I watched this panel with Charles Kesler and Peter Wood live. I thought it was well worthwhile, and I recommend viewing it, all the way through the Q&A.
At one point in his presentation, Kesler waxes nostalgic for the New Left of the 1960s. Wood later challenges him on this point. However, I agree with Kesler that what student demonstrators of the 1960s wanted was to be treated as grown-ups and to be free to take risks. Today’s radical students seek protection. It seems to make today’s students place a lower value on freedom than did the New Left of the 1960s.
Another interesting idea was that there is a “presentism” among today’s students. TColleges cater to this by not assigning books written before the students were born.
Maybe I’m guilty of “pastism” at my age. But with my high school students, I find myself frequently wanting to talk about history. The second World War, Vietnam, the Nixon Administration, the Arab oil embargo, etc.
Aren’t the Vietnam war, Nixon Administration, and Arab Oil Embargo all things that have happened since you were born?
It’s somewhat misleading to talk about campus activists as representing “today’s students”. Think about anything that makes headlines as representing the most vocal 10%. Remember that in some cases this 10% is reacting to an opinion piece in the student newspaper.
One of the big differences now is that college administrations are very responsive to that 10% at the expense of the 90%, for a whole host of reasons. I blame changes in legal liability in the 90s for making administrators much more conflict averse in every way. Now that has extended to possibly offensive speech.
I had professors in the 80s who started their careers in the 60s, and they talked about 60s students demanding ‘relevance’ in all courses and teaching materials. For all the current ills, as far as I’m aware, nothing comparable to this has happened yet:
“In balloting hastily arranged by the Undergraduate Student Government on May 11 and 12, 18,000 University Park students voted by a 3-to-1 margin to substitute discussion groups and workshops in place of regular classes for the remainder of the term. The proposal’s supporters (including many faculty members) believed informal dialogue would allow more time to examine pressing national and University issues and would restore calm to the campus. A few days later, the University Senate in effect agreed with this point of view when it passed legislation permitting instructors to award course grades based on students’ work through the seventh week of the term, and to give pass-fall rather than letter grades. Each college then scheduled a series of workshops and seminars on “relevant” topics. (The quest for relevancy sometimes produced curious results, as in the case of the College of Engineering sponsoring workshops on the world population explosion.) Students were expected to register for these discussions just as they had for classes and attend them with equal regularity. But for practical purposes, the term dissolved. An air of disorganization pervaded the campus for the final three weeks of the spring term.”
https://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/digital/pshistory/bezilla/1960s.html
Feel zero guilt or shame for “pastism”. One of the conceits of the “present-ist” attitude of today’s activists is that they assume as a matter of course that just because an idea is new to them that it must be new, period. Furthermore, without any real knowledge of history they have little basis for challenging assumption that they are the smartest, wisest, most enlightened, and most virtuous people in the history of ever. One of the chief purposes of an education is to obliterate that kind of adolescent egotism. It’s a humbling (and necessary) experience to encounter someone who hundreds of years ago had the same thought you did and expressed it much more elegantly than you could have. It is precisely that kind of experience against which activists are demanding to be protected, and any institution that capitulates to that demand has no business claiming an “of higher education” description.
“Another interesting idea was that there is a “presentism” among today’s students. TColleges cater to this by not assigning books written before the students were born.”
There are some things these people think we shouldn’t know and a good way to help ensure that is to pretend those things don’t exist or that we forget them. In this regard, this movement seems weirdly the chronological inverse of ISIS and the Taliban, and no less ignorant and dangerous. Maybe the next step is to burn those earlier books and start tearing down a few statues—but, wait, aren’t they already doing that!?:
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/crews-lift-jefferson-davis-statue-from-pedestal-at/nnTST/
Today’s student activism isn’t activism – it’s weaponized female competition.
Women seek control but wish to avoid responsibility. They want to be ‘safe’ but they want someone else to do the actual work of making them safe, and they want to get that by nagging loudly and aggressively.
Women create hierarchies and pecking orders based on status. That status isn’t derived from they can change the real world but from how they can get others to react to their emotional states via competitive victimology.
I thought you were an economist by training? You can pretty easily account for the behavior of the students and the administration by noting how much more money there is to lose today than there was in the 60s. Students in the 60s made demands and were ignored or resisted. Students do the same now and admins fall over themselves to cater to the demands. It’s the money. Cant afford the bad press or to look bad on the very many rating systems for the schools. You really, really can’t afford to lose out on the rich kids whose parents pay full fare.
Steve
What about when the rich parents don’t want their signal diluted with this noise?
I just started watching and laughed out loud when the introducer, Arthur Milikh mentioned “Our own distorted and inflated opinions of ourselves.” That is certainly part of of the problem.
I suspect that any good education leaves individual students thinking / feeling deep down inside that they are not so smart and that (as yet) there are (1) things they don’t know, (2) things they can’t do, and (3) things they do not currently understand.
This is a different set of beliefs than belief number (4) “I’m young and enthusiastic and with my energy and passion I can make the world a better place!”
Perhaps students can hold all four beliefs simultaneously. Belief #4 without #1, #2, and #3 can lead to trouble.