The Decline of Privilege: The Modernization of Oxford University 9780804765435

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The Decline of Privilege

THE MODERNIZATION OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY

The Decline of Privilege

THE MODERNIZATION OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY

JOSEPH A. SOARES

Stanford University Press Stanford, California

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Stanford University Press, Stanford, California .© 1999 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University Printed in the United States of America CIP

data appear at the end of the book

For my parents

Preface

Ever since Max Weber wrote his celebrated essay on the affinities between seventeenth-century Calvinism and the ethos of modern capitalism, scholars have inquired into the economic effects of cultural forces. The inspiration that launched this book came from a twist on Weber's problem. At the onset my thoughts were influenced by a controversy on the economic decline of Britain for which many assigned much of the blame to cultural factors. The culture that once nourished aggressive entrepreneurs had allegedly been supplanted by a mandarin ethos uncongenial to wealth creation. Historians and, most important, politicians placed considerable responsibility for the decline on apostles of English culture. University academics, especially those identified as Oxbridge, were seen by critics as having been particularly at fault. The miseducation of Britain's most carefully selected talent must have drained away the nation's competitive spark. British governing elites stood accused of having become soft-hearted, more concerned with social expenditures than with profitable reinvestments. Initially, the claim that in the welfare-capitalist state there was an imbalance between public goods and the requirements of private capital did not trouble me. Granting for the moment the diagnosis, I was disinclined to see the condition as diseased. Britain did not have high poverty or illiteracy rates. It was a society with a national health service, where tuition fees were paid by taxpayers whether the student was in primary school or university. It was a land without motorway billboards, where even leatherclad youths sporting body jewelry would use the word "please" when requesting a drink in a pub. All told, it did not seem an infirm place to me. In the decline debate, where some affixed blame, I hoped to award distinction. If intellectuals played an important role in the crafting of Britain's civil society, then perhaps my work on that issue could contribute to the discussion of public culture in the United States? Imagine my disappointment when, after months of field work, the complexity of the situation revealed that the actors and institutions portrayed in the debate were caricatures. Then the terms of my inquiry changed. The story became less about the relation of culture to the economy and more about the symbolic Vll

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Preface

role of the university at the center of the controversy. Thus this book became a sociologically informed monograph on Oxford University since the Second World War. I hope to have captured germane aspects of the external dynamics, climate of ideas, and internal politics that have shaped Oxford's history-and to have said something worthwhile about the nature of an elite university's autonomy in a modern society. I want to express my thanks to the two foundations that made my years abroad possible: the Krupp Fellowship program at Harvard's Center for European Studies and the Jacob Javits Fellowship program of the U.S. Congress. A cordial acknowledgment is owed to those Harvard professors who advised me during the dissertation phase of this project. To Daniel Bell, without whose letters of introduction this work would have been infeasible, my deepest gratitude for nurturing in me something of his sense of scholarly standards. To the wise and liberal David Riesman, unsurpassed exemplar in the field of the sociology of education, I am especially grateful. Also Nathan Glazer and Peter Hall were unfailingly encouraging mentors. At Oxford University, I was graced by the friendship of Alan and Nib by Bullock, traditional humanists, ever generous with time and knowledge, who opened all doors. Thanks are owed to Professor A. H. Halsey, for the invitation to join, as a visiting member, the Senior Common Room of Nuffield College. From Dr. Brian Harrison's project on the history of Oxford University, I am indebted to Daniel Greenstein and Mark Curthoys. My most sincere gratitude goes to every person who graciously granted me an interview. And I would like to thank the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences for selecting my thesis to win the De Lancey K. Jay Prize. From the Department of Sociology at Yale, I want to thank Professor Deborah Davis for recommending the publisher and for her unflagging moral support. Professors Kai Erikson and Charles Perrow provided thoughtful suggestions at various stages of the project. And they all joined with other colleagues, especially Professor Debra Minkoff, to offer timely amounts of good cheer. A special appreciation must go to the friends who helped keep me happy over the intervening years, especially: Fiona Carter, Madeline Dymsza, Thomas Garside, David Morgan, Ann Mullen, Felicitas Opwis, Ian Robinson, and Tim Scoones. Finally, I want to express my gratitude to the editors at Stanford University Press, Muriel Bell and Laura Comay, who saw merit in publishing this book; and to the pres