From Peter Lawler, a professor of politics and political philosophy at at Berry College, here's a piece titled "
What Gov. Scott Walker Misses About Higher Education/Most Republican leaders, including potential presidential candidate Scott Walker, don’t understand that focusing college solely on careers serves leftism."
You really do find in higher education a lot of complacent politically correctness, relativism, and partisan self-indulgence. “Civic engagement” for college credit seems often to mean enlightening the rubes in the local communities about their true interests, which are almost always in the direction of redistribution in the service of equality, green initiatives, insufficient liberation regarding “relational autonomy,” sensitivity to diversity, and so forth....
But if Walker had looked more closely, he would have seen that on most of our campuses political correctness and careerism now go hand in hand....
Rod Dreher at The American Conservative reads Lawler and concludes:
It really does fall to us conservatives who appreciate and support the humanities to stand up to people like Gov. Walker. They mean well, but what they don’t understand is that it is difficult to impossible to quantify the value of learning in the humanities. You can’t map virtue on a spreadsheet, and you can’t do a pie chart to demonstrate why it helps the bottom line to learn the best that humanity has thought, written, composed, painted, and so forth. As Lawler avers, the wisdom embedded in the humanities, as traditionally understood (read: not “Queering John Locke,” “Post-Colonial Narratives in Lady Gaga,” etc.), offer the only firm standpoint from which to defend the human person against the Leviathan of Washington, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley.
IN THE COMMENTS: traditionalguy said:
Berry College is the private north Georgia. Liberal arts school founded to extend college opportunity to poor mountain folks that had no chance at scholarships to big State Schools. Berry school is now the focal point for College scholarships for abandoned children that have been raised in foster families under a Foundation that donates the money for both. That money comes from one man who sells chicken....I mean Chik-Fil-A sandwiches.
I doubt this is directed against Walker. It may help him by making reform of education the issue.
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34 comments:
Steel Panther offers a firmer standpoint. Some document written over a hundred years ago too. And then there's then big B Bible.
Two articles, one message: "How can Walker possibly have a quarrel with actually existing universities, when the imaginary universities in our heads are so great?"
Berry College is the private north Georgia. Liberal arts school founded to extend college opportunity to poor mountain folks that had no chance at scholarships to big State Schools.
Berry school is now the focal point for College scholarships for abandoned children that have been raised in foster families under a Foundation that donates the money for both. That money comes from one man who sells chicken....I mean Chik-Fil-A sandwiches.
I doubt this is directed against Walker. It may help him by making reform of education the issue.
What Zrimsek said.
And: "Conservatives need to wake up to the truth that the future of the Democratic Party is in Silicon Valley, in technocratic efforts to undermine popular deliberation, the dignity of ordinary relational life, authentic religious faith, citizenship, and even sovereignty over the meaning of one’s most intimate experiences." This, in an article that chides Walker for exaggerating.
"the wisdom embedded in the humanities, offer the only firm standpoint from which to defend the human person against the Leviathan of Washington, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley"
It is curious that he omits religion, which is arguably a much stronger bulwark against the great Satan of technology.
Paul is right.
There does not seem to be anything to save in existing institutions other than technical training.
Traditionally classical scholarship was the path of elite education, intended for aristocratic leaders. That's who Aristotle and Socrates wanted to teach.
It was extended to at least some of the lower orders by the Church, in order to educate its own leaders.
This was slowly extended until it is now being perversely applied to a multitude for which it is unsuitable, and who's unsuitability has helped corrupt the whole process.
The perverted nature of leadership training of the current model is delivering negative value. The best modern leaders come straight out of technical training and the less cluttered with foolishness it is the better off they will be.
Competence at real things, plus good character plus experience will, at least, give us effective barbarians, not the depraved, decadent aristocrats of today.
No true "conservative" can argue against Scott Walker. This is simply flushing out a whole lot of RINOs.
AReasonableMeltdown: "It is curious that he omits religion, which is arguably a much stronger bulwark against the great Satan of technology."
It is curious (or perhaps not) that you apparently are unaware that "the Humanities" traditionally include religious studies.
Probably a common mistake amongst "battle hardened" Verencemos "Brigade" members.
I agree that PC and Careerism go hand-in-hand. The problem is that colleges no longer prepare students for the larger world, but instead act as gatekeepers into the much smaller world of modern nomenclatura. And the safest career of all is presented as being ensconced in a career in Higher Education.
The Gordian Knot is the tangled mess that is the symbiotic relationship between the Post-Grad producing factories, traditional Liberal Arts colleges, secondary schools that accept illiteracy from "graduating" students, and a job market that justifiably shies away from hiring illiterates.
Walker is at least willing to take a swing at the problem.
Drago said...
It is curious (or perhaps not) that you apparently are unaware that "the Humanities" traditionally include religious studies.
If you actually knew anything, full stop, you would know that religious studies and religion share roughly the same relationship as anthropology and ritual penile subincision. The researchers are rarely active participants.
Madisonfella wrote:
"No true conservative' can argue against Scott Walker."
Don't you mean "No true Scotsman"?
Hah! Double joke!
THe problem with the humanities is that you are going into hock for thousands of dollars to learn something that will not get you a job. It's not the humanities that is the issue then but the going into debt.
If you are the son of wealth and have money to burn,then by all means go into the humanities. If you intend on going on to be a teacher or lecturer, it may have value.
But if you're poor and going to an ivy league college and studying humanities,what are you thinking to get out of your degree other than debt up the wazoo?
"Religious studies" as decadent moderns concieve them certainly does seem more like entomology. They will study ants but being ants is out of the question. This was not, however, the role of religion in traditional liberal education.
buwaya puti said...
This was not, however, the role of religion in traditional liberal education.
That is a long time ago, except for the Catholic universities and a few small Protestant colleges.
Traditionally people who took a bachelor's in the humanities either did nothing with it (they didn't have to work), or it was the foundation for a degree in the law, medicine, or religion. It is a very strange situation, historically speaking, to graduate tens of thousands of humanities students every year and expect them to work for a living.
There is a suspicion among some conservatives that today's liberal arts colleges take their kids and brainwash them into becoming secular, pro-choice, pro-gay-marriage, peacenik Commies.
That's possible, but it's not what I have seen from today's younger generation on the Internet.
Those kids are *already* secular, pro-choice, pro-gay-marriage, peacenik Commies in high school.
The parents are unaware of it, because the kids are biding their time till they graduate from college. They need the parents to pay for their college education, and they have been told to "keep the peace in the family," so they've learned how to dissemble or keep their mouths shut.
Until the day comes that they get their first job and move out of their parents' home permanently. Only then do the parents find out what their kids have been secretly thinking all those years.
And they will blame the college for it, rather than try to figure out just where their kids really got their ideas from.
sinz52 said...
There is a suspicion among some conservatives that today's liberal arts colleges take their kids and brainwash them into becoming secular, pro-choice, pro-gay-marriage, peacenik Commies.
Those kids are *already* secular, pro-choice, pro-gay-marriage, peacenik Commies in high school.
The parents are unaware of it,
Exactly.
Some people assume a lot about what conservatives believe.
The rot is cultural and extends everywhere, in every sort of media. If anything it affects those worst who are not in a position to attend college. This society is generally decadent and collapsing.
If you imagine that conservatives don't know that in their bones, you aren't listening.
The liberal arts in existing universities are just plain useless, as far as students are concerned.
They are a negative value, in the sense that they harbor a priveleged clerisy, a priesthood, of a cult dedicated to the destruction of the rest of us. This priesthood is a constant source, among many others to be sure, of a general propaganda campaign against all of us. There is no reason for the public to subsidize such a priesthood that hates the public.
Berry College has one advantage in that its graduates with liberal arts degrees have a community support system that can find them a starter job after graduation.
And that's not the college. It is a rather traditional institution called the local Baptist Church that their family attends, like the Rev. Walker 's family did for Scott.
Exactly.
That explains a lot.
It is not so much illiteracy but innumeracy, and inability to pass a drug test that impacts graduates ability to get a job. Employers don't mind if you know about Greek philosophers and the great books of Western Civilization, but if you can't do basic arithmetic and show up sober every day, they can't use you. Drive Automotive, a Canadian auto parts maker, operating in the US, has a tool and die apprenticeship program that can put a high school graduate in a 6 digit earnings position, if they can just pass a basic entrance test.
At least one of their CEOs has been through that same program.
buwaya puti said...
The rot is cultural and extends everywhere, in every sort of media. If anything it affects those worst who are not in a position to attend college. This society is generally decadent and collapsing.
If you imagine that conservatives don't know that in their bones, you aren't listening.
What I don't understand is why wingers blame liberals for this. As a moderate, what I see is a crappy culture driven almost completely by commercial considerations.
Because for the most part the mass media, in every area, is a "liberal" sphere. This is not just a matter of the leanings of the artists and "talent", but of the owners, and of the entire society within which they interact.
This is an interesting development, as during the early years of the mass media this was not the case. The media has been tremendously influential in normalizing what in previous times would be considered deviance.
You could argue that all this, including the liberal monoculture, is the result of the free market, but that's not entirely so. Its clear that there are powers in these areas that do willingly forego commercial success for what amount to ideological reasons. Its easiest to see in movies, in terms of what gets made vs what doesn't, but a close look without blinkers would reveal a lot.
And then there are critical matters like no-fault divorce. These things snuck in, advocated by interested minorities, before the public truly understood what was happening.
AReasonableMeltdown: "If you actually knew anything, full stop, you would know that religious studies and religion share roughly the same relationship as anthropology and ritual penile subincision."
Yes, I fully understand that the left has transformed our society thusly.
If only we could be as enlightened as Fidel Castro, for whom you once volunteered. He deserved your support, especially when ordering homosexuals lobotomized 'cuz "revolution!"
AReasonableman wrote:
"As a moderate, what I see is a crappy culture driven almost completely by commercial considerations."
As a moderate, I realize that a culture driven by commercial considerations is the price we pay for a culture of plenty.
----It is a very strange situation, historically speaking, to graduate tens of thousands of humanities students every year and expect them to work for a living.---
But a hallmark for socialist environments where the perpetually dissatisfied, oversupply 'college graduates' seethe at not getting a job with a salary commensurate with their having a diploma. See the occupy movement.
It's been pointed out here before that in the old days, when universities emphasized the canon, they were educating the clergy and gentlemen of leisure. And so it was easy to stay pure.
But universities have sold their souls; they want the taxpayers' and the middle class's money, so they offer what is essentially vocational training.
And academic standards have been slipping ever since. Students are always asking "what use is this" and complaining that real life is not like exams, because you get to look things up in real life.
Here's the thing about knowledge: until you have it, you won't know the use for it, and when you need it, if you don't have it you won't know what questions to ask.
And as for real life, the exams in real life are not announced in advance. They often involve a subject you didn't sign up for. There's frequently no time to look anything up, and the consequences for failure sometimes include death.
When the exam comes, you will have only what is in your brain. Your brain cannot get full, why would you NOT try to learn as much as you can?
We complain that kids today think that the present is all there is, but they are getting that idea because their elders frequently don't see the "use" of their learning about the past.
What I don't understand is why wingers blame liberals for this. As a moderate, what I see is a crappy culture driven almost completely by commercial considerations.
Then you aren't paying attention.
Rusty said...
Then you aren't paying attention.
No. You only hear the media that panders to your beliefs, for their own commercial interests. Murdoch doesn't give a fuck about the quality of the culture, its the quantity of his return on investment that counts.
Wait, Walker doesn't have a college degree?
for real?
@ARM:Murdoch doesn't give a fuck about the quality of the culture, its the quantity of his return on investment that counts.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
There are any number of networks not owned by Rupert Murdoch,and I haven't noticed any significantly higher cultural value to their offerings.
Example: Keeping up with the Kardashians is on E!, which is owned by NBC Universal.
Gabriel said...
You say that like it's a bad thing.
No. I am saying that it is foolish to blame liberals for the prevailing culture, which is clearly driven by lowest common denominator commercial interests.
It's not as if it's necessary to sit in a classroom to obtain a liberal arts education.
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