February 17, 2012

What's so bad about a college course on the Occupy [Your City] movement?

Glenn Reynolds has some fine ideas about what could be taught:
1) The Higher Education Bubble and Debt Slavery Throughout History....

2) Bourgeois vs. Non-Bourgeois Revolutions: A Comparison and Contrast.... [S]ocial-protest movements are sometimes orderly and sometimes disorderly as a matter of approach, and it would compare the effectiveness and ultimate success of such relentlessly bourgeois movements as the tea party, the pre-1964 Civil Rights movement, Women's Suffrage activists, and the American Revolution, against such anti-Bourgeois movements as the post-1968 Black Power and New Left movements, and the French Revolution....

3) Class struggles and the New Class...

4) Scapegoating and anti-Semitism in mass economic-protest movements....

5) The Fragility of Public Health....

6) Class Differences Within Economic Protest Movements. ...

32 comments:

David said...

Can't do it.

Would require history.

Harder than math for students these days.

CarterFliptMe said...

Discreet Background Checking And Weeding Out The Rabble

Bob Ellison said...

I really liked that article by Professor Reynolds. It's not flippant; it's serious. The resulting course would be challenging and fascinating; liberals and conservatives alike could have fascinating discussions in section.

Eric Palmer, PeopleSoft Consultant said...

7. the decline of academic rigor on America's college campuses.

Remember that once the door is opened, any half-wit academic can teach the course as propaganda. It will probably even become a practicum, where all you really do is protest.

SGT Ted said...

They won't teach it that way because it won't fit the Communist class warfare narrative they have created to justify OWSes anti-American, criminal behavior and outcomes.

Fen said...

They won't teach it because they remember how it went down in the 60s. All that radical brainwashing in the classroom resulted in students taking over universities like Kent State and beating down their teacher-oppressors.

Chip S. said...

Yiddishe goes directly to the point.

"Fascinating discussions" are for after-class, b/c they're usually not nearly as fascinating as the people involved in them think they are.

MadTownGuy said...

How about Secretive Billionaires and the Occupy Organizers?

traditionalguy said...

The Higher Education Bubble and debt slavery will never be allowed to be taught on a campus. The Administrators are not fools. That is the students' role.

Chip S. said...

Is "debt slavery" like wage slavery, where the only thing worse than being in it is not having access to it?

Tibore said...
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Tibore said...

Bravo, Professor Reynolds! Bravo!

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Interesting note:
"Scapegoating and anti-Semitism in mass economic-protest movements..."

Skeptics who've taken on pseudohistory and conspiracy theory peddlers have noticed this trend themselves among the alt-history and conspiracy paranoia movements. In fact, antisemetism insinuating themselves into such movements goes well beyond Occupy; it's simply something that's been present for a long time now, and Occupy is simply the latest body it has infected. As an example: Look at Kevin Barrett of U of W fame who's also been mentioned in the past here in this very blog. He's a 9/11 truther who's also representative of the anti semetism that's seeped into elements of the so-called "Truth" movement. How two moderately unrelated beliefs managed to converge is initially confusing (it becomes more obvious when that clearing house of all that is paranoid and illogical - Alex Jones - turns out to be the origin of most conspiracy loon's information on either topic), but it's completely representative of how anti-semetism manages to infect so many other beliefs and "movements". It comes in as an "answer" to "why", regardless of the gap between the "answer" and reality itself. Anti-semetism in fact is pretty much an indicator belief that's informative above and beyond the antisemetism being espoused: It tends to be present when a movement is primarily composed of the overly credulous and selectively logical, who's predisposition is towards emotionalism as performance art and who confuses that with true protest. So therefore it shows when a movement is composed not of the honestly aggrieved, but the bourgeois pretenders.

Or in short, credulous college students and frozen-in-the-60s pseudointellecutals for whom logical rigor starts with "who's in power?" rather than "what does the evidence really show?".

Anyway, my point is that all it takes is some sort of protest to exist "Against" (against what doesn't matter; only that the desire to oppose something does), that is based more on emotion and narcissistic "feel good-ism" than it is on sound, logically constructed foundations. When you see that, you'll see the antisemites hovering like viruses waiting to infect. And inevitably, you'll see antisemetic beliefs come out of that movement.

Antisemetism is the philosophical herpes of non intellectually rigorous movements.

traditionalguy said...

Debt Slavery happens when one borrows money to buy an appreciating, or at least value retaining, asset.

The debt service is a voluntary chains placed on all future income, but the asset can always be sold for the debt or much more money thus unlocking the chains...or maybe not.

The real estate investors and the Higher Education Degree investors both took that reasonable risk based on past experiences.

But a collapse in American economic activity because of our long masked loss of manufacturing jobs has made those chains into a permanent slavery.

Christopher in MA said...

8. The mobilization and exploitation of useful idiots.

Bob_R said...

Kenneth Anderson's reaction at Volokh is worth reading.

Thorley Winston said...

But a collapse in American economic activity because of our long masked loss of manufacturing jobs has made those chains into a permanent slavery.

Oh please, people have been talking about the decline in the number of manufacturing jobs for at least the last thirty years. Just like they’ve been talking about the “decline of the family farm.” In both cases, we’ve had a substitution of capital for labor and been able to produce more stuff with fewer people needed. There’s nothing “masked” about it.

MaggotAtBroad&Wall said...

The reason why colleges should not offer a course on the Occupy Movement can be found by connecting ideas in Glenn's opening and summary paragraphs.

He notes in his introductory 'graph that colleges such as Columbia and Roosevelt plan to offer the courses. That it is those schools offering the courses almost guarantees the courses will be taught in the manner he warns about in the final 'graph, as "...tedious, dated mashups of Fanon, Marcuse and Frances Fox Piven".

In other words, the same Frankfurt School propaganda that has dominated social science "research" since social science research was invented.

edutcher said...

How 'bout Major Political Parties And Their Attempts to Build Unpaid Bodies Of Stormtroopers Out Of Faux Populist Movements?

Thorley Winston said...

How 'bout Major Political Parties And Their Attempts to Build Unpaid Bodies Of Stormtroopers Out Of Faux Populist Movements?

Cloning’s easier.

traditionalguy said...

Thorley...You just said the capital invested makes products with less labor. OK then, we agreed that manufacturing jobs have been going away.

The man without debt adjusts and moves to find himself a better opportunity, while the man chained to payments has to endure or die financially in a bankruptcy that gives up what he has left.

One result is a cash economy for the slaves because their reserves move into cash as a hedge against a possible Bankruptcy. ( Yes that is illegal , so catch them.)

BTW, Caterpiller just announced a 1400 job new factory to make mini-excavators and small track tractors they were making in Japan. It will be near Athens, about 70 miles NE of Atlanta.

Carol_Herman said...

It's a waste of time! It is up there with folklore. And, all courses on opinions taught for political reasons to IDIOTS who can't do math!

Faculty, meanwhile, depicted in WHO IS AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOLFE? Is an ugly club where the idiots within acadamia, spend too much time arguing over parking spaces.

What's "occupied" on any college campus, are the parking spaces. There must have been a shit storm when the handicapped were given priority blue window tags.

Did a professor ever stab another professor over an "occupied parking spot?"

Chip S. said...

The man without debt adjusts and moves to find himself a better opportunity...

And he buys his first house at age 60.

Sounds like you've watched "Metropolis" a few too many times.

edutcher said...

Actually, since the "movement"'s trying to re-invent itself (where is Alpha, anyway?), it's a little early to offer courses on it.

Maybe when we know what eventually happens.

PS Good one, Thorley.

William said...
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William said...

Reynolds scores a number of clear hits. The proof of the validity of his argument is that it will be totally ignored. Not refuted, just ignored.

Brennan said...

Does the college even have the knowledgeable faculty to teach these courses?

Rusty said...

BTW, Caterpiller just announced a 1400 job new factory to make mini-excavators and small track tractors they were making in Japan. It will be near Athens, about 70 miles NE of Atlanta.

Georgia. A right to work state.

Notice it is a far away from Illinois as they can get and still find good labor.
Count on this; In the next ten years even some of its Illinois divisions will move to Georgia.

Anonymous said...

Sociology 101

Prosper in Red States Versus "Occupy" Blue States: The Skill-Building, Performance-Based Best Practices, Delivery Systems and Assessments of the Non-Virtual, Gender-Neutral Real World, Compared With Yours (Or -- Why Austin, Boulder and Fayetteville Are Awesome While Cleveland, Detroit and Fresno Suck)

Alex said...

Garage is furiously looking where he can sign up!

traditionalguy said...

The new Caterpillar plant will be located close to Toccoa, Georgia where R. G. LeTourneau opened a huge earthscraper plant in 1940 just in time to supply 70% of the Yellow Iron used in WWII.

LaTurneau built most of his Earth Moving Heavy Equiptment at Peoria Ill., but he used a NE Georgia plant too like Caterpillar is doing doing from its Peoria, Ill base.

Toccoa is also known for Mount Currahee at the 101 Airborne's 1943 training camp shown in The Band of Brothers.

Eric Palmer, PeopleSoft Consultant said...

"Antisemetism is the philosophical herpes of non intellectually rigorous movements."

I love this phrase :)

Brannan asks whether the colleges have the expertise to teach these courses. He forgets that academics think they are experts in thinking, so that makes them experts in such topics irrespective of actual experience.

Fen said...

The irony is that these students will borrow $80K for a Masters in OccupyMovement... and actually have the skill-set to whine about their decision via street protests.

Win-win!