We have previously discussed the rising anti-intellectualism in the GOP race from the rejection of basic science principles to the demonification of academics and higher education. Rick Santorum this week ramped up on the attacks on colleges and universities with a speech that seemed to call for voters to avoid supporting — or even attempting — college. Santorum appears to be proudly embracing the pledge of Will Rogers that “America is becoming so educated that ignorance will be a novelty. I will belong to the select few.”
Santorum explained to an enraptured audience in Naples, Florida how “the left” long ago took over universities to indoctrinate young people for the purpose of “holding and maintaining power.” It was all part of the plan of the liberal overlords, he suggested, and “we’ve lost our higher education, that was the first to go a long time ago.” Now, Obama is pushing college which Santorum portrays as a type of entry drug to liberalism:
“It’s no wonder President Obama wants every kid to go to college,” said the former Pennsylvania senator. “The indoctrination that occurs in American universities is one of the keys to the left holding and maintaining power in America. And it is indoctrination. If it was the other way around, the ACLU would be out there making sure that there wasn’t one penny of government dollars going to colleges and universities, right? . . . If they taught Judeo-Christian principles in those colleges and universities, they would be stripped of every dollar. If they teach radical secular ideology, they get all the government support that they can possibly give them. Because you know 62 percent of children who enter college with a faith conviction leave without it.”
Santorum, therefore, called on true Republicans to stop giving money to colleges:
“I’ll bet you there are people in this room who give money to colleges and universities who are undermining the very principles of our country every single day by indoctrinating kids with left-wing ideology. And you continue to give to these colleges and universities. Let me have a suggestion: Stop it.”
It was a truly Palinesque moment of attacking those who would challenge GOP positions with facts or history. Now the race to the bottom is complete with a call to just say no to education and to embrace doctrine as truth. Of course, this is not a new idea. Mao Zedong launched a Cultural Revolution based on the same notions:
Although the bourgeoisie has been overthrown, it is still trying to use the old ideas, culture, customs, and habits of the exploiting classes to corrupt the masses, capture their minds, and endeavour to stage a comeback. The proletariat must do just the opposite: It must meet head-on every challenge of the bourgeoisie in the ideological field and use the new ideas, culture, customs, and habits of the proletariat to change the mental outlook of the whole of society. At present, our objective is to struggle against and crush those persons in authority . . . and repudiate the reactionary bourgeois academic “authorities” and the ideology of the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes and to transform education, literature and art, and all other parts of the superstructure . . .”
Now this is not meant to accuse Santorum of plagiarism: you would only learn about the Cultural Revolution in those colleges that he wants us all to avoid. I can deal with the re-education camps, but I am a bit afraid of what Santorum will select as his Little Red [State] Book. If it is Sarah Palin’s America by Heart : Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag, I will be the first to turn in my colleagues hiding in the attic.
Source: CBS
“There seems a disconnect between the common sense meaning of the term, and the sociologically puffed up version.” (DonS)
… and the “political” buzz word.
As Blousie cues, C. Wright Mills was explicitly talking about the political-military-celebrity nexus of “elites”, the POWER elites of his time (and ours?).
I think our host’s elite status can be gracefully acknowledged with the confidence that it has not gone to his head : )
There seems a disconnect between the common sense meaning of the term, and the sociologically puffed up version.
Dr. Michio Kaku weighs in on American education with some pretty horrifying stats, horrifying if they’re anywhere near correct:
Absolutely, Blouise. I think he said he prepped at the Latin School.
Idealist707: “With Obama (there is no real other choice) it is fascism after four more years; not tomorrow. And he might let us keep Medicare, etc., which is unlikely with the Republicans.”
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The President in the SotU address again called for a grand bargain. He is such a weasel.
“Let’s criticize the “liberals in name only” who we believe have sold out. Let’s get specific about who they are and not paint all members of the left with the same broad brush.” (Elaine)
Very well said.
“The Power Elite ” (1957) by Charles W Mills gives an excellent breakdown of the elites and one should be careful how the word is tossed around especially as the host of this blog fits into several of the various “elite” categories.
“(Elaine) Very well said. “The Power Elite ” (1957) by Charles W Mills gives an excellent breakdown of the elites and one should be careful how the word is tossed around especially as the host of this blog fits into several of the various “elite” categories.”
Blouise,
He wrote that 55 years ago and it still describes today.
Hephaestus.
How is it they say: I can’t describe it but I’ll know it when I see it.
Well, your report from academia smells for real.
Tony C:
Your post at 5:40 pm on grade inflation etc. is a good one. I face that in my research when dealing with technicians who have an undergraduate degree to boot! It is as though they have gone through courses mechanically and obtained a piece of paper called a degree.
All this talk about elites is a bit confusing. As far as the money thing, which is the defining feature of American/Calvinist elect, it a pretty shallow measure by most intelligent persons lights. No? I mean, “making it” in terms of power and money is really a definition of materialism, so I understand why some here may worship that god.
Regarding “intellectual” elite, that’s on virtually nobody’s radar, except in academic circles.
What’s the big deal about “making it” into a good school from a ‘lowly’ background. Are people here so naive as to believe socioeconmic and geographic distribution doesn’t play a part in reserving slots as prestigious school for those NOT YET in the elite. This may be one of the elite’s way of preserving the myth that the US is really a class transparent society, which it’s not.
I would like to see someone make a convincing argument that when it comes to the political elite — which is really about anyone who get’s elected — that the present money-infused system either promotes a progressive democracy or reflects the surfacing of some demonstrable superiority and virtue.
Re Hedges, where much of this discussion started, he seems to be doing about everything he can to disavow and play down the path and perks of one who at least should be a mainstreamer, judged by education and professional journalistic accomplishment, at least if one judges his world view is anathema to mainstream elites.
Finally, it’s not hard to note that politicians who some revere, some detest, like Bill “stain on the blue dress” Clinton, or Tom “shakedown” Delay, really strain the argument that the term “elite” has much common sense meaning. I think really the whole elite business revolves around envy of one sort or another because, except in social morphology terms, it’s pretty senseless.
Mike S.
Also thanks for the JBS-Ron Paul information and video. I did not know that he had given a speech to that organization as recently as 2008!! And people still rationalize that away in the hope that he will be a savior to this Republic. I am now fully convinced where this man is coming from. The evidence is now overwhelming.
Hephaestus:
Thanks for an insightful, albeit chilling, analysis.
Personally, I think the problem with education is that it is so important! 🙂
Because it is important, everybody wants to control it, and nobody wants to accept that their kid is sub-average in anything, so the entire educational system ends up thwarted, there are so many people making decisions that teachers cannot really do anything except teach to the bottom 10% of the class, and that bottom has less to work with every year.
The result is runaway grade inflation, and definite degree inflation, and definite skill deflation. The schools have become baby sitters, the kids have become bored, and the nation is poorer for it.
The fact is that it is impossible to preserve teaching standards without standing up for them, and standing up for them would mean grading absolutely, not relatively, and letting a lot of kids flunk. But for a lot of teachers that would mean literally risking their career. I do not blame them for not doing that, it is our fault (society’s) for putting them in that situation; they should have absolute protection against punitive actions by principals, school board members, politicians or others in power.
Complaints against teachers do need to be judged, but if it is not a matter for the real civil court system, then they should be judged by a randomly selected jury of their peers, meaning other active teachers, not unilaterally by principals or other superiors that may be cowed by political, social or financial pressures.
The problem with our education system is that everybody wants to force the outcome, that their kids “passed with good grades,” regardless of whether that attribution continues to mean anything or not.
Santorum’s critique, like pretty much everything else he says, doesn’t even make enough sense that I care to argue it. I’ll just say you can avoid most of the PC BS if you just pick the right major and choose your courses wisely in my experience.
However, being a PhD student and surrounded by academics there is something important that people are missing about the whole “everyone should go to/attempt college” idea that I’d like to put out there:
Half of all the children are below average.
If you want EVERYONE (or even say the top 90%) of high school grads to go to college, you have to REALLY alter what college is and how it is taught to deal with the, bluntly put, decreased raw intelligence of the students. You only have two real choices to do this:
The brute force way requires universal dumbing down of standards across the colleges, which in turn only further enhancing the growing reality that college is mostly an extremely expensive degree mill.
The second option is an intellectually graded college, which results in the “smart people” college programs/degrees/classes and the ones for “dumb people.” Colleges are already bloated and extremely overpriced, and this will only exacerbate it by making them accomodate people who really won’t get anything out of being there.
Already, about 40% of people get NO measurable increase in critical thinking and other general intellectual capabilities after 4 years at college (see Academically Adrift, a very large long term study), and for this they are incurring gigantic amounts of debt. It is even worse if they pick a lousy degree that doesn’t give them any directly applicable job market skills or specializations (e.g. any humanities degree of the form **X tribe** studies). My own experiences teaching undergrads as a TA at one of the top public engineering schools in the country has illustrated to me vividly that as currently stands about 20% of students that survive to junior year in aerospace engineering are so bad at math and critical thinking that to give them a degree for grinding it out is an intellectual travesty. Yet they still do…
That much touted salary benefit for having an undergraduate degree isn’t because it actually imparts so much value to the students that attain it; it has simply become modern practice that businesses use a college degree as a prerequisite filter to show you can trudge on through such things and come out the other side – i.e. a way to do lazy screening. It would be far better to reverse THIS practice of meaningless credentialing, and fix the cluster#*$@ that is modern academia with its soaring costs and administrative bloat than to try to shove everyone into a broken system…that will only make the problems harder to fix.
Forgive me if I haven’t read every post, but why does education need to be a federal matter? If was a state matter the schools would be dramatically less subsidized and prices would drop accordingly. The federal govt couldn’t mandate what every school was teaching so in a sense states could compete to have the best schools which would raise the standards for all schools otherwise they would not attract as many students. Obama’s idea of forcing children to go to school, is great on paper and makes a great sound byte, but let’s face reality, the US is virtually bankrupt, and as the “petro dollar” continues its steady demise, where does he think te funding will come from? More trillion dollar deficits? It’s simply ludicrous that people take this man seriously, education is a noble and just cause but theres no ones size fits all solution for everything, let the states compete, get the fed out of it. Secondly if my point isn’t clear enough as to why they shouldn’t be in education? Look at tuitions and grades since the almighty fed took over. “Socialism only works till you run out of other peoples money” M.T
Different points…….
Well, money is not all, there is caché which kept Wallis Simpson and her ex-Prince invited the rest of their life.
As for Clintons it was cash even back in Arkansas.
Yes, Pamela, fabulous woman. Google her, an amazingly long “career”, described somewhere.
Nixon was described last Spring by Chomsky as a “liberal”, the listening students at OWS demos in Boston (Youtube) laughed.
As for Chomsky, he fascinates me with his encyclopedic eidetic recall of our sins around the world, when spontaneously answering student questions.
And he points so well to the spin, illusions, etc. used to delude us…..repeatedly.
Mike, I have drawn the same conclusion from my limited knowledge.
I have no credentials other than a late awakening to the delusional scene which they paint, and repaint, etc. I’ve always needed guidance of other malcontents with sharper eyes to confirm my doubts.
With Obama (there is no real other choice) it is fascism after four more years; not tomorrow. And he might let us keep Medicare, etc., which is unlikely with the Republicans. As for the OWS, no one is prepared to die for freedom here; BUT the elite are quite prepared to kill us.
I don’t think there’s a need to recite the list of the last decades’s preparations.
I
“As for the OWS, no one is prepared to die for freedom here; BUT the elite are quite prepared to kill us.”
idealist 707,
Bingo! We’re on the same wavelength I think. In the 60’s I marched and marched, organized and organized, exhorted and exhorted. The Movement
leaders all talked tough and as Dylan wrote “There was Revolution in the Air”. 1968 came with us denouncing the “fascist pigs”, convinced that our Revolution was victoriously coming. First MLK, then RFK got shot, but onward we marched to the Chicago Convention. Lo and behold those Fascists really were Fascists and treated as one would expect Fascists to treat people. We of course used selective memory and denial to ignore the fact that our purpose there was exactly to cause the beatings and brutality we decried. The belief was magical thinking. Especially that the pain of the pawns would rally the country to our cause, it did the opposite. Then came Nixon, then came Ohio State, there the Movement died.
How easy it is to talk tough and espouse revolution, having the unspoken expectation that our epithets of Fascism aren’t really true and the “people”
will rally to our cause. It never works like that. The only violent revolution possible today will be led by the Aryan Nation, KKK, JBS and others of that ilk. They’ve got the guns and the insane belief in their own inevitability. God,
or some other cosmic force, forbid they win. On the other hand the revolution of the fascists may come in peacefully, in the wake of an election.
I personally didn’t go to Chicago, but I marched in DC on many occasions and led many labor protests.. By 1968, as an activist in the most radical CS union in the country, I had learned that sometimes radical leaders were as loathsome as the “fascists” they were trying to replace. Maoists, Trotskyites, Communist Party, Black Nationalists, Anarchists were all around me, trying to entice me to their cause. I looked in their eyes, heard the humorless harangues and realized I would’t want to even “get high” with these people, who mainly only were “high” on their particular Party Line. They were mean and they were deceitful and they were as much “Authoritarian’s” as the Right Wingers I loathed. By the time Chicago came around I understood these people and had realized it was all show, no substance.
I didn’t go to Chicago to risk my limbs in a pointless exercise of egotism. Yet in my way I spent my career upholding the principles I believed in. As far afield as this thread has run my Masters is from an Ivy League School, on full tuition scholarship no less, but unlike those “radical leaders” I knew, I never sold out my ideals, nor leveraged my education into position and wealth. That whole argument as to who is elite is a false trail. Elite isn’t about money or social status, it is about people who have those things and want to trade it in for power, the ultimate aphrodisiac.
I want change. I want equality for all. I want society nurtured, not plundered.
I’m willing to openly state my beliefs, under my own name and to work peacefully towards changing this country back again to the ideals of the 30’s and the New Deal. We must remember though, that even then things were touch and go. Roosevelt had a similar SCOTUS limiting him, as we have now. The change I want is by today’s standards radical change, but it can be summed up as societal fairness for all. The problem is that we have to really be smart to pick our way around the propaganda barrage eloquently alluded to by Dredd in his blog. In the end, after this screed has tired me out, I leave you with other words from Bob Dylan, whose true meaning I urge you to ponder.
“Don’t follow leaders, Watch your parking meters”
The who’s who of the land of the Elite is not indicative of its nature.
Are you afraid to challenge its “science” or any other sacred cow within?
If not, then you have been swept away by an ad hominem tsunami.
Turn on it, not each other.
Dredd,
On the money as usual, especially re: PR.
Jill, I must be the exception that proves the rule, or whatever that saying is. I went to a very “elite” college and I still haven’t figured out how to consolidate any power.
idealist, I think the Clinton’s have F.U. money now.
@Idealist…..
Pamula Churchill Harriman?
Elaine,
I agree that there is a need for specificity in Jill’s comments.
Mike S.,
Today Nixon would be a moderate Democrat when compared to the radicals controlling the Republican party. A guy who agreed that there was a need for a strong EPA just wouldn’t be crazy enough for this crowd.