AGAINST Zooming/Teams (etc.) Department Colloquia and Conferences

Let me stipulate, for the sake of argument, that for the foreseeable future teaching and a variety of unavoidable meetings, including interviews, and research team meetings will be using various online chat apps (henceforth zooms & zooming).* And I sincerely applaud folk who, amidst a pandemic, want to develop and share practices on how to nurture these technologies in order to create circumstances for shared learning and education. I am an academic because mutual education, even in challenged conditions, is among the noblest activities. 

This post, by contrast, is about the move to zoom department colloquia, workshops, and conferences. And when, henceforth, I talk of 'zooming,' I have these in mind. (It is informed by this lively discussion on my fb page.) A number of people have warmly welcomed zooming either because they correct for serious harms that attach to department colloquia, workshops, and conferences or because they are quite adequate replacements during our challenging times. By contrast I increasingly think zooming department colloquia, workshops, and conferences is not worth the effort.

In light of the gains from shared intellectual enquiry and a sense of community, the proponents of zooming department colloquia, workshops, and conferences offer two (mutually supporting, but analytically distinct) main arguments: one egalitarian and one environmental. For the sake of argument, I sketch both in turn. On the former, first, the main point is that zooming reduces, even eliminates existing status hierarchies in numerous ways (see Nick Cowen): in principle, it makes access more egalitarian along a number of practical and symbolic dimensions -- in zoom we are, for the moment, figures of equal size on the screen side by side. Shy people, bad networkers/shmoozers, the overlooked (the low status, etc.) can all participate and contribute on equal terms. 

In addition, zooming removes other social unpleasantries found at workshops and conferences: harassment, social exclusion, the annoyances of travel, and the huge costs to stand for twenty minutes in front of an empty room on the other side of the world while your potential audience is in the bar. As folk  experiment with zooming, techniques of moderation, norms of interaction, and technical wizardry will allow zooming to be productive of shared intellectual enquiry and learning. (And let's stipulate security problems are resolved.)

Second, despite the environmental costs of computing (often overlooked), zooming reduces our global-ecological footprint (see Kati Farkas's argumentand others in the thread). Rather than travel, en masse, to remote locations we now stay at home and get our intellectual nourishment and exchange of ideas done at home. In fact, now is the time to develop technologies and practices that make home-zooming the academic norm! The plan is to develop an intellectual culture, perhaps a whole society of virtual interactions that starts to anticipate the one sketched (recall) by Asimov in The Naked Sun, where in person contact is replaced by the virtual kind nearly altogether. If the environmental argument is offered in egalitarian spirit then without the hierarchy characteristic of Asimov's Solaria.

Both arguments are prima facie compelling. So much so that one can imagine that if zooming flourishes during the pandemic, it won't go away if higher education survives it. I assume the kids that grow up with zooming and the eager adapters will proudly say good riddance to unzoomed department colloquia, workshops, and conferences now and forever. 

As an aside (and you can skip this paragraph): prior to pandemic, for nearly a decade now, I try to avoid large conferences for reasons closely associated with the egalitarian and environmental arguments; they also tend to be expensive, and I find it difficult to justify the time away from my family on intellectual grounds despite enjoying (a) scouting young new talent and learning new ideas, and (b) hanging with my friends. By contrast, I adore hosting and presenting in department colloquia and small workshops. 

Even so, the egalitarian and environmental arguments do not survive sustained scrutiny. Participating and presenting in department colloquia, workshops, and conferences involve huge opportunity costs. After all, we could read, write, correspond, and (thought) experiment instead. <-- I view these as intrinsically good and highly enjoyable. I have academic friends that dislike reading other people, so I am not suggesting these are highly enjoyable in the same manner to everybody. They (reading, writing, corresponding, and (thought) experimenting) online or physical are also vastly more efficient ways of learning and collaborating than zooming. For shorthand, I call that the 'republic of letters.' So, the baseline is not the status quo ante corona, but the 'republic of letters' sans zooming.

Notice that the environmental argument fairs horribly against the 'republic of letters' sans zooming, because the global-ecological footprint is much less in it than with zooming (which requires a lot more computer power and satellite infrastructure, etc.).

Second, the egalitarian argument, alas, idealizes away some inconvenient (gendered and socio-economic) facts. For, zooming takes place at home. As Dana Mills noted, zooming from home is "hugely discriminates against anyone doing household labour who can far less focus and contribute to such events." In addition (and she clearly is hinting at this), it is discriminatory against those (parents) that have to care and nurture others at home. As Michelle Parlevliet noticed, early evidence suggests the lockdown is affecting academic labor in gendered patterns of exclusion. It has been reported that Elizabeth Hannon, deputy editor of the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, wrote on Twitter that she’d received “negligible” submissions from women within the last month.

Moreover, not all of us have appropriate home environments for work; by this I do not mean that we can't always zoom with a lovely library and a tasteful vermeer behind our chair (that can be solved virtually, after all): homes are noisy, distracting, and ergonomically unhealthy. Many lack a soundproof study at home. (Even though I am solidly bourgeois, I write this on the comfy corner chair in our bedroom next to a WC.)

Finally, zooming will increase the noxious and unhealthy slide in which the divide between work and home gets effaced.  Yes, I am aware this already happens in the digital economy, and I recognize that for some it may be a benefit not to have to leave home. But on the whole it undermines our health (we have no place to retreat from our employers and students) and one of  the pillars of already fragile liberal society which relies on a sufficiently robust private sphere (which has bad features).

Zooming lacks a lot of the features that make department colloquia, workshops, and (for some, not me) conferences so attractive, on balance, as augmentations to the republic of learning (sans zooming) pre-pandemic. This is the informal  and untraceable talk, the socializing, the comradery, and the sheer serendipity that results from being in the space space and time together. And, yes, we can grant the egalitarian that this enjoyment is made possible by (and perhaps, perversely for some, in virtue of) structural inequalities and steep professional hierarchies. And, undoubtedly, department colloquia, workshops, and conferences also produce such hierarchies. 

The previous paragraphs contains two bitter truths: first, I do not believe for a moment that zooming will remain egalitarian.  The very constraints, scarcity of time, the production of prestige, vanity, community building, boundary policing (etc.) that operate on pre-zooming era will also operate in the zooming era. Remember, the baseline is the republic of letters. In zooming land there will be zoom stardom for the zoom charismatic, etc. in gated zoom communities (department colloquia) of the privileged.** 

Second, and more subtly, presenting and participating as an equal in zooming also comes at a cost. Looking at a screen with a bunch of little heads (not just on on a laptop) is unpleasant, and a variety of split screens is often annoying. Yes,it's much easier to multitask in a zoom audience, but that proves my point. And while some may flourish in creating zoom presentations without the side effects (the informal  and untraceable talk, the socializing, the comradery, the intimate deep learning, etc.), zooming is plain hard and often boring work. If we already have the republic of letters  sans zooming with all its imperfections it is probably not worth it to build a parallel zoom infrastructure that recreates the pre-pandemic department colloquia, workshops, and conferences. 

In particular, and this is the bitter truth I am hinting at; I'll put it autobiographically, I am one of the folk who benefited non-trivially from the old system of colloquia, workshops, and conferences. I hosted around fifty focused workshops, and I have given hundreds (yikes!) invited and keynote papers. That was a lot of drudgery. And even where I adhered to and developed best practices, I contributed to unequal and environmentally unfriendly outcomes. But I kept doing it not just because it advanced my career in many unpredictable ways, but because it was enjoyable and in a variety of ways also enhanced the republic of letters. But if the pandemic makes all of that impossible, the alternative is not zooming, but the public good which we ought to cherish anyway, the republic of letters. The pandemic makes it difficult enough to focus on our health, teaching, family, and research, let's say no to more zooming. Okay, I now  need to read two papers to prepare for our the departmental zoom seminar this afternoon.

 

 

 

*This blog proudly maintains its independence from advertising euros. And I am using 'zoom' in the sense that you use 'frigidaire,' 'xerox,' 'kleenex,' etc., that is, through effective, corporate memes.

**This is also the reason why my plea against zooming will fail. The production of prestige is a key corporate skill of the institutions many of us work for.

Comments

[Bill Wringe]

Several of your arguments (for example, the argument about separation of work and domestic spaces, and the argument about discrimination against care-workers) seem to be based on the assumption that zooming has to be done from home.

Outside of pandemic circumstances, why would that be the case? (Before the pandemic I gave a number of Zoom-based talks, and participated in several workshops using Zoom and similar software, and generally preferred to do so from my office at work, for precisely the reasons you mention.)

[Eric Schliesser]

Well, the piece is about zooming in the pandemic. As you have surmised, I am also no fan of zooming from the office (before or after the pandemic). For, I share my office with two others, and so finding a suitable work-space to zoom always involves further stress and effort. So, we would need to develop dedicated zoom spaces for folk like me at work. Second, most of the reasons I have to dislike zoom relative to the republic of letters carry over nicely to such circumstances.

[John Quiggin]

Back when blogs were a thing, the point was regularly made that they weren't egalitarian - star bloggers got more attention and so on. But they were a lot more egalitarian than the mass media model they were challenging. I think the same is true of zooming v conferencing/

On the energy cost of computing, that was a big dispute a decade ago, and I think it was pretty thoroughly debunked. In any case, given that everyone has a computer on all the time, the marginal cost of Zoom must be negligible

[Eric Schliesser]

1. As one of the surviving academic blogging dinos I can say that the republic of letters would be a lot more egalitarian without blogs. And while blogging have changed the production and distribution of prestige and scarcity in the academy, they have, on balance, reinforced the steep hierarchies.

2. Sure, let's say that marginal cost of zooming is negligible. Then the environmental argument pro or con is a wash relative to the republic of letters.

[Kati Farkas]

Was going to make the same point as Bill: you can zoom from your office.

I strongly disagree that the republic of letters is vastly more efficient way of learning.

I am giving three zoom talks in the next two months. Giving talks really helps my paper writing: I put together the first versions of my papers when I have a talk coming up. (I may not get around writing a paper ever in the future if a talk doesn't force me to come up with something!)

I'll have focused and very useful feedback on all three occasions which I otherwise wouldn't have. Maybe a couple of people from those audiences would be willing to read drafts and send comments, but certainly no more than that.

I hope there would be some benefit for the audience too. From my own point of view, I would not read most of the papers that are presented at our departmental colloquia but I'm very glad that I get a glimpse of many different areas this way.

One of those talks would not happen at all f it was a real life talk, because it's for a US audience and I can't travel for a talk to the US. So I'm going to reach an audience and receive feedback that I couldn't have otherwise.

The other two occasions would be more doable since they would involve me flying to various places in Europe. Yes, it would be nice to see friends at those locations. Yes, it would be nice to get to know new people. But I don't think that these advantages would balance the environmental damage.

[Eric Schliesser]

Hi Kati, I am willing to grant (as I did in response to John) that the environmental point may be a wash, and certainly during the pandemic there is no way to travel anyway. (Which is why I find it odd you keep assuming that the baseline is more travel.) But the question is if outside the pandemic, zoom-stars will not be in higher travel demand and so if we're not entrenching an even steeper star system. You evidently don't mind zoom at all, so I am happy for you that the system works well for you.

[Bill Wringe]

You say that the piece is about zooming during the pandemic. But the environmental argument can't be an argument for zooming during the pandemic: it's got to be an argument for zooming vs physical presence. (I think the egalitarian argument you mention is as well: the idea is that it corrects for harms that would occur if physical presence were required.)

There are two comparisons which make sense
1) Zooming versus no talks/conferences during a pandemic: relevant considerations - is it a worthwhile use of people's time, could they be doing something better, does it entrench inequalities - often but not always gender-based, but also sometimes age and career-stage based, and possibly also race-based - between those who have substantial caring responsibilities and those who don't.

2) Zooming vs not zooming in non-pandemic situations: relevant considerations - egalitarian and environmental versus the loss of opportunities for more sustained interactions in more relaxed circumstances.

I don't know how the comparisons work out in the two cases - I suspect that in post pandemic circumstances, our best bet will be a healthy pluralism. But your reply to my comments on the post suggest that you are comparing zooming in pandemic circumstances with no zooming in non-pandemic circumstances and that doesn't seem especially illuminating.

[Eric Schliesser]

I am rejecting zooming in and outside pandemic circumstances. But trying to halt its spread during one.

[John Quiggin]

"As one of the surviving academic blogging dinos I can say that the republic of letters would be a lot more egalitarian without blogs. "

Can you develop this claim? Writing from the opposite side of the planet to most of the republic, I feel very strongly the opposite. Without blogging, I'd be an obscure decision theorist, at least as far as the world outside Australia is concerned. More generally, the economists who have gained a lot of attention through blogging are almost all located outside the inner circle that dominates the official prestige hierarchy. The only exception I can think of is Brad DeLong who's prominent in both.(I'm not counting Krugman)

But maybe you're influenced by one particular philosophy blog that seems to be devoted to reinforcing hierarchies. AFAICT, that is a unique case.

[Eric Schliesser]

Hi John, I am not denying (a) that I may be influenced by my limited disciplinary experience. Also (b) I agree that blogging helped in some places (as I noted above) shift the production and distribution of prestige and scarcity. But I don't think it helps abolish these hierarchical credit economies. I think Zooming may also shift that anew, but since zooming is time-intensive and, thus, zero-sum, I expect it to facilitate even steeper winner takes all hierarchies.

[John Quiggin]

"I think Zooming may also shift that anew, but since zooming is time-intensive and, thus, zero-sum, I expect it to facilitate even steeper winner takes all hierarchies. "

I'm in two minds here. It could be that superstar seminars will crowd everyone else out. I'm not seeing any evidence of that as yet, but it's certainly a possibility. On the other hand (and again from the antipodean perspective) the removal of geogrpahcial barriers to entry is a big deal.