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Accountability education and schooling folly general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism responsibility

Quanta of Nonsense

Last month, two academics wrote a hoax paper. Their preferred journal didn’t accept it, but did suggest an alternative publication. They sent the paper to the recommended outlet, and it was published.

The paper? “The conceptual penis as a social construct.” The Skeptic provided an overview; Professor Gad Saad chortled over its sheer genius. Though a brilliant parody, as a send-​up of postmodern academic insanity it fell a tad flat: it was merely published online, and probably not peer-reviewed.

But before you could say “Western civilization is in the toilet and circling the drain,” an equally idiotic paper came to light, published in The Minnesota Review, and apparently offered in earnest by an academic working in “women’s and gender studies.” Entitled “Assembled Bodies: Reconfiguring Quantum Identities,” the abstract (worth reading in full*) does not mention truth, predictive power, or evidence to advance knowledge of physics. Instead, it pushes the “combining” of “intersectionality and quantum physics” to “provide for differing perspectives on organizing practices long used by marginalized people,” etcetera. Basically, the problem of physics is not that it is hard, but that it is “oppressive.”

Meanwhile, historian Tom Woods** discovered a University of Hawaii math teacher who admits to not finding math interesting. She blogged her confession about wanting white cis-​male mathematicians to quit their jobs “or at least take a demotion” and — if in a “position of power” — resign.

None of this is about the advancement of learning. What we see here is 

  1. a new racism — from non-​whites directed against white people — and 
  2. a new sexism — from women and others who are not heterosexual males directed against, you guessed it, heterosexual males

… all packaged in cryptic, pretentious, prolix nonsense.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* I found it quoted on the Powerline blog: “In this semimanifesto, I approach how understandings of quantum physics and cyborgian bodies can (or always already do) ally with feminist anti-​oppression practices long in use. The idea of the body (whether biological, social, or of work) is not stagnant, and new materialist feminisms help to recognize how multiple phenomena work together to behave in what can become legible at any given moment as a body. By utilizing the materiality of conceptions about connectivity often thought to be merely theoretical, by taking a critical look at the noncentralized and multiple movements of quantum physics, and by dehierarchizing the necessity of linear bodies through time, it becomes possible to reconfigure structures of value, longevity, and subjectivity in ways explicitly aligned with anti-​oppression practices and identity politics. Combining intersectionality and quantum physics can provide for differing perspectives on organizing practices long used by marginalized people, for enabling apparatuses that allow for new possibilities of safer spaces, and for practices of accountability.”

** In his daily email for Tuesday this week.


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free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Escape from New York

“New York City is a walled maximum security prison,” exclaimed posters for Escape from New York (1981, R). “Breaking out is impossible.” 

Now, as part of new legislation giving “free college” to New Yorkers, politicians take the same high concept from the film and extend it to the entire state. 

What, you ask, does Escape from New York have to do with free college? 

First, it’s not actually free college, but only free tuition for state and city colleges.* And note that tuition costs currently run less than half the price tag of room-​and-​board, books and fees. Moreover, the freebie is only for students whose parents earn less than $100,000 annually, beginning in Fall 2017. In 2018, the threshold jumps to $110,000 and to $125,000 in 2018.*

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a likely 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate, pushed the idea of bestowing free tuition in his State of the State address months ago. He also brought in Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who dangled free college during the 2016 campaign and has now introduced legislation in Congress.

But the Empire State Legislature amended the bill. Knowing full well the economic climate created by their previous policies, these venerable solons feared New Yorkers might take the free tuition, earn a degree and quickly move.

To someplace with jobs, perhaps. 

So, the legislation requires student recipients of the free money to remain in the state – not escape – for as many years as they received the free moolah. 

How will they keep graduates from leaving? Well, the movie trailer hyped that, “The bridges are mined. The rivers are patrolled.”

And those who leave also must pay back the tuition as a loan. 

If caught.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

 

* There’s also a subsidy program for those attending private institutions of higher learning, if those colleges match the $3,000 the State puts up.

** New York state ranks 16th in median household income, at $60,850 in 2014. Therefore, the cap will deny this benefit to quite a few upper middle class and wealthier families.


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Accountability education and schooling free trade & free markets national politics & policies responsibility

The Leading Edge of Higher Ed

“People are paying tons of money to be kept out of the real world … being taught by people most of whom have never even worked in the business world. It’s kinda crazy.”

Well, yeah. There’s a lot of crazy in modern college life.

Which is one reason to work around it. That’s what Isaac Morehouse — quoted above — has done.

Morehouse is the founder of Praxis. You may have heard him on The Tom Woods Show or seen him interviewed on Fox News. “The mindset of ‘obey the rules, follow procedures, chase credentials, chase grades, and wait to be told what to do and you’ll be handed this magical ticket to a job,’” Morehouse told Fox’s Tucker Carlson, “it’s just not true.”

His alternative is simple: leverage the apprenticeship idea, combine it with counseling and instruction, and arrange with participating companies a guaranteed job at program’s end.

Our college system deserves a failing grade. Colleges sponge away fortunes (often borrowed) from students, while neglecting to train them to do much of anything but … college work.

This means not only that college grads have trouble finding work, but, as Mr. Morehouse discovered before he hit upon the Praxis idea, there are many, many companies trying to hire competent workers, but unable to find them.

A market opportunity!! Praxis unites demand and supply, connecting companies needing smart, energetic, cooperative workers with willing, eager young folks seeking meaningful (and well-​paid) employment.

You can find a good overview of his effort — and a way to sign up! — at discoverpraxis​.com.

Praxis’s testimonials are inspiring.

As the future should be.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Categories
media and media people national politics & policies political challengers responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

Conscience Clear?

Today the Electoral College meets to elect the 45th President of these United States.

But if they fail to cast the required majority for a candidate, the contest goes into the House of Representatives, where each state gets one vote — Wyoming and California equally weighted — and a state’s vote can only be cast for one of the top three Electoral College vote-getters.

Of course, only two candidates won electoral votes, because only they won states. Donald Trump won 30 states comprising 306 electoral votes; Hillary Clinton won 20 states with 232.

That’s the arithmetic. But, as I explored at Townhall yesterday, nothing in the Constitution requires an elector pledged to Trump or Clinton to vote for that candidate.* They can vote their conscience.

That’s why in recent days, Nancy Pelosi’s daughter, Christine, a California elector, petitioned to have electors receive an intelligence briefing about Russian hacking — hoping to sway electors.

Her petition was denied.

Desperation showing, a group of Hollywood actors led by Martin Sheen starred in a Unite for America video talking down to — er, directly to — Republican electors. Asserting that the Electoral College was designed by “Hamilton himself” to prevent an “unfit” “demagogue” (they mean Mr. Trump) from attaining the presidency, the actors claim to “stand with” and “respect” GOP electors, who could be heroes in Hollywood (no honor more tempting!) if only they’d cast their vote for someone other than Trump.

Anyone! — who meets presidential qualifications. “I’m not asking you,” three actors in a row assure, “to vote for Hillary Clinton.”

As much as I support the idea of voting one’s conscience and as much fun as this election has been, I think we’ve all now had enough. Let’s prepare ourselves to help Mr. Trump do what’s right and stop him from doing what’s wrong … with a clear conscience.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Some electors do sign a loyalty pledge to the candidate and there are state laws, almost certainly unconstitutional, which penalize electors who do not vote for the candidate they are pledged to.


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Original (cc) photo by Crosa on Flickr

 

Categories
education and schooling folly free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

The Truth About Tuition

Subsidize something, and you tend to get more of it.

But wait, what if you subsidize demand for something, but don’t really allow (or continue to disallow) increased supply?

Then prices for that something go way up.

This is elementary economics — nothing controversial about it.

Except that politicians and bureaucrats who make public policy tend not to acknowledge this aspect of reality when they propose subsidies. Instead, they expect praise for their “heroic” and “caring” program of destruction.

They need to be educated. But, alas, all this applies best to college education. How does one educate the educators?

A new study, which reliable economists tell me is “sophisticated,” finds that the bulk of recent college tuition price inflation can, indeed, be directly linked to the federal government’s loan subsidies.

This study makes for some opaque reading, alas: “Essentially, demand shocks lead to higher college costs and more debt, and in the absence of higher labor market returns, more loan default inevitably occurs.” Yikes.

The college education bubble has been much talked-​about for years, at least amongst skeptics of government policy. But in hushed tones — the big fear, here, is that a bursting of the bubble will lead to — who knows what? I mean, who-​knows-​what policy reaction.

Probably just more government subsidy and control. And even higher tuition still. Double yikes.

Thankfully, while the brick-​and-​mortar higher education institutions suck up more and more government-​backed money, the Internet is enabling some great alternatives. The future, I think, does not belong to the university system as we have known it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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tuition, supply and demand, subsidy, government

 

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education and schooling folly

Learning Zone or War Zone

Given the stated purposes of the university — discovering, learning, teaching, engaging in open intellectual discourse — you might suppose that the pitched battles on campus would be primarily intellectual in nature. Persons set forth a view, others criticize it or elaborate a positive alternative, etc.

Open intellectual change, however heated, is indeed often what transpires.

But on many campuses, we also witness efforts to muzzle opponents of ideas or policies. The censors contend that disagreement as such constitutes a kind of assault on them, one from which their delicate selves must be forcibly and un-​delicately protected.

Thus, campus activists at Northwestern University have reported Professor Laura Kipnis for “sexual harassment” for arguing, in The Chronicle of Higher Education, that “Sexual Paranoia [Is Striking] Academe,” as exemplified by prissy new rules about dating, jokes, the simplest of standard human interactions. According to her accusers, her article somehow creates a “hostile environment” for students eager to impose not only a Victorian screen on dating and talking, but also a screen, or lid, on any discussion of the Victorian screen. It’s just one example of a syndrome that could be multiplied ad infinitum.

What to do?

One thing, if you’re applying to college: omit as a prospect any school rife with the politics of repression. Boycott the anti-​academic academy.

The second, larger solution: bypass the modern university altogether.

Modern technology can help with that. There are more and more ways to learn, and teach, with every day that passes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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College Safe Zones