A heterodox cover letter

Cover letters can be bland. Maybe the smart thing is to outsource the writing to a chatbot to keep things generically "professional." But maybe a cover letter can be something more. After all, the job search is an opportunity for professional reflection, a time to think about what got you here, and where you truly want to go next.

Such was my experience in writing an application to the Heterodox Academy for their Director of Policy position. I didn't get the job – not entirely surprising as I have zero policy experience. But Heterodox is an institution doing good in the world – promoting the value of contrarian viewpoints in a free society, in a word, heterodoxy – and this application fired me up. I want to hold onto that spark because I believe that is what allows us to do our best work. Thus I decided to share the cover letter here.

May it inspire you to do the work that fuels your passion.

Note: If you don't work in academia, you might think I am exaggerating the silencing of unfashionable opinions. I assure you, I am not. Also, while the letter might appear to be about racial division, it isn't. It is about bully tactics and the consequences of a decline in civil discourse that extends beyond the confines of the University. Thank you for reading, even – especially! – if your viewpoint differs from mine.

Dear Mr. Regnier,

I am writing to express my interest in the Director of Policy position at Heterodox Academy (HxA). But first, please permit me a personal story, which will hopefully detail my interest and qualifications.

In the summer of 2020, I single-handedly shut down the email list-serv of the Society for Ethnomusicology. This may not sound like much, but as an adjunct professor with just a few publications at the time, it was likely my most impactful academic achievement. I’m not necessarily proud of that, but there it is.

Here is what happened: from the time I began my studies in ethnomusicology, in 2008, until I completed my PhD in 2013, the list-serv in question, known as “SEM-L,” had been a place for open conversation about the state of the field. Sometimes debates were robust and contentious, sometimes silly and gratuitous, but nearly always interesting and productive. In more recent years, the tenor began to change, with an increasing focus on the weaponization of identity politics. Things came to a boiling point in June of 2020. As American cities burned with the fires of Black Lives Matter protests, one of my colleagues, an African American woman, penned “An Open Letter on Racism in Music Studies.”

The gist of the letter was that white scholars should not study the cultures of black people, and that, essentially, the primary solution was replacing white scholars with black ones. I found the letter to be rife with logical fallacies and bigotry. But I was content to privately disagree with what I understood as a standard polemic which was, in the end, just someone’s opinion.

My motivation to act began with what followed: a nauseating sea of letters, from one prolific scholar after another, issuing mea culpas and agreeing with the Open Letter. Despite the expressions of guilt and apparent heartfelt introspection, none of these supporters addressed the crux of the Letter: if they really agreed, then they needed to quit their jobs so that people with darker complexions might take their places! The whole affair struck me as absurd theater, and I said so in my own response, calling out the hypocrisy as plainly and constructively as I could manage.

After my letter, a few folks wrote publicly to criticize me – mainly for my race – but the public conversation quickly stopped. Several others wrote to me privately to say that they agreed but were afraid to say so in public out of concern for their careers. Within 2 weeks, the SEM Board of Directors announced that they had “received complaints” and were shutting down the SEM-L indefinitely. That was that.

Since that episode – and in no small part due to my disillusionment with the state of academic discourse – I have left academia. After 15 years as an adjunct professor, I sought to leverage my writing and communication skills into a new career as a professional writer and editor. The transition was more successful than I might have thought possible, as I wound up leading content as the Senior Editor and Creative Director of a global tech network for nearly 3 years, producing white papers, newsletters, podcasts, blogs, social media campaigns, and more. I assembled and worked closely with expert Advisory Boards of product executives from companies big and small. Though I knew little about the tech world when I started the job, I was able to learn quickly by using the same skill that has served me well as a teacher, ethnographer, and musician: listening. The work was fast-paced and exciting, even if writing about product management was never my passion.

Now, I am seeking to align my content production skills with my ideals. I first learned about the Heterodox Academy while listening to Jonathan Haidt on the Joe Rogan podcast. I have long admired Prof. Haidt’s stance on viewpoint diversity and the importance of understanding those with whom we disagree as the key to a healthy free society. I would be enthusiastic to contribute to an organization dedicated to promoting those values.

My experience with SEM-L could be dismissed, I suppose, as the quirkiness of just one small academic field. But we know this isn’t true. Politically fashionable attacks preceding homogenous complicity are all too common. More chilling is the silence of dissent and common sense. If the Western Academy is to remain relevant, we must encourage a spirit of open inquiry and constructive disagreement. That online communities such as SEM-L can be radicalized and homogenized over the course of just a few years is striking, but perhaps sanity and civility can be restored just as quickly. There is no better time than now for an institution such as HxA to lay the groundwork for that restoration.

Sincerely,

Ryan J. Bazinet, PhD