How The American University was Killed, in Five Easy Steps

[Teamster Jeff]

https://junctrebellion.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/how-the-american-university-was-killed-in-five-easy-steps/

Motive:

The Liberal Arts stood at the center of a college education, and students were exposed to philosophy, anthropology, literature, history, sociology, world religions, foreign languages and cultures. Of course, something else happened, beginning in the late fifties into the sixties — the uprisings and growing numbers of citizens taking part in popular dissent — against the Vietnam War, against racism, against destruction of the environment in a growing corporatized culture, against misogyny, against homophobia. Where did much of that revolt incubate? Where did large numbers of well-educated, intellectual, and vocal people congregate? On college campuses. Who didn’t like the outcome of the 60s? The corporations, the war-mongers, those in our society who would keep us divided based on our race, our gender, our sexual orientation.

Step 1: You defund public higher education.

Step Two: You deprofessionalize and impoverish the professors (and continue to create a surplus of underemployed and unemployed Ph.D.s)

Step Three: You move in a managerial/administrative class who take over governance of the university.

Step Four: You move in corporate culture and corporate money

Step Five: Destroy the Students

[dimbear]

1. College went from being a luxury to a necessity. Spoiled just like flying. n/t

[a geek named Bob]

23. I disagree

I think that one of the best things to happen to colleges (and the USA) was the populist takeover of Academia. The whole "College is a luxury" thing went we had very few workers with leading edge training. Colleges had to accommodate the needs of a variety of students. I think what is killing Academia is the sheer lack of relevance to the modern world, at least in terms of "the humanities," and the overt (and rather outre) pushing of tired radical political messages in same. I'm finishing my second master's degree, and I'm very tired of hearing what a bunch of smug, tenured, mentally ill faux marxists think. (I'm hoping that the next degree - in engineering - won't have as much contact with stupid people).

As for flying, I used to do it quite often. (But then again, I'm a student pilot, so YMMV).

[Carolina]

2. K&R and

welcome to DU!

[a geek named Bob]

3. Teamster Jeff,

The Liberal Arts (at least in this country) served as a finishing school for the upper classes. The Professional degrees and "the sciences" served as training and research grounds for our increasing tech and industrial base.

For my money, the Liberal Arts/Humanities were poisoned with the introduction of Critical Theory.

[Teamster Jeff]

4. A little more critical theory

might have kept our industrial base from being outsourced to foreign countries.

[a geek named Bob]

6. Teamster Jeff,

I'm not sure we are using the same definition for the term "critical theory"

From my training, there is a big difference between "critical thinking," and "critical theory"

[a geek named Bob]

7. differences

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-theory/
http://www.iep.utm.edu/frankfur/

This "theory" (more of a set of linked conjectures, really) states that objective knowledge is impossible, and that all actions are class based. This "theory" tends to throw theory-incongruent facts onto the junkheap. The majority of what I've read in "theory" is erudite, but not very smart.

[philly_bob]

9. Thanks, Geek. Graduated before Critical Theory hit schools.

Have been puzzled since then...

[flamingdem]

10. I enjoy theory

but I'm glad that I don't have to defend myself against other academics.

I think it depends on the discipline. Media, Film, Art, some Cultural theory is very interesting.

[a geek named Bob]

12. Flamingdem, I've dealt with Critical Theory and it's products for over 30 years

Being as my high school was one of the hip and trendy upper crust towns in the Northest corridor, my school was a testing ground. (This was in the late 70's into the early 80's.) We had the gamut from Freirie, Cunningham

Critical Theory was developed by the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research (ISR). It was developed as both a philosophical consolation for the failure of 1848 to be the year of the uprising, and as a possible tool for strong social control.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-theory/

Debating an actual theory (a testable set of hypotheses, based on observable facts) is fun, because it means actual physical experiments (which I usually find to be fun.) The problem with debating theories based on Critical Theory, is that there's no way to actually prove a test to be right or wrong, as well as a complete lack of usable real world tools developed from that Theory set.

I find the Cultural theory based on Semiotics, memetics, and the "social cybernetics" stuff (like from Michael Hall, Roengen, and Weiner) to be pretty absorbing.

[flamingdem]

13. That's good you clarified

and I should be more careful. I know about the Frankfurt school from UCLA. Critical Theory shouldn't be confused with Cultural Theory or what I guess is really Cultural Studies.

What I learned and what was mostly cultural theory, each discipline has kings and queens. Film Theory has gone through some pretty arcane phases, like Lacanian Theory. Some people spend their lives on these theories and then they are discredited!

[a geek named Bob]

15. I took a film theory course, for this degree

The class decided that (symbolically) the only way Siigourney Weaver's character survived the first two Alien movies was that she (symbolically) became a man. Also, that civilians were okay as intended targets. I could go on ad nauseum. That class was a wake-up call...

[flamingdem]

18. he he so much of it is baloney

but there are some speakers who can enthrall. I guess it's just about being a good writer, and a massive BS artiste!

The latest kerfuffle is over Harvard Prof. Rodowick and his Virtual Life of Film. Something about film being dead and other theorists carving out their territory disagreeing with his theories.

[a geek named Bob]

20. One of my favorite authors summed up

his opinions about most lit/humanities profs in re their teaching

(With apologies to the Heinlein estate for my ham-handed paraphrasing)

"You wouldn't trust a surgeon who had only wrote about surgery. You wouldn't trust an engineer who only criticized a building project. Why would you trust a professor who's only taught critique, to teach you writing?"

[a geek named Bob]

11. Not a problem, Philly

Part of my Thesis from Hell involved learning a bit about the Theory. I can make a case that the use of Critical Theory is counterproductive for R/D start-ups, innovation, and education. The Theory is basically what happens when you let rhetoric go into uncontrolled Feed-back loops.

Just for Grins, I may use Theory as satirical material for a novel I'm writing.

[flamingdem]

19. I'd like to find a website where theory terms are skewered

because it would help me learn which ones are passe!

[a geek named Bob]

22. The basic rhetorical terms

Are still good (ie phronesis, techne, logos/pathos/ethos). It's the post-modernist/post-structuralist/post-colonialist thing that is the dead weight. Critical/Cultural "Theory" is more of a massive linked set of rhetorical stereotypes, than any sort of useful teaching tools. This is why I want to spit on something, whenever Paolo Freire's name is mentioned.

(I'd spit ON Freire, but he's dead, so the gesture is largely wasted.)

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. Interesting shot at Vice President Biden in the citation

Also interesting to read the comments that are posted.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

8. An important observation from the author:

This is how you break the evil, wicked, leftist academic class in America — you turn them into low-wage members of the precariat – that growing number of American workers whose employment is consistently precarious. All around the country, our undergraduates are being taught by faculty living at or near the poverty line, who have little to no say in the way classes are being taught, the number of students in a class, or how curriculum is being designed. They often have no offices in which to meet their students, no professional staff support, no professional development support. One million of our college professors are struggling to continue offering the best they can in the face of this wasteland of deteriorated professional support, while living the very worst kind of economic insecurity.

[flamingdem]

14. It happened very quickly

and is a warning about what repukes can do given fertile ground.

[a geek named Bob]

16. If the repugs really try to make this happen, they'll kill off their political future

1.) lower education rates means fewer job chances
2.) the down spiraling towns lose those talent/skills.spark
3.) they move to the cities

Keep the cycle going, and you have the rise of city-states, with a few Blue voting population...

4.) the current set of Warming theories i've heard, puts the middle of the country in arid conditions, and the coasts as green.
5.) more people in cities means less singleton motor traffic.
6.) less singleton traffic means less energy/fuel needed
7.) less fuel use means less payment to oil/coal companies
8.) less money for oil/coal means less money for the GOP

I figure these next 20 years are the Republican's last shot.

[flamingdem]

17. I think that they are only concerned with #8

Koch and Co. have huge investments in oil/coal that they want to protect right now or they risk losing their empire. I'm not sure they have such a long term plan. I could be very wrong but right now they seem to be winging it -- Paul Ryan?

[a geek named Bob]

21. If enough people stop buying oil/coal

their empire falls apart.



The current model the hyper rich seem to have seems to run something like: keep seeking rentiers. When the rentiers can't produce any more income, move on.

The problem is, they've pretty much tapped out the market. If they hadn't gotten greedy, they might have found a sustainable level of being hyper rich. Lacking that, most of them seem to be trying to be the richest guy at the downfall party

Most of the Maker community that I've contacted seems to feel that the best strategy at this point is to keep their favorite local community together as much as possible, and pick up the pieces when the 1% business model falls completely apart.