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Entry: The longer view
I have long respected Alan Kors, but he is simply going off the deep end when he starts echoing the wretched Richard Vedder:
“The power of universities comes from their monopoly of credentials. As Richard Vedder so deeply understands in his Going Broke by Degree, they are the only institutions allowed to separate young individuals by IQ and by the ability to complete complex tasks. They do not add value to that, except in technical fields. Recruiters do not pay premiums because of what the Ivy League or the flagship state universities teach in English, history, political science, or sociology. They hire there despite, not because of that. Recruiters do not pay premiums because our children have been sent to multicultural centers for sensitivity training. Recruiters pay premiums for the value already there, which universities merely identify.”
If this were really true, corporate recruiters would be trying to hire fresh high school grads who have been admitted to Ivy League schools; they would be poaching these schools for students in their freshman year. This would be a fantastic opportunity for them. But as far as I know, this is not happening.
Furthermore, colleges do not have a monopoly on use of aptitude testing. As the link below makes clear
http://www.obecinfo.com/news_article.php?article=11
– I have seen others in places like the Wall St. Journal – companies are using SAT scores to screen college applicants. I don’t see why it would be any more illegal to screen high school graduates or people who had completed a little college this way.
There is plenty to criticize in higher education. But when critics – usually people with advanced degrees from high-end colleges, often near the end of long academic careers – starting saying that college is a waste of time, I’m ready to jump off. Increasingly this is happening among critics of higher education on the right. It seems to me they are simply making themselves sound bizarre. I literally can’t think of a better way for them to make sure everyone stops listening.
Posted by Mike at May 6, 2008 9:36 AM
The sky is falling, the sky is falling!
Why does it have to be such an all or nothing proposition? Is an absolute renunciation of any reasonable alternate perspectives the only way to fight excessive relativism? The problem with such broad-brush caricature is that it feeds intellectual laziness, and if I understand right, one of the foremost complaints of traditionalist academic critics is the intellectual laziness brought on by relativism, post-modernism, etc.
I'm confused by FIRE. Non-partisan activism in the service of the First amendment is a fine thing. I don't doubt that the idea that expression has to be curtailed in order to promote "diversity" is a prime first-amendment threat. It's a devil's bargain, so in principle I'm all for an organization that vigorously resists the reflex, and as far as I can tell FIRE's interventions are true to their stated mission.
But this is the second time I've seen this kind of sweeping, partisan dismissal of a whole spectrum of academics coming from the founders of FIRE. The other time it was the other founder, Harvey Silverglate, opining about the Duke lacrosse case. When I look at the basis for his complaints--especially the "analysis" by KC Johnson that he seems to accept wholeheartedly--I come up with a hollow shell. Setting aside the ideological quality and focussing on the intellectual quality of Johnson's critique, I find reasoning that would be embarrassing to a half-decent undergraduate, even in their current, supposedly dumbed-down condition.
As a pretty committed relativist, my operating principle is that I'll understand the situation better if I consider it from another perspective. But I've had no luck finding anyone with a traditionalist perspective who's willing to address the issues that bother me. It seems that in this particular case the partisan critics of left-leaning academia are at least as ready as their opponents to let ideological considerations trump intellectual standards.
I hesitate to post a bunch of links in a comment, since it tends to trigger spam filters. All the issues I'm alluding to are documented and linked at the URL I'm posting with this comment. I'm still hoping for a challenging critic or two.
Posted by Robert Zimmerman at May 6, 2008 11:18 AM
Generalizing about developments in American academia over a forty-year period may be risky, though I think in this case Alan Kors has scanned it rightly. Pace Robert Zimmerman, and perhaps in the manner of 1930s newsreels, I'll add a few of my own generalizations to those of Professor Kors:
Professorial intellectual dereliction--especially in humanities departments--kept pace during this period with the spread of institutional radicalism; after some feeble past show of resistance to these trends, administrative capitulation to and complicity in this alarming development is now nearly universal. For example, the ex nihilo creation of whole departments of ethnic and gender studies (with their attendant university office bureaucracies) elevated social and political advocacy to the levels of academic disciplines, though more traditional university departments like history, literatures, social sciences, psychology, education, law, social warfare, and others were also deeply ravaged by this relentlessly radical turn. Campus orthodoxies touting the all-powerful influences of race, class, and gender waxed strong, confident, and smug while heresies like patriotism, military service, and conservative ideas were more and more held by institutional radicals and administrators as unwelcome alien intrusions into home territories. And like cockroaches, which can tolerate much higher levels of toxic radiation than humans, many career academics have smilingly adapted to this "duck-and-cover" environment while dreaming of promotions, sabbaticals, conference getaways, back-slapping book reviews, and genteel "warm-bath" retirements.
I'm appreciative that FIRE and websites like Erin O' Connor's track and provide incisive commentary on these trends.
Posted by J A DeLater at May 6, 2008 4:33 PM
Although I've not read the KC Johnson book, I have read some of his comments about the Duke lacrosse case on the Internet, and I wonder how bad his analysis could be. Were the facts not that 88 faculty members publicly harassed and falsely accused the players? What lessons can be learned from the disbarment of Mike Nifong? Did not the University pay out big bucks to protects itself and its more "progressive" faculty members from getting their individual and collective asses sued off? What is the pro-Duke 88 argument in this case? I guess only a pretty committed relativist knows for sure.
Posted by TG at May 6, 2008 9:46 PM
JAD is correct that the humanities, over the past 25 years, became quite lopsided in their emphasis on political activism and politicized interpretations of culture.
But let's not forget that, especially in English departments, this followed 100 years of near silence about the role of gender, class, or race in high culture. Trends are unforgivable in hindsight, but let's not pretend that the academy didn't have its own lopsidedness well before the 1960s generation of scholars.
Posted by Luther Blissett at May 7, 2008 3:46 PM
Luther said, in a non-defense defense of today's "lopsided" orientation of college humanities towards activism:
But let's not forget that, especially in English departments, this followed 100 years of near silence about the role of gender, class, or race in high culture. Trends are unforgivable in hindsight, but let's not pretend that the academy didn't have its own lopsidedness well before the 1960s generation of scholars>
Posted by minerva at May 7, 2008 6:19 PM
"What lessons can be learned from the disbarment of Mike Nifong?"
The lesson that I as an attorney learned is that lawyers are rightly held accountable for their words and deeds but academics essentially are not. Not in any way that's remotely comparable.
Posted by Dave J at May 7, 2008 8:39 PM
No, Minerva, it's not a tu quoque argument. The point is that it might take more than 25 years of concerted research to recover from the lopsidedness of humanities studies before the 70s and 80s.
Posted by Luther Blissett at May 8, 2008 3:37 AM
Luther wrote:
The point is that it might take more than 25 years of concerted research to recover from the lopsidedness of humanities studies before the 70s and 80s.
My error. I mistook ambiguity for fallacy.
Posted by minerva at May 8, 2008 12:52 PM