Instead of trying to generate new ideas, American conservatives often hoover up after the Left. They pick up some deeply embarrassing leftist shibboleth and make it proudly their own.
One example is the notorious “Democrats are the real racists.” The underlying idea is that Americans are engulfed in racism and it’s our duty to explain everything that ails our society through that structural racism.
Another example is “crowds of black people are unfairly incarcerated and we need to release them ASAP.” Enter Donald Trump with his Kim Kardashian plan to do just that.
Yet another example is “America is a source of bad in the world, starting unnecessary wars and opposing dictators whom we need to worship precisely because of how much they despise America.” Enter JD Vance with his paeans to the poor, well-meaning Russia, grievously misunderstood by evil Americans.
Yet another example is the belief that the American institutions – the envy and wonder of the world – are inherently evil and need to be ditched in favor of a dictatorial model. It was the Left’s favorite pastime to moan about “the Deep State.” Now we have Glen Greenwald who lives in some third-world craphole lecturing us on how our institutions are evil.
In 1918 Lenin ordered that a concentration camp for university professors be created and 40 be executed at random. Now we are hearing from the right that we should just disband the US academia – the envy and wonder of the world – because we are too lazy and stupid to offer any ideas that would displace the bad ones that have taken hold there. But what are our ideas? What do we have except for the regurgitated slogans of the left?
I have one such idea – the nation-state. But it’s hard, it takes a lot of work, it’s not a magic pill. Who needs all that? It’s so much easier, instead, to hoover up somebody else’s trash and present it as our own, original thinking when it’s nothing of the kind.
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Yea not sure why the calls of “Democrats are the real racists” is a thing. I typically just chalk it up to Boomers being Boomers. I mean if your going to insult them, call them out for what they are. Satanists, Globalists, Traitors, Wicked, Murderers, and Communists. Also the racist thing has gotten really unhinged. I mean its practically verboden to take pride in the white race these days, or lift up the achievements of the various white nations. Its beyond stupid, and even more so to use it as an insult against the left.
On another of your points, lets be fair, America has been acting like an overflowing sewer. This is not to say America is bad as it is not. However it doesn’t mean that the sewage from Hellewood, the CIA, State Dept., etc. isn’t flowing into the world poisoning everything it touches.
The next two feel a bit targeted though. American Institutions might have and to be fair were the envy and wonder of the world. The terrible truth is, nothing actually stays as it is. Once upon a time, England was the best in the world for its universities. French culture was once the envy of the world, and all the European nobles learned French and spoke it, even those off in Russia. Times change as institutes change as well. What was once the best can quickly loose its luster if it is run by those who would destroy it.
Regardless of how any plans to fix or rebuild the education system, there is one thing that will stay constant. What is there now must be cleared out. When you fix an institution you get rid of most of the dead wood, you also go through its policies, keep what works and get rid of the rest. It’s like forest management. If you don’t allow the fire to burn the underbrush on occasion, then the underbrush will grow up, choke out a lot of the growth you want, and then when not if it catches fire it is a lot more difficult to put out.
So once more in layman’s terms. Yes academia needs to be cleared out like a cleansing fire. If you want ideas for what comes next, I’ll toss a few into the ring, but it needs to be cleaned out first.
Ideas – First the Feds have no business in academia. It was not listed as one of their powers in the constitution and they and their loans need to go. Second, schools must be allowed to fail and collapse. No more propping them up with more money, as in they should get a small stipend from the states for teachers pay, but the admin doesn’t need to be making 100K plus. The admin can be slimmed down drastically. You can start by getting rid of the HR and DEI departments. There is no need for computer labs, or high tech equipment. A college might be able to make the case for specialized classes, but in most cases, old desktops is really all that is required, and even they are iffy. Fourth, tenure has to go. It was a good idea at the time, but like most things it has gotten twisted over the years. There are far too many bad teachers who can’t be tossed out due to it and they are part of the deadwood that needs to be replaced. Fifth, Sports scholarships should be gotten rid of. A school is there to teach. Sports are fine if said school can raise the money via donations to build their teams, but taxpayers should not be paying for it, nor for the scholarships of sports students. If someone wants to leave money to the school to create them, that’s fine, but no tax funds. Sixth, the schools and colleges are there to educate kids, not collect rent. I would have the dormitories destroyed and the schools not be allowed to build them. In this case I would allow for a small stipend of money to help them rent from locals. Not a lot, and there would be rules about it. As in must maintain x grade levels, must take and pass a financial class, and the stipend is not allowed to be used to purchase books, or materials. Seventh, Professors can assign their own books, but they must have copies on hand. None of the I published a book that you must buy for $300. That should be grounds for immediate termination and disbarred from ever working in education again. Eight, the “rounded education class requirements” needs to go. If you are working on a financial degree in what world do you need literature and language classes. That needs to go immediately.
Those are just some of the ideas. The point though is before anything can be done, what is currently in place needs to be burned down and its supporters removed and barred from working in education ever again. Otherwise you will just end up right back where you started except worse off.
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The part about the sewer is exactly what Iranian mullahs are saying.
Teaching US college students with all desktops – which means excluding them from all the cutting edge new technology invented at this point in time in America – will bring a lot of joy to China and those same mullahs. And this, too, has existed on the Left for decades. “We have an unfair advantage, so let’s slow down to let Africa catch up.” Your motivation is different but so what? The result is the same: hobbling American achievement.
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Out of say 100 professions a college teaches, maybe 3 require cutting edge tech, and even then it is not “required.” Do students need to learn to use a computer, yes. However an old cheap desktop is just as good as a cutting edge supercomputer at learning the basics. You’ll note I did say “colleges might be able to make a case for specialized classes.” However the overwhelmingly vast number don’t require said resources. The computers are there to make the lives to the teachers and students easier. That’s fine. The school can pay for them through donations, and the students can buy their own, or use the old clunky desktops if they need to write meaningless essays. Either way, neither should be funded by taxpayers.
Honestly I’m not even sure where your trying to argue your point from. With a remarkably tiny exception, college classes don’t teach cutting edge new tech. Nearly all that is learned on the job. At best graphic design, engineering, and architecture might have a could successfully argue for need of better computers. Anything else including programing classes, no.
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“academia needs to be cleared out like a cleansing fire. … it needs to be cleaned out first”
That sounds like something straight out of the cultural revolution. Cleanse it with fire and you’ll smoldering wreckage and have rebuild everything from scratch and decades of uneducated people…. not something to aspire to IMHO…
It’s uncanny how many the ‘no public school, just learn to fix engines and harvest turnips’ right sound like Maoist revolutionaries singing about the joy of shoveling manure for the collective…..
What did the left do? A long march through the institutions. That’s how academia changes. Don’t try to convince/replace faculty win the interest of graduate students (tomorrow’s faculty).
Te problem is that the right is too often simply unengaged and not willing to put in sustained effort (also see art).
The idea of a cleansing fire is an appealing (to some) fantasy but will never happen without bringing about a new dark age.
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The problem is… the long patient approach isn’t going to work for a lot of us. We’re *still* looking at decades of unavailable education, for most people.
I’ve got a kid who’ll be college-aged in six years. Will there be any engineering schools we can send him to by then? I don’t have a lot of confidence in that, and we are looking at trade schools instead.
That doesn’t mean I want to burn it down for everybody else’s kids, but… if we need to rebuild from scratch, I’d rather start *right now* in order to have something useful up and running as soon as possible. If it could be done in, say, ten years… that’d be enough.
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Yes, there are and there will be good engineering schools in 6 years. I worked with a previously homeschooled undergrad in my lab. He was truly excellent and had a good plan for his education. He ended up getting an MS degree in one of the engineering disciplines and is working now.
Find a public state school nearby that has a good reputation for engineering and make a plan for what you want to get out of it. Having a plan rather than aimlessly meandering around for 4-5 years is a key to success. Have your son get experience during his studies either through doing research in a lab or finding part time work related to his studies. Based on my experience with previously homeschooled students your son will do great.
The situation is really not as bad as some people present it here, the system doesnāt have to be burnt down. I work in a science field at a large public university with a substantial engineering program. Students who want to learn, learn and are trained well. I promise that we are not all monsters that need to be eradicated.
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I trust there will still be engineering schools. We have two main concerns:
In addition, the hostility toward religion and family life in academia these days is not something I’d willingly send any of my children into.
We’ll see what it looks like in six years. In the meantime, we are working on multiple contingency plans.
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i. Unless you are looking at a school in one of the states that does not allow religious exemptions from vaccination (such as California), you will be able to avoid participation in medical experiments. I have done that for myself and my family, and it was as easy as filing a form. My child is currently attending a school and the last time any shots happened was more than three years ago. Florida, for example, should not be a problem.
ii. One pathway toward decreasing the cost of education is to start at a community college and take all prerequisites there. Community colleges are cheaper, and they are also commuter schools so there is not much in terms of student life, which I think will be good for what you are looking for. You can then transfer the credits to a public university. It does take some self-discipline and a good plan to be successful with this pathway, but I have seen it done.
As for the hostility. Taking science/engineering classes is not a problem (I am personally not aware of my colleagues pushing an anti-religious/anti-family agenda during the class time as that would be quite a non-sequitur in our curriculum), the problem may be when your child ends up being immersed in an unfriendly campus culture. The key is to be able to avoid living on campus. Many schools do have a requirement for students to live on campus during their first year. However, if you enter the University as a transfer (for example, from a community college), you are considered a nontraditional student and the system leaves you alone.
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I took that route (Community college then transfer,) myself, but even with it, you are still required to take classes that have nothing to do with your major. All of those classes you have to pay for, the books and materials as well. In addition to the time wasted on it.
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The education system you propose exists in Canada. There’s no Gen Ed requirements and as a result we have people graduating with a degree in business who never heard that New York isn’t the capital of the US (true story). In the US, where the secondary education system is not working at all, we end up with people who have no inkling about the 3 branches of government and are shocked to find out that the US president doesn’t make laws (true story) or that Africa isn’t a country in Latin America (true story).
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I took that route– I had completed almost two years at the community college by the time I graduated high school, and I’m certain he could do the same. For free, through the state’s dual-enrollment program. No problems there… except that when we investigated the local colleges, they seem to have made all the prereq-level classes into online-only things. We have been experimenting with online classes, and are not thrilled with the results. It is one of the options we are keeping an eye on.
That said, I went the pay-my-own-way into college, and ran out of money in my junior year. I will not be encouraging him to take on large amounts of debt to get all the way through grad school. One route we are contemplating is putting him through a not-unrelated two-year trade program starting at 16 –something like airframe mechanic, or electrician– which he could then use to help finance any college ambitions. Since they have changed the age requirements for dual-enrollment, we may even be able to wrap up some of the math and science prereqs *before* that… or work on being able to CLEP them later.
Like I said. Investigating multiple options. But not terribly confident that uni will be the best option.
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“I will not be encouraging him to take on large amounts of debt to get all the way through grad school.”
In the US, there is no need to pay for grad school in sciences or engineering disciplines. There are teaching and research assistant positions that pay for the tuition and provide a stipend for graduate students.
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Our university didn’t mandate vaccination. And tuition is free for families with income under $85K.
As for hostility to religion, I get your point. I see a reaction when I say things like, “as my priest said during the service last Sunday” or “every time we go to church”. I do it on purpose to show that religious professors do exist. Only last week I had a long conversation with a Hispanic student who said he’s mega excited to do his senior project with a professor who not only understands his desire to write as a deeply religious Catholic but can actually guide him in the process of writing. There needs to be more of us for sure.
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–also, we’re not in a position to pay for it. Will there be any scholarships available for white men?
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On a positive side, my university was barred this year from any longer offering scholarships to “black women in STEM” and stuff like that. But it took effort on the part of somebody who went through every single scholarship we offer and made a list of those that discriminate by race and sex. And then sued on constitutional grounds. One person or organization put in the work, and we are no longer allowed to discriminate. I have nothing but admiration for them.
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Well, that’s a hopeful sign.
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And I work in the Humanities and I dare anybody to suggest that I don’t offer a solid base in Great Authors and crucial marketable skills with zero woke ideology. I gave a lecture on transnational global elites today. I believe it’s very valuable. And the opposite of woke.
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My father went to a Soviet university as a passionate hater of all things Soviet and remained exactly that after graduation. Nobody can be recruited into an ideology as an adult if it doesn’t appeal on some level.
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Of course it sounds like something out of a cultural revolution. They used this practice too, and do you know how it worked out? The things they didn’t want taught went away, the ideas they didn’t like went underground, and communism was the only thing taught. Just because a bunch of wicked demons used something doesn’t mean it can’t be used in the other direction. By that logic we shouldn’t eat, sleep, or breath, because they did that too.
As a counter point, at some point in the late 1920s early 1930s Germany, the Wiemar government such as it was, was allowing the schools to be flooded with lgbq and communists books and tracks. They weren’t quiet at the point of requiring teachers of that bent into the schools, but if it had lasted another decade I suspect said school would look remarkably like ours currently do.
The German students, not the Nazis, but the students themselves organized themselves to burn the books. The Nazis joined in once this was going on. They purged the schools with fire. In the end, while the schools were put into a more military bent (typical for Germany of the time period), the education system was overhauled.
I am not calling for the teachers and admins to be dragged out for mock trials and a swift drop from the noose. I am however saying that what is currently in our schools needs to be removed, it needs to be purged, and barred from ever returning.
I will agree that the right is generally unengaged, and not willing to put forth the effort. I will counter with I suspect most folks on the right simply don’t think its worth the effort to try to fix things, when every time an institution is “fixed” the deadwood is never removed. I suspect if academia was cleared out with a fire, you would have more people interested as there wouldn’t be as much resistance from the dead wood and it would be more likely things could in fact be fixed.
Lastly “The idea of a cleansing fire is an appealing (to some) fantasy but will never happen without bringing about a new dark age.” Your reading too much fantasy. You would need to literally control the whole of the earth, have enforcers in every town, and expend huge amounts of effort for this to take place. The only and I mean only reason this has happened in some areas in the past is that the populations of those regions were mostly illiterate, and so by killing/imprisoning the teachers, banning the books, and making sure those who would normally be educated weren’t, said dark ages were able to take place. It is extraordinarily unlikely to occur in today’s world. In 50-ish more years the way our education system is falling apart, it might be possible. Today no.
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This is exactly it. The slow, plodding work to create something sounds boring and unappealing. A magic pill, a cleansing fire, a revolution sound so much more exciting. But it’s a dream, a fantasy. And while we fantasize, other people do the boring, patient work and get results.
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Maybe you should run for some office after retirement?
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I’m being invited to talk on TV here in Chicago, so the public life I so adamantly resisted is happening against my designs.
I’ll definitely run for the local council after I retire, that’s for sure.
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“still required to take classes that have nothing to do with your major. All of those classes you have to pay for, the books and materials as well. In addition to the time wasted on it”
Apparently book prices are insane now (with no sellback second hand options?) That sucks and I’m sure there are policies that could mitigate that.
But the idea of being well-rounded and having some academic experience outside a narrow specialization is a founding principle of American education and one I think it would be a shame to lose.
I remember Galeev once wrote that russian stem-types (from a narrow no-extras education system) are suckers for pseudo-science precisely because they don’t have certain…. perceptual skills that the humanities can help develop.
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Here is the thing though. If it was offered as a possibility I would likely have no issue with it. It however is mandatory as in if you do not take these classes you will not be allowed to graduate. That is what makes this such a particularly bad idea.
Your not wrong that it was part of the first American Universities. Though I would like to counter that at that point of time, those going to university were either rich, had a donor paying for it, or were extremely intelligence working with a grant. It was not the average every day person. Most of those going to university at the time could afford that and afford to spend the extra time involved.
It makes no sense to require every day joes to take extra courses to be “well rounded.”
As for the books, they were nearly $300 a book when I got my 2nd degree. I can only image how much they are now.
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The books are cheaper, thanks to the proliferation of online options instead of real paper books. You can now rent a digital textbook for a semester instead of buying one, which is cheaper. Competition from Amazon (where many students get textbooks nowadays instead of the University bookstore) also helps. Letās not even talk about all the books that exist in digital form out there that students can access āillegallyā without paying. Who wants to get the textbooks cheaper, definitely can.
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You get the physical books because first there is no guarentee that the internet will work when you need it, and second because you might want to reference them decades down the road, and if there is anything that can be said to be true about electronic books is that they can be edited at any point. Physical books its harder to do that to.
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My university doesn’t ask students to pay for books at all. The university buys them and sends them to students for the duration of the course.
Our tuition is very affordable and actually completely free to everybody with an income under $85,000. That’s why we have a hiring freeze. We don’t collect much in tuition and the state has reduced its funding dramatically. But to say that this is financially ruinous to students is not grounded in reality. If you get zero rebates and zero scholarships – which is relevant to maybe 7% of students – it’s still only $8,000 per semester for a full course load. You can go to school for a semester then work for a semester. No debt needed at all. It’s a different story that many students have no financial discipline and go into debt to finance a lifestyle instead of actually paying for school. There’s nothing we can do about that. If there are no college loans, they’ll run up credit card debt, and it will be worse. We are looking for structural solutions to something that is very much an issue of personal responsibility and financial literacy.
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Exactly. Which is another way of saying Republicans are the real liberals. No thank you!
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