In Search For Fool's Gold

By Aleksey Bashtavenko

Academic Composition

www.academiccomposition.com

            From Kindergarten to High School, America’s youngsters are taught that education is the key to success in life. The underlying explanation is simple and straight-forward. In order to land a high-paying job, you must be able to think critically and display a good deal of mental agility. After all, if you want to be engineering, you must have a solid grasp of science and mathematics. If you want to be a lawyer, you must be verbally proficient and if you intend to enter medicine, there is an altogether different body of knowledge you must master. What about all of the other, less intellectually rigorous professions?

            As for that, our guidance counselors would say that a degree makes you stand out. If you want to be a book-keeper or a financier, you’d have a much higher chance of getting hired with a degree. Today, more people have academic credentials than they did decades before. Previously, a degree offered one a way of standing out from the crowd, today, it has become the new norm. In other words, a Bachelor’s degree is the equivalent of a High School degree in the 70s.

            As appealing as this comparison may seem, it is a false equivalency. In the 70s, employers had considerable confidence in the quality of education High Schools offer. As such, they were able to justify their preference for applicants who finished High School over those who did not. At that point, it seemed clear that High School graduates displayed superior intellectual, practical and interpersonal skills to those of Middle School graduates. Yet, can one say that today’s graduates are superior to High School graduates in these respects?

Managers routinely complain that College graduates are deficient in basic skills required at the work-place such as verbal communication skills, mathematical calculation, writing proficiency, public speaking and interpersonal ability.
            (https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2016/05/17/these-are-the-skills-bosses-say-new-college-grads-do-not-have/&refURL=https://www.google.com/&referrer=https://www.google.com/_). In a rigorous academic environment, youngsters can cultivate all of such skills, yet it is no secret that the standards American universities employ tend to be woefully inadequate. This is evident in light of the proliferation of ill-conceived majors such as Women’s Studies, Queer Studies, Transgender Studies and so forth. Even students who pursue more respectable scholarly disciplines do not receive the quality of education that their parents and grandparents did (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/03/29/survey-finds-grade-inflation-continues-rise-four-year-colleges-not-community-college).

In the late 60s, the self-esteem movement began taking root on America’s college campuses and the seeds of this worldview were planted in the minds of educators across the country. Shortly thereafter, a significant percentage of teachers and administrators believed that all disciplinary behaviors among children stemmed from a low-self-esteem (https://www.amazon.com/Narcissism-Epidemic-Living-Age-Entitlement/dp/1416575995/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498883511&sr=8-1&keywords=Narcissism+epidemic). To rectify this apparent problem, teachers lavished praise on youngsters and evaluated their students’ work in an exceptionally lenient fashion.

Since then, the trend of grade inflation has accelerated and now the students often display the kind of ignorance and intellectual incompetence that would have been unthinkable for previous generations of college graduates to show (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-t2TwLRdgk&t=1s). Despite the staff’s efforts to accommodate the dullest and least industrious of their pupils, the student body continues to demand further concessions. Today, the students are no longer satisfied with a curriculum where almost anyone can earn an A with a minimal expenditure of effort, they now demand to be sheltered from views that they may disagree with (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/). It is now customary for professors to issue “trigger warnings” about any readings they may assign that expose students to ideas that may be considered “sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist” and so on.

The foregoing generations not only had to be exposed to the conflicting point of view, they were required to consider them with an open-mind. Likewise, they were forced to display a much higher level of academic rigor and communication skills throughout their discussions in class than today’s student do. By the same token, students from 30 years ago were given far greater opportunities to learn to think in an objective manner and form a balanced worldview.

. In 1975, liberal  professors outnumbered their conservative peers by a ratio of 3 to 1 (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/6/liberal-professors-outnumber-conservatives-12-1/). Today, this ratio is 12 to 1 and continues to increase. In departments where curricula are known to carry a heavy left-wing bias, that ration is often as high as 30 to 1. While a significant percentage of instructors in departments of finance, economics and engineering identify as conservatives, such pedagogues are virtually unheard of in departments of literature and gender studies.

Despite this, left-leaning “news outlets” routinely propagate the notion that even the professors of “soft sciences” are intellectually honest enough to refrain from forcing their views on students (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-gross-academia-conservatives-hiring-20160520-snap-story.html). The reality is that the matter is much more complicated than that. Considerable evidence suggests that human judgment can often be influenced by subtle hints. (https://www.amazon.com/Pre-Suasion-Revolutionary-Way-Influence-Persuade/dp/1501109790/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498890295&sr=8-1&keywords=Pre-suasion). For example, the effectiveness of an advertisement can be significantly changed if only one word is altered. Likewise, individuals tend to focus on ideas that they were most recently exposed to. In surveys where one is asked if they are “unhappy” with the product or experience in question, most people are likely to reflect on their negative experiences. Yet, the opposite occurs when the question is phrased in a way that emphasizes the positive elements of one’s experience. These findings prompt the question of how the views of students may change when they are constantly exposed to ideas that subtly reinforce the left-wing perspective. Even if the instructor does not explicitly articulate their point of view, they often unwittingly leave subtle hints or assign readings by authors who are sympathetic to the leftist perspective. In other words, the professor does not need to openly claim that “right-leaning Americans are racist and sexist”, all he needs to do is keep on bombarding the students with readings that imply this premise.

At Academic Composition, we’ve served over 10,000 different students, many of whom called for our help with their papers for “electives” and “general studies” courses. Instructors who teach these “disciplines” tend to show much less restraint than those who are in charge of more respectable scholarly métiers such as economics, history, philosophy and political science. Karl Marx infamously declared that the philosopher’s task should be not to understand the world, but to change it. Remarkably, 18% of social science professors identify as Marxists and many others have been influenced by Marxism in subtler ways (http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/03/the_prevalence_1.html). Such academics now subscribe to the ideology that can be broadly described as post-modernism (https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/06/05/jordan_peterson_why_you_have_to_fight_postmodernism.html).

Unlike the Marxists, post-modernists deny that reality is objective and can be understood in an unequivocal fashion. However, they embrace the Marxist premise that human nature is malleable and the human condition is predominantly a consequence of environmental rather than biological influences. Building on that assumption, they maintain that the most powerful people in society have the capacity to control the destiny of all others. Similarly to how Marxists regarded the capitalists as the oppressors of the working class, the post-modernists impose the same condemnation upon the “privileged white males”.

In large part because of the alliance between Marxists and post-modernists, professors of the humanities can openly support socialist policies without openly endorsing Marxism or communism as it was implemented throughout the 20^th century. Without offering clear-cut policy prescriptions, such academics champion vague slogans such as “fighting the right”, “redistributing the wealth”, “taxing the rich” and “doing away with capitalism” (https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9381). In light of the post-modernists’ rejection of objective truth, it is now acceptable for instructors to parade such platitudes without taking responsibility for their intellectual negligence (http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/13/marxist-wisconsin-professor-rakes-in-170000-per-year-teaching-about-inequality-and-oppression/).

The fusion of Marxism and post-modernism not only creates an environment where professors tend to be biased to the point where they are likely to skew the students’ ideological orientation to the left, even if they do not intend to do so, but also that the collegiate milieu is unlikely to foster the youngsters’ intellectual growth. In a classic on education, “The Closing of the American Mind”, Allan Bloom has shown that the attitude of cultural relativism dampens the students’ passion for the truth (https://www.amazon.com/Closing-American-Mind-Education-Impoverished/dp/1451683200/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498975060&sr=8-1&keywords=The+closing+of+the+American+Mind). The underlying rationale is simple and straight-forward: if one believes that there is no objective truth, there is no reason for anyone to spend their time wrestling with the big questions of life. As a result, learning becomes perfunctory, routinized and aimed at the achievement of extrinsic results.

In light of these developments, it is clear that today’s generation of college students will not receive the quality of education their parents and grandparents took for granted. Although employers may harbor nominal expectations that “college educated” applicants are better workers, they are starting to question this assumption. With every passing decade, employers become more cognizant of the gap between what academic credentials putatively represent and what they empower graduates to achieve. Hence, a Bachelor’s Degree is no longer the ticket to a middle-class living that it used to be.

Despite the diminished economic value of academic credentials, the apologists for the Ivory Tower continue to insist that formal education bestows intangible value upon students that they cannot receive elsewhere (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/12/humanities-students-budget-cuts-university-suny). In other words, it is often maintained that the humanities “teach people how to think” in an environment where such lofty skills cannot be acquired anywhere else. It is a well-documented fact that ideological bias is a significant impediment to intellectual growth and multiple academic departments are immersed in it. Moreover, in the minds of many academics, the dogma of post-modernism appears to justify the rapid decline of academic standards. In light of the proliferation of ill-conceived majors and abysmal standards that students must fulfill in order to graduate with distinction, the suggestion that “humanities teach people to think” is risible.

Although it is true that numerous employers see academic credentials as an indicator that the applicant in question is capable of “finishing something” and in this sense, an impractical university degree may not be entire worthless. However, attaining such credentials is seldom worth the cost. In the amount of time one devotes to a degree in order to show that they can “finish something”, they could have learned a trade and acquired considerable work experience. Regardless of what skill one chooses to pursue, there is a considerable advantage to postponing formal education in favor of entering the work-force. First of all, this is a great way for a youngster to obtain relevant work experience and determine if a university degree serves their purpose. Secondly, if college education seems appropriate at that point, it will become easier to see which specific major is worth pursuing. Thirdly, real-world experience should inoculate most people from the ideological indoctrination that takes place in the general education courses. Fourthly, students who have practical experience will then see formal education as merely one activity they could pursue. Unlike those who enter college straight out of high school and think that earning a degree is their only viable option, the world-weary students will be in the position to evaluate all of their options and commit to a judicious course of action. 

Free Speech: What It Is and Why It Matters

Free Speech: What It Is and Why It Matters

“However unwilling a person who has a strong opinion may be to admit that his opinion might be false, he ought to be moved by this thought: however true it may be, if it isn’t fully, frequently and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma rather than as a living truth. ”

John Stuart Mill

The First Amendment guarantees that the “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of people peaceably to assemble”. This provision clarifies the point that the government cannot pass a law criminalizing the act of free expression. However, certain spoken statements could constitute an act of violence.

“An opinion that corn-dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn-dealer, or when handed about among the same mob in the form of a placard” (John Stuart Mill, On Liberty).

            In other words, free speech is to be distinguished from statements that directly jeopardize the safety of others. However, the standards for what constitutes such acts of jeopardizing safety need to be carefully considered and evaluated with due care. In his famous statement, John Stuart Mill noted that such acts of violence in speech occur when the speaker clearly encourages others to take violent action against others. Nonetheless, individuals who are often silenced and censored seldom directly encourage violence against others. At the very least, before the act of censoring takes place, it must be shown that the allegedly inappropriate commentary directly causes harm to others that goes beyond the initial emotional reaction to the statement in question. The burden of proof should always be on the accuser, not on the accused.  

College campuses are engulfed by protests against sexism and racism to the point where conservative speakers are routinely boycotted. When “non-progressive” speakers are allowed to visit campuses, their discussion cannot commence because they are constantly shouted down by left-wing activists who demand safe spaces (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/middlebury-free-speech-violence/518667/. )  Right-leaning activists cite the First Amendment as their defense against these acts of harassment. In defense of their position, it is unlawful for government institutions to banish people from public spaces because of their ideological views. However, the same principle does not apply in private spaces.

            One is always free to remove a guest from their home for any reason, regardless of how inadequate that reason may seem. Likewise, owners of private companies reserve the right to terminate an employee or an associate for any reason. Consequently, such acts often take place in the event where the evicted party made offensive utterances. While there is and there should not be a law prohibiting preventing owners of private property from refusing to accept guests or associates whom they find objectionable, there is a moral problem underlying this issue. Specifically, hosts who remove offensive guests solely on the grounds of their alleged inappropriate remarks appear to underestimate the importance of the value of free expression.

            If an undesirable party invades one’s home, the host may evict him and he has the prerogative to defend his private property. Likewise, he has the same right to remove any guest from his domicile for any reason. Nonetheless, there is an apparent moral problem with the act of removing a person from private property simply because the host disagrees with their beliefs. This invites the question of what values such actions promote. Clearly, the value in question constitute an infringement on free speech. Left-wing activists maintain that this is done in the interest of protecting the interests of the most vulnerable members of society.

            Following in the foot-steps of Herbert Marcuse, the left has embraced the doctrine of Repressive Tolerance (om/social-sciences/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/repressive-tolerance). In line with this thesis, the left maintains that everyone has the right to be free from fear and misery. Consequently, they hold that the government is responsible for the individual’s personal well-being. If the government fails to achieve this, they believe that the citizens should take matters into their own hands. In other words, the hooligans must antagonize anyone who stands in the way of progress.

            The reasons why Repressive Tolerance is problematic are numerous. It is mired in the fallacy of the Philosopher King. In the Republic, Plato proposed a theory of knowledge to suggest that one may cultivate an understanding of politics similarly to how one may do so with respect to mathematics. In other words, if one is sufficiently intelligent and dedicated, they may solve any political problem, just as they would be able to do so for a mathematical proof. While it is questionable that even the most intelligent cohort of political thinkers could develop a comprehensive solution to all political problems, it is far from clear that they will have the will-power to do what is right.

            To address this problem, Plato developed the tripartite conception of the soul. As Plato had it, the soul consisted of three elements: the logical, spirited and the appetitive. The latter two corresponded to the passionate and the instinctive parts of the human psyche, while the former represented the intellectual capabilities. Plato maintained that the Philosopher King should be able to subjugate his self-serving instincts to his rational judgment. In other words, the Philosopher King knows what is best for the public and has the moral fortitude to do so, irrespective of whether they welcome the change.

            In the opening volume of “The Open Society and Its Enemies”, Karl Popper identified Plato’s Philosopher King thesis as the basis of a totalitarian ideology (https://www.amazon.com/Open-Society-Its-Enemies-ebook/dp/B00C791JIO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503168661&sr=8-1&keywords=the+open+society+and+its+enemies).  Popper’s analysis shows that if it is possible and desirable for the most capable of politicians to govern, there is no reason for leaders to tolerate dissent. Plato elaborated upon this point by drawing an analogy between statecraft and the endeavor of piloting a ship. For good reasons, the most capable of seafarers have the privilege of captaincy and in many cases, they have no reason to take orders from their less knowledgeable colleagues. If politics is a craft in the same sense that sea-faring is, there is no reason for the Philosopher King to consider any objections he may face from his constituents.

            Popper traced the development of the Philosopher King doctrine to the philosophy of Hegel, who argued that the Prussian state had the authority to determine the nature of public morality. In stark contrast to the legal positivists who insisted on a distinction between law and morality, Hegel maintained that only the legislators could know the nature of morality and they have codified their insights into law. Building on this premise, Hegel developed the philosophy of “dialectical idealism” which provided a comprehensive account of historical progress. Hegel’s contention was that ideas shaped social reform and such developments frequently occurred within the Prussian State.

Walking in Hegel’s footsteps, Marx famously asserted that he stood Hegel on his head and to this day, Marxism the blueprint for the prototypical totalitarian state. In the “Open Society and Its Enemies”, Plato traced the origins of totalitarian ideology to Plato, Hegel and Marx. The common ground between the three thinkers is apparent: their political philosophers are rooted in the Philosopher King thesis. Similarly, Marcuse’s doctrine of repressive tolerance empowers the intellectual elite to determine who the truly intolerant people are and when they should be censored.

The intellectual successors of Marcuse and Marx have gone on to develop a various schools of thought under the banner of post-modern relativism, which held that objectivity was a fiction and that all claims to a knowledge of truth are merely expressions of prejudice. While the post-modernists have observed that the dominant groups of society will assert their interests, they neglect to apply this criticism to the academic leaders who represent their interests. In most departments of the humanities, registered Democrats outnumber their Republican counterparts by a wide margin (https://fee.org/articles/government-spending-on-education-is-higher-than-ever-and-for-what/). Predictably, the professoriate continues to assert their group interests at the expense of their peers who are a minority in the collegiate milieu. Examples where right-leaning professors have been subjected to hostile treatment are numerous and continue to proliferate (https://reason.com/blog/2017/01/04/georgia-tech-climatologist-judith-curry).

When confronted about their intolerance, academics tend to cavalierly dismiss all of such allegations, insisting that “truth has a left-wing bent” (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/10/opinion/sunday/the-dangers-of-echo-chambers-on-campus.html). In other words, they tacitly invoke the Philosopher King thesis, implying that the views of the intellectual elite are beyond scrutiny. Yet, evidence suggests that human knowledge is context-specific and scholars who are highly proficient in their field seldom have the ability to apply it to a broad range of other endeavors (https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman-ebook/dp/B00555X8OA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1520178361&sr=8-1&keywords=kahneman+thinking+fast+and+slow). For example, as Daniel Kahneman has shown, even the distinguished scholars of statistics are not good “intuitive statisticians”, as they often commit elementary errors when forced to solve statistical problems in a real world context (http://www.burns-stat.com/review-thinking-fast-slow-daniel-kahneman/). Despite the enormous frustration progressive professors express at the leaders of the Democratic Party who reject their erudite advice, it is quite likely that the guidance of academics could be misleading in as many ways as it is helpful (https://www.berkeleyside.com/2017/05/02/berkeley-author-george-lakoff-says-dont-underestimate-trump).

The ethos of totalitarianism are ingrained in the collective worldview of the academic left. It is also worth noting that the ideological descendants of Marcuse and Marx tend to be densely concentrated in the humanities and fields where findings are subjected to rather lenient standards of empirical evidence. Hence, the far-left activists are far more common in departments of Gender and Queer studies than in Economics. This is a clear reflection of the underlying philosophical tendencies of leftist activists who oppose free-speech. They are wedded to the Philosopher King thesis which leads them to believe that it is acceptable to silence those who question their apparent wisdom.

In stark contrast to Plato, Aristotle regarded politics as an empirical craft that one learns through trial and error. Building on his distinction between episteme and techne, he argued that no level of intellectual ability allows one to grasp the art of statecraft in an a priori fashion. By contrast, he likened political skill to tangible crafts rather than the purely intellectual undertakings. Consistently with this rejection of the Philosopher King thesis, Aristotle maintained that the rulers inevitable will display bias toward their own interests. Furthermore, in order to solve that problem, it is necessary to create a system where the power-holders have minimal incentives to oppress other groups of people.

Aristotle correctly observed that oligarchy allows the rich to pilfer public resources and depredate the wealth of the polis. Conversely,  if the poor are to have their way, they will oppress the rich. On the other hand, if the middle class were to seize power, they would have no reason to oppress either class. While the members of the middle-class are not any less self-serving than the poor or the rich, they can act as the buffer between the competing class interests. In the interest of creating political stability, it is always desirable to expand the middle class and this should be the key objective of any economic or political agenda.

John Stuart Mill developed the distinction between offense and harm, maintaining that the state should intervene only if one individual directly harms another. However, a mere offense is not a legitimate cause for such an intervention. Consequently, the left’s arguments that their opponents threaten the marginalized groups’ right to exist should be regarded as complaints about offensive speech, rather than as harmful action. Yet, because these instances do not involve a direct call to violence and cannot be regarded as a cause of hate crime, there is no reason for the offensive communicators to be censored. Accordingly, all statements that do not directly harm others are to be regarded as free speech and should be allowed under all circumstances.

Although the principle of freedom of expression may have intrinsic value, its practical benefits cannot be overstated. In the absence of vigorous public debate, the Philosopher King thesis will remain entrenched in the nation’s collective consciousness. If the authority of the leads is not subjected to rigorous scrutiny, corruption, mismanagement of public resources and adherence to misguided doctrines will occur. As a result, the public’s trust in institutions will decline, as the official state ideology will be treated as a “dead dogma” rather than as a living truth. That is precisely what happened in various Marxist-Leninists states of Eastern Europe and Latin America where the economy collapsed, the public lost respect for the rule of law and the commissars could only rely on brute power to enforce their unearned authority.

Aristotle’s criticism of Plato’s Philosopher King thesis is correct in all respects. However, above all, politics should be treated as a practical craft where knowledge is gained in an a posteriori fashion. Consequently, the study of politics should bear a closer semblance to the scientific method than to the one that is employed in the ideological motivated departments of academia. It is not a coincidence that the most vehement opponents of free speech seldom reside in the departments of the natural sciences or that of rigorous humanities, as serious scholars recognize the importance of free inquiry and academic freedom. Conversely, the worldview of the PC ideologues would collapse if tolerance for the diverging viewpoint was part of the culture of their community.

University campuses are the focal points of the anti-free speech activism and several steps can be taken to redress this problem.

1.      Defund the ideologically motivated departments: Much of the curriculum in courses on Women’s Studies, Gender Studies, Queer Studies and Transgender studies are predicated on a denial of scientific facts about biological gender and genetics (https://steemit.com/news/@manuel20/news-post-number-1-2961). In most cases, these courses do little to help students think critically or to learn the basic facts of reality. In most cases, they are scholarly fronts for left-wing activism that teach students to jump to conclusions, offer emotional responses to complex issues and to vilify their opponents. For these reasons, such courses invariably debauch their minds and contribute to the precipitous decline of the intellectual caliber of the student-body.

2.      Support various initiatives that promote viewpoint diversity on college campuses, Jonathan Haidt’s Heterodox Academy is the case in point (https://heterodoxacademy.org/author/jonathan-haidt/).

3.      Collaborate with individuals who intend to expose professors who abuse their authority to push a political agenda in class. (http://www.businessinsider.com/professor-watchlist-aims-to-expose-leftist-propaganda-2016-12) Of course, it will be next to impossible to track all purveyors of such demagoguery, but the most egregious of perpetrators can be identified and exposed.

4.      Defund non-profits that are known for their opposition to freedom of expression. Additionally, organizations that tend to make a promiscuous use of derogatory epithets such as “racist, sexist, homophobe, transphobe, white nationalist” and so on, should be kept under closer supervision. For example, the SPLC labeled Charles Murray as a white nationalist because his findings on IQ suggested that European-Americans tend to outperform African-Americans. Murray’s contention was supported by a wealth of data and nearly all psychometrists acknowledge the existence of the racial gap with regard to the IQ test-scores. That is a well-documented fact, although most psychometrists maintain that 40 to 80% of one’s IQ is a result of genetic factors (http://www.intelligence.martinsewell.com/Gottfredson1997.pdf) It is necessary to question the culture and moral authority of organizations that are more concerned with promoting a political agenda than with educating the public.

5.      Discourage others from majoring in ideologically motivated fields and persuade new college students to enroll in universities that are known for their viewpoint diversity. Jonathan Haidt’s Heterodox Academy will prove to be an invaluable resource in this respect.

6.      Oppose all political proposals to increase funding for universities or expand the availability of federally funded student loans. Once college students begin paying tuition on their own endeavor, universities will be forced to become more sensitive to the financial needs of the students. As a result, the tuition rates will drop and less funding will be available to the Politically Correct departments. Consequently, the universities will need to focus on the truly essential courses that appear to impart practical skills onto the learners.

7.      Oppose grade inflation. Various prestigious four-year universities admit more than half of their undergraduate applicants. For example, George Mason University boasts a 69% admission rate and 84% of applicants who wish to enroll at Marymount University are admitted. Likewise, Michigan State University accepts nearly two-thirds of applicants, as their admission rate is 65.7%. An abundance of underqualified students creates enormous pressure for administrators and instructors to lower their standards. As a result, these circumstances create the preconditions for the emergence of entire academic departments where students can pass with flying colors merely by toeing the party line.