Professor J,
Before getting into the discussion at hand I have to comment about your foray into Occupied territory. How interesting that just as I was defending the movement to several people based on the fact that the media is only giving us part of the story (and they get to choose the part), you were out proving that very thing! Many who were angry and insulted about how the TEA Party protesters were represented by a few crazy, racist, conspiracy wackos on the evening news when they knew better, now completely believe whatever the media says about the OWS crowd. Wonderful about the guy with the sign that said “Took a bath, got a job, still pissed" They do so hope to neatly categorize and polarize us. Good for you on finding out for yourself!
I hate to keep returning to the sports issue but just this week a
prominent southern school with a rich football tradition
fired its coach. So while they hunt for a new one and put
together an enticing and lucrative contract filled with a small fortune and perks of
various kinds they will be paying the ousted coach 100K per MONTH for
the next five years. the average ANNUAL salary there for full time professors
falls somewhere around that same amount and the tuition at this school
has risen 6.4% in the last couple of years. Interesting to note as well
that the highest paid teachers are in business admin and the lowest in
education, another exhibit of what we really value since those
comparisons hold true in the private sector. In the very same paper with the story of the coach being sacked and the tuition increase was one about
cuts in humanities departments world wide, a further indication that
Hedges' concerns should be getting more attention than they are.
You bring up such a good point about the Blue Laws. I
can remember my parents making sure the car had gas and going to the
grocery on Saturday (and of course, making sure they had cigarettes!) ;) because the next day everything would be closed.
Government regulated "morality" of a sort that served everyone's best
interest. Even if you weren't religious you benefited from the break
from a normal pace and THAT pace was so much slower than the one we are
caught up in now. Slowly over time more and more things began to open up
and stay open later and later or never closing. When we marvel that our
kids are just going OUT at ten p.m. we fail to take into account that
groceries, fast food outlets, and lots of other places are open all the
time or don't close until three A.M. Access 24/7 to whatever we might want.
(My kids cannot grasp the concept of a television station signing off
for the night with the National Anthem.) But hey, we still had those
sacred holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving as down time to look
forward to on the calendar. Apparently they are on life support. This
year I couldn't help picturing Mr. Potter rubbing his hands together and
thinking "I wonder what I can get them to do?" It would be so easy for
us all to stop playing the game in which we are the pawns; why don't we?
I thought Hebdon was an encouraging example of a thoughtful free
thinking young person. We need many more like him. Nearly everything he
says needs to be quoted. I thought this passage particularly
insightful: "The competitive efficiency culture --electronic
immersion, high paced everything, career networking as a way of life,
prestige, money--it disconnects the so-called best and the brightest
from the commonsense obligations to society, ecology, and democratic
ideals. Somewhere along the way into the free market, Berkeley forgot
that learning isn't about handshaking, resume fondling and market
rewards." (p.95)
"Networking as a way of life" has an especially depressing
connotation. In a culture where the hectic pace of life allows for so
few genuine friendships and and the time it takes to tend to deep
meaningful relationships, this buzzword had become a favorite in
corporate culture. To me it is the thinly veiled practice of developing
relationships with people you hope to use (of course it's touted
as an opportunity to share your expertise with others). In a world where time is so
precious spending it with people who can do little to advance careers or
social status, my actually be seen as wasting time. We already see
leisure and recreation viewed this way with fewer and fewer
people taking all their vacation time. We are quickly losing sight of
just how valuable some of life's little pleasures are. Didn't we use to work and shop to live? It seems now we are living (or some poor semblance thereof) to work and shop.
Hedges shares a story on p. 96 about having a conversation with a classmate that broke down when in response to a simple question she "unleashed a torrent of arcane academic jargon" which left him with little idea what she was talking about: "You can see this retreat into specialized, impenetrable enclaves in every academic department and discipline across the country. The more these universities churn out these stunted men and women, the more we are flooded with a peculiar breed of specialist who uses obscure code words as a way to avoid communication."
And why would intelligent people want to avoid communication? He tells us on the next page: "Our elites use a private dialect that is a barrier to communication as well as common sense. The corporate con artists and economists who have rigged our financial system continue to speak to us in the obscure and incomprehensible coined by specialists on Wall Street and at elite business schools."
Any one who has ever actually sat down to try and decipher those annual reports that come from your investment firm knows without question that Hedges is spot on with this observation. I used to wonder who they thought was going to understand it. Now, I know.
Speaking of meaningful friendships, I'm off to stay for a week with a dear friend. Not to worry, have laptop; will travel (and blog when not laughing, eating her delicious cooking and camping out in dusty used book stores). :)
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Code Blue
Madame M,
We may be about there, although radical evil has not arrived in force yet.
May I suggest with the highest recommendation that our readers read (again and again) the post Madame has made on education on her blog? Brilliant! We need those teachers, and we need those coaches Madame mentions there as well.
Ability to choose a system (or school) in line with our passions? Sounds like what the Germans do with their testing for school past 5th grade. It’s not that the different schools don’t have all the same subjects, it’s just that the children get a lot MORE of whatever they show they have a passion for.
Yes, we have only to look around and see what Hedges is describing. “Black Friday.” How manipulated we are. To shop. Pressure for stores to open earlier and earlier. Waiting in lines for hours or days. For marketing ploys (small numbers available of the advertised “hot” items, themselves often just hyped up “latest” things, but it gets the consumers in the stores to buy other things in the mania). To push and shove for a chance (nowhere near a certainty) at an item, or even to use pepper spray to get a “competitive advantage” in the holy grail quest for “bargains” that, upon reflection, are often a bargain neither in price nor in effort invested. Staying up late, shopping into the wee hours. Going until exhausted. To step over a dying man’s body, and never to even ask what’s wrong, let alone seek help or offer help (Good Samaritans seem nowhere to be found in the Land of Rampant Consumerism). That’s what we’ve become? Where buying/shopping is one of our favorite pastimes and most intensely dedicated activities? The record numbers, the overwhelming crowds for shopping, THAT’S what we get motivated for? Consumerist slaves and shallow serfs too many of us have become; with mindless obeisance to the retail gods we give control to.
All with eyes completely shut “to the deadly superstructure of the corporate state.” The “Occupy” movement continues to lack critical mass of numbers, support, and effort. It’s a bit obvious where a lot of Americans’ energies are, isn’t it? Guess W knew the public better than I thought when he said, after the terrorist attacks and the resulting recession of the time, “Go shopping.”
And women, this is how you are using your greatly increased societal influence? At least two-thirds of the shoppers are women. Even the men present are often on errands FOR women in their lives or accompanying women keen to shop.
How far we are from Blue Laws, the laws that used to exist to help protect family and relationships time, Sunday worship and time for spiritual reflection, and quiet time and regeneration before the new work week—a time to be unplugged from the maniacal pace this society usually manifests. Families also had time to learn from each other, to bond, to be in touch with what is important in life.
And before all those people who weren’t out shopping pat themselves on the back, what were they doing all weekend? Watching sports? Playing video games? Constructing super-elaborate holiday displays? Well, nothing wrong with any of that (actually, a certain amount may be good for us), but when the country is decaying before our very eyes, are those things really how we should spend our precious time? In more escapism, denial, delusion, spectacle?
Yes, those shrugs, or worse, those condemnations of the “flickers of resistance.” Protest of the realities of the economic feudalism we live under draws too much irritation, apathy, or denial from those who delude themselves that they are and always will be exempt from its realities. That because THEY have a job, or money, or little debt, that those in the opposite of those situations must be at fault, must want to only complain and not WORK.
Returning to Hedges (our ever present awakening force) we read him say that “corporatism is about crushing the capacity for moral choice and diminishing the individual to force him or her into an ostensibly harmonious collective.” From there it is a short path to “lack of compassion for our homeless, our poor, the mentally ill, the unemployed, and the sick,” and a lack of realization or holding accountable the society that produces them in such numbers. (92)
How interesting and prescient that Hedges draws a bead on the corruption and self-muting of Berkeley, as he records undergrad Chris Hebdon telling us that while there is some protest of issues of remote interest, there was at the time of the book none about “globalization, corporatization, or, heaven forbid, the commercialization of Berkeley. Too many students and professors are distracted, specialized, atomized, and timid. They follow trends, prestige, and money, and so rarely act outside the box.” Diversity is even manipulated into fragmenting and “segmenting the powerful sea of students into diverse but disarmed droplets. Disconnection prevails. In the absence of cohesion, one really wonders how such smart kids could be struck so, in the muting sense of the term, dumb.” (93)
“The corporate hierarchy that has corrupted higher education is on display at Berkeley.” All students are expected to enter the elite. "Corporations have cut deals with universities to be sole providers of goods and services and to shut out competitors. Coca-Cola, for example, has monopoly rights at Berkley, including control of what drinks and food are sold at football games. Corporations such as Cingular and Allstate blanket California Memorial Stadium with their logos and signs. Berkeley negotiated a deal with British Petroleum for $500 million. BP gets access to the university’s researchers and technological capacity, built by decades of public investment, to investigate biofuels at a new Energy Biosciences Institute. BP can shut down another research center and move into a publicly subsidized one. BP will receive intellectual property rights, which it can use for profit, on scientific breakthroughs expected to come out of the joint project.” (93-94)
As is well known, the corporate state moved swiftly to take the fire away, to sweep out and intimidate protesters at Berkeley. The story has a familiar ring by now: trumped up “concerns” about “safety,” “hygiene,” “open space,” “free passage,” and other artificialities.
How ironic that the 1960s site of radical protest has become an engine of the seemingly all-powerful corporate machine. Apparently, the only “transcendent values” permitted to be transmitted are the vacuous pseudo-ones served up by corporate state.
Adorno and Niemoller must be spinning in their graves. All their desperate work, and we still didn’t listen and infuse…
Well, Madame, I have attempted to move us to page 94 at least. You are right, there is so much about this chapter worthy of comment! No wonder our progress is slow (measured? Sounds better!). :)
We may be about there, although radical evil has not arrived in force yet.
May I suggest with the highest recommendation that our readers read (again and again) the post Madame has made on education on her blog? Brilliant! We need those teachers, and we need those coaches Madame mentions there as well.
Ability to choose a system (or school) in line with our passions? Sounds like what the Germans do with their testing for school past 5th grade. It’s not that the different schools don’t have all the same subjects, it’s just that the children get a lot MORE of whatever they show they have a passion for.
Yes, we have only to look around and see what Hedges is describing. “Black Friday.” How manipulated we are. To shop. Pressure for stores to open earlier and earlier. Waiting in lines for hours or days. For marketing ploys (small numbers available of the advertised “hot” items, themselves often just hyped up “latest” things, but it gets the consumers in the stores to buy other things in the mania). To push and shove for a chance (nowhere near a certainty) at an item, or even to use pepper spray to get a “competitive advantage” in the holy grail quest for “bargains” that, upon reflection, are often a bargain neither in price nor in effort invested. Staying up late, shopping into the wee hours. Going until exhausted. To step over a dying man’s body, and never to even ask what’s wrong, let alone seek help or offer help (Good Samaritans seem nowhere to be found in the Land of Rampant Consumerism). That’s what we’ve become? Where buying/shopping is one of our favorite pastimes and most intensely dedicated activities? The record numbers, the overwhelming crowds for shopping, THAT’S what we get motivated for? Consumerist slaves and shallow serfs too many of us have become; with mindless obeisance to the retail gods we give control to.
All with eyes completely shut “to the deadly superstructure of the corporate state.” The “Occupy” movement continues to lack critical mass of numbers, support, and effort. It’s a bit obvious where a lot of Americans’ energies are, isn’t it? Guess W knew the public better than I thought when he said, after the terrorist attacks and the resulting recession of the time, “Go shopping.”
And women, this is how you are using your greatly increased societal influence? At least two-thirds of the shoppers are women. Even the men present are often on errands FOR women in their lives or accompanying women keen to shop.
How far we are from Blue Laws, the laws that used to exist to help protect family and relationships time, Sunday worship and time for spiritual reflection, and quiet time and regeneration before the new work week—a time to be unplugged from the maniacal pace this society usually manifests. Families also had time to learn from each other, to bond, to be in touch with what is important in life.
And before all those people who weren’t out shopping pat themselves on the back, what were they doing all weekend? Watching sports? Playing video games? Constructing super-elaborate holiday displays? Well, nothing wrong with any of that (actually, a certain amount may be good for us), but when the country is decaying before our very eyes, are those things really how we should spend our precious time? In more escapism, denial, delusion, spectacle?
Yes, those shrugs, or worse, those condemnations of the “flickers of resistance.” Protest of the realities of the economic feudalism we live under draws too much irritation, apathy, or denial from those who delude themselves that they are and always will be exempt from its realities. That because THEY have a job, or money, or little debt, that those in the opposite of those situations must be at fault, must want to only complain and not WORK.
Returning to Hedges (our ever present awakening force) we read him say that “corporatism is about crushing the capacity for moral choice and diminishing the individual to force him or her into an ostensibly harmonious collective.” From there it is a short path to “lack of compassion for our homeless, our poor, the mentally ill, the unemployed, and the sick,” and a lack of realization or holding accountable the society that produces them in such numbers. (92)
How interesting and prescient that Hedges draws a bead on the corruption and self-muting of Berkeley, as he records undergrad Chris Hebdon telling us that while there is some protest of issues of remote interest, there was at the time of the book none about “globalization, corporatization, or, heaven forbid, the commercialization of Berkeley. Too many students and professors are distracted, specialized, atomized, and timid. They follow trends, prestige, and money, and so rarely act outside the box.” Diversity is even manipulated into fragmenting and “segmenting the powerful sea of students into diverse but disarmed droplets. Disconnection prevails. In the absence of cohesion, one really wonders how such smart kids could be struck so, in the muting sense of the term, dumb.” (93)
“The corporate hierarchy that has corrupted higher education is on display at Berkeley.” All students are expected to enter the elite. "Corporations have cut deals with universities to be sole providers of goods and services and to shut out competitors. Coca-Cola, for example, has monopoly rights at Berkley, including control of what drinks and food are sold at football games. Corporations such as Cingular and Allstate blanket California Memorial Stadium with their logos and signs. Berkeley negotiated a deal with British Petroleum for $500 million. BP gets access to the university’s researchers and technological capacity, built by decades of public investment, to investigate biofuels at a new Energy Biosciences Institute. BP can shut down another research center and move into a publicly subsidized one. BP will receive intellectual property rights, which it can use for profit, on scientific breakthroughs expected to come out of the joint project.” (93-94)
As is well known, the corporate state moved swiftly to take the fire away, to sweep out and intimidate protesters at Berkeley. The story has a familiar ring by now: trumped up “concerns” about “safety,” “hygiene,” “open space,” “free passage,” and other artificialities.
How ironic that the 1960s site of radical protest has become an engine of the seemingly all-powerful corporate machine. Apparently, the only “transcendent values” permitted to be transmitted are the vacuous pseudo-ones served up by corporate state.
Adorno and Niemoller must be spinning in their graves. All their desperate work, and we still didn’t listen and infuse…
Well, Madame, I have attempted to move us to page 94 at least. You are right, there is so much about this chapter worthy of comment! No wonder our progress is slow (measured? Sounds better!). :)
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Who's Occupying Our Minds?
Professor J,
You shouldn't feel too bad about still being on p. 91. I am about to move on to p. 92 :) but first:
Hedges says in the last paragraph (in reference to Adorno): "He knew that radical evil was possible only with the collaboration of a timid, cowed, and confused population, a system of propaganda and mass media that offered little more than spectacle and entertainment, and an educational system that did not transmit transcendent values or nurture the capacity for the individual conscience. He feared a culture that banished the anxieties and complexities of moral choice and embraced a childish hyper masculinity." We're there, aren't we? I suspect the use (and near worship of) standardized testing is very useful in making sure that teachers who might have a sincere desire to "nurture the capacity for the individual conscience" are kept from doing so. I recently wrote on my blog about what used to be possible before the current "fill in the bubble" method of education: The Teacher of a Lifetime Award. And coaches who were interested in mentoring boys toward manhood instead of just toward lucrative endorsements, didn't we use to have those as well?
That coach may be sleeping well for yet another reason. A conscience can be killed slowly over time. He may no longer have any need of making those excuses, or any others to himself.
I love the Franklin P. Adams quote. I wonder if we don't deny people something valuable by channeling them along in education and spoon feeding them the information. I wouldn't trade anything for the joy of discovery.
I'm guessing that we moved from a "God-respecting nation" to a Mammon worshiping one in a relatively short time due to a perfect historical and cultural storm. People left farms and moved to cities and so were separated from family wisdom and the feeling of community at the same time Madison Avenue gained powerful cultural influence. The sound advice and good examples of thrift, character, community involvement, personal responsibility, selflessness, and honesty weren't held up as ideal quality traits. The new values embraced by post modern families were about recreating the lifestyle in the images that were, for the first time, everywhere. Parents and grandparents who were no longer held up as paragons of virtue, but were now looked upon as quaint and unsophisticated. Along with that, government programs that were meant to be a safety net, probably allowed the most recent generations to emotionally and intellectually disassociate themselves from social problems. Taxes can became a sort of moral hall pass for not being too concerned about an aging relative or or hungry child at the bus stop. "There's a program for that."Even if people weren't saying it out loud, they were thinking it. They still are.
I thought that tiny bit of KR's speech might bother you. But in a hypothetical model we can imagine students able to choose a school where a particular learning style is focused on. That school might also be filled with teachers who enjoy that particular style of teaching. I'd like to see education move toward smaller, more diverse schools and the ability for students to choose a system that most speaks to their passions. Gever Tulley runs a summer program called The Tinkering School which is a good representation of a kind of education that kids are being completely denied in our overly safety conscious culture. Here's his video: 5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do. This should be required viewing for all parents, especially the mothers of sons. Lots of people have passion and the imagination necessary for us to improve things, but much of it seems to be outside a system that is beholden to a variety of people and groups who have an interest in keeping things the way they are. Here's one man's vision for helping kids in his local community get the tutoring help they need: Once Upon a School relates the story of how Dave Eggers started 826 Valencia. The lack of passion, enthusiasm, and imaginative solutions is a big part of what's wrong within the traditional system.
Following a list of "human violations" by Giroux, Hedges says: "But we do not name them. We accept the system handed to us and seek to find a comfortable place within it. We retreat into the narrow, confined ghettos created for us and shut our eyes to the deadly super structure of the corporate state." (p. 92)
This morning on the news they were featuring the scores of people camping out around the country to be among the first in line for the Black Friday sales, which depressingly is now bleeding over into Thanksgiving day. One social commentator interviewed likened it to climbing Mt. Everest. Being able to get the best deal possible delivers a sense of "personal achievement" he said. Shopping is now PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENT? Is this the "comfortable place" we've found? Is THIS how little we expect of our lives? Proud inhabitants of the aforementioned "ghettos created for us."
Martin Niemoller's famous quote needs to make the rounds again, it seems. From the TEA Party protesters to the Occupy Wall Street crowd many just want these complainers to go away (maybe so they don't have to think about some of the uncomfortable parts of the messages). When we are seeing campus police in riot gear pepper spray students who are involved in non-violent civil disobedience, we should all be extremely concerned. On the contrary, the reaction I've seen most often to that story is so much shoulder shrugging. That kind of complacency is dangerous, as you've pointed out.
So much more to say, but I should be cooking something! :)
Not what we say about our blessings but how we use them is the true measure of our thanksgiving. ~ W.T. Purkiser
You shouldn't feel too bad about still being on p. 91. I am about to move on to p. 92 :) but first:
Hedges says in the last paragraph (in reference to Adorno): "He knew that radical evil was possible only with the collaboration of a timid, cowed, and confused population, a system of propaganda and mass media that offered little more than spectacle and entertainment, and an educational system that did not transmit transcendent values or nurture the capacity for the individual conscience. He feared a culture that banished the anxieties and complexities of moral choice and embraced a childish hyper masculinity." We're there, aren't we? I suspect the use (and near worship of) standardized testing is very useful in making sure that teachers who might have a sincere desire to "nurture the capacity for the individual conscience" are kept from doing so. I recently wrote on my blog about what used to be possible before the current "fill in the bubble" method of education: The Teacher of a Lifetime Award. And coaches who were interested in mentoring boys toward manhood instead of just toward lucrative endorsements, didn't we use to have those as well?
That coach may be sleeping well for yet another reason. A conscience can be killed slowly over time. He may no longer have any need of making those excuses, or any others to himself.
I love the Franklin P. Adams quote. I wonder if we don't deny people something valuable by channeling them along in education and spoon feeding them the information. I wouldn't trade anything for the joy of discovery.
I'm guessing that we moved from a "God-respecting nation" to a Mammon worshiping one in a relatively short time due to a perfect historical and cultural storm. People left farms and moved to cities and so were separated from family wisdom and the feeling of community at the same time Madison Avenue gained powerful cultural influence. The sound advice and good examples of thrift, character, community involvement, personal responsibility, selflessness, and honesty weren't held up as ideal quality traits. The new values embraced by post modern families were about recreating the lifestyle in the images that were, for the first time, everywhere. Parents and grandparents who were no longer held up as paragons of virtue, but were now looked upon as quaint and unsophisticated. Along with that, government programs that were meant to be a safety net, probably allowed the most recent generations to emotionally and intellectually disassociate themselves from social problems. Taxes can became a sort of moral hall pass for not being too concerned about an aging relative or or hungry child at the bus stop. "There's a program for that."Even if people weren't saying it out loud, they were thinking it. They still are.
I thought that tiny bit of KR's speech might bother you. But in a hypothetical model we can imagine students able to choose a school where a particular learning style is focused on. That school might also be filled with teachers who enjoy that particular style of teaching. I'd like to see education move toward smaller, more diverse schools and the ability for students to choose a system that most speaks to their passions. Gever Tulley runs a summer program called The Tinkering School which is a good representation of a kind of education that kids are being completely denied in our overly safety conscious culture. Here's his video: 5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do. This should be required viewing for all parents, especially the mothers of sons. Lots of people have passion and the imagination necessary for us to improve things, but much of it seems to be outside a system that is beholden to a variety of people and groups who have an interest in keeping things the way they are. Here's one man's vision for helping kids in his local community get the tutoring help they need: Once Upon a School relates the story of how Dave Eggers started 826 Valencia. The lack of passion, enthusiasm, and imaginative solutions is a big part of what's wrong within the traditional system.
Following a list of "human violations" by Giroux, Hedges says: "But we do not name them. We accept the system handed to us and seek to find a comfortable place within it. We retreat into the narrow, confined ghettos created for us and shut our eyes to the deadly super structure of the corporate state." (p. 92)
This morning on the news they were featuring the scores of people camping out around the country to be among the first in line for the Black Friday sales, which depressingly is now bleeding over into Thanksgiving day. One social commentator interviewed likened it to climbing Mt. Everest. Being able to get the best deal possible delivers a sense of "personal achievement" he said. Shopping is now PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENT? Is this the "comfortable place" we've found? Is THIS how little we expect of our lives? Proud inhabitants of the aforementioned "ghettos created for us."
Martin Niemoller's famous quote needs to make the rounds again, it seems. From the TEA Party protesters to the Occupy Wall Street crowd many just want these complainers to go away (maybe so they don't have to think about some of the uncomfortable parts of the messages). When we are seeing campus police in riot gear pepper spray students who are involved in non-violent civil disobedience, we should all be extremely concerned. On the contrary, the reaction I've seen most often to that story is so much shoulder shrugging. That kind of complacency is dangerous, as you've pointed out.
So much more to say, but I should be cooking something! :)
Not what we say about our blessings but how we use them is the true measure of our thanksgiving. ~ W.T. Purkiser
Monday, November 21, 2011
The Disadvantages of Not Being Historied
Madame M,
“Principled and respectable men.” The system NEEDS those (desperately), but doesn’t WANT them. That’s why they don’t get produced in enough numbers in enough places. One reason? That coach doesn’t get rewarded for forming those. And so yet even more males may never really become men. Those boys are absent so many MENtors at so many stages—often critical stages—of their lives. And so boys become not men, but chronologically advanced teenagers, deficient in true masculinity. And all to reward what? Temporary, materialistic, shallow, value-less existence, to exploit and be exploited.
And yet that coach probably sleeps well at night, either in willful ignorance or delusion, or comforting himself with (pick one or more) that “it’s the system, I can’t fight the system, everyone’s doing it; it would only punish these boys and this sports program if I did things any other way, let alone the repercussions on me and my family.”
Don’t expect principled and respectable men to come from the tutelage of those only too ready to sacrifice whatever of those qualities they might once have possessed. Especially when so much is so commercialized, when Mammon rules so much of the day. A once time when CHARACTER meant so much more than money, prestige, appearance, power—those days have receded, but I am hopeful that they will come again.
How did such a supposedly God-respecting nation come to in effect worship Mammon so readily? Because we never reconciled the contradictions of capitalism? Maybe. Or maybe because we acquiesced and became diverted too many times when it was important to speak up, to take a stand, to not be manipulated. For sure, wealth does not need to be punished; but it and its zealous adherents don’t need to be worshipped or over-admired either.
Everyday Americans throughout our history keep making this error. Or they lapse in judgment, courage, or character, repeatedly. They do not learn from their history, they do not maintain their watchfulness and healthy skepticism. But those who maneuver to manipulate, those who deceive, those who attempt to dress up greed and traitorous selfishness as something else, DO learn, HAVE learned. They learn from the times they have found themselves slowed or thwarted by the 99%. And so they have bided their time, have amassed wealth and influence, and they use it to tilt nearly everything their way, sowing propaganda to not only disguise and deflect, but to enlist those they enfeeble in the very means to engender the enfeebling! Hot button emotional issues (of various cultural or religious or ideological appearances) are whipped up. These issues are never “solved,” with the reason given as the supposed great power of the “elitists” or “liberals” standing in the way, even when those “liberals” hold few if any meaningful levers of power. The powers that ARE don’t want those issues solved, for it would be harder to divert people’s attention.
You are so right that the actions at Penn State may shade, at least for a while, the efforts of the goodhearted to help shape boys in a positive way. You are also right in that the men (and especially men of courage and character and ethics and what used to be “common” decency) we are not developing (or are mal-developing) showed its effects at Penn State.
Enjoyed greatly the video speeches of Sir Ken Robinson. “If you’re afraid of being wrong, you won’t come up with something original.” Good Sir Ken! And good treasure find Madame! I thought of you the other day when I came upon this quote: “I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.” (Franklin P. Adams)
There is a small caveat to Sir Ken’s thoughts. Well not his thoughts, exactly, which are superb. But how they are used by those whose thoughts are either stunted or oriented toward bureaucratization (whether for box thinking or, ironically, even for personal or bureaucratic advantage). The cycles of educational theory have most recently included “tailoring to kinesthetic learners, tactile learners, etc.” But they have been largely grafted onto an already overburdened educational system, and especially, the very overburdened teachers. Teachers already burned and overwhelmed by a succession of educational theories crammed onto them (some of them even repeated in another form) by people looking to make a name for themselves. Sir Ken touches a bit on this about the inefficacy of “reform” in education. His call for fundamental changes, for “revolution,” is undoubtedly spot on. I also agree (times 100), that fast food is depleting our bodies and minds, and making us listless or malleable (some of which, although Sir Ken doesn’t comment, could be deliberate).
That piece you singled out that Hedges quotes Henry Giroux, now at McMaster University in Canada: That piece was the ONLY one on that page that I might question its near-universality. Giroux, although he can be a bit irritatingly polemic at times, has been what Hedges says he is: a prescient and vocal critic “of the corporate state and the systematic destruction of American education.” He was marginalized for having courage to speak up, especially about “the money being pumped into research and programs that blatantly favored corporate interests.” Giroux, interestingly enough in light of current events, was at Penn State at the time, a place that “had joined itself at the hip with corporate and military power,” where the “faculty were becoming irrelevant as an oppositional force.” (Quoted in Hedges, 91) There was/is real fear and intimidation, and the corporatization of academia, while not complete, progresses steadily, with few pockets of effective resistance or oases of academic tranquility.
The haunting fear of the Auschwitz-era generation is we would forget the hard lessons, the unspeakable horrors, the wholesale slaughter, the soul-shocking assault on the human spirit, the decoupling of humanity. And that we would permit the conditions that led to such abomination to arise again.
Hedges (and before him, Theodor Adorno, as Hedges mentions) is (would be, in Adorno’s case) terrified by the “moral nihilism embraced by elite universities.” Adorno, the author of “Education After Auschwitz,” knew, Hedges says “that radical evil was possible only with the collaboration of a timid, cowed, and confused population, a system of propaganda and mass media that offered little more than spectacle and entertainment, and an educational system that did not transmit transcendent values or nurture the capacity for individual conscience. He feared a culture that banished the anxieties and complexities of moral choice and embraced a childish hypermasculinity” (91)
For years, scholars and theologians shook their heads at how, in the heart of a German culture that had produced so many great minds, so many great philosophers, a place that was part and parcel of Western Civilization, how, how, could such a thing as Nazi Germany come into being?
The answer to that is direct (punishment of Germany after WWI rather than inclusion), and yet also complex (too many to list). But there is also the statement (from a Birmingham jail) of Martin Luther King that explains much: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Pastor Martin Niemoller, after being freed from a Nazi prison as the evil regime was being defeated, spent the rest of his life trying to tell a similar story. A story of how he and all Germans were culpable for the rise of the Nazi regime. He gave this speech in many variations, but he, like Adorno, felt desperate that we must infuse this lesson into the human condition. A lesson of danger of not just dismissing political and economic candidates and leaders as “crackpots,” but the price of stifling dissent, of first dismissing, then disappearing, the different and the ideas they hold.
“In Nazi Germany, when they came for the homosexuals, I remained silent; I was not a homosexual.
“When they came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.
“When they came for the social democrats, I said nothing; I was not a social democrat.
“When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak up, for I was not a union member.
“When they came for the Jews, I did not protest; I was not a Jew.
“When they came for the Catholics, I did not speak out because I was a Protestant.
“Then one day they came for me. And there was no one left to speak up for me.”
Niemoller’s words are bitingly relevant, because he spent decades being, in his words, an “ultra-conservative” who was glad some of those “troublemakers” were being gotten out of the way.
Pay thee, pay thee, heed, America. A steep, steep price is paid in believing—foolishly, ignorantly, and arrogantly—that history is “not important.”
Deresiewicz read Nock? He undoubtedly modeled his piece on it (standing on the shoulders of giants, and other Newtonian utterances, lol).
Great Guns of August, my windbaggery has returned. All this holding forth, and I haven’t even moved off us off page 91! :)
“Principled and respectable men.” The system NEEDS those (desperately), but doesn’t WANT them. That’s why they don’t get produced in enough numbers in enough places. One reason? That coach doesn’t get rewarded for forming those. And so yet even more males may never really become men. Those boys are absent so many MENtors at so many stages—often critical stages—of their lives. And so boys become not men, but chronologically advanced teenagers, deficient in true masculinity. And all to reward what? Temporary, materialistic, shallow, value-less existence, to exploit and be exploited.
And yet that coach probably sleeps well at night, either in willful ignorance or delusion, or comforting himself with (pick one or more) that “it’s the system, I can’t fight the system, everyone’s doing it; it would only punish these boys and this sports program if I did things any other way, let alone the repercussions on me and my family.”
Don’t expect principled and respectable men to come from the tutelage of those only too ready to sacrifice whatever of those qualities they might once have possessed. Especially when so much is so commercialized, when Mammon rules so much of the day. A once time when CHARACTER meant so much more than money, prestige, appearance, power—those days have receded, but I am hopeful that they will come again.
How did such a supposedly God-respecting nation come to in effect worship Mammon so readily? Because we never reconciled the contradictions of capitalism? Maybe. Or maybe because we acquiesced and became diverted too many times when it was important to speak up, to take a stand, to not be manipulated. For sure, wealth does not need to be punished; but it and its zealous adherents don’t need to be worshipped or over-admired either.
Everyday Americans throughout our history keep making this error. Or they lapse in judgment, courage, or character, repeatedly. They do not learn from their history, they do not maintain their watchfulness and healthy skepticism. But those who maneuver to manipulate, those who deceive, those who attempt to dress up greed and traitorous selfishness as something else, DO learn, HAVE learned. They learn from the times they have found themselves slowed or thwarted by the 99%. And so they have bided their time, have amassed wealth and influence, and they use it to tilt nearly everything their way, sowing propaganda to not only disguise and deflect, but to enlist those they enfeeble in the very means to engender the enfeebling! Hot button emotional issues (of various cultural or religious or ideological appearances) are whipped up. These issues are never “solved,” with the reason given as the supposed great power of the “elitists” or “liberals” standing in the way, even when those “liberals” hold few if any meaningful levers of power. The powers that ARE don’t want those issues solved, for it would be harder to divert people’s attention.
You are so right that the actions at Penn State may shade, at least for a while, the efforts of the goodhearted to help shape boys in a positive way. You are also right in that the men (and especially men of courage and character and ethics and what used to be “common” decency) we are not developing (or are mal-developing) showed its effects at Penn State.
Enjoyed greatly the video speeches of Sir Ken Robinson. “If you’re afraid of being wrong, you won’t come up with something original.” Good Sir Ken! And good treasure find Madame! I thought of you the other day when I came upon this quote: “I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.” (Franklin P. Adams)
There is a small caveat to Sir Ken’s thoughts. Well not his thoughts, exactly, which are superb. But how they are used by those whose thoughts are either stunted or oriented toward bureaucratization (whether for box thinking or, ironically, even for personal or bureaucratic advantage). The cycles of educational theory have most recently included “tailoring to kinesthetic learners, tactile learners, etc.” But they have been largely grafted onto an already overburdened educational system, and especially, the very overburdened teachers. Teachers already burned and overwhelmed by a succession of educational theories crammed onto them (some of them even repeated in another form) by people looking to make a name for themselves. Sir Ken touches a bit on this about the inefficacy of “reform” in education. His call for fundamental changes, for “revolution,” is undoubtedly spot on. I also agree (times 100), that fast food is depleting our bodies and minds, and making us listless or malleable (some of which, although Sir Ken doesn’t comment, could be deliberate).
That piece you singled out that Hedges quotes Henry Giroux, now at McMaster University in Canada: That piece was the ONLY one on that page that I might question its near-universality. Giroux, although he can be a bit irritatingly polemic at times, has been what Hedges says he is: a prescient and vocal critic “of the corporate state and the systematic destruction of American education.” He was marginalized for having courage to speak up, especially about “the money being pumped into research and programs that blatantly favored corporate interests.” Giroux, interestingly enough in light of current events, was at Penn State at the time, a place that “had joined itself at the hip with corporate and military power,” where the “faculty were becoming irrelevant as an oppositional force.” (Quoted in Hedges, 91) There was/is real fear and intimidation, and the corporatization of academia, while not complete, progresses steadily, with few pockets of effective resistance or oases of academic tranquility.
The haunting fear of the Auschwitz-era generation is we would forget the hard lessons, the unspeakable horrors, the wholesale slaughter, the soul-shocking assault on the human spirit, the decoupling of humanity. And that we would permit the conditions that led to such abomination to arise again.
Hedges (and before him, Theodor Adorno, as Hedges mentions) is (would be, in Adorno’s case) terrified by the “moral nihilism embraced by elite universities.” Adorno, the author of “Education After Auschwitz,” knew, Hedges says “that radical evil was possible only with the collaboration of a timid, cowed, and confused population, a system of propaganda and mass media that offered little more than spectacle and entertainment, and an educational system that did not transmit transcendent values or nurture the capacity for individual conscience. He feared a culture that banished the anxieties and complexities of moral choice and embraced a childish hypermasculinity” (91)
For years, scholars and theologians shook their heads at how, in the heart of a German culture that had produced so many great minds, so many great philosophers, a place that was part and parcel of Western Civilization, how, how, could such a thing as Nazi Germany come into being?
The answer to that is direct (punishment of Germany after WWI rather than inclusion), and yet also complex (too many to list). But there is also the statement (from a Birmingham jail) of Martin Luther King that explains much: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Pastor Martin Niemoller, after being freed from a Nazi prison as the evil regime was being defeated, spent the rest of his life trying to tell a similar story. A story of how he and all Germans were culpable for the rise of the Nazi regime. He gave this speech in many variations, but he, like Adorno, felt desperate that we must infuse this lesson into the human condition. A lesson of danger of not just dismissing political and economic candidates and leaders as “crackpots,” but the price of stifling dissent, of first dismissing, then disappearing, the different and the ideas they hold.
“In Nazi Germany, when they came for the homosexuals, I remained silent; I was not a homosexual.
“When they came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.
“When they came for the social democrats, I said nothing; I was not a social democrat.
“When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak up, for I was not a union member.
“When they came for the Jews, I did not protest; I was not a Jew.
“When they came for the Catholics, I did not speak out because I was a Protestant.
“Then one day they came for me. And there was no one left to speak up for me.”
Niemoller’s words are bitingly relevant, because he spent decades being, in his words, an “ultra-conservative” who was glad some of those “troublemakers” were being gotten out of the way.
Pay thee, pay thee, heed, America. A steep, steep price is paid in believing—foolishly, ignorantly, and arrogantly—that history is “not important.”
Deresiewicz read Nock? He undoubtedly modeled his piece on it (standing on the shoulders of giants, and other Newtonian utterances, lol).
Great Guns of August, my windbaggery has returned. All this holding forth, and I haven’t even moved off us off page 91! :)
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
A is For Atrocious
Professor J,
Hedge's chapter on education was dealing exclusively with issues he sees at the university level. Yet much of what he mentions is a problem all the way through the system. These problems come early and stay late (as in the rest of people's lives). Some things even seem to seep down from higher ed into high school like corporate branding, and as you bring up, the obsession with sports. I was shocked the first time I saw a high school game on ESPN. Just this weekend I saw a basketball coach interviewed. This was his response when asked about how often he thinks about winning a national championship:
"Not that much. Look, my whole thing is it’s about players. I make this statement: If we win a national title, I’ll be happy; but if none of my players get drafted off that team, I’d be really disappointed. The greatest compliment paid to me was by (his state senator). He comes up to me and says, “Cal, how many guys you think will leave early this year.” And I said, “Probably five, maybe six.” And he says, “You’re creating more millionaires than a Wall Street firm.” And I go, “Wow.”
Again we see an "education" viewed as ONLY a stepping stone to earning, in this case not just a living, but a fortune. Did I miss the part about going to classes, studying, and learning something? Are tradition, pride, and a broadening college experience things of the past for coaches to use to entice players? He says it's about the players, but it clearly isn't about the camaraderie that can come from playing as a team. It isn't about building the memories that come from hard work and success. It isn't about them forging lifelong friendships. It isn't about them becoming principled and respectable men. Here again success is defined as narrowly as a dollar sign. How sad. Every pro athlete I've ever seen interviewed, when asked about their best memories of playing, it is always those rivalries, conference wins and championships that they mention.
"The football coach is Berkeley's highest-paid employee. he makes about $3 million. Tuition has been steadily rising for decades. U.C. undergraduate students pay 100 percent of their educational costs because the state subsidy has effectively disappeared." (p. 94)
USA Today covered this story a couple of years ago:
USA TODAY's latest study of compensation reveals that Tedford (Berkeley's coach) is one of at least 25 college head football coaches making $2 million or more this season, slightly more than double the number two years ago. The average pay for a head coach in the NCAA's top-level, 120-school Football Bowl Subdivision is up 28% in that time and up 46% in three years, to $1.36 million Furthermore, USA TODAY's first comprehensive look at the salaries of assistant coaches finds many approaching and even exceeding presidents' compensation and most eclipsing that of full professors. (Read the full 2009 article here)
As is so often the case in this culture we pay lip service to things like children and education, then our actions reveal the nasty truth.
Which brings us to Penn State. What has happened to the men in this country? How did we get to a point where a man who happens upon a child being brutalized in the worst way, doesn't intervene immediately? Physically. Doesn't even make his presence known in an effort to stop it? (Though he appears to be trying to change that part of the story now.) After all reputations and prestige must take precedence over the safety and well being of disadvantaged children. Is this what it takes to get us to rethink our priorities? The farther reaching damage that will result from this disgusting scandal and cover up, is that every honorable man who sincerely wants to help coach, teach, tutor, or mentor young men, legions of whom are desperate for male role models, will have to live with a certain amount of suspicion. Or many men may shy away from those roles entirely. A sad ripple in the culture that will go largely unnoticed. Except in the lives of boys that need a real man to come alongside them and help them navigate the path to manhood. There are waves of them.
I have just recently discovered Ken Robinson and initially listened to his speeches with the same excitement as when I discovered Nock's essay ;) What he is saying is so important and desperately needed. I'm currently reading his book, Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. More to come on that. Here are the links to his two TED speeches: Schools Kill Creativity & Bring On the Learning Revolution!
There is something refreshing about hearing someone articulate what many of us have been saying for so long. Once you have successfully educated a child at the dining room table, your view on there being one way to get the job done changes drastically. (And of course, I think he's brilliant since he's agreeing with me. ;))
Sometimes throughout the book Hedges tosses something out that I wish he would give an example of, like this, on p. 91: (after listing some things that took place on university campuses post 9/11) "Right wing students were encouraged to spy on the classes of progressive professors." Where? When? Everywhere? All the time? This was a bit frustrating and sent me to the notes in the back looking for an answer, which I didn't find. I did however, find a fabulous article by William Deresiewicz. The Disadvantages of an Elite Education from The American Scholar, is a beautifully written article about much of what is wrong with the system, particularly at Ivy League schools and goes along very well with what Sir Ken is saying:
"The system forgot to teach them, along the way to the prestige admissions and the lucrative jobs, that the most important achievements can’t be measured by a letter or a number or a name. It forgot that the true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers. Being an intellectual means, first of all, being passionate about ideas—and not just for the duration of a semester, for the sake of pleasing the teacher, or for getting a good grade."
"... the life of the mind is lived one mind at a time: one solitary, skeptical, resistant mind at a time. The best place to cultivate it is not within an educational system whose real purpose is to reproduce the class system."
Do you think Deresiewicz has read Nock? :)
I'm sure our readers will welcome, as will I, the return of your "windbaggery." :)
Hedge's chapter on education was dealing exclusively with issues he sees at the university level. Yet much of what he mentions is a problem all the way through the system. These problems come early and stay late (as in the rest of people's lives). Some things even seem to seep down from higher ed into high school like corporate branding, and as you bring up, the obsession with sports. I was shocked the first time I saw a high school game on ESPN. Just this weekend I saw a basketball coach interviewed. This was his response when asked about how often he thinks about winning a national championship:
"Not that much. Look, my whole thing is it’s about players. I make this statement: If we win a national title, I’ll be happy; but if none of my players get drafted off that team, I’d be really disappointed. The greatest compliment paid to me was by (his state senator). He comes up to me and says, “Cal, how many guys you think will leave early this year.” And I said, “Probably five, maybe six.” And he says, “You’re creating more millionaires than a Wall Street firm.” And I go, “Wow.”
Again we see an "education" viewed as ONLY a stepping stone to earning, in this case not just a living, but a fortune. Did I miss the part about going to classes, studying, and learning something? Are tradition, pride, and a broadening college experience things of the past for coaches to use to entice players? He says it's about the players, but it clearly isn't about the camaraderie that can come from playing as a team. It isn't about building the memories that come from hard work and success. It isn't about them forging lifelong friendships. It isn't about them becoming principled and respectable men. Here again success is defined as narrowly as a dollar sign. How sad. Every pro athlete I've ever seen interviewed, when asked about their best memories of playing, it is always those rivalries, conference wins and championships that they mention.
"The football coach is Berkeley's highest-paid employee. he makes about $3 million. Tuition has been steadily rising for decades. U.C. undergraduate students pay 100 percent of their educational costs because the state subsidy has effectively disappeared." (p. 94)
USA Today covered this story a couple of years ago:
USA TODAY's latest study of compensation reveals that Tedford (Berkeley's coach) is one of at least 25 college head football coaches making $2 million or more this season, slightly more than double the number two years ago. The average pay for a head coach in the NCAA's top-level, 120-school Football Bowl Subdivision is up 28% in that time and up 46% in three years, to $1.36 million Furthermore, USA TODAY's first comprehensive look at the salaries of assistant coaches finds many approaching and even exceeding presidents' compensation and most eclipsing that of full professors. (Read the full 2009 article here)
As is so often the case in this culture we pay lip service to things like children and education, then our actions reveal the nasty truth.
Which brings us to Penn State. What has happened to the men in this country? How did we get to a point where a man who happens upon a child being brutalized in the worst way, doesn't intervene immediately? Physically. Doesn't even make his presence known in an effort to stop it? (Though he appears to be trying to change that part of the story now.) After all reputations and prestige must take precedence over the safety and well being of disadvantaged children. Is this what it takes to get us to rethink our priorities? The farther reaching damage that will result from this disgusting scandal and cover up, is that every honorable man who sincerely wants to help coach, teach, tutor, or mentor young men, legions of whom are desperate for male role models, will have to live with a certain amount of suspicion. Or many men may shy away from those roles entirely. A sad ripple in the culture that will go largely unnoticed. Except in the lives of boys that need a real man to come alongside them and help them navigate the path to manhood. There are waves of them.
I have just recently discovered Ken Robinson and initially listened to his speeches with the same excitement as when I discovered Nock's essay ;) What he is saying is so important and desperately needed. I'm currently reading his book, Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. More to come on that. Here are the links to his two TED speeches: Schools Kill Creativity & Bring On the Learning Revolution!
There is something refreshing about hearing someone articulate what many of us have been saying for so long. Once you have successfully educated a child at the dining room table, your view on there being one way to get the job done changes drastically. (And of course, I think he's brilliant since he's agreeing with me. ;))
Sometimes throughout the book Hedges tosses something out that I wish he would give an example of, like this, on p. 91: (after listing some things that took place on university campuses post 9/11) "Right wing students were encouraged to spy on the classes of progressive professors." Where? When? Everywhere? All the time? This was a bit frustrating and sent me to the notes in the back looking for an answer, which I didn't find. I did however, find a fabulous article by William Deresiewicz. The Disadvantages of an Elite Education from The American Scholar, is a beautifully written article about much of what is wrong with the system, particularly at Ivy League schools and goes along very well with what Sir Ken is saying:
"The system forgot to teach them, along the way to the prestige admissions and the lucrative jobs, that the most important achievements can’t be measured by a letter or a number or a name. It forgot that the true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers. Being an intellectual means, first of all, being passionate about ideas—and not just for the duration of a semester, for the sake of pleasing the teacher, or for getting a good grade."
"... the life of the mind is lived one mind at a time: one solitary, skeptical, resistant mind at a time. The best place to cultivate it is not within an educational system whose real purpose is to reproduce the class system."
Do you think Deresiewicz has read Nock? :)
I'm sure our readers will welcome, as will I, the return of your "windbaggery." :)
Monday, November 14, 2011
Sportally Wounded
Madame Most M,
My usual windbaggery will return next week. I am addressing Madame’s points, and then am commenting on something.
Clarification on clarification: We are both correct. Some of the stats are cited by Hedges (p. 44).
You bring up so many good points. And you bring to mind how excessively obsessed we are, in the workplace especially but by no means just there, in quantifying everything, in “measuring” everything. Some things require judgment and intuition, but we don’t want to allow for much of that. Quantify, quantify! Use those stats (or twist them) to justify whatever action you want to take—or to misapply them because they weren’t appropriate to use in the first place.
The video you reference should win an award for best short! :) It has many good points we should heed. A small caution (and it is small) is that one of its points, collaborative learning—all the rage in words, if not actions—also has its limits and drawbacks. But it can be far superior to the past methods, especially if the free rider aspect can be overcome.
“Economic and academic child abuse.” Another platinum winner from Madame! How right you are about the process of “education,” and the costs of it! And “marked by the owner”? That’s most of our culture, including education!
A more ruthless form of corporate power may indeed be lurking. Inverted totalitarianism could exercise more directly brutal and directly oppressive measures. They already showed a bit of it during the previous administration, when corporate malfeasance was extremely high, and our government—our supposed protector and watchdog—was aiding and abetting in colossal fashion. And our governmental representatives then deemed themselves “not accountable,” and dismissed outright the people’s faint attempts to hold them accountable. Historians will look back on that as a little realized at the time turning point. And perhaps in the direction that you have listed for us that Hedges postulates.
I turn to the matter I mentioned at the beginning of this post, to something indirectly, and perhaps directly, related to all the above and more: The spectacle that sports have become (not an easy admission for this sports player and sports fan).
Collegiate, and sometimes even high school, sports are supposed to be PART of education. Instead, in far too many cases they entirely supplant education in importance. Why? Again, because reality keeps making Hedges’ points for him. This is a spectacle culture. We value sports to an extreme, and have become fanatical in our diversions. Not because we haven’t been sports-minded, and properly so, for quite some time. But because we have let it become nearly all consuming, diverting us from the problems consuming our society.
Case in point: Penn State. Only a culture that was so focused on ITS sports team’s winning (because that’s where the sponsorships come from, the boosters pour money into, the prestige increases, etc.etc.), would turn a blind eye—and in the process become complicit to monstrously sick crimes—to something so wrong. Souls are sold. All in the name of slavish devotion to sports, WINNING sports.
Kind of like Rome and ITS gladiators, ITS gladiator trainers and coaches, ITS gladiator owners, ITS boosters, ITS rabid fans, ITS stadiums. All while Rome decayed from within and searing problems pressed upon its heating frontiers, and yet the populace remained diverted. After all, the thinking went, Rome had for so long been impregnable, been so long THE superpower. Despite all the problems, they thought, how could that ever change? It will all work out SOMEHOW. On to the games!
Rome at least had the excuse of no ready historical example to see the same hard lessons of history demonstrated.
We have no such excuse.
It is readily there for us to see, IF we pay attention. So far not!
My usual windbaggery will return next week. I am addressing Madame’s points, and then am commenting on something.
Clarification on clarification: We are both correct. Some of the stats are cited by Hedges (p. 44).
You bring up so many good points. And you bring to mind how excessively obsessed we are, in the workplace especially but by no means just there, in quantifying everything, in “measuring” everything. Some things require judgment and intuition, but we don’t want to allow for much of that. Quantify, quantify! Use those stats (or twist them) to justify whatever action you want to take—or to misapply them because they weren’t appropriate to use in the first place.
The video you reference should win an award for best short! :) It has many good points we should heed. A small caution (and it is small) is that one of its points, collaborative learning—all the rage in words, if not actions—also has its limits and drawbacks. But it can be far superior to the past methods, especially if the free rider aspect can be overcome.
“Economic and academic child abuse.” Another platinum winner from Madame! How right you are about the process of “education,” and the costs of it! And “marked by the owner”? That’s most of our culture, including education!
A more ruthless form of corporate power may indeed be lurking. Inverted totalitarianism could exercise more directly brutal and directly oppressive measures. They already showed a bit of it during the previous administration, when corporate malfeasance was extremely high, and our government—our supposed protector and watchdog—was aiding and abetting in colossal fashion. And our governmental representatives then deemed themselves “not accountable,” and dismissed outright the people’s faint attempts to hold them accountable. Historians will look back on that as a little realized at the time turning point. And perhaps in the direction that you have listed for us that Hedges postulates.
I turn to the matter I mentioned at the beginning of this post, to something indirectly, and perhaps directly, related to all the above and more: The spectacle that sports have become (not an easy admission for this sports player and sports fan).
Collegiate, and sometimes even high school, sports are supposed to be PART of education. Instead, in far too many cases they entirely supplant education in importance. Why? Again, because reality keeps making Hedges’ points for him. This is a spectacle culture. We value sports to an extreme, and have become fanatical in our diversions. Not because we haven’t been sports-minded, and properly so, for quite some time. But because we have let it become nearly all consuming, diverting us from the problems consuming our society.
Case in point: Penn State. Only a culture that was so focused on ITS sports team’s winning (because that’s where the sponsorships come from, the boosters pour money into, the prestige increases, etc.etc.), would turn a blind eye—and in the process become complicit to monstrously sick crimes—to something so wrong. Souls are sold. All in the name of slavish devotion to sports, WINNING sports.
Kind of like Rome and ITS gladiators, ITS gladiator trainers and coaches, ITS gladiator owners, ITS boosters, ITS rabid fans, ITS stadiums. All while Rome decayed from within and searing problems pressed upon its heating frontiers, and yet the populace remained diverted. After all, the thinking went, Rome had for so long been impregnable, been so long THE superpower. Despite all the problems, they thought, how could that ever change? It will all work out SOMEHOW. On to the games!
Rome at least had the excuse of no ready historical example to see the same hard lessons of history demonstrated.
We have no such excuse.
It is readily there for us to see, IF we pay attention. So far not!
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
...But Who Wants to Live in an Institution?
Professor,
All this talk of higher education reminded me of that old joke about marriage. :)
You had so properly wrapped the last chapter up it seemed to me I could add little to it. Or did you just expect a woman to want the last word? :)
Clarification: The statistics on literacy I quoted aren't from the book but other sources.
Now, where were we? Oh yes, Somewhere along the way, the idea of a real education, the joy of learning, and maybe even learning things in hopes of becoming a better person and to put the world in some sort of moral context, got lost. I like this quote from Dr. Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy at Boston College:
"Education, as classically conceived, is not primarily for citizenship, or for making money, or for success in life, or for a veneer of "culture," or for escaping your lower-class origins and joining the middle class, or for professional or vocational training, whether the profession is honorable, like auto repair, or questionable, like law; and whether the profession is telling the truth, like an x-ray technician, or telling lies, like advertising or communications or politics. The first and foundational purpose of education is not external but internal: it is to make the little human a little more human, bigger on the inside."
Once upon a time an education was about something other than getting a job. Now, a degree (not necessarily an "education" by the above definition) isn't guaranteed to even to that for you. How education is defined and sold (and this idea must be "sold" to get families to continue to go into debt for a system that often doesn't do what it promised) is based on the concept of turning out good workers. You may not learn anything in school that makes you "bigger on the inside" but you will learn how to follow instructions and arrive someplace on time Monday through Friday. You will learn not to question authority or ask why things are done the way they are. The industrial revolution needed education systems to produce workers who could do these things. Critical thinking? Not so much. Your quest for "truth and reality"? How is an employer going to score that on a performance review?
Here is a short video that explains how we got here (and what's wrong) by Ken Robinson: Changing Education Paradigms.
I've heard more than a few people bash the Occupy Wall Street protesters for stating that their student loans are difficult to repay and they'd like to be relieved of that burden. The argument goes like this: "Oh you wanted to take out a loan to go to school and now you've graduated and don't want to fulfill your obligation. That isn't the way the real world works." Yes it is. It's called bankruptcy. Dave Ramsey, constantly reminds listeners and readers that "student loans and IRS bills are the only two things that are not bankrupt-able". I wonder if students are constantly reminded of this on campuses and in meetings with advisers. If we have credit card companies play by new rules that make it easier for cardholders to understand fees and penalties, shouldn't we be be making sure an 18 year old knows what they are getting in to? You can get protection from creditors if you bought a car and house you couldn't afford, but you can't get relief for trying to get an education? And let's be honest these universities, clearly (as my son will tell you) admit students that they know should not be there. Students are being promised, from entry into the system in elementary school, that a degree guarantees a job, which it doesn't. Not any more. Richard Vedder and Andrew Gillen recently addressed this in their article, The Solution to Student Loan Debt:
"The kids dutifully listen to their parents and mentors. In many cases, earning mediocre grades from less-than-mediocre public high schools makes the kids ill prepared, so 40 percent fail to graduate within six years. Those who persevere and graduate face a bad market (largely because of the poor public-policy decisions of politicians they did not select), but even if they graduated in a period of prosperity, they would be very likely to take a job that is quite different than the one they expected when beginning their higher-education journey. This is economic and academic child abuse."
Once students are admitted and on the road to becoming good employees, they are pushed even farther along that twin road, the one that leads to being (or should I say continue being) good consumers. Hedges uses Berkeley as an example, but we could apply his complaints to nearly every university.
The corporate hierarchy that has corrupted higher education is on public display at Berkeley. The wealthiest of the elite schools, such as Yale and Stanford, assign dormitories by lottery. They treat their students with a careful egalitarianism, expecting all to enter the elite. Berkeley and many other public universities, however, assign rooms depending on how much a student can pay...Corporations have cut deals with universities to be sole providers of goods and services and to shut out competitors. Coca-Cola, for example, has monopoly rights at Berkeley, including control of what kinds of drinks and food are sold at football games. Corporations such as Cingular and Allstate blanket California Memorial Stadium with their logos and signs. (p. 93)
The credit card companies have been banned from peddling their wares on campus to students who are (thanks to our education system that fails miserably at economics) financially naive. Of course, if they can't hit up the students directly on campus they can do it indirectly at Bank of America Stadium or the Capitol One Bowl. Much about colleges and universities has been branded. How interesting that the older use of that word meant marked by the owner.
And lest anyone think that universities, students, and professors are havens of free thinking and troublesome inquiry, we are set straight by a Berkeley undergrad student, Chris Hebdon:
"Too many students and professors are distracted, specialized, atomized, and timid. They follow trends, prestige, and money, and so rarely act outside the box." (p. 93)
Where is all this leading us? Hedges puts the choice before us: If we do not grasp the "societal play of forces that operates beneath the surface of political reforms," we will be cursed with a more ruthless form of corporate power, one that does away with the artifice and the seduction of the consumer society, and wields power through naked oppression. (p. 90)
All this talk of higher education reminded me of that old joke about marriage. :)
You had so properly wrapped the last chapter up it seemed to me I could add little to it. Or did you just expect a woman to want the last word? :)
Clarification: The statistics on literacy I quoted aren't from the book but other sources.
Now, where were we? Oh yes, Somewhere along the way, the idea of a real education, the joy of learning, and maybe even learning things in hopes of becoming a better person and to put the world in some sort of moral context, got lost. I like this quote from Dr. Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy at Boston College:
"Education, as classically conceived, is not primarily for citizenship, or for making money, or for success in life, or for a veneer of "culture," or for escaping your lower-class origins and joining the middle class, or for professional or vocational training, whether the profession is honorable, like auto repair, or questionable, like law; and whether the profession is telling the truth, like an x-ray technician, or telling lies, like advertising or communications or politics. The first and foundational purpose of education is not external but internal: it is to make the little human a little more human, bigger on the inside."
Once upon a time an education was about something other than getting a job. Now, a degree (not necessarily an "education" by the above definition) isn't guaranteed to even to that for you. How education is defined and sold (and this idea must be "sold" to get families to continue to go into debt for a system that often doesn't do what it promised) is based on the concept of turning out good workers. You may not learn anything in school that makes you "bigger on the inside" but you will learn how to follow instructions and arrive someplace on time Monday through Friday. You will learn not to question authority or ask why things are done the way they are. The industrial revolution needed education systems to produce workers who could do these things. Critical thinking? Not so much. Your quest for "truth and reality"? How is an employer going to score that on a performance review?
Here is a short video that explains how we got here (and what's wrong) by Ken Robinson: Changing Education Paradigms.
I've heard more than a few people bash the Occupy Wall Street protesters for stating that their student loans are difficult to repay and they'd like to be relieved of that burden. The argument goes like this: "Oh you wanted to take out a loan to go to school and now you've graduated and don't want to fulfill your obligation. That isn't the way the real world works." Yes it is. It's called bankruptcy. Dave Ramsey, constantly reminds listeners and readers that "student loans and IRS bills are the only two things that are not bankrupt-able". I wonder if students are constantly reminded of this on campuses and in meetings with advisers. If we have credit card companies play by new rules that make it easier for cardholders to understand fees and penalties, shouldn't we be be making sure an 18 year old knows what they are getting in to? You can get protection from creditors if you bought a car and house you couldn't afford, but you can't get relief for trying to get an education? And let's be honest these universities, clearly (as my son will tell you) admit students that they know should not be there. Students are being promised, from entry into the system in elementary school, that a degree guarantees a job, which it doesn't. Not any more. Richard Vedder and Andrew Gillen recently addressed this in their article, The Solution to Student Loan Debt:
"The kids dutifully listen to their parents and mentors. In many cases, earning mediocre grades from less-than-mediocre public high schools makes the kids ill prepared, so 40 percent fail to graduate within six years. Those who persevere and graduate face a bad market (largely because of the poor public-policy decisions of politicians they did not select), but even if they graduated in a period of prosperity, they would be very likely to take a job that is quite different than the one they expected when beginning their higher-education journey. This is economic and academic child abuse."
Once students are admitted and on the road to becoming good employees, they are pushed even farther along that twin road, the one that leads to being (or should I say continue being) good consumers. Hedges uses Berkeley as an example, but we could apply his complaints to nearly every university.
The corporate hierarchy that has corrupted higher education is on public display at Berkeley. The wealthiest of the elite schools, such as Yale and Stanford, assign dormitories by lottery. They treat their students with a careful egalitarianism, expecting all to enter the elite. Berkeley and many other public universities, however, assign rooms depending on how much a student can pay...Corporations have cut deals with universities to be sole providers of goods and services and to shut out competitors. Coca-Cola, for example, has monopoly rights at Berkeley, including control of what kinds of drinks and food are sold at football games. Corporations such as Cingular and Allstate blanket California Memorial Stadium with their logos and signs. (p. 93)
The credit card companies have been banned from peddling their wares on campus to students who are (thanks to our education system that fails miserably at economics) financially naive. Of course, if they can't hit up the students directly on campus they can do it indirectly at Bank of America Stadium or the Capitol One Bowl. Much about colleges and universities has been branded. How interesting that the older use of that word meant marked by the owner.
And lest anyone think that universities, students, and professors are havens of free thinking and troublesome inquiry, we are set straight by a Berkeley undergrad student, Chris Hebdon:
"Too many students and professors are distracted, specialized, atomized, and timid. They follow trends, prestige, and money, and so rarely act outside the box." (p. 93)
Where is all this leading us? Hedges puts the choice before us: If we do not grasp the "societal play of forces that operates beneath the surface of political reforms," we will be cursed with a more ruthless form of corporate power, one that does away with the artifice and the seduction of the consumer society, and wields power through naked oppression. (p. 90)
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Institutional Failure
I’m guessing your distaste for chapter 2 was so great you didn’t want to touch it even to respond to my “closing comments” on it. Very well MM! To the ramparts of education! :)
I thought Hedges started the chapter off well with cold water in the face with this system-shocking quote from Sinclair Lewis: “Men die, but the plutocracy is immortal, and it is necessary that fresh generations should be trained to its service.”
The statistics you list from Hedges are starkly, coldly, shocking. Refusing to read, whether to completion or even to read at all, has elements of denial and delusion to be sure, enfeebling things along the way to de-intellectualization. But there is also a cleaving to the paradigmic illusions that part of us know are not healthy, but would rend our psyches if we confronted those two really, Really, REALLY scary things.
Truth. Reality.
Is not our society a reflection of this? People cleave, with desperation and even angry fervor, to so much of what they feel they MUST believe, that MUST be the case for their world to be THEIR world. Or at least refusing to accept evidence to the contrary. Confrontations with the contradictions of their paradigms—about people, about ideas, about ideologies—are so emotionally jarring that they must be avoided or resisted with zeal.
Not only does polarization result from this, but the lack of reality means hard choices about personal lives and society don’t get made. And if reality is shunned, how easily it is for the moneyed and powerful to steer—in a hundred guises—the readily illusioned majority away from their true interests.
As others have said, often times people won’t read or listen to plainly presented facts, because all their “thoughts” and energies are poured into defending their beliefs against being called stupid. I know droves of both "party" proponents that are so ideological, that to have any chance of transcending their mental/emotional fortresses requires one to break complex and interwoven reality (especially the written kind) into several pieces. Why? Because our truly insanely overfilled lives cause too much of too much to be ignored, and especially if that too much is too long (as in, more than a soundbite or briefly described hyperlink). And that is assuming the intelligence is even there to go past mere headlines and catch phrases and three sentences (a byproduct of information overload for the still quite limited human capability). And all this assumes they will even make the effort, for if they already “know the truth,” they probably won’t bother.
Minds so filled with lies, fear, prejudice, distrust, and prejudgment make it so that if even those minds read and could possibly understand complexity rather than spoon-fed, ruinously wrong and simple-minded beliefs, they might still blow it off as propaganda of the other side, even if it was written by one of their own (who would then be branded a turncoat or “traitor”).
This is why it often takes a very long time, of the facts and just truth knocking incessantly at the door, for change to come.
But the alternatives are usually worse. Far better slow progress than none at all. The true heroes are those who labor long in the wilderness—ignored, rejected, vilified, and perhaps even forgotten, with seemingly no hope for “the people” to wake up. But so did the prophets of old, who labored long and without reward or success, the fruits of their work to be garnered by others long after they had departed.
As your aptly named “illusion of wisdom” signifies, more service to this “educational” system of ours means more self-subjugation. Hedges may not be entirely right, but overall I believe he is: our educational institutions largely serve economic, social, and political hierarchies, with accepted paradigms, among them “the primacy of an unfettered free market.” (89) Educational institutions, and the departments within them, specialize and separate, creating elitism (and backlash against that elitism). They talk, write, and otherwise incestuously communicate, hindering or even prohibiting understanding by the non-specialized citizen—and often creating suspicion and distrust and resentment. Such specialization “keeps the uninitiated from asking unpleasant questions. It destroys the search for the common good. It dices disciplines, faculty, students, and finally experts into tiny, specialized fragments. It allows students and faculty to retreat into these self-imposed fiefdoms and neglect the most pressing moral, political, and cultural questions.” (90)
The universities that were partially at the center of protest and change in the 60s and 70s have become nearly thoroughly corrupted and/or neutralized concerning the present system. And to think that agitators try to instead inflame people about all those “liberal professors’ excessive influence.”
That last bit gets a sardonic laugh from this professor. Whatever diminishing influence that such tenured professors—already at 35% of the teaching force and likely to shrink further— may have (for brief periods), it is virtually nothing next to the ultra-powerful and ever-present incessant realities of the system itself.
The system often moves powerfully to neutralize those who MIGHT actually influence the soon-to-be-servile next generations. “Those who critique the system itself—people such as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Dennis Kucinich, or Ralph Nader—are marginalized and shut out of the mainstream debate. These elite universities have banished self-criticism. They refuse to question a self-justifying system. Organization, technology, self-advancement, and information systems are the only things that matter.” (90)
In service to the plutocracy. That 1% (really, .1%). Percentage-wise, the neo-feudalism largely already present outdoes even historical feudalism, where usually at least 2-3% of the population made up the controlling aristocrats/plutocrats.
So, Middle America, all those rough-around-the edges neo-hippies jabbing erratically at the system: Instead of getting irked at their seeming lack of focus, or the flaky or “weird” among them (and which the system tries to portray as THE face of the protesters), or that they “should be working at something,” etc., cheer them on instead. They are doing what the system has nearly ensured you can’t very well. Because it’s not just family commitments and responsibilities keeping you away from standing with them. It’s the consuming nature of everything about this spectacle-servile culture, from slavish jobs (and hours and efforts, and that’s if you HAVE a job), to falling wages, to the crushing weight of everything—from health care to transportation—put on the individual and the nuclear family, to the consuming diversions that distract you and delude you.
A prison that others fashioned for us—and that we finished from the inside.
Time for Andy to breakout! (See Shawshank Redemption again, if you don’t follow yet).
I thought Hedges started the chapter off well with cold water in the face with this system-shocking quote from Sinclair Lewis: “Men die, but the plutocracy is immortal, and it is necessary that fresh generations should be trained to its service.”
The statistics you list from Hedges are starkly, coldly, shocking. Refusing to read, whether to completion or even to read at all, has elements of denial and delusion to be sure, enfeebling things along the way to de-intellectualization. But there is also a cleaving to the paradigmic illusions that part of us know are not healthy, but would rend our psyches if we confronted those two really, Really, REALLY scary things.
Truth. Reality.
Is not our society a reflection of this? People cleave, with desperation and even angry fervor, to so much of what they feel they MUST believe, that MUST be the case for their world to be THEIR world. Or at least refusing to accept evidence to the contrary. Confrontations with the contradictions of their paradigms—about people, about ideas, about ideologies—are so emotionally jarring that they must be avoided or resisted with zeal.
Not only does polarization result from this, but the lack of reality means hard choices about personal lives and society don’t get made. And if reality is shunned, how easily it is for the moneyed and powerful to steer—in a hundred guises—the readily illusioned majority away from their true interests.
As others have said, often times people won’t read or listen to plainly presented facts, because all their “thoughts” and energies are poured into defending their beliefs against being called stupid. I know droves of both "party" proponents that are so ideological, that to have any chance of transcending their mental/emotional fortresses requires one to break complex and interwoven reality (especially the written kind) into several pieces. Why? Because our truly insanely overfilled lives cause too much of too much to be ignored, and especially if that too much is too long (as in, more than a soundbite or briefly described hyperlink). And that is assuming the intelligence is even there to go past mere headlines and catch phrases and three sentences (a byproduct of information overload for the still quite limited human capability). And all this assumes they will even make the effort, for if they already “know the truth,” they probably won’t bother.
Minds so filled with lies, fear, prejudice, distrust, and prejudgment make it so that if even those minds read and could possibly understand complexity rather than spoon-fed, ruinously wrong and simple-minded beliefs, they might still blow it off as propaganda of the other side, even if it was written by one of their own (who would then be branded a turncoat or “traitor”).
This is why it often takes a very long time, of the facts and just truth knocking incessantly at the door, for change to come.
But the alternatives are usually worse. Far better slow progress than none at all. The true heroes are those who labor long in the wilderness—ignored, rejected, vilified, and perhaps even forgotten, with seemingly no hope for “the people” to wake up. But so did the prophets of old, who labored long and without reward or success, the fruits of their work to be garnered by others long after they had departed.
As your aptly named “illusion of wisdom” signifies, more service to this “educational” system of ours means more self-subjugation. Hedges may not be entirely right, but overall I believe he is: our educational institutions largely serve economic, social, and political hierarchies, with accepted paradigms, among them “the primacy of an unfettered free market.” (89) Educational institutions, and the departments within them, specialize and separate, creating elitism (and backlash against that elitism). They talk, write, and otherwise incestuously communicate, hindering or even prohibiting understanding by the non-specialized citizen—and often creating suspicion and distrust and resentment. Such specialization “keeps the uninitiated from asking unpleasant questions. It destroys the search for the common good. It dices disciplines, faculty, students, and finally experts into tiny, specialized fragments. It allows students and faculty to retreat into these self-imposed fiefdoms and neglect the most pressing moral, political, and cultural questions.” (90)
The universities that were partially at the center of protest and change in the 60s and 70s have become nearly thoroughly corrupted and/or neutralized concerning the present system. And to think that agitators try to instead inflame people about all those “liberal professors’ excessive influence.”
That last bit gets a sardonic laugh from this professor. Whatever diminishing influence that such tenured professors—already at 35% of the teaching force and likely to shrink further— may have (for brief periods), it is virtually nothing next to the ultra-powerful and ever-present incessant realities of the system itself.
The system often moves powerfully to neutralize those who MIGHT actually influence the soon-to-be-servile next generations. “Those who critique the system itself—people such as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Dennis Kucinich, or Ralph Nader—are marginalized and shut out of the mainstream debate. These elite universities have banished self-criticism. They refuse to question a self-justifying system. Organization, technology, self-advancement, and information systems are the only things that matter.” (90)
In service to the plutocracy. That 1% (really, .1%). Percentage-wise, the neo-feudalism largely already present outdoes even historical feudalism, where usually at least 2-3% of the population made up the controlling aristocrats/plutocrats.
So, Middle America, all those rough-around-the edges neo-hippies jabbing erratically at the system: Instead of getting irked at their seeming lack of focus, or the flaky or “weird” among them (and which the system tries to portray as THE face of the protesters), or that they “should be working at something,” etc., cheer them on instead. They are doing what the system has nearly ensured you can’t very well. Because it’s not just family commitments and responsibilities keeping you away from standing with them. It’s the consuming nature of everything about this spectacle-servile culture, from slavish jobs (and hours and efforts, and that’s if you HAVE a job), to falling wages, to the crushing weight of everything—from health care to transportation—put on the individual and the nuclear family, to the consuming diversions that distract you and delude you.
A prison that others fashioned for us—and that we finished from the inside.
Time for Andy to breakout! (See Shawshank Redemption again, if you don’t follow yet).
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Illusion of Wisdom 101: Introduction to Chapter 3
Syllabus
- This class meets on Sundays and Wednesdays.
- Your teacher is "Professor" Hedges (with commentary by Professor J and Madame M).
- Required text: Empire of Illusion, but we highly recommend lots of independent reading. You should start with The Disadvantages of Being Educated. A variety of newspaper and magazine articles, other books and multimedia presentations on education are strongly encouraged. Links to some of these that we feel are indispensable will be provided from time to time.
"We have bought hook, line, and sinker into the idea that education is about training and 'success,' defined monetarily, rather than learning to think critically and to challenge." Chris Hebdon a Berkley undergrad student (p. 95)
You will be expected to discuss these and other assertions at length. Please come to class prepared to defend your stance.
- Participation in the discussion is encouraged.
- There is no extra credit.
- Do not have your mother contact us about your grade.
- Attendance: Why would you not want to show up?
Professor J,
Okay, I'm having a bit of fun but after our last chapter I think we need it! While I didn't agree with everything he said in this chapter, his overall message that education has become less about real learning and more about gaining a Sufficiently Trained Cog Certificate is spot on. (This has been in the works for some time--we advise the reader to peruse The Disadvantages of Being Educated.) Though Hedges is mainly listing his grievances with universities, I would have to say that we see this thinking start earlier than ever, now. Ken Robinson addresses this in one of his famous talks when sharing that the motto at a well intentioned school was "College begins in kindergarten." For some parents it begins even before that when before the child is even born mom and dad start worrying about getting him on all the "right lists." As in for preschool.
The things that Hedges brings to light may help us understand things that are baffling like:
• One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.After reading chapter 3 I wondered if it isn't because reading makes us think and ask questions, and well...sometimes that can be painful, especially if we ask questions that cause us to question our lives and why things are the way they are.
• 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
• 80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
• 70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
• 57 percent of new books are not read to completion.
People who ask questions cause trouble. People who rock boats and think for themselves make those steering the boats, who are happy with the present course, uncomfortable. How they must want to yell "Sit down and ROW!" to the Occupy Wall Street Protesters. The things they do to insure that a compliant and obedient "crew" is always available to keep the engines running are outlined by Hedges:
"The elite universities disdain honest intellectual inquiry, which is by its nature distrustful of authority, fiercely independent, and often subversive. They organize learning around minutely specialized disciplines, narrow answers, and rigid structures designed to produce such answers." (p.89)
If our problem in the last chapter was finding anything appropriate to quote, the challenge this go-round may be in not just quoting the entire chapter! And...you think we have trouble staying on topic? I hadn't noticed. ;)
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