Category: Academia

The Overeducated

I once had a graduate student with whom I became friends. Ned Flynn, to give him a name, one day told me that after he finished high school he  wanted to follow in his father's footsteps and get a job with the railroad. His mother, however, wanted something 'better' for her son.   She wanted him to go to college, which he did, in the desultory  fashion of many. He ended up declaring a major in psychology and graduating. After spending some time in a monastery, perhaps also at  the instigation of his Irish Catholic mother, and still not knowing quite what  to do with himself, he was accepted into an M.A. program in  philosophy, which is where I met him. After goofing around for several more years, he took a job as a social worker, a job which did not suit him. Last I saw him he was in his mid-thirties and pounding nails.

His complaint to me was that, had he followed his natural bent, he would have had fifteen or so years of job seniority with the railroad, a good paycheck, and a house half paid for. Instead, he wasted years   on studies for which he had no real inclination, and no real talent.  He had no discernible interest in the life of the mind, and like most  working class types could not take it seriously. If you are from the working class, you will know what I mean: 'real' work must involve  grunting and sweating and schlepping heavy loads. Those who work on oil rigs or in the building trades do real work.  Reading, writing, and thinking are activities deemed effete and not quite real. When my  mother saw me reading books, she would sometimes tell me to go outside and do something. That use of 'do' betrayed her working class values.  What she didn't realize was that by reading all those fancy books I  was putting myself in a position where I could live by my wits and avoid the schlepping and grunting. Of course, the purpose of the life of the mind is not to avoid grunt work, with which I have some acquaintance, but to live a truly human life, whether one fills one's belly from it or not.

Overeducation' is perhaps not the right word for cases like my former student Ned. Strictly speaking, one cannot be overeducated since there  is and can be no end to true education. The word is from the Latin  e-ducere, to draw out, and there can be no end to the process of actualizing the potential of a mind with an aptitude for learning.  Perhaps the right word is 'over-credentialed.' It is clear that what most people in pursuit of 'higher education' want is not an education, strictly speaking, but a credential that will gain them admittance to a certain social and/or economic status. 'Education as most people  use it nowadays is a euphemism for a ticket to success, where the latter is defined in terms of money and social position.

A Crisis in Philosophy? How Not to Avert It

Those who make a living teaching philosophy, or are hoping to make a living teaching philosophy, have reason to be concerned.  Enrollments are in decline, and as the University of Nevada (Las Vegas) example shows, whole departments are under threat of elimination.  Some speak loosely of a crisis in philosophy.  But it is more like a crisis for paid professors of it.  And perhaps 'crisis'  is overblown.  So let's just say that philosophy teachers collectively have a problem, the problem of attracting warm bodies.  The fewer the students, the less the need for teachers.

Lee McIntyre addresses the problem in the pages of the The Chronicle of Higher Education.  He asks who is to blame for "the growing crisis in philosophy."  His answer is that philosophers are.   Philosophers have failed to make philosophy relevant to what people care about despite having had ages to do so.  Yes, he uses that '60s buzz word, "relevant."  So the problem is not caused primarily by hard economic times despite their exacerbating effect; the problem is that philosophers have failed to make philosophy "relevant." 

What is to be done?  "We must recognize what is unique about philosophy . . . philosophy's historical mission, which is not merely to find the truth, but to use the truth to improve the quality of human life."  This is hardly unique to philosophy — think of medical science — but let that pass.  We are then told that the goal . . . "should be to help students recognize that philosophy matters. Not just because it will improve their LSAT scores (which it will), but because philosophy has the potential to change the very fabric of who they are as human beings."

Sorry to sound negative, but if there is a "crisis," this high-sounding blather is unlikely to "avert" it. I should think that the primary task of philosophy is to understand human beings before going off half-cocked in pursuit of a radical transformation of their "very fabric."

The theme of 'change' having been sounded, the reader is not surprised to hear McIntyre go off on a liberal-left tangent, identifying critical thinking with the espousal of left wing positions.  Here is one example:

Similarly, when a 2009 Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that 28 percent of the American public—and an alarming number of their elected representatives in Washington—refuse to believe the overwhelming scientific evidence for the existence of global warming, where is the voice of the philosophical community to right the ship on the norms of good reasoning? Personally, I'm tired of hearing members of Congress who couldn't pass an introductory logic class say that they are "skeptics" about climate change. Refusing to believe something in the face of scientific evidence is not skepticism, it is the height of credulity. How delicious would it be for philosophers to claim public venues to rap their knuckles over that?

This is quite astonishing.  We are being told that those who raise questions about global warming such as Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, are in violation of "the norms of good reasoning"!   Just as lefties think they own dissent, they think they own critical thinking too.

Michael Valle's comment on McIntyre's piece is dead on:

Here's how I read this. "We need to make philosophy more politically active. We need to teach our students that conservative and libertarian ideas are wrong and illogical. We need to spread progressive values and political views to our students. Unless we do this, our discipline will fade into obscurity." Yet this is exactly why our discipline isn't trusted. It's because we are allowing ourselves to become pickled in political correctness and leftwing activism. Until the public knows that it will not get progressive preaching in our philosophy classes, we will not be trusted, and for perfectly good reason.

That's exactly right.  Contempt for philosophy, and for the humanities generally, on the part of the public is in large part do to the political correctness that infects humanities departments.  Tax payers realize that there is no free and open inquiry going on in these venues, no balanced examination of the whole spectrum of opinion on issues,  that what is going on is indoctrination. 

To sum up.  There is no crisis in philosophy.  It is alive and well and will continue, funded or unfunded, enrollments up, enrollments down, praised or maligned, suppressed or supported, as it has for  20 centuries in the West and even longer in the East.  It will bury its undertakers.  At most, those who fill their bellies from it face lean times.  Some will no longer be able to fill their bellies from it.  Then we will see how seriously they take it and whether they really believe their own rhetoric.  We will then discover whether they live for it or only from it.

The problem is not that philosophers are insufficiently engaged in 'progressive' agitation and indoctrination.  The problem is due to the fact that times are tough, economically speaking, and that the cost-to-value ratio of a college education has become outrageously unfavorable.  It is just plain stupid to incur massive debt to earn a degree in a subject that has no market value. 

Nor is the problem that philosophy is not "relevant" to the issues of the day.  The purpose of a university education is to elevate people, to give them perspective, to challenge them with difficult texts and ideas.  Concern for "relevance" leads to the erosion of standards.  As I used to say to my students: I am not going to make philosophy relevant to you; I am going to make you relevant to philosophy. 

References

http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2011/04/philosophy-under-attack-at-the-university-of-nevada-las-vegas.html

http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2011/10/should-one-stoop-to-a-defense-of-philosophy-or-the-humanities.html

http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2009/08/does-the-left-own-dissent.html

http://chronicle.com/article/Making-Philosophy-Matter-or/130029/

Glenn Reynolds on the What Comes After the Higher Ed Bubble Bursts

Here.  Excellent analysis of the problem, but he also offers solutions:

For higher education, the solution is more value for less money. Student loans, if they are to continue, should be made dischargeable in bankruptcy after five years — but with the school that received the money on the hook for all or part of the unpaid balance.  Up until now, the loan guarantees have meant that colleges, like the writers of subprime mortgages a few years ago, got their money up front, with any problems in payment falling on someone else. Make defaults expensive to colleges, and they'll become much more careful about how much they lend and what kinds of programs they offer.

[. . .]

Another response is an increased emphasis on non-college education. As the Wall Street Journal has noted, skilled trades are doing quite well. For the past several decades, America's enthusiasm for college has led to a lack of enthusiasm for vocational education.

Absolutely right.  The notion put forth by the foolish Obama and others that anyone can profit from a college education is absurd on the face of it. 

They Pay So Much for So Little

No Work

Update (11/27):  I am told the sign is a fake.  I suspected as much.  Fake or not it makes an important point.  The point being that (i) the Left has done much to destroy the universities, and (ii) government programs, e.g., federally insured loan programs, have done much to cause an education bubble.  The cost of education nowadays is shockingly out of proportion to the value of what the student receives.  This shows what happens when government interferes with the market. (This is not to say that I am opposed to all government regulation as so many  liberals think.  They think that if you are a conservative you must be a laissez-faire capitalist.  That's just plain stupid, but par for the course for the typical  liberal who is apparently unequipped to make a simple distinction between conservative and libertarian.) 

Compare the education sector with the electronics sector.  I paid a paltry $800 over a year ago for my current Hewlett-Packard computer with huge flat-screen montor .  It's an amazing piece of equipment and unbelievably cheap given what I am getting.  ( I paid around $2000 in less-inflated dollars in 1985 for an Apple II-c which was a piece of junk compared to this machine.  No hard drive, a mere 128 kilobytes of RAM.)  Why so cheap?  Because of competition and market discipline. 

It is not that big-government liberals intend to make things worse; the worsening is an unintended consequence of their foolish and ill-thought-out policies, policies that fail to take into consideration the realities of human nature.  One such reality is that if you make it easy for people to borrow monstrous sums of money, they will follow the path of least resistance and do so.  Another such reality is that the educational institutions will raise their tuitions and fees to absorb as much as they can of this easy money without any concern for what they are doing to the students' long-term financial health or to the country's.

In I Too am a Debt-Peon, Justin Smith reports that his first year in the graduate program at Columbia cost him $45,000 which he financed using federally-insured loans.  $45 K!  I don't know which is harder to believe, that any institution could get away with charging such an outrageous amount for a year's worth of courses in a subject  which, noble and magnificent as it is, notoriously bakes no bread, or that anyone could be so stupid as to go $45 K into debt in pursuit of a degree in a subject which, magnificent and noble as it is, notoriously bakes no bread.  Luckily for him, Smith managed to get funding for the rest of his graduate study, and even luckier, got a job. 

But now he complains about having to pay back the debt that he freely and foolishly assumed, and says that he will do what he can to avoid repaying it, thereby stiffing the taxpayers that financed his foolish adventure. 

On Used Books, Marginalia, Underlining, and Teaching

My library extends through each room of my house, except the bathrooms. (I suspect that in the average household, where the only purpose of reading could be to inspire excretion, it is the other way around.) If I weren’t pro-Israel I would say that my library commits territorial aggression against my wife’s ‘Palestinian’ books; her few shelves are either occupied territories or under threat of occupation. My bibliomaniacal blogger-buddies  would turn green with envy if ever they laid eyes on my library. So I shall have to protect them from descent into this, arguably the deadliest, of the seven deadly sins.

Many of my books were acquired on the cheap from used bookstores in college towns such as Boston-Cambridge and Bloomington, Indiana. I used to really clean up when disgruntled graduate students packed it in, dumping costly libraries purchased with daddy’s money into the used book dens.

Among the used books I scored were plenty of copies of philosophical classics used in undergraduate courses. I always used to get a kick out of the marginalia, if you want to call them that. Mostly it was the absence of marginalia that caught my eye, an absence corresponding to the paucity of thought with which the reading was done. The rare marginalium was usually pathetic. Here is a passage from Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason (1794):

Revelation is a communication of something which the person to whom that thing is revealed did not know before. For if I have done a thing or seen it done, it needs no revelation to tell me I have done it or seen it, nor to enable me to tell it or to write it. (LLA, p. 13)

That’s not the best writing in the world, but the thought is clear enough. Our brilliant student’s comment? "Word Play!" ‘Word Play!’ is ever on the lips of boneheads who cannot or will not comprehend any piece of well-constructed prose. The litany of the blockhead: Word Play! Semantics! Hairsplitting!

One good thing about student marginalia was that it never extended very far since the reading never extended very far: the obscene magic marker underlining typically ceased three or four pages into the text.

One of the many drawbacks of teaching is that one could never get the little effers to do the reading especially if one used primary sources, refusing to dumb things down with comic books, audiovisual 'aids,' etc.: once they saw that genuine effort was demanded, they wimped out. All my preaching about being athletes of the mind availed nothing, falling on dead ears, like pearls before swine. Or am I being too harsh?

Harsh or not, it is blissful to repose in my Bradleyan reclusivity, far from the unreality of the classroom.

Graduate School and Self-Confidence

This from a reader:

. . . I am now in my senior year as a philosophy major, considering strongly the prospect of grad school. However, I remain deeply frustrated with myself with regard to my academic discipline and intellectual ability.  Instead of philosophy making me proud–which some claim it does–it humbles me. But it does so to such a degree that I feel inadequate. So I want to ask what the remedy is for these frustrations. Also, have you encountered this, specifically as an undergrad, or in grad school? I feel as though I care too deeply about philosophy to 'give it up'. I will do it regardless. Though I've been told I have some ability, I wonder if pressing on to grad school is the way to go given these frustrations.
It is very difficult to give helpful advice to someone with whom one is not closely acquainted.  But here are some things to consider.  Evaluate them critically, test them against your own experience, and get the advice of others. 
 
1.  If you have a genuine passion for some field of study or activity, and fail to pursue it out of concern for practicality, then you may live to regret it.  The harder heads will tell you that philosophy bakes no bread.  They are right, of course, but then man does not live by bread alone.  I know people who have regretted 'playing it safe' in life.  I myself decided to take the risks, pursue my dream, and am very happy as a result.  On the other hand, you must proceed without illusions about possible outcomes if you decide to devote years of study to a subject that most likely will not pay off in economic terms.  Ending up an academic gypsy or an adjunct faculty member are decidedly suboptimal outcomes.  But of course it depends on the individual and extent of the 'dues' he is willing to pay to play 'the blues.' 
 
2.  Go to graduate school only if you receive a full fellowship and tuition remission.  Do not pay out of your own pocket (unless you are independently wealthy) or take out any loans.  You did not say whether your career goal is an academic position or whether graduate study would be for personal enrichment.  If you have an all-consuming passion for philosophy and are really good at it, then you might consider going into academe to make your living from philosophy. But this is a long shot. Good tenure-track positions are hard to find, competition for them is ferocious, and the market can be expected to worsen.  And even if you obtain a tenure-track job that still leaves you with the final hurdle: tenure.  If you are denied tenure, then not only are you out of a job, you are to some extent 'damaged goods.'  There is quite a lot of material and links for you to explore in my Academia category, some of it depressing.  Take it all cum grano salis. 
 
3.  Whether or not you have any business pursuing graduate study in philosophy depends on whether you have any philosophical aptitude.  This is a question only your professors can answer for you.  Try to persuade them to give you an honest and blunt appraisal. 
 
4. The question of self-confidence is a difficult one.  There are those who have far more of it than they are objectively justified in having.  We have all met people like that.  But it it is often one's self-confidence, even if out of proportion to one one's actual abilities, that contributes to success.  You have to believe in yourself to accomplish anything and to get to the pont where your self-confidence is objectively justified.  A certain amount of 'overbelief' is pragmatically useful.
 
How improve self-confidence?  By extremely hard work, monomaniacal focus, and total dedication.  There are plenty of examples of people of modest abilities who accomplished something by dint of single-minded commitment.

Another Side of the Education Bubble: The Law School Bubble

Who hasn't thought of attending law school?  Before doing anything rash, you may want to peruse the posts of law professor Paul Campos at Inside the Law School Scam.  He began the blog in August so you could easily take it da capo.

And then there is the student loan crisis and the moral and economic absurdity of Obama's 'forgive and forget' policy.  Just as government interference in the mortgage industry bears a large part (not all) of the responsibility for the housing bubble, it bears a large part of the responsibility for the education bubble.

Should One Stoop to a Defense of Philosophy or the Humanities?

Philosophy_discussionThe place of philosophy in college curricula is often defended on the ground that its study promotes critical thinking.

Now I don't doubt that courses in logic, epistemology, and ethics can help inculcate habits of critical thinking and good judgment. And it may also be true that philosophy has a unique role to play here. So, while it is true that every discipline teaches habits of critical thinking and good judgment in that discipline, there are plenty of issues that are not discipline-specific, and these need to be addressed critically as well.

What I object to, however, is the notion that philosophy needs to justify itself in terms of an end external to it, and that its main justification is in terms of an end outside of it. The main reason to study philosophy is not to become a more critical reasoner or a better evaluator of evidence, but to grapple with the ultimate questions of human existence and to arrive at as much insight into them as is possible. What drives philosophy is the desire to know the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters. Let's not confuse a useful byproduct of philosophical study (development of critical thinking skills) with the goal of philosophical study. The reason to study English literature is not to improve one's vocabulary or to prepare for a career as a journalist.   Similarly, the reason to study philosophy is not to improve one's ability to think clearly about extraphilosophical matters or to acquire skills that may prove handy in law school.

Philosophy is an end in itself. This is why it is foolish to try to convince philistines that it is good for something. It is not primarily good for something. It is a good in itself. Otherwise you are acquiescing in the philistinism you ought to be combating. Is listening to the sublime adagio movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony good for something? And what would that be, to impress people with how cultured you are?

To the philistine's "Philosophy bakes no bread" you should not respond "Yes it does," for such responses are patently lame. You should say, "Man does not live by bread alone," or "Not everything is pursued as a means to something else," or "A university is not a trade school."  You should not acquiesce in the philistine's values and assumptions, but go on the attack and question his values and assumptions.  Put him on the spot.  Play the Socratic gadfly.  If a philistine wants to know how much you got paid for writing an article for a professional journal, say, "Do you really think that only what one is paid to do is worth doing?"  

Admittedly, this is a lofty conception of philosophy and I would hate to have to defend it before the uncomprehending philistines one would expect to find on the typical Board of Regents. But philosophy is what it is, lofty by nature, and if we are to defend it we must do so in a way that does not betray it.

It might be better, though, not to stoop to defend it at all, at least not before the uncomprehending.  It might be better to show contempt and supercilious disdain. Not everyone can be reasoned with, and part of being reasonable is understanding this fact.

Lynne Ballew

At the time I knew her, in the mid-'70s, I had no idea what a remarkable person she is.  I was a graduate student and she was a young professor.  We spoke a few times in the hallway.  A while back I was re-reading some Plato and I came upon a marginalium of mine: "Ask Lynne about this."  That put me in mind of her and I wondered what had become of her.  I had heard that she had left academe but knew nothing more.  A few key strokes  and her inspiring story unfolded before me.

Academic Rot Exposed

I plugged this site a few days ago.  By now I've read most of the posts, and they are good.    #65 of 100 reasons not to go to graduate school is up.  Title is Teaching is Less and Less Rewarding.

The abdication of authority by professors and administrators that set in in the '60s  is a good part of the problem.  Indeed, much of our national decline is traceable to abdication of authority on the part of parents, teachers, and clergy.  Not to mention go-along-to-get-along politicians.  But that's another post.

The Higher Education Bubble

Good analysis by Michael Barone.

Federal subsidies have caused college costs to skyrocket while quality goes down.  What does all the money buy?  Administrative bloat:

Take the California State University system, the second tier in that state's public higher education. Between 1975 and 2008, the number of faculty rose by 3 percent, to 12,019 positions. During those same years, the number of administrators rose 221 percent, to 12,183. That's right: There are more administrators than teachers at Cal State now.

These people get paid to "liaise" and "facilitate" and produce reports on diversity. How that benefits Cal State students or California taxpayers is unclear.

Barone goes on to point out that to pay $100,000 for a degree in women's studies makes no economic sense.  But he doesn't forcefully make the point, contra Obama, that it is just foolish for everyone to go to college.  Only some people are 'college material' to use a phrase  one no longer hears.  There is nothing wrong with learning and plying a trade right out of high school.  Why waste thousands of dollars partying and goofing off just so one can — learn a trade?

And let's be clear that for the vast majority, 'getting an education' is a euphemism for getting ahead, for acquiring credentials that one hopes will bring social and economic advancement.  It is not about becoming an educated human being.  It's about money and status.  But then it should be spectacularly  clear that if one wants money, a decidedly suboptimal way of going about getting it is by saddling oneself with $100,000 in college debt.

Catholic University Returns to Single-Sex Dorms

A paucity of common sense, a lack of wisdom, a tendency among those in authority to abdicate . . . these are among the characteristics of contemporary liberals.  Common sense would suggest that in a sex-saturated society putting young men and women together in the same dormitory would be an unwise idea, one rather unconducive to the traditional purposes of a university.  Among the traditional purposes were the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge and the inculcation of critical habits of mind.  (Take a gander at Newman's Idea of A University.)  The facilitation of 'hook-ups' and the consumption of prodigious quantities of alcohol was never on the list as far as I know.  'Hook-ups' there will be.  But only a liberal would adopt a policy that facilitates them.  University officials abdicated their authority starting in the 'Sixties.   The abdication of authority is a fit topic for a separate post.

That a Catholic university would sponsor coed dorms is even more absurd.  In Catholic moral theology sins against the sixth and ninth Commandments are all mortal.  It would be interesting to explore the reasoning behind this.  But part of the motivation, I think, is a conservative appreciation of the awesome power of the sex drive and its perhaps unique role in distorting human perceptions.  Of the Mighty Tetrad (sex, money, power, fame/recognition) sex arguably ranks first in delusive power.  In the grip of sexual obsessions we simply cannot think straight or live right.  The news is replete with examples, Anthony Weiner being the latest example.  'Weenie-texting' he threw away his career.  In the grip of his obsession, a naked old man, Strauss-Kahn,  pounced on a hotel maid.  And so on.

But all is not lost.  CU is backtracking on this one.

Philosophy in Academe and Out

From a reader:
 
Well, you must have read this sentence a million times but let me tell you once again, anyway: I have been an ardent follower of your blog and simply admire it. I thought you might be the best person to write to as I am confident you will also give me  honest advice regarding a troublesome question I have. Here it is. I plan to do a course in philosophy since I love this subject. And finally get a Ph.D. if possible. I am afraid, according to the descriptions you have given of the academic marketplace in philosophy, I might only end up hurting my passion for this subject. At the moment I am a pleasure reader and love philosophy this way. At least, it helps me organize my life and has had a positive effect. If studying philosophy academically only cracks my rose-colored glasses and I end up being repulsive, then it might not be worth it. Perhaps I am better off reading the little that I can and gather all the pleasure thereof. Would love to know what you may advise me.
 
I do get probably more fan mail than I deserve, but it is all gratefully received.  So thanks for the kind words.
 
One question you appear to be asking is whether a person can embark upon and complete a course of study in philosophy at the graduate level and not become as disagreeable and nasty as G. B. is portrayed as being in Philosophy as Blood Sport.  Yes, of course.  I employ the 'No Asshole Rule' the blogospheric corollary of which is 'Delete and Block.'   If a person behaves badly, I have nothing to do with him.  You could do the same.  Before applying to a department, visit it and get a feel for the atmosphere there by talking to grad students and others.  If you don't like the vibe, apply elsewhere.
 
Another question you may be asking is whether pursuing a Ph.D. in philosophy is a good bet when it comes to generating an income that is above the bare subsistence level.  My thoughts on this topic are at the other end of the first hyperlink above.
 
A third question in the vicinity is whether it is necessary to study philosophy formally to become competent it it.  I would say 'no.'  It depends on whether you have intelligence, philosophical aptitude (which is not the same as intelligence), and discipline.  If you have these qualities in sufficient quantity, then formal study can actually be a hindrance.
 
Nowadays, with the Internet, it's all our there.  You can find almost everything you need, for free, when you want it, wherever you live, including lectures (on YouTube).  Suppose you are interested in topic X.    Read the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on the topic and then start working your way through the bibliography.  Try to write something yourself on the topic and try to get it published in a decent journal.  You only learn philosophy by doing it: thinking, reading, writing, and submitting your work to the criticism of others.  The emphasis must be on your own thinking and writing.  Otherwise you may end up a mere scholar who knows who said what when but hasn't a clue as to what he himself believes.
 
Hashing things out with competent, sincere, like-minded others is also important, not to mention extremely enjoyable.    For as Aristotle says somewhere, "We philosophize best with friends."  But friendly interlocutors are not necessary.  What is necessary, besides intelligence, aptitude, and discipline is a desire to get to the truth of the matter that trumps every other desire.