Demosophia

The Emperor's Clothes

OK, I'll just get this second post in under the wire if I'm lucky. And I wouldn't even bother were it not for the fact that I think the state of academia is important to the emergence of a New Liberalism (in the classic anti-statist sense). A friend of mine at the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions posted the following link to an article in Inside Higher Education that's about the details of a rather smarmy movement. I mean you really have to keep your wits about you to suss out what these folks actually intend, which is the educational establishment equivalent of selling a bullet-to-the-head as a cure for migraines. Excerpting:

Rather than critiquing those national studies [that show a gap between perceived abilities of students and their actual academic attainment], he [Ross Miller] said, educators should accept that “there is something going on here that is not quite right” and that ultimately “we don’t have a good idea of how well we are doing.”

"Not quite right?" In the way that a toilet isn't "quite right" as a source of drinking water, I guess. Doesn't a study that finds a "gap" between actual and expected academic ability imply an empirical scale of ability? How else would a gap be perceived? So why not use that scale to "get a good idea of how well we're doing?" The real issue, the vague "something" that's wrong (as opposed to the obvious "something" that's wrong) seems to be that these folk think the scale of excellence implied in the study isn't just wrong, it's bassackwards:

Just as educators have to accept that their student bodies are diverse these days, so they need to accept that the values of their students (not to mention parents, legislators, the public) are diverse. “We can’t assume homogeneity of social or ethical values,” he said. That means colleges need to engage in more public discussion about what values they are promoting and why, he said.

You could be forgiven for thinking these people are actually interested in "values diversity," if you fail to read between the lines, but what they're really saying is like Hannibal Lector being "helpful" by slicing through your femoral artery. The idea that they'd allow the "values" of these students (not to mention their parents, legislators and the public) to be accepted, or (God forbid) actually cultivated, is hilarious. The subtext here (manifested in their "people who lead us into wars are the best educated" statement which follows this paragraph) is that they feel compelled to undermine the set of ideological principles that, as a rule, we fight for; and that define the crosscutting American Identity. These values are what make us a "nation," as opposed to a debating club. The intent of this wing of the American Association of University Professionals is to pull on the same thread they've been attacking for years through "diversity demands"--but faster, until the tapestry that makes the US something quite different from every other ethnically-identified "nation" on Earth is nothing more than a pile of soggy string. This is entropy defined as "progress."

We all sort of intuit that academia has become the enemy, rather than a critical resource. It may be a rather impotent enemy at the present time, but the fact that it isn't a vital resource to be reckoned with by our enemies is partly due to folks like these at AAUP. And anyone bold enough to point out the nonexistent nature of the Emperor's clothes risks their career.

For what it's worth.

(Cross-posted to The Jawa Report)

Posted by Demosophist at January 31, 2006 12:32 AM | TrackBack