Conjuring images of the medieval church or the Kremlin persecuting dissidents is delicious, but it comes from times and places where very few people even had access to the information that the academy was exposed to. Those controlling authorities could actually hope to keep certain opinions from spreading by applying pressure at a very few places. That world has been disappearing for years. Anyone can get ahold of the ideas of Foucault, or Trotsky, or Derrida at the touch of a button now. Where unavailability is still a problem, ironically, are precisely those areas where those ideas are in ascendance.
This is why online learning and other consumer-driven postsecondary education is pushing them out. Prestigious universities are losing prestige, not because Americans are anti-intellectual, but because they are anti-intelligentsia, anti-academy. Even George Bush reads Camus nowadays. The figure of The Professor in comic books and Gilligan’s Island, a person who knows much about all important subjects, does not even work as comedy or stereotype anymore. People chuckled about the comedic exaggeration of Russell Johnson’s character then – now they would fail to find it funny at all, except as some sort of retro thing. People have access to the information themselves and know that humanities professors are often not all that smart. Smarter than average people, perhaps, and trained in particular specialties, but not dealing with subjects far beyond the ken of mortals. That is in fact why these disciplines have developed their own coded vocabularies, to identify outsiders rapidly. They can no longer rely on their superior knowledge to do that for them. It’s too easy for a talented amateur to join the conversation after a little work.
There is no need to censor the academy. They are making themselves increasingly irrelevant. The entrenched, government-funded educators at younger levels is more worrisome.
Month: October 2008
Foster’s Clip – and Others Floating Out There
Another comment to yet another interesting post by Foster. (The advantage I have over some of our commentors is that I can put up a post when I realize I’m getting too long-winded and too off-topic.)
Palin’s high energy may not rescue the McCain candidacy but at least it’s enlivening. Obama appears to have energized some passions in Manhatten as well as across the country, if dulling other civil & communal qualities. Transferring religious fervor to the political leads to some strange results. Of course, that is why political fervor is both compelling – and disturbing. Belmont Club discusses one.
Guineans mark ’50 years of poverty’
I was reviewing headlines and saw this stark headline on the BBC News Africa section titled “Guineans Mark 50 years of poverty“.
Fifty years ago the country of Guinea on the West (duh… I said East originally, sorry I am directionally challenged) coast of Africa achieved independence from France. Celebrations were recently held to mark this anniversary and the BBC correspondent heard the cries of “fifty years of poverty”. The article goes on to interview a man at a train station who laments that the trains used to run when the French ruled the country but now they have collapsed like everything else as the country runs low on electricity and other elements of a civilized society.
Guinea took their opportunities for independence and squandered them with 2 brutal dictatorships over the last 50 years as strongmen systematically looted the mineral rich country and let the infrastructure collapse. This is a sad story since the country has access to the ocean and a coastline as well as mineral wealth. Unfortunately it shares borders with failed states and risks becoming one itself as the strongmen wind down their time in power, with no likely successors in sight.
In college I remember reading articles, books and novels about how horrible colonialism was and certainly this is not something that anyone would willingly embark on in this day and age. I don’t remember, however, seeing how a country that has been independently managed for fifty years managed to do it so badly, in the aptly summarized “fifty years of poverty”. For many years the blame was always on the formal colonialist rulers for this or that, the borders, or how one ethnic group was favored over another.
At some point, likely today for Guinea, this doesn’t make sense any more. From the fact book, the average life span of a Guinean is 54 years old; so they don’t have any memory of the former French rulers while they were in power. At some point they need to look at how they have mismanaged their country and hopefully find a way to change it from within.
I will wait in vain for colleges to re-appraise their brutal picture of colonialism with a more nuanced picture, contrasting the infrastructure development and investments during colonialism with the asset stripping, infrastructure decay, and utter chaos that came after they left.
Sad and Disturbing…but not Surprising
McCain/Palin supporters walk through the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
Affluent liberals and “progressives” respond with the grace, class, and tolerance that we have come to expect of them.
(via Neptunus Lex)
UPDATE: See also my 2004 post an incident at the movies. I’d bet there is a 90% overlap between the kinds of people booing this recruiting film and the kinds of people snarling at the McCain supporters in the above video.
Also, be sure and read Ginny’s post.
UPDATE 2: Bookworm writes about another example of “progressive” rage at anyone who dares disagree with them.
