tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post1385106937848165743..comments2024-03-28T00:11:33.489-04:00Comments on bensozia: Justin Smith on the Contemporary UniversityJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-86252229352030624782020-12-04T21:48:37.161-05:002020-12-04T21:48:37.161-05:00@David
We're regressing, I sometimes think, t...@David<br /><br />We're regressing, I sometimes think, toward a renaissance era state of being where the pursuit of knowledge for the sake of knowledge will largely only exist as a luxury for wealthy eccentrics, or those with wealthy and eccentric patrons willing to indulge.<br /><br />But at the same time, I also look at projects like Guédelon Castle, where a loosely organized community of enthusiasts and volunteers are building a historically accurate medieval French castle using period appropriate tools, materials, and techniques; I look at crowdsourcing platforms like Kickstarter and Patreon where independent, passionate people are appealing to their fellow nerds to collectively fund media projects of all kinds; I look at how many people there are in the world outside of academia who manage to pursue and accomplish incredible-but-impractical things out of sheer nerdy love for their chosen obsessions, without any of the benefits (or detriments) of the college university system.<br /><br />I think "academia" might be in danger of disappearing, but only in the sense of a formal construct beholden to an aged and stagnant institutional model. People aren't going to stop being passionate about things like Safavid texts, but I do think such things are going to have to find a new home outside of our for-profit education system, because we've allowed things to reach a point where that very quest for profit means we can no longer justify formally supporting less profitable things.<br /><br />Also, I would point out that we're really only talking about American academia here - the rest of the world is still out there, and there are still many countries and institutions quite willing to keep funding knowledge for its own sake. Heck, there are lots of places in the world where college and university courses are free to anyone who wants them, because they prefer to spend taxpayer money on books and classrooms instead of bombs and corpses.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-38252127159092485122020-12-04T11:51:19.782-05:002020-12-04T11:51:19.782-05:00Another thing, and then I will try to shut up: my...Another thing, and then I will try to shut up: my experience is that students can sense when their professor is motivated by sheer love of the material, sheer voracious nerd-dom, and they appreciate and respect it. And, when they themselves get the chance to choose an elective, there is no shortage of students whose instinct is to look around for something that "I just think sounds cool." I've had some advisees whose first instinct was to choose courses that increase their market value, but it's by no means the majority. I've even had tough-guy athletes who say things like, "Do I have room to take another sculpture class? I can't get enough of it." (This latter story is true.)Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14456987412710878404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-10808371581313896252020-12-04T11:41:05.057-05:002020-12-04T11:41:05.057-05:00I will add that, at a recent faculty event, we wer...I will add that, at a recent faculty event, we were introduced to a new scheme Stanford has either adopted or thought of adopting to replace the major system, where at the outset of college students propose a goal they have in mind, some change they want to make in the world, and then they and their advisors propose ways to get there. The go-to example for something a student would propose was "I want to end world hunger." Now, I want to end world hunger as much as the next guy, but as an educator, I found this appalling. What about the "voracious nerd," as Justin Smith puts it so well, who has no grandiose, narcissistic ambitions to propose, but just thinks biology or whatever is beautiful, and simply wants to spend all their time finding out about it and understanding it and never stop? What about Lewis Thomas? A world that doesn't have a place for such people will be a desert, and we will have made it that way.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14456987412710878404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-74331155817479801692020-12-04T11:35:02.226-05:002020-12-04T11:35:02.226-05:00I get it that tens of millions of Americans love f...I get it that tens of millions of Americans love football and the lottery, and so our society is going to continue to spend tens of billions on those sorts of things. I also get that tens of millions of people are only interested in school if it's going to help them get a good job, and so we're going to spend less and less on the kinds of things I value, like studying old Safavid texts. And I can't at the moment think of any rational or moral argument that things should be otherwise. But no one will convince me not to regret the passing of the old way of doing things, or convince me that a world in which literally all decisions are made on the basis of market choices and statistically-demonstrated efficiency is desirable, that the world becoming that way would be a change for the better, that a person who values such things above other things shouldn't be embarrassed about it, or that our generation should feel any pride if we allow such a change to be finalized in our time.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14456987412710878404noreply@blogger.com