MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN

The experience in Boston was unexpected. Firstly, I didn’t expect to be selected in the travel grants program of the Spanish Government. Secondly, because I was doing a lot of other stuff while my marriage collapsed. I was thinking in moving to a new place, and all the hurricane of emotions that it represents. But lets no be nostalgic and let me speak about some insight of America (the country, not the continent).

1. Harvard and MIT (Massachusset Institute of Technology) are overrated but these places actually have impressed me. Not because of their beautiful campus or the size of their accountable sheet and business. They surprised maybe because they command the Western scientific breakthroughs in many scientific fields. This is related to their colossal budget, the elitist patronage and the “charity” of grants that they concede to real astonishing human talent. Most of people there have a scholarship or some financial aid because studying there requires selling a kidney every month. This creates an interesting hub for producing patents, articles, books and referenced academic production. However, neither money nor talent cannot buy everything. I am barely using or know real references in my field and Philosophy, Historiography, Law and so on that are based in scholars from the East Coast. Things work different in Business, Engineering, Medicine and Robotics I guess…

2. By the seminars and presentations I have attended, social and public policies issues in America were very coopted by, let’s say, Americas values. I mean, when good professors shown the challenges in the polarized parties system (between Republican and Democrats), or when they spoke about the future of social policies in America, as well as gender in Congress representation, many problems arose. For example, the polarization of parties is not a real one as both major political formations still converge in values that I dislike: American Freedom, Democratic Rules for Representation (In Robert Dahls poliarchy terms), and the American Dream of self-made men. All of them wishful thinking concepts. Moreover, gender policies and welfare issues lack a public policy approaches in which state forms and legislation are not replaced by contingent negotiations between policy coalitions and advocacy groups. This also resemble Dahl`s approach to American Democracy, but seeing public problems in this way is like seeing a jungle of political players with instable interest and where the fittest prevail upon the others. Politics has move beyond this game between actors since behaviorism theories in the fifties but it surprised me that America continues to think itself in these terms.

3. Better to be a big fish in a little pond than being a big shark in the ocean. The most invaluable lesson I learned came into me by friends that told me this whereas I was wandering across Cambridge. They spoke me about a high-ranked professor who worked super hard during several years. This professor was a woman that even had health problems, didn’t sleep well many years and experienced a really competitive environment just to be placed and work in the prestigious Harvard campus. She explained that this kind of life requires sacrifices and is not a path that should be followed but everyone. In doing so, she wondered that instead of being a great fish in a big ocean (a “good” professor in an excellent university), maybe is better to follow your gut and try to make a space to yourself in a middle ranked university. Maybe it is better, for most of the people, to try to be a big fish in a little pond.  I have no doubts, I would rather be a normal person in a normal university or company, valuing my free time, health and some of the persons that surround me. With this insight, I decided to leave this cutting edge academic place and return to follow my path in the small Basque Country. Yet, who knows if there are other ponds elsewhere.

Business Management College – Harvard Campus, 2018.