Camille Paglia: How Postmodernism (Woke ideology) is Destroying Education

I just finished reading Camille Paglia's essay, "Free Speech and the Modern Campus," from a collection of her prior writings, a book titled Provocations."  This essay takes aim at practices that were once called "Political Correctness," which now fall under the description of excesses of the Woke or Wokeness.  Paglia begins her essay by recounting how and why many colleges and universities founded niche studies departments, such as women's studies. Colleges made the mistake of allowing these departments to serve as singularities, unengaged with traditional core studies of, for example, history or psychology. These departments

were so hastily constructed in the 1970s, a process that not only compromised professional training in those fields over time but also isolated them in their own worlds and thus ultimately lessened their wider cultural impact.. . . Working on campus only with the like-minded, they treat dissent as a mortal offense that must be suppressed, because it threatens their entire career history and world-view. The ideology of those new programs and departments, predicated on victimology, has scarcely budged since the 1970s.

These new departments confused scholarship with ideology. They became like churches:

Teaching and research must strive to remain objective and detached. The teacher as an individual citizen may and should have strong political convictions and activities outside the classroom, but in the classroom, he or she should never take ideological positions without at the same time frankly acknowledging them as opinion to the students and emphasizing that all students are completely free to hold and express their own opinions on any issue, no matter how contested, from abortion, homosexuality, and global warming to the existence of God . . .

A familiar trio of Continental philosophers was carted into these niche curricula:

The Derrida and Lacan fad was followed by the cult of Michel Foucault, who remains a deity in the humanities but whom I regard as a derivative game-player whose theories make no sense whatever about any period preceding the Enlightenment. The first time I witnessed a continental theorist discoursing with professors at a Yale event, I said in exasperation to a fellow student, “They’re like high priests murmuring to each other.”

At p. 379, Paglia explains the main problem with poststructuralism:

Post-structuralism, in asserting that language forms reality, is a reactionary reversal of the authentic revolutionary spirit of the 1960s, when the arts had turned toward a radical liberation of the body and a reengagement with the sensory realm. By treating language as the definitive force in the world—a foolish thesis that could easily be refuted by the dance, music, or visual arts majors in my classes—poststructuralism set the groundwork for the present campus impasse where offensive language is conflated with material injury and alleged to have a magical power to create reality. Furthermore, poststructuralism treats history as a false narrative and encourages a random, fragmented, impressionistic approach that has given students a fancy technique but little actual knowledge of history itself.

Another problem with political correctness is the inability to interpret the significance of events in the context of the time period in which they occurred (see here for a recent example):

The problem of political correctness is intensified by the increasing fixation of humanities and even history departments on “presentism,”that is, a preoccupation with our own modem period.

What are the solutions? Paglia offers three:

[E]ducators must first turn away from the sprawling cafeteria menu of over-specialized electives and return to broad survey courses based in world history and culture, proceeding chronologically from antiquity to modernism. Students desperately need a historical framework to understand both past and present.

Second, universities should sponsor regular public colloquia on major topics where both sides of sensitive, hot-button controversies are frilly discussed. Any disruptions of free speech at such forums must be met with academic sanctions.

[C]olleges and universities must stay totally out of the private social lives of students.The intrusive paternalism o f American colleges in this area is an unacceptable infringement of student rights.If a crime is committed on campus, it must be reported to the police.There is no such thing as a perfectly “safe space” in real life. Risk and danger are intrinsic to human existence.

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Today’s Reading from The Daily Stoic: Don’t Take the Bait

Ryan Holiday's The Daily Stoic is a constant source of modern wisdom from 2,000 years ago.  The book offers one Stoic quote and commentary for each day of the year. Today's wisdom:

“Who then is invincible? The one who cannot be upset by anything outside their reasoned choice.”

— Epictetus, Discourses , 1.18.21

Holiday's commentary:

Have you ever watched a seasoned pro handle the media? No question is too tough, no tone too pointed or insulting. They parry every blow with humor, poise, and patience. Even when stung or provoked, they choose not to flinch or react. They’re able to do this not only because of training and experience, but because they understand that reacting emotionally will only make the situation worse. The media is waiting for them to slip up or get upset, so to successfully navigate press events they have internalized the importance of keeping themselves under calm control. It’s unlikely you’ll face a horde of probing reporters bombarding you with insensitive questions today. But it might be helpful—whatever stresses or frustrations or overload that do come your way—to picture that image and use it as your model for dealing with them. Our reasoned choice—-our prohairesis, as the Stoics called it—-is a kind of invincibility that we can cultivate. We can shrug off hostile attacks and breeze through pressure or problems.

My own reaction:

More than a few of these Stoic quotes remind us: "Don't take the bait!" We have the ability to let most of the aggravations in our lives past over us and through us. That's true whether it be a a rude motorist, an incompetent worker or an unappreciative person you are actively helping. Truly, just don't take the bait! It's so tempting, but if you take the bait, you will then be handing an aggravating other person precious unreplenishable moments of your life. Why would you ever piss away something so valuable? That's akin to allowing a pickpocket to take your valuables.

This is also a core idea of Buddhism, well illustrated by this fable about two monks and the rude woman. Here is how Harriet Lerner tells the story:

Two traveling monks reached a town where there was a young woman waiting to step out of her sedan chair. The rains had made deep puddles and she couldn’t step across without spoiling her silken robes. She stood there, looking very cross and impatient. She was scolding her attendants. They had nowhere to place the packages they held for her, so they couldn’t help her across the puddle.

The younger monk noticed the woman, said nothing, and walked by. The older monk quickly picked her up and put her on his back, transported her across the water, and put her down on the other side. She didn’t thank the older monk, she just shoved him out of the way and departed.

As they continued on their way, the young monk was brooding and preoccupied. After several hours, unable to hold his silence, he spoke out. “That woman back there was very selfish and rude, but you picked her up on your back and carried her! Then she didn’t even thank you!

“I set the woman down hours ago,” the older monk replied. “Why are you still carrying her?”

I'm not perfect at this technique, but when I'm doing a better job at it, I'm more at peace and I'm better able to tend to things that truly matter to me. I will keep practicing this Stoic/Buddhist technique because it is so freeing. The alternative is to risk that your next of kin might put this on your tombstone: "Spent too much of his scant time on Earth getting perturbed at other people."

Continue ReadingToday’s Reading from The Daily Stoic: Don’t Take the Bait

Seek Neither Happiness Nor Pleasure

There is a vast literature on how to be happy. As I read most of the articles I encounter, I stop to question the meaning of "happiness," because it is too often understood as "pleasure." I'm not anti-pleasure, but I've personally seen that pleasure-seeking is not a path to a meaningful life. In fact, it is the opposite. I prefer to seek a meaningful life, but doing this involves many painful moments that are, in the end, worth the pain. Here's a caricature of these two approaches, from an article by Arthur Brooks, titled "There Are Two Kinds of Happy People: Some of us strive for a virtuous life. Others strive for a pleasant one. We could all use a better balance."

Epicurus (341–270 B.C.) led an eponymous school of thought—Epicureanism—that believed a happy life requires two things: ataraxia (freedom from mental disturbance) and aponia (the absence of physical pain). His philosophy might be characterized as “If it is scary or painful, work to avoid it.” Epicureans see discomfort as generally negative, and thus the elimination of threats and problems as the key to a happier life. Don’t get the impression that I am saying they are lazy or unmotivated—quite the contrary, in many cases. But they don’t see enduring fear and pain as inherently necessary or beneficial, and they focus instead on enjoying life.

Epictetus (c. 50–c. 135 A.D.) was one of the most prominent Stoic philosophers, who believed happiness comes from finding life’s purpose, accepting one’s fate, and behaving morally regardless of the personal cost. His philosophy could be summarized as, “Grow a spine and do your duty.” People who follow a Stoic style see happiness as something earned through a good deal of sacrifice. Not surprisingly, Stoics are generally hard workers who live for the future and are willing to incur substantial personal cost to meet their life’s purpose (as they see it) without much complaining. They see the key to happiness as working through pain and fear, not actively avoiding them.

Here's an alternate path offered by Emily Esfahani Smith. Instead of seeking happiness (which will not result in happiness), she urges us to seek meaningfulness in our lives. Her article in The Atlantic is titled "There's More to Life Than Being Happy: Meaning comes from the pursuit of more complex things than happiness." Here's an excerpt:

Meaning is not only about transcending the self, but also about transcending the present moment -- which is perhaps the most important finding of the study, according to the researchers. While happiness is an emotion felt in the here and now, it ultimately fades away, just as all emotions do; positive affect and feelings of pleasure are fleeting. The amount of time people report feeling good or bad correlates with happiness but not at all with meaning.

In her TED talk, Esfahani Smith explains that it is futile to seek happiness:

The data showed that chasing happiness can make people unhappy. And what really struck me was this: the suicide rate has been rising around the world, and it recently reached a 30-year high in America. Even though life is getting objectively better by nearly every conceivable standard, more people feel hopeless, depressed and alone. There's an emptiness gnawing away at people, and you don't have to be clinically depressed to feel it. Sooner or later, I think we all wonder: Is this all there is? And according to the research, what predicts this despair is not a lack of happiness. It's a lack of something else, a lack of having meaning in life.

01:35 But that raised some questions for me. Is there more to life than being happy? And what's the difference between being happy and having meaning in life? Many psychologists define happiness as a state of comfort and ease, feeling good in the moment. Meaning, though, is deeper. The renowned psychologist Martin Seligman says meaning comes from belonging to and serving something beyond yourself and from developing the best within you. Our culture is obsessed with happiness, but I came to see that seeking meaning is the more fulfilling path. And the studies show that people who have meaning in life, they're more resilient, they do better in school and at work, and they even live longer.

02:24 So this all made me wonder: How can we each live more meaningfully? To find out, I spent five years interviewing hundreds of people and reading through thousands of pages of psychology, neuroscience and philosophy. Bringing it all together, I found that there are what I call four pillars of a meaningful life. And we can each create lives of meaning by building some or all of these pillars in our lives.

Esfahani Smith's fourfold path to meaningfulness includes these four elements:

1) A Sense of Belonging, meaning relationships “where you really feel like you matter to others and are valued by them, and where you in turn treat others like they matter and are valued.”

2) Purpose, or “having something worthwhile to do with your time,” says Smith. “It’s this pursuit that organizes your life and involves making a contribution to others.” Smith writes and speaks about the best ways we can find purpose in our own lives. This includes locating our strengths and talents, what our unique perspective on the world is, and bringing that all together to give back.

3) Transcendence, “those moments where you're basically lifted above the hustle and bustle of daily life and you feel your sense of self fade away.” Transcendence, for a lot of people, is part of a religious pursuit, experienced through meditation, prayer, and other expressions of faith. But you can also experience it in nature, or at work, explains Smith.

4) Storytelling, the final pillar “surprised me in a lot of ways,” Smith says. “Storytelling is really about the story that you tell yourself about your life, about how you became you. It’s your personal myth.”

For several years, I've embraced Esfahani Smith's four principles. And, if you haven't noticed, neither happiness-seeking nor pleasure-seeking are among her paths.

I will pause this discussion at this point.  More to come . . .

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The Most Important Thing we are Losing

On January 5, Sam Harris kicked off his newest season of his podcast, Making Sense, with an episode he titles "A Few Thoughts for a New Year. He covers a lot of ground in 30 minutes. I wish I could say that I disagree with him on any of the major points he is making. His main concern is that we seem to be losing grasp of our ability to work together to solve the problems we face as a country.

As always, Sam articulates his concerns precisely and he avoids taking political sides. His focus for the coming year is seeking real life solutions for the many pressing issues he touches in this podcast. I highly recommend listening in. If you can't afford it, he offers subscriptions without cost. Simply listen to the end of this episode for details.

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The Upsides of Death

My family and I are currently working through a sudden death of someone central to all of us.  Anne Octavia Jay, my ex-wife, suddenly died.  For months, she was working through some medical issues that seemed surmountable, but then there was some extra-bad news. Then, about two weeks ago it started pouring bad news. This deluge included a sudden diagnosis of stage four cancer.  On Christmas Eve, she suffered cardiac arrest, which led to forty minutes of CPR. In the ICU we learned what kind of damage can happen to a person's brain after forty minutes of CPR.

On the day after Christmas, my two young adult daughters and I gathered around Anne in the ICU to say our goodbyes. I learned that for a patient who has suffered this sort of damage, the fact that she occasionally opened her eyes means nothing at all.   I learned what "comfort care" means. I am learning what it means to be the only surviving parent.  I am learning how hard it can be to lose a parent.  I am learning the awkwardness of being an ex-spouse who loses one's ex-spouse. What am I to be called?  An "ex-widower"? What is the proper name for a person in my position, someone who still cared deeply for my deceased ex but who feels awkward because our marriage fell apart and we divorced each other?

I don't really have an end in mind for this post. Mostly, I'm emoting, but I wanted to share that I was particularly right about one thing. I've always assumed that one can use most "bad" events as good experiences, not just as good learning experiences. We the survivors have learned a lot together.  I now know how to be a better friend to other people who have lost their loved ones.  I now know better how to appreciate the complexity of the human body.  We shouldn't be surprised when our bodies don't work; rather, we should be more more surprised that they ever actually work, given their mind-boggling complexity.  I've learned to appreciate the human heart.  Anne's heart faithfully beat for 59 years, which is a stunning achievement regularly exceeded by the heart-beating streaks of countless other people such as me (I'm in my 60's).

Mostly, I've learned to appreciate the importance of community.  I've seen many dozens of people come out of the woodwork to offer comfort and assistance for my daughters and me in many major and minor ways.  I now have increased respect for the way healthcare workers treat the family of dying patients. I've learned to appreciate straight talk from these professionals.  I've learned to appreciate the patience and kindness of all the people at the cremation service we are using.  We are surrounded by good-hearted people, including countless friends and relatives.  They are everywhere.  They are constantly bringing us flowers and soup and snacks and offers of ever-more help. It has been humbling.

We are in our George Bailey moment and people are running to our rescue in droves to tell us that we are not alone. It feels wonderful.  I know that the hard part will be when all of the adrenaline is gone and when my daughters and I will experience unrelenting emptiness.  That leads me to also appreciate the many friends and professionals who offer grief counseling individually and in groups.

Death in one's family can be one of the better ways to learn what it means to live a good life.  And to paraphrase Tim McGraw, I have better learned to live like I am dying.

I'll end with a Facebook tribute I created for Anne. More than anything else, she wanted to make sure her children were OK. This was her prime directive.  My daughters are working through this with me and I am strongly convinced that we will be ultimately be OK as we continue our life journeys stronger and wiser. Thanks for reading through to the end.

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