As if our caste of mediocre conformists called "professors" who all think the same, speak the same sterile jargon, and push the same failed ideas over and over again, while collecting large checks and churning out subliterate students who know nothing except their feelings are...Intellectuals!
If the first thing you think when confronted by a new idea: is 1) how will this help/hurt my career?; and 2) will my tribe approve of this or will I be in trouble?—you may be many things, but an "intellectual" is not one of them.
'Intellectual' and 'academic' are no longer synonymous. If anything they're close to being antonyms at this point.
It never ceases to amaze me how academics can endlessly bemoan the cratering public credulity in their pronouncements, whilst remaining wilfully blind to the one measure that could rebuild their cultural prestige. All they have to do is stop lying.
Academia is a dumpster fire and has been since at least the Sokal hoax back in the 90s.
A couple of years ago, James Lindsay, Hellen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian translated chapter 12 of "Mein Kampf" into intersectional feminist language (you know, "straight white cisgender male" stuff) and got it published in an academic journal. They published other hoax papers as well, some almost as egregious.
The next time some bespectacled NPR listener tries to tell you opposition to academia is anti-intellectual, get them to explain that.
I've always thought that the Sokal Hoax was a major turning point about the state of education in America, the moment where it became too obvious to ignore the rot in academia...and yet it was entirely ignored and immediately forgotten.
One of the mysteries for me of the past generation or 2 is how college presidents, administrators and trustees (even in the reddest of red states) just sat back and allowed their state-subsidized Humanities Depts to become madrassas of anti-American (really anti-civilization) hatred, w profs abdicating their teaching responsibilities to playact Maoist fantasies instead.
I'm going to offer a book recommendation: Deep Creek, by Pam Houston.
It covers many topics, and there are many reasons why you may or may not like it. But the relevant point here is that in the middle of the book, Houston paints a portrait of the literature department at the university she teaches at, a portrait that struck me as absolutely <i>monstrous.</i>
I doubt Houston realizes this. I think you have to be outside the academic bubble to see it. But I'm talking about literature students that no longer read books, just use computers to scan reams of texts for certain words. Students of environmental writing who never go outside, or get away from the computer - instead they pen unintelligible gibberish about lawns and video games. All of this accompanied by a cynical sneer and a massive load of nihilism.
All of which means, literature departments across the nation produce illiterate depressives, at high cost, who are utterly disconnected from external reality and who actively work to promote despair and undermine the mental health of the populace.
Anytime someone quotes Fox News as a driver of right wing conspiracy theory I immediately realize I’m reading garbage. For me it’s a dog whistle that the author is a complete left wing partisan hack and anything that comes after should be dismissed. I imagine the author knows he has a shot to appear on MSNBC if he includes a dog at Fox News in his opinion piece.
I just think of all the medical & legal “professionals” (many long having paid off their student loans) who simply parroted the CDC, NIH and FDA talking points regarding Covid & “vaccines.” Some independent thinkers there, all right! Right down to changing the definition of “vaccine” to justify mandates of a faulty product. No questions, just answers--tailored to the goal. Jab away!
Yes, this is so true. I was most disappointed in our "expert" infectious disease doctor who would tell the hospital staff how safe the vaccine was when they were going to mandate that all employees get the jab. I would listen to him to see if he would say something interesting about his experience or go into detail about the tests done on this new vaccine. I had serious doubts about the safety of the vaccine, but maybe he knew something that I didn't? He simply mouthed the same words I heard on t.v., no other insight even though he was trying to convince other medical people. Plus, he lied about the proportion of vaxed versus unvaxed patients at our hospitals. I no longer work there, but I think he got a promotion.
The right is "demolishing independent expertise"? I don't know if it's an almost pathological lack of self-awareness or such an isolated feedback loop that it's left these people deaf, dumb, and blind, but I have trouble wrapping my head around any of this. It's not the "right" that is pushing Twitter and Facebook to censor, that pushed for a law in California to go after doctors who don't espouse the "prevailing scientific consensus" (whatever the hell that is), and that tried to form a literal ministry of truth. How mentally numb do you have to be not to stop and ask yourself some basic questions?
Indeed. It's why the tenure process is so long and drawn out (6 or 7 years). It gives plenty of time for a dissenter to make an ideological misstep and reveal him or herself.
I haven't seen a Thomas Sowell quote on this thread yet so I'll throw it in the mix: "It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong."
You should do a whole piece on that Pfizer spokesperson’s reply to that investigator who asks for a straight yes or know answer to his question as to whether PFizer had actually tested their jab for effectiveness in preventing transmission of “the virus”. Her reply is so intellectually, morally, linguistically twisted that it literally makes no sense in any of these catagories!!! What fascinated me is her delivery—vocal tone is cheery, carrying on blithely as though there is no problem at all! She just pretends she is making sense. She even garbles her words and switches up the words “prevention” and “transmission” which makes her sentence make even less sense. Really, someone should parse the wording one word at a time. It is perversely dazzling!!!
That's fairness and balance. There is at least one conservative/Republican in each of these academic disciplines. What more could you want. It's as balanced as The View.
You know, I reflect on my humanities degree in English literature and creative writing from the ‘90s as one of my favorite periods in life. But it was also one of those periods where I felt like the main purpose of some of my classes was to twist my brain into a pretzel as an academic exercise - and I had to spend a good amount of time straightening it back out again. It was a useful exercise, because what I see now is people going into these institutions with their brains already pretzeled, so now the institution has to up the ante to stay relevant. Like the commenter said yesterday, it’s now like a Salvador Dali painting - and it can’t persist. It’s literally too dumb to survive.
The thing is a lot of Republicans are skeptical of The Fox News as well. It’s not like they uncritically “believe” “their” media—unlike some people who do.
"anti-intellectualism"!!! LOLOL
As if our caste of mediocre conformists called "professors" who all think the same, speak the same sterile jargon, and push the same failed ideas over and over again, while collecting large checks and churning out subliterate students who know nothing except their feelings are...Intellectuals!
If the first thing you think when confronted by a new idea: is 1) how will this help/hurt my career?; and 2) will my tribe approve of this or will I be in trouble?—you may be many things, but an "intellectual" is not one of them.
'Intellectual' and 'academic' are no longer synonymous. If anything they're close to being antonyms at this point.
It never ceases to amaze me how academics can endlessly bemoan the cratering public credulity in their pronouncements, whilst remaining wilfully blind to the one measure that could rebuild their cultural prestige. All they have to do is stop lying.
Academia is a dumpster fire and has been since at least the Sokal hoax back in the 90s.
A couple of years ago, James Lindsay, Hellen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian translated chapter 12 of "Mein Kampf" into intersectional feminist language (you know, "straight white cisgender male" stuff) and got it published in an academic journal. They published other hoax papers as well, some almost as egregious.
The next time some bespectacled NPR listener tries to tell you opposition to academia is anti-intellectual, get them to explain that.
I've always thought that the Sokal Hoax was a major turning point about the state of education in America, the moment where it became too obvious to ignore the rot in academia...and yet it was entirely ignored and immediately forgotten.
One of the mysteries for me of the past generation or 2 is how college presidents, administrators and trustees (even in the reddest of red states) just sat back and allowed their state-subsidized Humanities Depts to become madrassas of anti-American (really anti-civilization) hatred, w profs abdicating their teaching responsibilities to playact Maoist fantasies instead.
But it's wayyy too late now....
My personal Lindsay fave was “Rape Culture at the Dog Park”. So amazing.
lol classic!
I'm going to offer a book recommendation: Deep Creek, by Pam Houston.
It covers many topics, and there are many reasons why you may or may not like it. But the relevant point here is that in the middle of the book, Houston paints a portrait of the literature department at the university she teaches at, a portrait that struck me as absolutely <i>monstrous.</i>
I doubt Houston realizes this. I think you have to be outside the academic bubble to see it. But I'm talking about literature students that no longer read books, just use computers to scan reams of texts for certain words. Students of environmental writing who never go outside, or get away from the computer - instead they pen unintelligible gibberish about lawns and video games. All of this accompanied by a cynical sneer and a massive load of nihilism.
All of which means, literature departments across the nation produce illiterate depressives, at high cost, who are utterly disconnected from external reality and who actively work to promote despair and undermine the mental health of the populace.
We're talking anomie here - culture death.
I've just ordered "Deep Creek." Thanks for the recommendation.
Anytime someone quotes Fox News as a driver of right wing conspiracy theory I immediately realize I’m reading garbage. For me it’s a dog whistle that the author is a complete left wing partisan hack and anything that comes after should be dismissed. I imagine the author knows he has a shot to appear on MSNBC if he includes a dog at Fox News in his opinion piece.
1.) Fox News
2.) Putin!
3.) Koch brothers
0.) DRUUUUUUMPPPFFFGHHHGHGHHHJJH
**LITERALLY SHAKING**
I just think of all the medical & legal “professionals” (many long having paid off their student loans) who simply parroted the CDC, NIH and FDA talking points regarding Covid & “vaccines.” Some independent thinkers there, all right! Right down to changing the definition of “vaccine” to justify mandates of a faulty product. No questions, just answers--tailored to the goal. Jab away!
Yes, this is so true. I was most disappointed in our "expert" infectious disease doctor who would tell the hospital staff how safe the vaccine was when they were going to mandate that all employees get the jab. I would listen to him to see if he would say something interesting about his experience or go into detail about the tests done on this new vaccine. I had serious doubts about the safety of the vaccine, but maybe he knew something that I didn't? He simply mouthed the same words I heard on t.v., no other insight even though he was trying to convince other medical people. Plus, he lied about the proportion of vaxed versus unvaxed patients at our hospitals. I no longer work there, but I think he got a promotion.
The right is "demolishing independent expertise"? I don't know if it's an almost pathological lack of self-awareness or such an isolated feedback loop that it's left these people deaf, dumb, and blind, but I have trouble wrapping my head around any of this. It's not the "right" that is pushing Twitter and Facebook to censor, that pushed for a law in California to go after doctors who don't espouse the "prevailing scientific consensus" (whatever the hell that is), and that tried to form a literal ministry of truth. How mentally numb do you have to be not to stop and ask yourself some basic questions?
The term 'higher education' is a misnomer. It works this way: Pay up, put your time in, don't make waves, get your degree.
Let's remember that bigotry comes in many flavors and today's colleges are bastions of bigotry.
Indeed. It's why the tenure process is so long and drawn out (6 or 7 years). It gives plenty of time for a dissenter to make an ideological misstep and reveal him or herself.
It means "higher cost".
I haven't seen a Thomas Sowell quote on this thread yet so I'll throw it in the mix: "It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong."
If ever they fall and likely they will they’ll wish they’d been made to pay for small mistakes.
It makes more sense if one treats these as religious incantations: ‘expertise’, ‘institutions’, ‘anti-intellectualism’.
Invoking these terms has a soothing effect on the neocortex and if repeated three times will scare bad Trumpy bear away.
You should do a whole piece on that Pfizer spokesperson’s reply to that investigator who asks for a straight yes or know answer to his question as to whether PFizer had actually tested their jab for effectiveness in preventing transmission of “the virus”. Her reply is so intellectually, morally, linguistically twisted that it literally makes no sense in any of these catagories!!! What fascinated me is her delivery—vocal tone is cheery, carrying on blithely as though there is no problem at all! She just pretends she is making sense. She even garbles her words and switches up the words “prevention” and “transmission” which makes her sentence make even less sense. Really, someone should parse the wording one word at a time. It is perversely dazzling!!!
That's fairness and balance. There is at least one conservative/Republican in each of these academic disciplines. What more could you want. It's as balanced as The View.
“The Right-Wing Attempt to Control Higher Ed”
To quote George Carlin: “That’s our fucking job!” (https://youtu.be/uwlVAkXcXOI?t=57)
And his American Dream bit makes a fitting companion to this article:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsL6mKxtOlQ
Ah yes, the tiresome 'you're anti-intellectual because you don't listen to me' shtick.
They need to get a hair cut and a real job.
You know, I reflect on my humanities degree in English literature and creative writing from the ‘90s as one of my favorite periods in life. But it was also one of those periods where I felt like the main purpose of some of my classes was to twist my brain into a pretzel as an academic exercise - and I had to spend a good amount of time straightening it back out again. It was a useful exercise, because what I see now is people going into these institutions with their brains already pretzeled, so now the institution has to up the ante to stay relevant. Like the commenter said yesterday, it’s now like a Salvador Dali painting - and it can’t persist. It’s literally too dumb to survive.
The thing is a lot of Republicans are skeptical of The Fox News as well. It’s not like they uncritically “believe” “their” media—unlike some people who do.
I needed that laugh.