Ignorance and democracy: Capitalism’s long war against higher education – Salon
Donald Trump exposed his profound condescension and blatant manipulation with the notorious 2016 declaration, I love the poorly educated.Election results and polling dataconsistently show that the most poorly-educated Americans at least, those who are white love him back with almost religious reverence, treating him as guru, despot and pop-culture idol all in one. While it is easy to chortle at the hillbilly-Deadhead vibe surrounding Trump rallies, it is more important to consider how the better-educated are weakening their country by rejecting the tools necessary to maintain the structure of liberal democracy.
Decades ago, universities across the country began making cuts to the liberal arts. The humanities, fine arts and social sciences are endangered everywhere, as evident by the staggering variety of state colleges and private universities no longer invested in their survival. In 2023,West Virginia Universityeliminated its world languages department, reduced its education department by a third and slashed its programs in art history, music, architecture and natural resource management. In the same year,Lasell University, a small private school in Massachusetts, killed five majors, including English and history. InOhio, numerous of the state's best-known institutions of learning have announced cuts to the liberal arts, including Kent State, the University of Toledo, Miami University, Youngstown State, Baldwin Wallace University and Marietta College.
But the academic carnage in the Buckeye State is hardly an outlier. A quick Google search reveals intellectual wreckage piling up across the nation. The University of New Hampshire permanently closed its art museum, the University of Tulsa eliminated degrees in history, and the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin system has instructed all 25 of its campuses which enroll more than 160,000 students every year to prepare for reductions in liberal arts programs.
My alma mater,Valparaiso University, is now preparing to join in the self-destruction. A Lutheran liberal arts college on the shores of Lake Michigan, 50 miles or so southeast of Chicago, Valparaiso recently announced that it is considering the discontinuation of 28 programs, including philosophy, public health, theology and the graduate program in English Studies and Communication, where I earned a master's degree. When I graduated in 2010, Valparaiso had a regional reputation as a small, private institution with excellent educational standards, bolstered by an emphasis on the arts and humanities.
The English Studies and Communication program was a hybrid, requiring study of creative writing, journalism, English literature and mass communication theory. Professors collaborated with the directors of the campus art museum and instructors in the social sciences and business departments, to demonstrate that knowledge is impossible to segregate or compartmentalize. A truly educated person should be adept at making connections across disciplines, cultures and different sectors of society.
Time and again, college and university leaders across the country have cited a business-model imperative for transforming their institutions into glorified vocational schools.
Gore Vidal defined an intellectual as someone who can deal with abstractions. Valparaiso, at its best, did exactly that equipping its graduates with an ability to handle abstractions, while showing that abstractions arent all that abstract. What might seem abstract in the academic context, as recent American history ought to have taught us, may soon transform into the concrete, creating situations of urgent social consequence. Arguments about democracy, disinformation, the public good and moral philosophy are inseparable from such issues as climate change, gun violence, the effects of new communication technology and the struggle to defeat autocracy.
In the 14 years since my graduation, Valparaiso has suffered from poor leadership that has caused consistent damage to its reputation. In 2020, it shut down its law school after years of lowering its standards to attract enough more students. Last year, the university's current president, Jos Padilla, launched a bizarre crusade to fund the renovation of a first-year dormitory by selling off a Georgia OKeeffe painting, along with other signature works of art from the campus museum. Despite widespread opposition from students and faculty, and condemnation from the American Alliance of Museums, Padilla seems determined to proceed with this philistine maneuver (I wrote about the proposed sale for theNew Republic.)
The potential gutting of Valparaiso's liberal arts programs is one small part of a much larger social and cultural trend of viewing education as nothing more than a business proposition. AsMatthew Becker, a theology professor at Valparaiso, wrote, this decision, "if implemented, will completely dismantle the stated mission of the university":
Valpo will no longer be "grounded in the Lutheran tradition of scholarship, freedom, and faith," nor will it really be preparing students "to serve in both church and society." With the elimination of foreign languages, music, the theology programs, and other programs in the humanities, Valpo will no longer be a liberal arts university.
My nephew, Justin McClain, a recent graduate of the endangered public health program, stated the obvious: On the heels of a pandemic that resulted in millions of lives lost and trillions in economic losses educational institutions should be embracing students interested in joining a field that has proved far too valuable to the functioning of society at large yet remains chronically understaffed.
Becker identified Valpo's plan of self-destruction as completely market-driven, and that's a critical point. Padilla and other university leaders have offered exclusively economic reasons to explain their agenda.
Time and again, college and university leaders across the country have cited financial justification and a business-model imperative for transforming their institutions into glorified vocational schools. And this wrecking-ball campaign runs in parallel with an ideologically motivated war on learning.
Right-wing governors and legislatures in many states, including Florida, Texas and Tennessee, have attempted to strip-mine universities, often by eliminating diversity, equity and Inclusion programs, prohibiting instruction in topics related to race and gender, and eventhreatening to deny loansto students who want to major in an impractical discipline.
This anti-intellectual campaign of destruction against higher education takes place alongsidebook-ban campaigns in many of the same states, where astroturf organizations funded by right-wing groups have worked to remove books from school curricula and libraries that focus on issues of racial justice or LGBTQ equality.
It may be worth noting that many of those who claim to hate education are blatant hypocrites. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis holds a bachelors degree in history from Yale and a law degree from Harvard. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a defender of book bans who routinely bashes institutions of learning, also has a Harvard Law degree, as well as a B.A. in public policy from Princeton. Even Donald Trump despite his incoherent rambling and his impressive lack of knowledge on almost every conceivable topic doesn't technically qualify as poorly educated. Although exactly how and why Trump was admitted to the University of Pennsylvania in the first place remains unclear, he holds a B.S. in real estate from Penn's Wharton School.
Many of those who claim to hate education are blatant hypocrites. Ron DeSantis holds a history degree from Yale and a law degree from Harvard. Ted Cruz also has a Harvard Law degree, as well as a B.A. from Princeton.
For all their phony anti-educational posturing, Republican officials and pundits have succeeded in selling ignorance as virtuous to their voters and viewers. A2022 Pew Researchsurvey found that 76 percent of Republicans now believe that colleges affect the country negatively, while 76 percent of Democrats said they believe colleges affect the country positively.
A good rule to follow is never to trust highly educated people who tell you that education is a waste of time. A good question to ask, after that, is why they want so many people to remain ignorant.
If democracy is to function as intended, it demands a well-informed and reasonably sophisticated citizenry. Without an intelligent electorate, democratic governance is under threat from despots and demagogues who can acquire power by appealing to base emotions and instincts. Thomas Jefferson called information the currency of democracy. America is now at risk of bankruptcy.
Jefferson was also one of the founders of the University of Virginia, where organized a committee to develop aholistic program of learningthat, in todays ruthless, profit-obsessed climate, would not survive at Valparaiso, at West Virginia University or at countless other schools. Its program was to include ancient and modern languages, mathematics, physio-mathematics, physics, botany and zoology, anatomy and medicine, government and political economy and history, municipal law, and Ideology (rhetoric, ethics, belles lettres, fine arts).
Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.
George Washington advocated for a national university that would teach the arts and natural sciences, along with literature, rhetoric and criticism. But the father of our country might now have pariah status on most campuses perhaps as an adjunct instructor with no health benefits, begging for a summer course.
In an age of extreme partisan rancor, there is dispiriting bipartisan unity on one point: Most Americans are increasingly hostile to the liberal arts. While only Republicans are overtly hateful of higher education as a whole, many students and administrators no longer claim to see the value in programs that, according to their standards, lack immediate and practical application to the job market. Recent data indicate that only10.2 percent of college studentsmajor in any humanities discipline, and barely over 1 percentmajor in history or political science.
High schools across the country, meanwhile, have been cutting courses incivics, the social sciences, humanities andfine artsfor decades.
Divorcing education from philosophical, political and social ambitions creates a culture in which people view public-health measures during a pandemic as stepping stones to the gulag.
Richard Hofstadter, one of the premier historians and public intellectuals of the 20th century, explained in his 1963 classic, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, that most Americans view intelligence as merely functional. Brainpower, in this view, should serve some practical and tangible purpose, typically one that can be measured in dollars and cents. Abstractions, to return to Gore Vidals remark, are seen as irrelevant distractions from learning the skills that can earn a bigger paycheck.
One of the numerous things people seem to have forgotten amid this rat-race competition is the question of how to maintain a democratic system of governance. Representative government is complicated, and often moves slowly. It requires sustained wrestling with the complex and thorny questions of ethics, personal freedom versus social responsibility, and balancing the progress driven by new knowledge and new ideas with the benefits of existing norms and traditions.
That kind of intellectual labor is taxing enough for those with a decent formal education, but with no training in the study of government, culture or mass communication, Americans are increasingly likely to fall for bad arguments and stupid ideas. Divorcing education from philosophical, political and social ambitions creates a culture in which people view public-health measures during a pandemic as stepping stones to the gulag, convince themselves that a racist con man most famous for hosting a game show could not possibly have lost a free and fair election, or believe that information about transgender people is more dangerous than assault rifles.
Democratic voters hope as should everyone else with a conscience that Joe Biden can overcome his poor approval ratings and doubts about his age by appealing to Americans' belief in democracy. He will have to consistently remind the electorate that his opponent presents an unprecedented threat to the system that millions of voters take for granted. For many Americans, however, democracy is a hazy concept at best. Survey results consistently show that large proportions of the American public don't understand theBill of Rights, cannot name thethree branches of governmentand are unfamiliar with the most important and basic facts of U.S. history.
Tech journalist Kara Swisher, author of the new history and memoir Burn Book, recently observed that leading figures in Silicon Valley, including Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, have "no sense of history."If so, they are little different from the average citizen in that regard, yet they are routinely heralded as geniuses. It is hardly surprising that theyve allowed hate speech, deceitful propaganda and other harmful material to proliferate on their platforms.
A society actually grounded in the liberal arts might see Zuckerberg and Musk as allegorical characters, perhaps as archetypal warnings against the reckless pursuit of wealth and the refusal to balance technical wizardry with more mature forms of insight and wisdom. But that is not our society. The outsized influence of Zuckerberg and Musk not to mention Donald Trump makes clear that we are at risk of handing our country over to cynical, power-mad morons who are, at best, indifferent to hate, poverty and violence. A little education might help.
Read more
from David Masciotra on America
Read more:
Ignorance and democracy: Capitalism's long war against higher education - Salon
- Judges, witnesses, prosecutors increasingly warn of threats to democracy in 2024 elections as Jan. 6 prosecutions continue - CBS News - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- Do We Face the Gravest Threat to Our Democracy Since the Cold War? - The Nation - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- If You Can Keep It: NBC, Social Media, And Preserving Democracy : 1A - NPR - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- In divided America, anything goes in the name of protecting democracy" - GZERO Media - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- A Simple US Step Can Help Protect Another Imprisoned Democracy Activist in Russia - Just Security - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- If You Can Keep It: NBC, social media, and preserving democracy - the1a.org - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- How 'Do Your Own Research' Might Have Doomed Democracy - GQ - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- Once at Democracy's Center, Nonprofits Now Stand on the Outside - The Chronicle of Philanthropy - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- Letters to the editor: Democracy and freedom are on the ballot; a peaceful week without students; how we react to adversity - Boulder Daily Camera - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- 3/27/24 - Is Democracy In The U.S. Working? It's A Toss-Up, But Voters Don't See It Ending In Their Lifetimes ... - Quinnipiac University Poll - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- 'Duty to democracy': Kansas newspaper files lawsuit after police raided the newsroom - Yahoo! Voices - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- Bitcoin Magazine Partners with the CIA to Export Democracy Around the World - Bitcoin Magazine - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- Will RFK Jr. and Other Third-Party Candidates Help Doom Democracy? Mother Jones - Mother Jones - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- 'Our democracy is at stake': Biden weighs in on the 2024 election - MSNBC - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- India slams U.S. and Germany over Kejriwal arrest criticism - The Washington Post - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- Trump's Courts Can't Stop the Battle to Restore Democracy - Shepherd Express - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- Instagram and Threads are limiting political content. This is terrible for democracy - The Conversation Indonesia - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- GOP billionaires vs. democracy: they know what theyre getting into this time - MSNBC - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- Bill Maher grills Esper for not backing Biden after calling Trump a 'threat to democracy': A 'binary' choice - Fox News - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- The Worst of What Humanity Is Capable Of: Pediatrician Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan on What She Saw in Gaza - Democracy Now! - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- South Carolina Will Use Gerrymandered Congressional Map in 2024, District Court Rules - Democracy Docket - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- Challenges and Perspectives of Political Parties on Democracy and Elections in Myanmar Stimson Center - Stimson Center - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- In a historic election year, women are the force for democratic renewal - The Hill - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- 'Duty to democracy': Kansas newspaper files lawsuit after police raided the newsroom - Today's News-Herald - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- Dems' lawfare war on Trump is its own threat to democracy - New York Post - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- China Has a Cyber Army, But Why Bother Subverting Democracy? - JAPAN Forward - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- Ruben Gallego's Battle Against Kari Lake Could Decide the Fate of the SenateAnd Our Democracy Mother Jones - Mother Jones - April 1st, 2024 [April 1st, 2024]
- Myanmars military junta losing ground to pro-democracy resistance, resorting to greater brutality - Firstpost - March 28th, 2024 [March 28th, 2024]
- Labour tells China it will act on interference in UK democracy - The Guardian - March 28th, 2024 [March 28th, 2024]
- Appointment of UN Rapporteur discussed at Democracy Summit in Seoul - Democracy Without Borders - March 28th, 2024 [March 28th, 2024]
- How to become a confident pluralist: Harvard professor and democracy advocate spills - The Daily Universe - Universe.byu.edu - March 28th, 2024 [March 28th, 2024]
- UNICEF: Paper Thin Children Dying in Gaza of Malnutrition and Dehydration - Democracy Now! - March 28th, 2024 [March 28th, 2024]
- U.N. Special Rapporteur Outlines How Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza - Democracy Now! - March 28th, 2024 [March 28th, 2024]
- Democrats ripped for trying to 'kill democracy' with effort to protect Biden, silence third-party candidates - Fox News - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Democrats are campaigning on protecting democracy. In N.J., what that means is complicated. - NBC News - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- US democracy's unaddressed flaws undermine Biden's stand as democracy's defender but Trump keeps favoring ... - The Conversation United States - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Social media is making kids sad and its bad news for democracy - The Guardian - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Opinion | The One Idea That Could Save American Democracy - The New York Times - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Democracy Teetering in African Countries Once Ruled by France - The New York Times - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- The Third Summit for Democracy - Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Secretary Antony J. Blinken At the Opening Ceremony of the Third Summit for Democracy - United States Department ... - Department of State - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Where Are Hong Kong's Leading Pro-Democracy Figures Now? - The New York Times - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- In Vermont, 'Town Meeting' is democracy embodied. What can the rest of the country learn from it? - The Associated Press - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Sharon McNeil: Healing political division is necessary to safeguard democracy - Monroe Evening News - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Pakistan After the Elections: Examining the Future of Democracy in Pakistan and the US-Pakistan Relationship ... - House Foreign Affairs Committee - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Biden ally warns Democrats against relying on threat to democracy message - The Guardian US - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- 'The January 6 insurrection was a wake-up call' - Roanoke Times - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Democracy Report: Wave of democratic backsliding is a global threat - The Washington Post - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- The Disinformation Age: The Collapse Of Liberal Democracy In The United States Book Review - Eurasia Review - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Biden and the party of 'democracy' are terrified of third-party candidates and voter choice - New York Post - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- I watched Hungary's democracy dissolve into authoritarianism as a member of parliament and I see troubling ... - PennLive - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- The 5th Circuit Is Rehearing Voting Decisions at an Alarming Rate - Democracy Docket - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- More UK sanctions expected over China democracy and security fears - Yahoo News UK - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Colombia's Democracy is Under Threat. Here's Why the World Should Care - Newsweek - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Letter: America is at a crossroads, at risk of losing democracy - The Republic - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Letter: Democracy is weak in Iowa due to partisan state politics - The Dispatch Argus - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Xinhua Headlines: Why U.S.-backed "Summit for Democracy" only triggers division, confrontation - Xinhua - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- OUR VIEW: Democracy Could Use Some Help. This One Adjustment Could Be Just What We Need - Times-News - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Sudan Could Soon Become the World's Worst Hunger Crisis - Democracy Now! - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Dokken: Hunting access discussion an exercise in grassroots democracy - Grand Forks Herald - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- America's 'news deserts' and what it means for democracy podcast - The Guardian - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Pro-Israel but anti-Netanyahu: Democratic Party leaders try to find the middle ground - The Conversation Indonesia - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Canada announces over $30 million in initiatives during third Summit for Democracy - Prime Minister of Canada - March 24th, 2024 [March 24th, 2024]
- Democracy is teetering: at ground zero for Trumps big lie in Arizona - The Guardian US - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Opinion | Biden-Netanyahu clash reveals limits of U.S. democracy rhetoric - The Washington Post - The Washington Post - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Trump nearly derailed democracy once here's what to watch out for in reelection campaign - The Conversation Indonesia - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Indonesia's Corrupted Democracy | Margaret Scott - The New York Review of Books - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Trump predicts the end of U.S. democracy if he loses 2024 election - Yahoo! Voices - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Pakistan After the Elections: Examining the Future of Democracy in Pakistan and the US-Pakistan Relationship ... - House GOP Foreign Affairs Committee - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- What People Think Would Improve Democracy in 24 Countries - Pew Research Center - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Dark concerns over upcoming vote in world's largest democracy Harvard Gazette - Harvard Gazette - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Navalny's killing highlights the need for HE to help preserve democracy - Times Higher Education - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Commentary: Can St. Patrick and green beer save American democracy? - Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Blinken set to arrive in S. Korea to attend democracy summit - The Korea Herald - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Letter: Threats to our cars, and also our democracy - Chico Enterprise-Record - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Artificial Intelligence, Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law Framework Convention - Council of Europe - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Opinion | Democratic ads to help Bernie Moreno win Ohio GOP Senate primary reek of hypocrisy - The Washington Post - The Washington Post - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Combating Threats to Election Workers Ahead of the 2024 Election - Democracy Docket - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Mehdi Hasan on Genocide in Gaza, the Silencing of Palestinian Voices in U.S. Media & Why He Left MSNBC - Democracy Now! - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Germany Looks to Stop the Far Right From Assuming Power - The New York Times - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
Tags: