein, a writer, essayist, and “visiting lecturer in literature and writing at Northwestern University,” set off the kerfuffle of the day with an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal that offered a bit of unsolicited advice to the First Lady-Elect. Epstein, somewhat snarkily, suggested that Jill Biden not use the honorific “Dr.,” since her doctorate is in education, not medicine.

As quickly as you can say SJW, the long knives were drawn. Epstein caught wide derision from the mainstream press and the social-media hounds, as well as a rebuttal from Jill Biden herself.

That push-back didn’t address the crux of Epstein’s argument, which even a modest perusal of history suggests is not without merit. The Associated Press Style Guide only recommends that medical doctors be tagged “Dr.,” and leaves the use of “Dr.” for others up to individual publications. An analysis of the New York Times reporting back in 2015 raised the question, and, as the WSJ’s editorial page editor Paul A. Gigot noted in his follow-up, Joe Biden himself suggested that Jill pursued the Ed. D. specifically for the honorific, a point that legitimizes questions regarding its use.

Since it’s 2020, however, when identity politics is everything, Epstein’s piece was challenged as “sexist” rather than on the merits of the argument. The tone of the article is snarky, and the use of the word “kiddo” carries a whiff of condescension (on the other hand, Epstein is 84, older even than Joe Biden himself, and Biden’s on record as having referred to his wife as “kiddo”). But this isn’t an argument cut from whole cloth, as the suggestion that it’s born of sexism that a man would not have been similarly challenged implies (Bill Cosby’s Ed.D. and his use of “Dr. William H. Cosby, Ed.D.” was the subject of significant debate some decades back).

Accusations of “-ism” are largely what passes for rebuttal nowadays, especially from those whose entire worldview is about identity politics. It’s a long-used tactic to reframe a debate away from a debatable point and to put a person on the defensive. Accuse someone of being a racist or sexist, and he’ll have a gut-level desire to immediately rebut the accusation rather than dismiss it as a cheap and dishonest tactic.

A tactic that, unfortunately, works far too well and far too often. It took a shockingly short (well, perhaps not. This is 2020, after all) amount of time for Northwestern University to scrub Epstein’s profile from its website, despite his having been associated with the university for 28 years. Epstein likely doesn’t care, given his age and curriculum vitae, but this “cancellation” isn’t just about him: it’s about warning others what will happen to them should they speak heresy, or even heterodoxy for that matter, about the Bidens. And, without bidding or even a clarion call, the social media cancelniks have emerged from under their rocks to “affirm” that Epstein’s message, intent, and core worldview are rooted in sexism, based on little more than the opportunity to say so.

As for the “Dr.” honorific itself? My favorite high school teacher taught me calculus. She had a PhD, we called her “Doc.” The head of the math department had an EdD. We kinda sorta had to call him “Dr. [redacted],” but he didn’t get the “Doc” because we had little respect for him, because he had poor command of the subject (in fact, one of my friends went through my junior year yearbook and wrote variants of “I am a fool” under every one of his pictures). My second favorite teacher taught shop, and bore, among others, the sobriquet “Woody.” Rounding out the top five, in no particular order, were physics, chemistry (the good guy, not the other fool), and junior year English. That English teacher, another PhD, got the “Doc” moniker as well – she taught me how to write. Of course, we were high school students, and weren’t about to call our teachers Maxine, Forest, Al, Paul, or Lucy.

In my engineering years, I had the opportunity (and mostly pleasure) to work with many PhDs. Did any of them insist on being called “Dr.?” Nary a one. Moreso, many of them didn’t even use the honorific in written form, either in communications or publications. Some did, sometimes, when publishing, but we’d probably have considered anyone who made a fuss about it a tool.

The gag in all this is not so much about the honorific (and by now you should have a sense of which side of the debate I occupy), but rather its elevation to a wedge issue. By immediately pointing the accusatory finger at Epstein, and by association all those who didn’t immediately denounce him as a sexist, the Left quashes debate over the matter, shields Jill Biden from criticism or questions about her insistence on being called “Dr.,” and makes for useful ‘synthetic outrage.’ It also speaks to the shallowness of many in the political sandbox, where labels and alphabet soup name-suffixes are used as substitutes for demonstrations of genuine knowledge or expertise. “Trust A, he’s got a degree in B, you don’t.” Appeal-to-authority is especially popular among statists and authoritarians, who love to question any contentious statement by challenging the stater’s provenance. It’s known as a genetic fallacy, a variant of “if you’re not an X, you don’t get to talk about X.”

Presumably, Jill Biden is to be looked upon as an authority on education, given her studies. She apparently needs the world to be reminded of that authority every time they see her name. And, the cancelniks have lined up behind her to make sure that no one dare “insult” her by omitting the honorific.

It’s going to be a long four years.

• About the Author

About Peter Venetoklis

I am twice-retired, a former rocket engineer and a former small business owner. At the very least, it makes for interesting party conversation. I'm also a life-long libertarian, I engage in an expanse of entertainments, and I squabble for sport.

Nowadays, I spend a good bit of my time arguing politics and editing this website.

If you'd like to help keep the site ad-free, please support us on Patreon.