Once again I find myself in agreement with your points. I do wonder how much of this is more the commercialization of education rather than a fundamental understanding about the purpose of higher education.
Places and spaces where discomfort is treated as a consumer choice issue, and handled by administrators as a service level problem contributes to this environment where students feel everything is up for debate (which I have no problem with) and everything that causes discomfort should be changed or eliminated to accommodate their opinion (which I strongly disagree with).
Almost certainly this is relevant. It's "commercialization" in the worst sense, whereby we continuously advertise what we are selling in the worst possible way. We don't advertise ourselves as selling a service of making "well-developed, well-rounded, rationally autonomous persons.” We sell ourselves as a way to increase your earning power. While these are related, when earning power is the aim it leads to the enshitification of the system. Earning power is increased by real college education, but that is because "well-developed, well-rounded, rationally autonomous persons" will be productive. If we sell earning power, we stop creating that sort of person and earning power benefits decrease.
My view is that it is the second of your questions which is fundamentally in dispute. I agree with your “purpose of university” but I think that Critical Theorists have indoctrinated many to believe the purpose of university is to further the cause of Social Justice as they define it. So we’ll have to correct the views of many administrators to fix this one.
I like and agree with all your points here. Though I am old and understand some of my inclinations are now archaic, these points you make are not among the archaic ones, and should endure for their intrinsic merit.
Regarding the disputed assignment, I am reminded of this from John Stuart Mill: "He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion. [...]He must be able to hear [opposing views] from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of; else he will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes that difficulty."
Even by today's standards -- and considering Harvard's abysmal reputation for tolerating woke extremism -- that is a crazy story. When I lectured there twenty years ago, I assigned George Fitzhugh and John C. Calhoun. (They were among the strongest and most vituperative defenders of antebellum slavery.) Over the years, at Harvard and GSU, I've also assigned U.B. Phillips. (He wrote the first scholarly history of slavery, I think around 1921, and portrayed it benevolently.)
I explained, of course, that students would be discomfited by the material. But no one protested or refused to do the work. The assignment's rationale was so obvious that it barely needed to be mentioned. To understand American slavery, and the Civil War, of course we need to know the pro-slavery arguments.
A related problem, with I think you've addressed elsewhere, is that nowadays, a great many students won't read any book. Students in my US history survey profess interest in slavery, racism, and race relations, but it's hard to get them to read all-time classics Frederick Douglass or Malcolm X. It is quickly becoming impossible to teach undergrads they way we're been accustomed.
I'm going to have to listen to Lepore's appearance on Yascha's podcast to see what she says. (Not that I dispute your characterization, but again, it's genuinely hard for me to fathom students responding that way, especially to scholar of her stature. And I'm already pessimistic on this.)
I will for. Did you see Lepore's Chronicle interview from a few months ago? She spoke there, too, about how some of her students seemed to police others in the class for "wrong-think," and about her own timidity around publishing an essay that would have been controversial. (She now expresses regret.)
It's noteworthy, I think, that she's quite liberal. I think best way for professors to survive on these elite campuses is to be either very far left, or else proudly conservative. (You don't see much of the latter, of course.) But it's the ordinary liberals who seem to have the most unpleasant times.
Once again I find myself in agreement with your points. I do wonder how much of this is more the commercialization of education rather than a fundamental understanding about the purpose of higher education.
Places and spaces where discomfort is treated as a consumer choice issue, and handled by administrators as a service level problem contributes to this environment where students feel everything is up for debate (which I have no problem with) and everything that causes discomfort should be changed or eliminated to accommodate their opinion (which I strongly disagree with).
Almost certainly this is relevant. It's "commercialization" in the worst sense, whereby we continuously advertise what we are selling in the worst possible way. We don't advertise ourselves as selling a service of making "well-developed, well-rounded, rationally autonomous persons.” We sell ourselves as a way to increase your earning power. While these are related, when earning power is the aim it leads to the enshitification of the system. Earning power is increased by real college education, but that is because "well-developed, well-rounded, rationally autonomous persons" will be productive. If we sell earning power, we stop creating that sort of person and earning power benefits decrease.
I need to add the word “ enshitification” to my regular vocabulary! A real word that I think can have layered impact in multiple contexts!
Pretty new to me! I think I heard it on a podcast; not sure which.
My view is that it is the second of your questions which is fundamentally in dispute. I agree with your “purpose of university” but I think that Critical Theorists have indoctrinated many to believe the purpose of university is to further the cause of Social Justice as they define it. So we’ll have to correct the views of many administrators to fix this one.
Thanks! You’re probably right, but I suspect the number of faculty members that actually accept that view is small. Maybe 5%?
That's encouraging. I would have thought it was 25% at least, in some departments outside of stem, with another 25% happy to go along.
Well, I hope it's not that high! I suspect it is in a few departments, but not many.
"well-rounded, rationally autonomous persons"
I like and agree with all your points here. Though I am old and understand some of my inclinations are now archaic, these points you make are not among the archaic ones, and should endure for their intrinsic merit.
Regarding the disputed assignment, I am reminded of this from John Stuart Mill: "He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion. [...]He must be able to hear [opposing views] from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of; else he will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes that difficulty."
Thanks! FWIW, that is one of my favorite Mill quotes.
Even by today's standards -- and considering Harvard's abysmal reputation for tolerating woke extremism -- that is a crazy story. When I lectured there twenty years ago, I assigned George Fitzhugh and John C. Calhoun. (They were among the strongest and most vituperative defenders of antebellum slavery.) Over the years, at Harvard and GSU, I've also assigned U.B. Phillips. (He wrote the first scholarly history of slavery, I think around 1921, and portrayed it benevolently.)
I explained, of course, that students would be discomfited by the material. But no one protested or refused to do the work. The assignment's rationale was so obvious that it barely needed to be mentioned. To understand American slavery, and the Civil War, of course we need to know the pro-slavery arguments.
A related problem, with I think you've addressed elsewhere, is that nowadays, a great many students won't read any book. Students in my US history survey profess interest in slavery, racism, and race relations, but it's hard to get them to read all-time classics Frederick Douglass or Malcolm X. It is quickly becoming impossible to teach undergrads they way we're been accustomed.
I'm going to have to listen to Lepore's appearance on Yascha's podcast to see what she says. (Not that I dispute your characterization, but again, it's genuinely hard for me to fathom students responding that way, especially to scholar of her stature. And I'm already pessimistic on this.)
Let me know if you think I misunderstood what she said! (I agree with the rest of what you say!). -Thanks!
I will for. Did you see Lepore's Chronicle interview from a few months ago? She spoke there, too, about how some of her students seemed to police others in the class for "wrong-think," and about her own timidity around publishing an essay that would have been controversial. (She now expresses regret.)
It's noteworthy, I think, that she's quite liberal. I think best way for professors to survive on these elite campuses is to be either very far left, or else proudly conservative. (You don't see much of the latter, of course.) But it's the ordinary liberals who seem to have the most unpleasant times.
I recall reading it, but not what it said. I suspect it’s ordinary liberals who get the unpleasantness, but I also think it remains fortunately rare.