Critical of Critical Theory?

R.R. Reno is.

Many have pointed out the gray ideological homogeneity of what passes for
critical theory. David Horowitz has amply chronicled the rigidity and
intolerance of the contemporary professoriate. Others have noticed that the
preening theoretical vocabularies of contemporary cultural analysts tend toward
rhetoric rather than argument. Back when deconstruction was the rage, John
Searle wrote a devastating analysis of the gimcrack posturing that was being
passed off as profound argument.

Yet endless theoretical elaborations of suspicion remain a growth industry all the same. “Truths are fictions whose fictionality has been forgotten”—it continues to be said in a thousand different ways. The reason, I think, is simple. Critical theory plays a significant and important role in contemporary society: it de-mystifies and de-legitimates inherited beliefs. It is not, as some critics would like to think, simply
Leftist ideology. Nor is it nonsense dressed up in fancy French words. These
days critical theory is an intellectual project, the main goal of which is to
show that conventional ways of thinking are hopelessly naïve, if not malign and
corrupt. It is a deck-clearing operation—not to prepare students for truth, but
to prepare them for life without truths.

Pope Benedict has called this mode of pedagogy a dictatorship of relativism. It is, of course, a soft tyranny. Nobody is imprisoning college students for having convictions. The dominant intellectual regime is satisfied with two basic strategies: continuous assault and a starvation diet. We take apart the belief-systems of adolescents with our multi-faceted and powerful modes of critical analysis—and we give them next to
nothing substantive to believe.

Discuss? I'd love to hear E.Go's thoughts on this.

End the University as We Know It

Mark C. Taylor writes,

GRADUATE education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans).

A great piece with plenty to evoke conversation and debate. Though it breaks my heart a bit to suggest tenure be phased out before I've had my own chance to abuse - cough - embrace the system :)

PFFFFTTT goes the Fun

Says Jennifer Gardy, of (I admit it) my next to favourite blog. Over the years as undergraduate counts soar, degrees become more competitive, and employment becomes less sure the "fun" has slowly been leaking out of Canada's campuses. While her measurement of fun is fairly narrow - consisting of mostly beer and the opposite sex - it is undoubtedly a proud tradition of fun that Canadian Uni's have been well known for. What happens when students stop pranking? When they stop hitting the sauce, debating and creating things that sharp thinking mature adults never would? Is this a critical step in adolescent creativity, discovery and exploration that has gone missing, and is our education more impoverished for it?

The Academic Underclass

At least a few of us may find of interest this piece, coming out of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, pushed in the Calgary Herald and National Post: Universities with higher part-time profs lead to lower graduation rates.

Picking up off the York strike, the article argues that the battle lines - while drawn around typical issues of salaries and benefits - were also drawn along the new classes of the academic world: namely the so called permatemp profs.

The idea is basically that in an effort to save money, university admin watch tenured (re: expensive) baby boom faculty retire, and replace their course load with cheaper, temporary profs. From the article, "sometimes likened to WalMart workers, these PhDs, part-time lecturers, and teaching assistants often perform tasks that tenured professors do not - or will not. But in recent years, the tension around this underclass is coming to a boil."

And therein lies the spiral. Many Canadian Uni's require substantive publications, postdocs or research grants - all of which are difficult if not impossible to attain without institutional support; a support that is less and less forthcoming.

I'm not quite sure how to move on an issue like this. The article argues that these academic conditions are leading to lower graduation rates, and poorer education - which seems it could well be. What are next steps to restoring the academic and pedagogical grandeur of the Canadian university?

Testing the Test

I recommend the daily updates from the Chronicle for Higher Education, though only if you know how to create rules in your Outlook (these emails are indeed daily). A recent piece I found interesting on Testing the Test. I can't be the only doctoral student who loathed the process of writing the GRE (Dave I still have your GRE prep book!) - though not in English lit as this article discusses.

As I recall I did well enough, but the only school that required it was Notre Dame, which I didn't end up attending. Furthermore, the cost of the test is nearly prohibitive these days and schools give only peripheral attention to (some) standardized tests.

It seems to me that the GRE is a relic of the swinging 60's and the positivist 70's, and it's time to retire it. Surely CV's, recommendations and writing samples are far better indicators than whether I can accurately recall my Calculus OAC class.