Universities: Their Decline and Fall

This past week I read an article about the current state of England's universities. I'm sure that an American author could write a similar article on some of what has been happening in our own universities. The article was published in The Unherd, which I've been periodically reading for a year or so. What I like is their in-depth stories and non-aligned views. That is, they publish articles that would likely annoy "both sides of the aisle" so to speak. That is what I like about Reason magazine as well. 

The article that caught my attention was titled How universities were corrupted. The subhead is: Vindictive protectiveness has re-shaped our institutions

The essay by Matthew Goodwin begins like this:

When are we going to do something about the state of our universities? We must surely by now be familiar with the symbols of this unfolding crisis. Philosopher Kathleen Stock, who was harassed by students and staff to such an extent that she was forced to leave her position at the University of Sussex. Noah Carl, the promising research fellow, who was chased out of Cambridge. Tony Sewell, the government advisor who oversaw the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities before suddenly finding his offer of an honorary doctorate at the University of Nottingham withdrawn. Tim Luckhurst, the Principal at Durham who invited Rod Liddle to speak at a dinner and was then suspended after students demanded he be disciplined.

The big concern, and what seems to be at stake here as well, is the pressure being put on schools to move away "from their founding mission to search for truth through free inquiry."

Maybe it has always been this way to some extent. Bertrand Russell's lecture and booklet Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Thought did address this last matter a century ago, but I get the impression that it has been exacerbated in recent years for a variety of reasons. One of these is spelled out in Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt's The Coddling of the American Mind.

* * * 

In a related critique of today's universities, William Deresiewicz sounds a wake-up call to American universities and institutions in an opinion piece titled American education’s new dark age . The subhead tells the story: Colleges have abandoned real learning for wokeism.

Deresiewicz's piece begins with his sharing his own wake-up experience teaching at an elite college in Southern California. "I assumed that they’d arrive with a fairly good idea of how to make an argument with an academic context and that I would be teaching them how to apply those skills to a very different set of rhetorical occasions," he writes. But he was wrong.

They not only didn't know how to construct an argument, they really hadn't learned how to read, or write or think. A little further along he realizes what led to this situation.

To understand how this predicament came to pass, one needs to understand how students manage to get into places like Harvard or the Claremont colleges in the first place. It is not by learning how to read, write, or think. It is by jumping through the endless series of hoops that elite college admissions offices have developed over the decades to winnow down their skyscraper stacks of application folders.

Not only are grades important, but involvement in a dozen extracurricular activities is essential to creating a solid, well-rounded candidate for the Ivy Leagues and other elite schools. In order to also get the sleep one needs, students learn to excel at skimming.

The author states outright that this kind of lifestyle does not produce intellectual engagement. Curiosity and passion must be suppressed, he states. The expertise students master has more to do with how to beat the system rather than learning anything.

Oh yes, they can pass tests. That's the new form of education, teaching to the test.  Don't surprise them by forcing them to think. They don't have time for that.

He goes on...

If that’s the kind of education students have received by the time they get to college, do things get better once they arrive? Not usually. Old habits die hard. Elite students, already competing for the next prize, continue to conduct their lives at the same frenetic pace. At the large mass of institutions below the level of the elite, the problem is less apt to be misdirected zeal than sheer indifference. Courses are a bother; campus culture runs to sports and beer.

 * * * 

The appeal of Wokeism is that it offers relief from the unsustainable emptiness of post-modern cynicism. Wokeism gives people something that appears to me meaningful to believe in. 

You can read the full story here: American Education's New Dark Age.

Comments welcome.

EdNote: I'm interested in your take on these articles. Are they overly harsh and critical, or fairly astute? Please share in the comments.

Related Link

Bertrand Russell's Free Thought and Official Propaganda Has Much to Say about the Current State of Cancel Culture

Iron Sharpens Iron: How Cancel Culture Gets It Wrong

"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another."
--Proverbs 27:17

This Old Testament proverb has come up more than a few times recently. It's amazing how insights from three thousand years ago continue to have relevance. 

The idea here, I believe, is that as we confront ideas different from our own, we're forced to think more deeply than we might otherwise do. These new ideas may even dismantle our beliefs or perceptions on a matter. The thing is, such challenges may also lead us to dig deeper to see if we've built our worldview on a firm foundation or shifting sands. 

What brought this proverb to mind was the following quote from philosopher/thinker Karl Popper:

"Bold ideas, unjustified anticipations, and speculative thought, are our only means for interpreting nature: our only organon, our only instrument, for grasping her. And we must hazard them to win our prize. Those among us who are unwilling to expose their ideas to the hazard of refutation do not take part in the scientific game." 

In science, ideas that get set forth are on the table to be probed. Conflicting ideas lead to new insights or firmer resolutions. To question is OK. The application of this principle goes far beyond the realm of science. 

Unfortunately, to the degree that universities stifle the free exploration of ideas, to that degree we have failed to equip our students with an essential skill: the ability to think. This is precisely what's wrong with our current culture of negation. 

Sometimes it is through talking things out with others that we figure out what we ourselves really believe. Healthy bull sessions in college dorm rooms help young people recognize  what is "bull" and what is not. 

On many college campuses conservative speakers aren't even permitted to speak for fear that riots will ensue. At Drew University, for example, "Some students ...are attempting to block a conservative, pro-life speaker from lecturing on campus by ripping down flyers and protesting the visit at a student government meeting... Others have circulated social media posts urging students to attend a November 3 student government meeting and ask them to block the conservative speaker."

Here's an article by the American Bar Association making the observation that it is primarily conservative speakers being barred or blocked from speaking on college campuses. The article by Stephen J. Wermiel & Josh Blackman is titled Thwarting Speech on College Campuses. 

Right now college campuses are debating just how much they should allow the free exchange of ideas. If we accept the idea behind Proverbs 27:17, this is a demonstration of weakness on the part of our schools. If they so fear the free flow of information in the marketplace of ideas, how will they ever deal with the realities beyond the borders of campus life?

The authors of The Coddling of the American Mind showed how this current development came about. C.S. Lewis saw the early stages of this development nearly a century ago. When writing my review of his book I cited his observation, "The worst of all public dangers is the committee of public safety." In today's schools we fear ruffling feathers. We want schools to be a "safe" place. 

I keep running into people who say they're abandoning social media because of the lack of freedom to express ideas without creating a backlash, or fearing as such. 

The bad behavior is not solely from the Left. There is lashing out from the Right as well, though on campuses these past five years I've heard more instances of protests from the liberal side. Needless to say, we have drifted far afield from what I believe is the higher ground of dialogue and the once-noble notion that "I may not agree with what you say but I support your right to say it." That principle is part of the wreckage brought about by cancel culture. 

Oddly enough, I was "cancelled" (or sharply criticized) for even mentioning the expression "cancel culture" because it this canceller said doesn't exist any more. "We're so past that," he said, while cancelling me for suggesting it.

These are strange times.