My boys and I have a habit after church. We leave and find a trail somewhere and walk for at least 40 minutes. I generally take a camera. Today, however, Mike, who has borrowed my tablet to read the Fourth Turning wanted to talk about this. He’s worked out that he is a millennial, and that I’m a boomer/Gen X cusp… and was asking questions such as young people were seen as dangerous when I was a teenager (Yes. Punk Rock. I rest my case). We then discussed if we were in crisis in the term of the book. I suggested that the millennial generation began with the twin towers, and we are in crisis. Mike said, yes, but you all are Nomads and you don’t have a solution. He’s right. Because a solution will require a revolution. It is coming, And no one will like it.
The current paradigmatic ideology is that of identity politics. And it is now baroque. Consider this lovely demonstration in that land of progressive educational policy, Canada.
Thanks Life Site News.
What the man (well I think he is a man) said was even more scary than his bad taste costume.
Woodworth, a Conservative MP for the Kitchener Centre riding, brought forward Motion 312 at the House of Commons last year, calling for a re-examination of the 400 year-old definition of a human being in section 223(1) of Canada’s Criminal Code. His presentation on Wednesday was to address that topic as well as to take questions from the audience.
Woodworth told LifeSiteNews on Thursday that the protesters’ actions suggest “they may consider the philosophy of hatred and disrespect for others to be a virtue, rather than the self-limiting prison it really is.”
Among the most rambunctious protesters was Ethan Jackson, a 21-year-old student from nearby Wilfrid Laurier University, who came dressed as female genitalia. According to the National Post, he has named the costume “Vulveta”.
In a video of the incident, he can be heard shouting at Woodworth: “Who do you think you are trying to impose your bigotry, your views on society through your Christian monotheistic faith?”
In an interview later, he said the protestors deemed Woodworth’s views “unacceptable.”
“That kind of speech, that kind of facts, are not acceptable,” he explained. “We decided to go by the route of using satire instead of intimidation…We decided to make Stephen Woodworth feel as uncomfortable as he makes us feel.”
If this is the product of the education system, then that system is broken. There are some simple truths of life. One is Never wear anything outside your house you cannot go into a pub wearing. If your clothes are too ratty to get past the bouncer, get new ones. If they are so idiotic, stupid and childlike that you will be relentlessly mocked, Change ‘em.
The second rule, of course, is play the ball, not the man. It does not matter if you call it satire, but screeching at someone and shutting down free speech is counterproductive. If you have an argument for destroying children in the womb then make it.
The third rule they broke is that words lose power without meaning. Calling something satire that is not satire does not make it satire. What it invites is mockery. Ethan Jackson has not been educated. Ethan Jackson lacks wisdom, The fact that Ethan Jackson is the product of the Ontario Higher Education system should cause all Ontarians to feel shame (because the other provinces are enjoying every mangina joke they can make at your expense).
And in most parts of the world no parent wants to see their son made into some parody of the human condition as Ethan Jackson has. They will ensure that their children do not go to a second or third tier school. They would rather they went to a polytech and got a trade than attended a liberal arts college. University is not a place, given the cost it entails, to find yourself or become a social activist. It is a place to get credentialed. And the consequences to the Ontarians is that they will drop down to the two big universities: Toronto and McMaster, while the rest either become the polytechs they need or cease to exist. Consider this.
Some [universities] will survive”…that’s a nice, understated way of saying that many won’t survive. And those that don’t will be the ones that have spent fortunes on non-academic fluff like state-of-the-art rec centers and NFL-caliber football stadiums, while assigning grad students to teach amphitheater 101 classes – all while raising tuition by 10% a year to levels that force students to graduate with tens of thousands of dollars of debt and highly uncertain job prospects. Those schools will be caught between the best, truly-valuable universities and junior colleges, online classes and “alternative” programs with transferable credits. The space in between won’t generate enough revenue to support their bloated costs.
Academia will become an even tougher place for generic PhDs, while turning into a candy store for creative entrepreneurs. So whether this is a good or bad thing depends on where you are in the academic food chain. The typical history major from a mid-range school will be unemployed and default on his loans. The undistinguished academic administrator will be fired and, like a mediocre newspaper editor, find zero new openings available. Entrepreneurs with solutions to the problems of cost, access, and quality will be the Mark Zuckerbergs and Steve Jobs of the next decade. Kids with parents able to shop aggressively and creatively will get good, cheap educations.
In other words, capitalism will work its usual magic and when the dust clears US higher ed will have been transformed from dysfunctionally-overpriced to consumer-driven, varied and highly-advanced. With a lot of pain and casualties along the way. To which parents like Robert’s would say, “bring it on, the sooner the better.”
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What universities do not understand is that spending a few (tens) of thousands of dollars a year on education is a luxury good. The smarter parents are advising their kids to stay home, do college courses at high school, get their basic degree as cheaply as possible and from as high grade a university as possible (Big hint. Australia and NZ are cheaper than the US). The universities — the smart ones — are using the electronic aids to improve education and teaching. At the better universities, to get promoted you must teach, including those 101 classes. Your teaching must be acceptable. The better universities have pastoral systems in place not to force people into some liberal mould but to ensure that they get tutorials and help when they deal with challenges such as losing boyfriends and gaining faith. Better universities have good health sciences and engineering departments, and bad sports teams.
I work at one of the top 200 universities in the world. We know that we need to keep a reputation for academic excellence — because education is an export industry, and we want the middle class parents from Malaysia, Singapore and China to feel it is safe to send their students to live in this town. It only takes a few idiots dressing up like tools, or burning couches (a local tradition we are trying to stamp out) for parents to send their kids ot Brisbane rather than Dunedin. Moreover, the number of young people — the potential market for education — is shrinking, because this generation is smaller. This makes things more competitive.
Things will have to get simpler, smaller, and more practical. A lot more like our local polytech.
The education system is going to provide pragmatic, knowledgable and hard-working graduate. If it does not, it will die. But in many parts of the world that is not the case. You see, you are up against places that challenge. The final video is not from the university where I work, but the one I graduated from. It is the orientation to health sciences year one — a common first year from which, in both my alma mater and my current university — the 200 odd second year medical students are selected from.
Only a few universities will survive. Find the ones with the tough courses, that will give you knowledge and skills. And avoid those that remove your wisdom and pragmatism.
UPDATE. The cypriot government has just taxed or acquired or stolen, overnight between seven and ten percent of all deposits in every bank account in that nation. Haven just frozen the accounts. Anything but trade certification is now a hobby or luxury.
This is a spot-on post.
There is a comparable situation over here in the US. College isn’t the place where young people go to educate themselves or gain marketable skills – it is where they go to party or, most unfortunately, where they go because they have no idea what to do with their lives. In the end, they often become indoctrinated – like the dude wearing the vulva getup.
College over here traps many not-so-intelligent middle-class youths who, in a different generation, could have gotten solid union jobs or other sorts of work that would have paid the bills. Pressure to “get an education” is very strong, plus the pressure of culture.
The “truths of life” you lay out are true. However, the youth over here (which I assume is comparable) are groomed in a culture that emphasizes the preeminence of the university. They learn the powerful left-wing university supports them.
What they don’t learn is how argue for themselves and defend themselves. That is why so many videos on Youtube, such as Anita Sarkeesian’s video about video game sexism, have disabled comments and likes/dislikes. You think this vulva dude displaying the “come at me bro” stance in a vulva suit knows how to advance his agenda in a socially acceptable way? No – in some ways, that’s good.
However, the real problem is how universities indoctrinate their students. While this man in the vulva attire is an example – take Sarkeesian’s video – she claims the criticism is because of sexism.
It isn’t because of sexism or misogyny – she believes that because she was told that if she parrots left-wing dogma well enough – she won’t be criticized. Once she gets in the real world, she realizes that she can and will be criticized – both fairly and unfairly. She wasn’t exposed to real challenges to her worldview.
The best education is one that challenges you the most. I remember my first day in law school – I got called on and the professor completely eviscerated me. I went to visit him some time later in the term, and I had some real trepidation.
After he and I talked, he remarked before I left that not many students who get the first day treatment show up in his office. I told him that on the first day, I was beyond humbled – a little embarrassed even. He told me that was good – that’s when the learning can begin.
The modern university “challenges” them to conform. The real challenge is to learn to think for yourself.
Outstanding, and disturbing. 2 kids in uni myself, and very thankful that have taken a sort of tech/trade route within the larger uni system and experience as they will end up with bachelors degrees in nursing, practical and once past the the initiation classes (prereqs where they still get a shot as indoctrinating, and waste a year of more of time and money) the training is indeed training.
I sometimes say, when we wrestle with headcount at work, we have people that should be producing the goods, buying goods used to produce, selling the goods, fixing the goods when they break, and counting the money in or out, keeping folks safe (in real tangible ways)….these rules apply to education for me, the stuffy illiterate ignorant ogre who sees the government tossing money into training for and consumption of the arts and a travesty. The reason? You will get more men dressing as vagina’s because they have no real world perspective in anything….ANYTHING. Pounding a nail is a crazy idea, a nebulous concept, maybe useful as an allegory, but what? A hammer? Ewwwww.
I beleive there’s been a few studies linking government subsidized grants and loans, to the soaring cost of higher education [in America]. For-profit colleges are know to target low-income high school districts [where students are most likely to qualify for education grants].
I chose to go to college in Japan because I realized my grades would flounder on the typical American college campus. I still remember the tours; the high ranking liberal arts colleges spent more time emphasizing their recreational facilities and sports teams, than their curriculum.
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