General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow The American University was Killed, in Five Easy Steps
https://junctrebellion.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/how-the-american-university-was-killed-in-five-easy-steps/Motive:
The Liberal Arts stood at the center of a college education, and students were exposed to philosophy, anthropology, literature, history, sociology, world religions, foreign languages and cultures. Of course, something else happened, beginning in the late fifties into the sixties the uprisings and growing numbers of citizens taking part in popular dissent against the Vietnam War, against racism, against destruction of the environment in a growing corporatized culture, against misogyny, against homophobia. Where did much of that revolt incubate? Where did large numbers of well-educated, intellectual, and vocal people congregate? On college campuses. Who didnt like the outcome of the 60s? The corporations, the war-mongers, those in our society who would keep us divided based on our race, our gender, our sexual orientation.
Step 1: You defund public higher education.
Step Two: You deprofessionalize and impoverish the professors (and continue to create a surplus of underemployed and unemployed Ph.D.s)
Step Three: You move in a managerial/administrative class who take over governance of the university.
Step Four: You move in corporate culture and corporate money
Step Five: Destroy the Students
dimbear
(6,271 posts)a geek named Bob
(2,715 posts)I think that one of the best things to happen to colleges (and the USA) was the populist takeover of Academia. The whole "College is a luxury" thing went we had very few workers with leading edge training. Colleges had to accommodate the needs of a variety of students. I think what is killing Academia is the sheer lack of relevance to the modern world, at least in terms of "the humanities," and the overt (and rather outre) pushing of tired radical political messages in same. I'm finishing my second master's degree, and I'm very tired of hearing what a bunch of smug, tenured, mentally ill faux marxists think. (I'm hoping that the next degree - in engineering - won't have as much contact with stupid people).
As for flying, I used to do it quite often. (But then again, I'm a student pilot, so YMMV).
Carolina
(6,960 posts)welcome to DU!
a geek named Bob
(2,715 posts)The Liberal Arts (at least in this country) served as a finishing school for the upper classes. The Professional degrees and "the sciences" served as training and research grounds for our increasing tech and industrial base.
For my money, the Liberal Arts/Humanities were poisoned with the introduction of Critical Theory.
Teamster Jeff
(1,598 posts)might have kept our industrial base from being outsourced to foreign countries.
a geek named Bob
(2,715 posts)I'm not sure we are using the same definition for the term "critical theory"
From my training, there is a big difference between "critical thinking," and "critical theory"
a geek named Bob
(2,715 posts)http://www.iep.utm.edu/frankfur/
This "theory" (more of a set of linked conjectures, really) states that objective knowledge is impossible, and that all actions are class based. This "theory" tends to throw theory-incongruent facts onto the junkheap. The majority of what I've read in "theory" is erudite, but not very smart.
philly_bob
(2,419 posts)Have been puzzled since then...
flamingdem
(39,313 posts)but I'm glad that I don't have to defend myself against other academics.
I think it depends on the discipline. Media, Film, Art, some Cultural theory is very interesting.
a geek named Bob
(2,715 posts)Being as my high school was one of the hip and trendy upper crust towns in the Northest corridor, my school was a testing ground. (This was in the late 70's into the early 80's.) We had the gamut from Freirie, Cunningham
Critical Theory was developed by the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research (ISR). It was developed as both a philosophical consolation for the failure of 1848 to be the year of the uprising, and as a possible tool for strong social control.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-theory/
Debating an actual theory (a testable set of hypotheses, based on observable facts) is fun, because it means actual physical experiments (which I usually find to be fun.) The problem with debating theories based on Critical Theory, is that there's no way to actually prove a test to be right or wrong, as well as a complete lack of usable real world tools developed from that Theory set.
I find the Cultural theory based on Semiotics, memetics, and the "social cybernetics" stuff (like from Michael Hall, Roengen, and Weiner) to be pretty absorbing.
flamingdem
(39,313 posts)and I should be more careful. I know about the Frankfurt school from UCLA. Critical Theory shouldn't be confused with Cultural Theory or what I guess is really Cultural Studies.
What I learned and what was mostly cultural theory, each discipline has kings and queens. Film Theory has gone through some pretty arcane phases, like Lacanian Theory. Some people spend their lives on these theories and then they are discredited!
a geek named Bob
(2,715 posts)The class decided that (symbolically) the only way Siigourney Weaver's character survived the first two Alien movies was that she (symbolically) became a man. Also, that civilians were okay as intended targets. I could go on ad nauseum. That class was a wake-up call...
flamingdem
(39,313 posts)but there are some speakers who can enthrall. I guess it's just about being a good writer, and a massive BS artiste!
The latest kerfuffle is over Harvard Prof. Rodowick and his Virtual Life of Film. Something about film being dead and other theorists carving out their territory disagreeing with his theories.
a geek named Bob
(2,715 posts)his opinions about most lit/humanities profs in re their teaching
(With apologies to the Heinlein estate for my ham-handed paraphrasing)
"You wouldn't trust a surgeon who had only wrote about surgery. You wouldn't trust an engineer who only criticized a building project. Why would you trust a professor who's only taught critique, to teach you writing?"
a geek named Bob
(2,715 posts)Part of my Thesis from Hell involved learning a bit about the Theory. I can make a case that the use of Critical Theory is counterproductive for R/D start-ups, innovation, and education. The Theory is basically what happens when you let rhetoric go into uncontrolled Feed-back loops.
Just for Grins, I may use Theory as satirical material for a novel I'm writing.
flamingdem
(39,313 posts)because it would help me learn which ones are passe!
a geek named Bob
(2,715 posts)Are still good (ie phronesis, techne, logos/pathos/ethos). It's the post-modernist/post-structuralist/post-colonialist thing that is the dead weight. Critical/Cultural "Theory" is more of a massive linked set of rhetorical stereotypes, than any sort of useful teaching tools. This is why I want to spit on something, whenever Paolo Freire's name is mentioned.
(I'd spit ON Freire, but he's dead, so the gesture is largely wasted.)
ProgressiveProfessor
(22,144 posts)Also interesting to read the comments that are posted.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)flamingdem
(39,313 posts)and is a warning about what repukes can do given fertile ground.
a geek named Bob
(2,715 posts)1.) lower education rates means fewer job chances
2.) the down spiraling towns lose those talent/skills.spark
3.) they move to the cities
Keep the cycle going, and you have the rise of city-states, with a few Blue voting population...
4.) the current set of Warming theories i've heard, puts the middle of the country in arid conditions, and the coasts as green.
5.) more people in cities means less singleton motor traffic.
6.) less singleton traffic means less energy/fuel needed
7.) less fuel use means less payment to oil/coal companies
8.) less money for oil/coal means less money for the GOP
I figure these next 20 years are the Republican's last shot.
flamingdem
(39,313 posts)Koch and Co. have huge investments in oil/coal that they want to protect right now or they risk losing their empire. I'm not sure they have such a long term plan. I could be very wrong but right now they seem to be winging it -- Paul Ryan?
a geek named Bob
(2,715 posts)their empire falls apart.
The current model the hyper rich seem to have seems to run something like: keep seeking rentiers. When the rentiers can't produce any more income, move on.
The problem is, they've pretty much tapped out the market. If they hadn't gotten greedy, they might have found a sustainable level of being hyper rich. Lacking that, most of them seem to be trying to be the richest guy at the downfall party
Most of the Maker community that I've contacted seems to feel that the best strategy at this point is to keep their favorite local community together as much as possible, and pick up the pieces when the 1% business model falls completely apart.