Freddie DeBoer asks Whether College is Worth It . . .

Freddie DeBoer's newest article raises an issue of importance for so many of us these days: Whether College is Worth It. I recommend Freddie's entire article, but here's an excerpt to introduce the topic:

Those of you who have read my (brilliant, eye-opening, majestic) first book know that I do indeed think we are pushing too many people into the college pipeline. But my resistance is a little different than most; it’s not a reflection on the cost of college, at least not for the students. I think a) we push so many people into college because the Reagan-Thatcher neoliberal consensus destroyed middle class jobs in industry and manufacturing and we don’t have many alternatives and b) we shouldn’t push kids into college because most of those who have to be pushed will prove to lack the cognitive and soft skills necessary for them to capitalize on their degrees anyway. When people obsess over the college pipeline, they do so because they think that college can turn everybody into a busy little meritocrat, the kind who go on to get jobs at Google or a SLAC or the Ford Foundation or the Department of the Interior. But the high school excellence to college to enviable PMC employment cycle depends on a level of natural intellectual talent, plus the ability to delay gratification and keep to a schedule etc., that many people don’t have. So we need other models, and in the book I explore some.

Here’s the thing, though. In the debate as it exists in the real world, I think a really trenchant question for the kids who forego college is this: what will you do instead? How will you spend those four-plus years of your life, if not in school?

Continue ReadingFreddie DeBoer asks Whether College is Worth It . . .

Boston University is in Denial that it is Paying the Price for Choosing to Impose an Ideology Rather than Seeking Truth

David Decosimo, an associate professor of theology and ethics at Boston University, writing at Wall Street Journal, "How Ibram X. Kendi Broke Boston University: The university totally committed itself to his ideology. It hasn’t backed off despite the scandal."

I wrote a letter to BU’s president that afternoon, stressing that beyond the problems with Mr. Kendi’s vision, the more fundamental issue concerned betraying the university’s research and teaching mission by making any ideology institutional orthodoxy. Nothing changed. Even now, BU is insisting it will “absolutely not” step back from its commitment to Mr. Kendi’s antiracism.

Mr. Kendi deserves some blame for the scandal, but the real culprit is institutional and cultural. It’s still unfolding and is far bigger than BU. In 2020, countless universities behaved as BU did. And to this day at universities everywhere, activist faculty and administrators are still quietly working to institutionalize Mr. Kendi’s vision. They have made embracing “diversity, equity and inclusion” a criterion for hiring and tenure, have rewritten disciplinary standards to privilege antiracist ideology, and are discerning ways to circumvent the Supreme Court’s affirmative-action ruling.

Most of those now attacking Mr. Kendi at BU don’t object to his vision. They embrace it. They don’t oppose its establishment in universities. That’s their goal. Their anger isn’t with his ideology’s intellectual and ethical poverty but with his personal failure to use the money and power given to him to institutionalize their vision across American universities, politics and culture.

Whether driven by moral hysteria, cynical careerism or fear of being labeled racist, this violation of scholarly ideals and liberal principles betrays the norms necessary for intellectual life and human flourishing. It courts disaster, at this moment especially, that universities can’t afford.

Consider also, Jonathan Haidt's argues "Why Universities Must Choose One Telos: Truth or Social Justice." An Excerpt:

What is the telos of university? The most obvious answer is “truth” — the word appears on so many university crests. But increasingly, many of America’s top universities are embracing social justice as their telos, or as a second and equal telos. But can any institution or profession have two teloses (or teloi)? What happens if they conflict? ...

I am not saying that an individual student cannot pursue both goals. In the talk below I urge students to embrace truth as the only way that they can pursue activism that will effectively enhance social justice. But an institution such as a university must have one and only one highest and inviolable good. I am also not denying that many students encounter indignities, insults, and systemic obstacles because of their race, gender, or sexual identity. They do, and I favor some sort of norm setting or preparation for diversity for incoming students and faculty. But as I have argued elsewhere, many of the most common demands the protesters have made are likely to backfire and make experiences of marginalization more frequent and painful, not less. Why? Because they are not based on evidence of effectiveness; the demands are not constrained by an absolute commitment to truth.

Continue ReadingBoston University is in Denial that it is Paying the Price for Choosing to Impose an Ideology Rather than Seeking Truth

Conference Panel Discussion on Importance of Biological Sex Cancelled Because of Harm it Would Cause to LBGTQI

From Elizabeth Weiss, Anthropology Professor:

September 25, 2023, my fellow panelists and I received a letter from the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and the Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA) informing us that our conference panel, “Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby: Why biological sex remains a necessary analytic category in anthropology”, which had been accepted, is being removed from the program due to the “harm” it will cause the “Trans and LGBTQI community”. We’ve responded to their accusation.

Here is the excuse for the cancellation for the organizers:

Dear panelists, We write to inform you that at the request of numerous members the respective executive boards of AAA and CASCA reviewed the panel submission “Let's Talk about Sex Baby: Why biological sex remains a necessary analytic category in anthropology” and reached a decision to remove the session from the AAA/CASCA 2023 conference program(me). This decision was based on extensive consultation and was reached in the spirit of respect for our values, the safety and dignity of our members, and the scientific integrity of the program(me).

The reason the session deserved further scrutiny was that the ideas were advanced in such a way as to cause harm to members represented by the Trans and LGBTQI of the anthropological community as well as the community at large. While there were those who disagree with this decision, we would hope they know their voice was heard and was very much a part of the conversation. It is our hope that we continue to work together so that we become stronger and more unified within each of our associations. Going forward, we will undertake a major review of the processes associated with vetting sessions at our annual meetings and will include our leadership in that discussion

Here is an excerpt from the response from the cancelled panelists.

Your suggestion that our panel would somehow compromise “…the scientific integrity of the programme” seems to us particularly egregious, as the decision to anathematize our panel looks very much like an anti-science response to a politicized lobbying campaign. Had our panel been allowed to go forward, we can assure you that lively contestation would have been welcomed by the panelists and may even have occurred between us, as our own political commitments are diverse. Instead, your letter expresses the alarming hope that the AAA and CASCA will become “more unified within each of our associations” to avoid future debates. Most disturbingly, following other organizations, such as the Society for American Archaeology, the AAA and CASCA have promised that “Going forward, we will undertake a major review of the processes associated with vetting sessions at our annual meetings and will include our leadership in that discussion.” Anthropologists around the world will quite rightly find chilling this declaration of war on dissent and on scholarly controversy. It is a profound betrayal of the AAA’s principle of “advancing human understanding and applying this understanding to the world’s most pressing problems”.

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I Regret Getting the COVID Vaccines. Here’s Why.

Independent media has been giving voice to many highly credentialed doctors, including Peter McCullough, who warn that the vaccines are dangerous and ineffective. Simultaneously, corporate media refuses to discuss these serious claims. Their coordinated silence reinforces my deep regret of ever having agreed to take 3 COVID jabs.

More reasons:

Prof. Fukushima at Press Conference. (No.1) "This is not drug harm. To be clear, the vaccine is not a drug, but a bioweapon with all kinds of toxicity. So many people have died because of distribution of the bioweapon. It's a massacre. It's a Holocaust."

I am the President of the Study Group on Vaccine Problems (The official Name of the Study Group is Japanese Society for Vaccine-related Complication (JSVRC)).

As a doctor and as a scientist, I am gravely aware that we are facing a tremendous crisis right now. I could say that this crisis has just begun. This is a crisis of democracy.The people's right to access information is completely undermined. The government adopts a shameless attitude to keep totally disregarding the basic human rights such as the right to pursue happiness, and the right to live that are protected under the Japanese Constitution.

This is absolutely unacceptable!

Honest scholars have been documented numerous cases of vaccine-related harms and injuries etc., at their academic conferences.

The number of reported vaccine harms is 'many hundreds’.

This is not just an unusual situation. Nothing like this has ever happened before.

What vaccines are causing are not drug-related harms. Totally incomplete substance called a nucleic acid medicine, which is in fact not even a medicine, was distributed to the public.

Continue ReadingI Regret Getting the COVID Vaccines. Here’s Why.