My brother is a math prof at the post-secondary level, in a technical school. But he is so discouraged by the culture of college that he has discouraged his own children from attending.
A book, a teacher, and learners—it's time for a return to the basics in the liberal arts.
I had the joy of reading this a few nights ago when I couldn't sleep. I was surprised you wrote it, as I know a lot of your life was tied up in the academy for a while, whereas I ran away as soon as I got that diploma.
I don't think I disagree with anything you said here. It is nice to finally be at a place where hardly anyone can deny the ideological conformity of higher education. As you noted, almost all of our trusted institutions have been compromised. I would despair, but it seems to me that Western civilization generally, and American political identity in particular, was formed in order to restore dignity and autonomy to individuals in the face of corrupt institutions. To my mind, we need only to 'remember,' in a sense, our roots and reclaim them. That will mean a lot more upsetting free speech and a departure from the duopoly in our political life. It is hard to know if it can be done in the face of rising globalist powers. Even so, I am excited at discourse that is growing more public.
In the Information Age, it seems to me that colleges have become largely irrelevant. Information has been democratized. Access to it is not nearly as difficult to navigate as it once was. Now the task is only to help folks figure out how to sift through the information they get. Colleges ideally are supposed to do this, but I don't think they have really done that for a long time. They have rather told people how to reach the predetermined acceptable conclusions by selectively marshaling what information they collect. Useless when seeking truth. So I'm all about creating networks for facilitating critical thinking. I think that would happen naturally without all of the interference and input from politics/media/propaganda. I think humans are naturally pretty smart, but large powered interests have designed ways to significantly compromise folks from thinking clearly.
I don’t think college is lame. However I DID cringe at that Sufi class story. Way to take all the fun out of learning. I took a psych class where we did kundalini yoga and meditation and after a 2 min warning about not being a jerk about doing something from another culture and if you suddenly start wearing a bindi or wearing a turban, people are probably going to think you’re a poser, we all moved on. College and grad school were honestly the best things that ever happened to me, especially my first year taking history, literature, social science. I was like Ariel, a whole new world opened up. I studied humanities and some science, anthropology major, psychology and pre med minors. But I do agree that the for profit academia industrial complex (making up that name, basically I mean the US higher educational system) is extremely messed up, the cost of college is sickening, and for what? And do you think if the funding structure of the US higher Ed was different, unis wouldn’t have to jump on hashtag trends, pander and use fear and guilt as a way to turn wealthy white tears into funding streams to fuel some sort of popularity contest? Or maybe I’m missing the boat. I’m sure there are multiple reasons at play. I also wonder if we weren’t in lockdown with our eyes glued to our phones and our nervous systems already in super fear mode, maybe the Floyd fallout would’ve happened differently. In any case, it’s hard to think about the future of college without thinking of the current and future state of work, and the economy. What jobs are even going to be needed in 20 years? When my aunts went to college in the 60s -80’s they could work full time in the summer and pay for both room and board and tuition for the year, when I went to college one had to work 55 hours every week of the year to pay for both. My first semester of college was $1881, my last was $5300. Yeah, I agreed to pay it, but still it’s shady how they give you the bill after you already stated the term as opposed to alerting you to a tuition hike. I don’t know what the future will hold when my kids are old enough to go for college. In a romantic way, I still love the fantasy that college is a way to learn about the world via liberal arts so one can be a well rounded participant in society. Anyways, great article and thanks for sharing.
Readers who were intrigued by Connor's article may be interested in reading/reviewing this article on Qeios. [I am not connected with Qeios; just sharing so that readers who may be outside of academia can connect with researchers. I received an email from Qeios about this article which is how I know about it].
Qeios is a free, open-access publishing platform with no editors making accept/reject decisions. Reviewers are responsible for validating papers and they communicate with authors publicly after publication. This fosters a transparent system that emphasizes robust research and controls the dissemination of flawed works.
No babies were murdered by Hamas militants in Israel on Oct 7. This fabrication has been fact checked and debunked by multiple sources. You are also repeating in language used to dehumanize the Palestinian resistance. There are other analyses which accord better with how we as philosophically-minded thinkers and psychologists understand that actual (non-dehumanized) humans behave. Experts on an NPR show argued that Hamas had planned a carefully controlled military operation, to get hostages to negotiate for the release of the thousands of Palestinians held illegally for years in Israel, without charge, including many women and children. Indeed one Israel-released video shows a Hamas fighter asking a woman in a vehicle if she was a soldier. The mayhem and civilian murders at the festival and in on kibbutzim were the result of ordinary Gazan civilians entering Israel after the fence was breached and found to be relatively unguarded. Some of them went to find hostages that they turned over to the Hamas soldiers; others went on a rampage. Unplanned, spantaneous rampage by people living in an apartheid state. Then Israeli Apache helicopters and tanks arrived and probably killed another 400 Israeli civilians and also led to those images of burned out cars and houses.
My brother is a math prof at the post-secondary level, in a technical school. But he is so discouraged by the culture of college that he has discouraged his own children from attending.
A book, a teacher, and learners—it's time for a return to the basics in the liberal arts.
I had the joy of reading this a few nights ago when I couldn't sleep. I was surprised you wrote it, as I know a lot of your life was tied up in the academy for a while, whereas I ran away as soon as I got that diploma.
I don't think I disagree with anything you said here. It is nice to finally be at a place where hardly anyone can deny the ideological conformity of higher education. As you noted, almost all of our trusted institutions have been compromised. I would despair, but it seems to me that Western civilization generally, and American political identity in particular, was formed in order to restore dignity and autonomy to individuals in the face of corrupt institutions. To my mind, we need only to 'remember,' in a sense, our roots and reclaim them. That will mean a lot more upsetting free speech and a departure from the duopoly in our political life. It is hard to know if it can be done in the face of rising globalist powers. Even so, I am excited at discourse that is growing more public.
In the Information Age, it seems to me that colleges have become largely irrelevant. Information has been democratized. Access to it is not nearly as difficult to navigate as it once was. Now the task is only to help folks figure out how to sift through the information they get. Colleges ideally are supposed to do this, but I don't think they have really done that for a long time. They have rather told people how to reach the predetermined acceptable conclusions by selectively marshaling what information they collect. Useless when seeking truth. So I'm all about creating networks for facilitating critical thinking. I think that would happen naturally without all of the interference and input from politics/media/propaganda. I think humans are naturally pretty smart, but large powered interests have designed ways to significantly compromise folks from thinking clearly.
I don’t think college is lame. However I DID cringe at that Sufi class story. Way to take all the fun out of learning. I took a psych class where we did kundalini yoga and meditation and after a 2 min warning about not being a jerk about doing something from another culture and if you suddenly start wearing a bindi or wearing a turban, people are probably going to think you’re a poser, we all moved on. College and grad school were honestly the best things that ever happened to me, especially my first year taking history, literature, social science. I was like Ariel, a whole new world opened up. I studied humanities and some science, anthropology major, psychology and pre med minors. But I do agree that the for profit academia industrial complex (making up that name, basically I mean the US higher educational system) is extremely messed up, the cost of college is sickening, and for what? And do you think if the funding structure of the US higher Ed was different, unis wouldn’t have to jump on hashtag trends, pander and use fear and guilt as a way to turn wealthy white tears into funding streams to fuel some sort of popularity contest? Or maybe I’m missing the boat. I’m sure there are multiple reasons at play. I also wonder if we weren’t in lockdown with our eyes glued to our phones and our nervous systems already in super fear mode, maybe the Floyd fallout would’ve happened differently. In any case, it’s hard to think about the future of college without thinking of the current and future state of work, and the economy. What jobs are even going to be needed in 20 years? When my aunts went to college in the 60s -80’s they could work full time in the summer and pay for both room and board and tuition for the year, when I went to college one had to work 55 hours every week of the year to pay for both. My first semester of college was $1881, my last was $5300. Yeah, I agreed to pay it, but still it’s shady how they give you the bill after you already stated the term as opposed to alerting you to a tuition hike. I don’t know what the future will hold when my kids are old enough to go for college. In a romantic way, I still love the fantasy that college is a way to learn about the world via liberal arts so one can be a well rounded participant in society. Anyways, great article and thanks for sharing.
According to postmodern theory, demography is an act of violence...the fascist hubris of those would count people...
Readers who were intrigued by Connor's article may be interested in reading/reviewing this article on Qeios. [I am not connected with Qeios; just sharing so that readers who may be outside of academia can connect with researchers. I received an email from Qeios about this article which is how I know about it].
Censorship on Campuses
https://www.qeios.com/read/CMVJP3
Qeios is a free, open-access publishing platform with no editors making accept/reject decisions. Reviewers are responsible for validating papers and they communicate with authors publicly after publication. This fosters a transparent system that emphasizes robust research and controls the dissemination of flawed works.
https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/why-the-guardians-hamas-mass-rape
No babies were murdered by Hamas militants in Israel on Oct 7. This fabrication has been fact checked and debunked by multiple sources. You are also repeating in language used to dehumanize the Palestinian resistance. There are other analyses which accord better with how we as philosophically-minded thinkers and psychologists understand that actual (non-dehumanized) humans behave. Experts on an NPR show argued that Hamas had planned a carefully controlled military operation, to get hostages to negotiate for the release of the thousands of Palestinians held illegally for years in Israel, without charge, including many women and children. Indeed one Israel-released video shows a Hamas fighter asking a woman in a vehicle if she was a soldier. The mayhem and civilian murders at the festival and in on kibbutzim were the result of ordinary Gazan civilians entering Israel after the fence was breached and found to be relatively unguarded. Some of them went to find hostages that they turned over to the Hamas soldiers; others went on a rampage. Unplanned, spantaneous rampage by people living in an apartheid state. Then Israeli Apache helicopters and tanks arrived and probably killed another 400 Israeli civilians and also led to those images of burned out cars and houses.