MStem

MStem

Another great essay on the matter...

“Higher education now aims to produce highly trained idiots (in the original Greek, the word meant a private person) who function in an economic system they cannot comprehend, defer to a government that protects their radical individualism, and, as deracinated global citizens, define their moral universe through abstract notions of equality and justice.

Few who are not themselves part of the problem need to be told that our current university system is in shambles. Free inquiry has been replaced by “safe spaces” and the shouting down of anyone who speaks out against anti-Western ideologies and the cult of victimization. Bureaucracies that smack of the old Soviet Union enforce a code of political correctness infusing every aspect of university life with suspicion and resentment. Having banished all but a tiny remnant of conservatives and even most liberals from the professoriate, universities become ever more determined to undermine all aspects of American culture and higher learning.”

https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2019/05/from-indoctrination-to-education-salvaging-the-university/

straightUp Loc: California

Your title implies that the opinion expressed is that of the National Association of Scholars but that's incorrect. There is no mention of the NAS in the article at all. So you're off to a really good start.



Our education system has ALWAYS produced idiots (if you are indeed using the Greek meaning of the word). Our education system evolved from commercial interests during the Industrial Revolution when it became clear that unlike agriculture, industry needed people who could at least read instructions and perform basic math operations so they can function... in an economic system they don't understand. Even today, about 90% of the American-educated working force does not really understand the economic system that controls them and this is 100% intentional.

The next important thing to our institutionalized public education system is to insure that young minds are molded into "good citizens" that will never question their authorities. This is why our children only learn about U.S. history as it was written by patriots and not as it actually happened.

This has ALWAYS been the case in public schools. Nothing has changed. Higher-education though, well that's a different animal. Higher-education is where we find something called liberal-arts, which is an approach to knowledge where students are taught to figure it out for themselves, rather than simply following someone else's instructions. (that really is the definitive difference).

I know some folks think liberal art is finger-painting and weird performance art, but any university program will show you that liberal arts includes philosophy, science and anything else that requires the ability to "figure things out".

This was fine as long as the only people who could get to that level were people who were born into wealth because once they figure out the American system of economic slavery, they are less likely to complain about it because they are also able to realize that system is what supports their own wealth.

The problem came along when the universities themselves became an opportunity for profit. Most Americans don't need to go to college to DO their jobs. But once universities adapted a profit-driven business model, and realized every high school graduate was a potential tuition. They started opening all kinds of opportunities for students to pay tuition through all kinds of debt schemes. Now almost every American pays money to go to college and this is where the problem started.

People who are born into working class families being exposed to liberal arts and the methods of critical thinking that allow them to see the economic slave system and how HIS family is oppressed by it. Before you know it you have a generation of college-educated Americans pointing out unfair the American system is to its own working class.

Of course for the lesser-educated this news goes against the grain of their basic "be a useful idiot and don't ask questions" conditioning. For these people, the news of their own oppression is an insult. For the higher-educated people in the wealthy-class (as in no need to work, so not working-class). This is a potential threat to their unfair advantages and those with influence on the media will initiate all kinds of propaganda designed to invalidate the discoveries being shared and for some, the efforts go as far as trying to kill liberal-arts all together.

So yes, campus indoctrination IS real... It has ALWAYS been the basis of public education in America. Which is probably why Americans are among the most indoctrinated people in the "free world".

The rambling article doesn't really say anything specific about "indoctrination", other than to suggest that...

"Years (usually more than the advertised four) of indoctrination in the classroom and, more harshly, the dormitories, followed by decades of crushing debt, all made far worse by the realization that our degrees have qualified us for very little."

That has more to do with the fact that universities are trying to profit from an over-abundance of potential students, for which there are no jobs.

MStem

When Johnny can’t read...🙄

straightUp Loc: California

Sorry, I didn't realize you're illiterate.

MStem

I guess you can’t read. Perhaps because you were spoon-fed idiotic ideas in an inferior school environment.

It’s ok, dear. Nobody blames you. You’re just a victim.

straightUp Loc: California

Does that make you feel any better MStem?

Look, when you respond to an involved explanation with... "When Johnny can't read." It's easy to recognize the cop out. If there was something specific that I "misread" it wouldn't have been difficult for the average person to point it out. But you didn't.

You may not realize how transparent these exchanges are... Your response was a clear indication that you either didn't read my post or you didn't understand it or you just can't come up with a counterpoint. In any case, you resorted to a baseless insult, which is fine, I'm not actually insulted. In fact, I see it as a sign of frustration, probably from not being able to argue my points. So it's kind of like scoring a point from my perspective.

I won't make any assumptions about your education because it doesn't matter and I'm not looking for a way to insult you. Your response has already said it all.

MStem

The same could be said of yours. Despite its verbosity, it displayed an unwillingness to open one’s eyes, and one’s mind, to the realities around us. I’m sorry if you are so terrified of admitting that there is, indeed, a campaign of indoctrination, and a stifling political culture in many US educational institutions.

I can share information, but I can’t make people think.

MStem

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/12/12/student-secretly-records-professors-anti-trump-comments

Faculty want student disciplined for professor using classroom to argue politics, unrelated to her subject matter.

MStem

Teacher fired for pro-President tweet
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/education/2020/07/21/walled-lake-teacher-trump-tweets-prompted-firing-district-denies/5481014002/

straightUp Loc: California

Not really - but whatever.


See, this is why I don't think you understood what I was saying... All that "verbosity" was trying to get you to see that indoctrination has ALWAYS influenced our education system and you come back with this assumption that I don't think it exists.


Sharing the information is fine - you don't need to make anyone think.

straightUp Loc: California

The article starts with this...

Student secretly records professor’s anti-Trump comments, after which a student group wants the professor punished and the faculty union wants the student disciplined. Are more such incidents to come?

The answer is yes. As long as students continue to demand punishment for political discussion which is a First Amendment right. Any school that is publicly funded is obliged to honor this right and because of that punishing a professor for having a political viewpoint is a direct violation of the Constitution.

I don't know if the student needs to be disciplined - but it should at least be explained that a school can't punish a professor for a political opinion.

I don't know why the student couldn't just disagree. After all, students are allowed to have opinions too. Why couldn't she offer a counter argument? This isn't grade school where students simply take instruction... This is college... liberal arts. Students are supposed to be past the instructive learning by that point and they are now learning to think for themselves. Professors are supposed to encourage discussion and sometimes that means introducing controversy. If the student thinks the professor is trying to indoctrinate the class then she isn't ready to be in that classroom.

And if she's secretly recording the professor and then requesting the school to punish him she should just move to North Korea where she can be rewarded for reporting political dissent.

straightUp Loc: California

Well, we really don't know if he was fired for a pro-President tweet. There's apparently no legal case so there's no recorded evidence and the school is denying it. So maybe they did, maybe they didn't. If they did, the teacher would have a legal case, which is why without that legal case, I hesitate to put any stock in the story.

I'm also aware of the efforts that people are making to stage these situations. Like how a group of conservative students at Berkeley tried to book Ann Coulter for an event then tried to change the dates knowing that the school has to coordinate (and pay for) security for controversial events and when the school can't get security for a specific date, they have to say "we can't do it on that day". The students found that day and demanded it and when the school said "not that day", they reported to Fox News that Berkeley refused to book Ann Coulter for political reasons.

There's a lot of dirty tricks out there.

I'm not saying the Trump-supporting teacher in your story is guilty of staging a show... I'm just saying it's hard not to suspect it given his lack of legal action.