The self-proclaimed princess in waiting of Tangdonia, Elise Stefanik, is at it again. And thank Yahweh she is. I mean what's not to love about a group of we were schooled in posh educational institutions scribes, hypocrites, Pharisees, and pots--or is it kettles?--like proud as peaches Reptardians such as Elise Stefanik. What's not to love, after all, about a pollution of politicians who have perfected the "fine art" of nudge, nudge, wink, wink and being very very economical with the truth, so economical with the truth, in fact, that there often isn't any truth in theur screed at all. Anyway, you know the world is Pythonesque when someone like Stefanik, whose party is full of both sides of their mouth real anti-Semites for whom the only good Jew is either a Jew vaporised by the second coming (can you say genocide?) or converted to Christianity can make political hay by selectively "condemning" anti-Semitism (something, by the way, that spews out in many directions) and deliberately confusing and conflating valid empirical critiques of Israel and nationalist Zionism with anti-Semitism .And let's not forget that politicians like Stefanik, while condeming limits on speech out of one side of their gobs advocate for it out of the other side of their reality challenged gobs. Stefanik and her ilk, after all, are not about free speech for all. They are about free speech only for those that follow their parochial party line. Now that is good old time Republicrat pied pipering at its "finest". Doubleplusgood Elise, doubleplusgood.
One of those who seems to have been well pied pipered on Facebook by Mrs. Stefanik and her comrades is one John Joseph White who, in an impressive rant with an abundance of demagogic slings and arrow but without much in the way of empirical evidence, well actually any empirical evidence whatsoever, " claims, and I quote here [that] it’s the federal government’s involvement in education that has led to the creation of dopey young Progs". Prog rock fans? One might suspect after reading this missive that JJW is a prime example of what he condemns, the dumbing down of American educational institutions, a dumbing down that has produced several bushels of empirically challenged social media "reactors" as even a glance at social media would confirm. The only
problem with this hypothesis is that JJW's lowest common denominator jeremiad is, as is almost
the case with demagogues, polemicists, and ideologues of his reality challenged ilk, off
the mark. But then people who have little grasp of historical reality
are always off the mark even though such rhetoric plays well in places
like Peoria aren't they?
There
are, of course, a variety of reasons for White's rather naive knee jerk
manicheanism. Don't you just love a world consisting solely of uncool black and dope white?
Reality isn't, as I noted, one of them. In reality, of course, the
increase in federal spending at research universities in the wake of
World War II--see the Cold War and its consequences that Ike warned
Americans about-- along with increased "investment" from other parts of
the military-industrial-economic complex, has increased research in
American universities. In reality the increased amount of research in
American research universities thanks to this increased public and
private support for research in American universities, has turned
American research universities, including Harvard, into world renowned
centres of research that many other smaller nations are envious of. All
that said let me note that I would support JJW if he called for an end
to imperial war making research in American universities for, after all,
I agree with that commentator who once admitted to the fact that he
couldn't tell whether MIT was a government-corporate department with
educational courses attached to it or an educational institution that
did extensive, financially "profitable", and high status military
research for government and corporation, something that is, of course,
quite profitable for the latter.
One
of the reasons for the current state of American universities is a lack of funding from those deluded many who want to
turn American universities into knee jerk purveyors of selective
holier than thou myths they picked up through socialisation for deluded
conformity, something Stefanik cynically knows how to manipulate for
power and plunder purposes. Another is the neoliberalisation of American
universities, a neoliberalisation that has turned American universities
into beggars for students because they need the monies. This begging
for students, in turn, has meant that neolliberal university
administrators, devoted as they are to the Mammonish theologies of
economics and business, preach the gospel that everyone should go to
university because it will lead to a greater financial return for them
over the course of their "radiant futures". This, in turn, has led to the
trivialisation of the humanities and the critical thinking aspect of
education and schooling. And it has led, as a consequence, to the
retailisation of the university, the corporatisation of universities, a
corporate/retail model in which the customer is always right.
Speaking
of universities and neoliberalism, it needs to be pointed out that it is
hard to discern whether many American universities these days are semi-professional and private sports teams or clubs with educational
courses attached to them or educational institutions that have sold
their souls for something you don't find at the University of Toronto,
Cantab, Oxon, or Laval, sports and the status and retail branding they
bring. The paradox that for profit sports are taking over and
transforming academic institutions that are putatively not for profit
"educational" institutions should not be lost here though I suspect it
will by many.
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