PONTIFEX MAXIMUS? NARKOM?

Before Thanksgiving, Matt "Dean Dad" Reed asked his readers for suggestions to a person granted plenipotentiary powers to rule over higher education.  That plenipotentiary had the hypothetical title of "Grand Poobah for a Day."  That rank arose out of youthful recollections of Howard Cunningham's lodge, beating out "Head Honcho" (which no doubt somebody would problematize) or "Big Kahuna" (cultural appropriation, you know.)

The suggestions, themselves, are instructive, although, since it is not possible for even the Most Exalted Grand Poobah to implement them all at once, there is still reason to think of institutions of higher education as in competition with each other, and subject to some sort of market test.

Today, though, we focus on the choice of a proper honorific for that plenipotentiary.

The pop culture reference to a Grand Poobah appeared during the American High, as the elected leader of the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes., at least a decade before Happy Days. The Bedrock Lodge figured in several Flintstones episodes, although the only one I recall was one devoted to the efforts of Wilma and Betty to be able to attend Lodge meetings.  That episode even featured a cross-dressing Wilma in full Water Buffalo rig, crashing the meeting.  Hanna and Barbera were out in front of women's liberation, while Gloria Steinem was still waiting tables at a Playboy club.

Fraternal organizations were a regular feature of the American High, as well as early skirmish grounds in the Kulturkampf.  Desegregate the Eagles Club!  Women in the Knights of Columbus!  Not so fast.  (The unintended consequences of radical restructuring of the fraternal organizations only manifested themselves much later, as documented in Bowling Alone.)  The Water Buffaloes were surely a group many Normals could see themselves reflected in during a prime-time cartoon intended for adults.  Perhaps, dear reader, that Q-Anon shaman from the Capitol disturbances wore a rig inspired by the Water Buffaloes.

Sam Slagheap. image retrieved from Flintstones Fandom.
It's a cartoon, don't fret about Stone Age people knowing what slag is.

I can understand, though, why using a genuine fraternal organization for the title of the plenipotentiary might not work.  "Worshipful Master" from the Freemasons?  With universities abolishing the title of "house master" and casting about for a new designation for the Master's degree, that won't work.  (Never mind that if I were that plenipotentiary, I might have a little list of Master's degrees to classify as baccalaureates, of baccalaureates to rerate as associates, and some associates as high school.)  And surely "Illustrious Potentate" from the Shriners is thirty-three degrees of cultural appropriation.  Did I ever tell you the story about the journalist who put a "Past Participle" sign in his car window and crashed the Shriners' parade?

Hanna and Barbera, however, might have lifted the title of office from Gilbert and Sullivan.  "Several alert readers pointed out that the term Grand Poohbah comes from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, in which it was a mocking reference to Asian stereotypes."  Let the cancel mobs rage!  Never mind that Pinafore and Pirates of Penzance are among the most biting commentaries on the rigidities of Victorian England's class system: that they also wrote Mikado. under the presentist dispensation, requires that none of their works should ever be performed.

As an aside, there are still a few universities with model railroad clubs.  What happens when some Diversity Weenie learns about those Moguls, Mikados, and Mohawks, not to mention a Big Boy, in that miniature roundhouse?

The epistemic closure, the horror.  It's only gotten worse at Inside Higher Ed since they got rid of comments.  Stanley K. Ridgley nails what happens next.  "This cramped model of 'reality' is hermetically sealed from disconfirmation by the paranoid interpretive belief system. This system accepts and rejects facts arbitrarily."  Why, it's as if the epistemic closure leaves the True Believers blind to what the rest of the world sees.  I could crack wise about that one-eyed king in the land of the blind, but somehow having an Exalted Cyclops for higher education's plenipotentiary doesn't work.

That leaves Dean Dad in the position of having to rethink that title.  "'Big Cheese' works, I guess, but it feels trite."  Oh, I don't know, the world's biggest Big Cheese came from Steve's Cheese of Denmark, Wisconsin.  I wouldn't mind a slice of that.

But, Inside Higher Ed being what it is, he can't end the column with that.  Oh, no, an Act of Contrition worthy of the Diet of Worms, or perhaps constructive self-criticism worthy of a struggle session is required.

Thank you to the readers who took the time to teach me that, and my apologies to any readers who already knew it and wondered if I was trying to send some sort of message. I wasn’t. But now that I know, I’ll retire that expression from my repertoire.

And thus, the two plenipotentiary titles I suggested at the top of this post are fitting and proper.  The Holy Inquisition has an Index, and presumably there are entries for "Grand Poobah" and for the full canon of Gilbert and Sullivan.  The People's Commissar, however, has a little list.

Ack-ack-a-dack.