The Jeremiad of an Irritable Old Indian Guy

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/08/opinions/israel-palestine-antisemitism-american-universities-zakaria/index.html

Hoo-boy.? Lots of red-button issues, here.? In order to mitigate the appearance of sounding like an irritable old white guy, I’ll let Fareed Zakaria (see link above), an irritable old Indian guy, do the talking for me:

‘American universities have been neglecting excellence in order to pursue a variety of agendas — many of them clustered around diversity and inclusion. It started with the best of intentions. Colleges wanted to make sure young people of all backgrounds had access to higher education and felt comfortable on campus. But those good intentions have morphed into a dogmatic ideology and turned these universities into places where the pervasive goals are political and social engineering, not academic merit.’

We’ve seen this film before.? Affirmative action was already in full swing even when I was a college and graduate student.? Back then, American society eventually began treating affirmative action as a pendulum, swinging back and forth from inclusiveness to exclusivity (academic rigour).? The golden rule was equality of opportunity, not equality of result.? No crude culling of the herd to make room for other animals.

The results of this policy were self-contradictory and ultimately self-defeating:? The more that academic standards were relaxed to provide for campus inclusivity, the lower the implied value of the degrees conferred. ?It works just like the FOREX markets.? This policy also perniciously undercuts the weight given to the very objects of affirmative action.? Professionals from ethnic minority backgrounds who matriculated into prestigious universities on their own steam – ?primarily, African- and Hispanic Americans – were subsequently written off unfairly as affirmative action beneficiaries – therefore, not competitive among peers in the same market (law, finance, medicine, whatever).?

Another example:? Back in the Cold War era, the most prestigious Soviet universities and other academic institutions of higher learning had their own independent gravitas on the world marketplace of higher education.? Back then, there was tangible respect for someone (a non-Soviet citizen) with a post-graduate degree from Moscow State University, Leningrad (as then named) State University, MGIMO, etc. Each Soviet institute of higher learning had its own, individual cachet – especially for degrees conferred in the sciences: biology, chemistry, physics and other objectively measurable disciplines such as mathematics, medicine and engineering?– all being spheres of academic pursuit relatively insusceptible to corruption by Communist Party ideology.

As a direct result of thiry-plus years of increasing corruption (and nepotism), decreasing academic standards, and politicization of all possible aspects of these universities’ positioning within contemporary Russia, the degrees conferred by these once widely respected institutions of higher learning are essentially worthless.

Back in the US, I am puzzled that so many university faculty and students have time for these geopolitical protests, guerrilla theatre, distribution of posters, etc.? In my day (I never thought I’d be expressing my thoughts in these terms), we were preoccupied with an activity known as ‘studying.’?

I think policies enhancing university diversity and inclusiveness are commendable – if they promote equality of opportunity. ?But, as the angry Indian guy has asserted, the original and laudable purposes of affirmative action seem to have been lost in the fray.?

It seems as though college campuses – both the department faculties and student bodies – are beginning to cordon themselves off voluntarily into hardened silos for at least two reasons: first, to protect themselves from encountering – God forbid being challenged intellectually or ideologically by – countervailing points of view; and second, to form petri dishes and greenhouses for the aggressive development and dissemination of their deeply held – even if often unchallenged by rigorous analysis – viewpoints.

For those of you old enough to have participated in debate societies / teams / clubs, you may recall that one of the ground rules was, when either side of the debate (pro or contra) was given the opportunity to respond to their opponents’ most recent arguments, prior to responding to the substance of the immediately preceding position, that side is required to reiterate their opponents’ position accurately and succinctly. ‘Our opponents have just responded to our previous assertions by arguing that …’.? This is known as an informed, constructive exchange of ideas – a healthy, productive clash of points of view.

The classic liberal arts education, in America, is a thing of the past.? When young Americans contemplate the prospect of taking on as much as USD100,000 (or even more) in loans for college tuition and related educational expenses, the mantra has been to choose a ‘serious’ major (course of studies), one that will get you hired.? As a result, the development of the mind as a working tool has been ignored – or even abandoned.? Why should I read Marcus Aurelius or Shakespeare if I’m hoping for a job with Google?

The result of this nationwide blindness to the benefits of hard analysis is Donald Trump. He is far more entertaining than Biden.? He says and does outrageous things that many Americans find compelling.? If Trump claims that all the current court cases being brought against him – three federal and one state-level (Georgia) actions; three for alleged crimes, and the fourth for tax evasion that sounds in civil court – are merely politically motivated persecution, then he is not only liberated from the stigma of being the object of such large-scale criminal prosecutions and civil court actions, he is also a martyr – America’s Nelson Mandela, no less!

The voting public, for the most part, is unable to reason for itself, nor does it even perceive a necessity for independent thought.? Biden is old and boring; when Trump was president, he put on a much better show than Biden ever could.? As I post these thoughts, a new nationwide poll of likely voters places Trump ahead of Biden 47% – 43% if the general election were held today. ?The US electorate appears to have satisfied itself with bread and circuses at any price.