TITLEMANIA
Robert Meyers

“The only ‘superior’ among you is the one who serves the other. For every man who promotes himself will be humbled, and every man who learns to be humble will find promotion.”—Jesus of Nazareth

Ten years ago a crusade began in Germany for which I would gladly be an apostle. A handful of Teutons, weary of the elaborate titles affected by so many of their countrymen, declared war on the practice. They confessed that no nation revels more in honorary appellations than the Germans. Almost everyone has at least one; many have several which proclaim the bearer’s academic, professional, or aristocratic status.

So it is fitting that the revolution should begin in Germany, but amusing that the rebels, infected by the same virus, should have compounded a weighty title of their own for the movement. They called it die Titelverkurzungswelle: the title shortening wave. A typical target for their attack was the section manager of a huge electrical plant who is called an Abteilungsbevollmachtigter (Section Plenipotentiary) even though he has only six men under him.

They have had some response. A group of German students cooperated by dropping the title Magnifizenz for their college president, and an American electronics firm (Honeywell) agreed that many business titles were absurd and promised to print new calling cards which would introduce their executives by name only.

But titlemania will be hard to snuff out in Germany, or anywhere else for that matter. It appeals to a deep and pervasive hunger in people, even among those who profess to believe and practice the teachings of Christ. A decadent Christianity always apes the world, so we need over and over to hear the Lord of life pass judgment upon those in his day who lusted for honors:

“They love to be greeted with respect in public places and to have men call them ‘Rabbi!’ Don’t you ever be called ‘Rabbi’ — you have only one teacher, and all of you are brothers. And don’t call any human being ‘father’ — for you have one Father and he is in Heaven. And you must not let people call you ‘leaders’— you have only one leader, Christ. The only ‘superior’ among you is the one who serves the other. For every man who promotes himself will be humbled, and every man who learns to be humble will find promotion.”

It is hard to imagine how he could have expressed those sentiments more plainly, yet self-promotion flourishes. Men who have legitimate titles make sure they are used, while men who have none, and are unwilling to earn them, find ways to buy them. Christian colleges swap honorary doctorates for financial or promotional help, or give them to presidents of sister institutions who yearn to be called “Doctor” like many of their faculty.

It is not widely known that some of the finest universities in the country play down the use of “Doctor” as a title of direct address and encourage a simple “Mister” for their professors. Vanderbilt and Harvard are two examples, while my own alma mater, Washington University of St. Louis, which liked to see itself as “the Harvard of the Midwest,” frowned on the use of “Doctor” as a title for faculty. The most brilliant professors I had were simply “Mr. Ringler” and “Mr. Kaske,” because they wanted it so.

But schools still struggling for prestige like to see their faculty earn the terminal degree, and, once it is earned, to congratulate them repeatedly by be-doctoring them on all possible occasions. Machiavelli may have said that “it is not titles that reflect honor on men, but men on their titles,” but schools on the make are not willing to wait for the latter. I have thought sometimes that an accreditation team might save itself time simply by noting the degree of passion with which faculty members in a host school address one another as “Doctor,” or encourage it from their students. I suspect a direct ratio between the intensity with which this is practiced, and the mediocrity which fuels it.

But the passion for titles in upward-struggling schools is a consuming fire. Having read Karl Gehrkens’ comment, years ago, in his Question and Answer section of Etude (February, 1952) that “most of the really fine teachers prefer to be addressed simply as ‘Mr.,’ “ I once tried naively at Harding College to reverse the trend. As an added incentive for dropping titles, we had some other problems there, where the party spirit was so intense that the title “Brother” was awarded exclusively to members of the sponsoring church. Great care was taken to avoid bestowing this friendly word on those who belonged to other churches, even though they might be on the faculty payroll.

This, along with a raw pride in their steadily increasing number of teachers with doctorates, led to a hilarious moment one day in chapel. Our speaker for the day began to be presented to us as “Brother . . . .,” until the introducer remembered that he was not a member of the True Church, and dropped that heresy like a hot coal. Infected like the rest of us with an inordinate love of titles, he cast about desperately for another, and began again to present to us “Doctor. . . .,” until it occurred to him that the man had not yet achieved that distinction either! Stammeringly, he fell back upon the only title he could think of, and handed over our speaker as “Mr. Smith.”

One problem with titles is that men who lust for them are tempted to sell them. The cynical tradeoff takes two forms, both of which appear like jonquils in spring at little church colleges around the country.

In the first, a man donates his skills as a fund-raiser, or gives a large gift of money, and the college rewards him with an honorary doctorate. He may be unknown elsewhere, but he is presented to the students as “a great American,” and, in the classic euphemism, “a friend of the college.”

Sometimes the honorary title is conferred even before the service is performed, or the check written, in a kind of calculated anticipation. A man is laurelled not because he has contributed, but in the burning hope that he will. And such is the nature of human vanity that the school is seldom disappointed.

In the second case, a man who has not earned a doctorate but who has been made president of a church-related school because of his “soundness” and “loyalty,” lets it be known by subtle means that he could serve the Lord better with a title to match those earned by many on his faculty. So an accomodating sister institution invites him over for Commencement exercises and drops an honorary degree on him with the explanation that he is “the most deserving man we could honor” and that he has been chosen because he is “a great servant of the Lord.”

It is a strange irony to see this happen in a school which owes its existence to one who said that charity should be done so quietly that one’s left hand does not know what his right had done, and that no trumpets are to be blown at the giving of a gift.

Watching such a ceremony, where self-interest is masked behind impeccable piety, one recalls the scathing rebuke of Laurence Sterne, himself a clergyman: “Titles of honor are like the impressions on coin, which add no value to gold and silver, but only render brass current.”

Many who read this article will have witnessed the title game in action. Some of them, surely, have sometimes wished for a moment of rare honesty in which one college president, be-doctoring another, tells the simple truth:

“Mr. Jones has no doctorate, but wishes to be called “Doctor.” He has a position of authority over other men who have earned doctoral degrees, and it causes him embarrassment not to have one. Therefore, because we wish to promote the interests of our church and of our college system, we are giving him one. Please applaud.”—Wichita State U.