How universities are killing thinking
Thursday, February 11, 2010 On The Free Society website today ... Professor Dennis Hayes, founder of Academics for Academic Freedom, offers a guide to the arguments that academics, including students, use to kill open debate and critical thought.
He writes:
Open debate, discussion and hence critical thinking in the academy are now notoriously limited ... Attempting to reach a wider public audience for your ideas is considered ‘popularising’ or ‘polemical’. This is a wonderful defence for the obscure, uninteresting and dull ...
Less well documented is the increasing influence of the ‘student voice’ in killing critical thought with the cry that this or that argument, viewpoint or idea is ‘offensive’. Such infantile pleas for censorship are eagerly supported by the bureaucratised academy of which free thinking students’ unions used not to be a part.
Today the student-centred university and the censorious National Union of Students are aligned in opposition to critical thought. Not all universities and not all students’ unions are complicit in killing critical thought but the general trend towards desiring not just a physically safe but an intellectually ‘safe’ academy is there.
Full article HERE.
Reader Comments (9)
Its Politisisation of the "educashun" system .
They think like all the despotic governments before they came along that they can modify the behaviour of the young to their own ends.
It usually fails.
As for SU activism of the wrong kind that is a problem simply because in the flawed politics of democracy ,very often those who shout loudest get heard.
i.e.
You could just imagine Harperson with a banner and dungarees shouting "shexshist pigs shexshist pigs".
Know what I mean ?
I am so glad I am a sixties child with my own mind.
Know what you mean Specky, about being a 60's child!
I was thinking today when I heard umpteen ads on the local radio for the local university - what happened to the University of Life?
In my experience, the majority of with degrees, especially those more recently out of uni, that both my husband and I have had to work with, might have the piece of paper saying they passed an exam, but they have absolutely no common sense or any idea of how life really works! It does make things so much harder for the rest of us!
I was born in the 1960s and attended uni in the early/mid eighties. When I was at uni we were taught how to think and individual thought regarding, for example, literary analysis was rewarded and promoted. The changes, however, actually make it more difficult for the 'proper' university types of today because their individuality and freedom of expression are stifled.
As the daughter of an electrician and a weaver, and granddaughter of a corporation sewerage worker, I was taught how to tie up my bootlaces and received a slap/chastisement or both if I failed to do so, and rightly so! It breaks my heart, now, to see the educational world in the mess/state that it is in and the awful situation I find myself in, barely able to scratch a living. I was brought up with a very strong work ethic and believed I would improve myself by passing my examinations at school and university. Many years on,I now realise that I am a miserable free-thinker who has been thrown on the scrap heap in my own country. As a smoker, I've been thrown out of public houses etc. and I feel, now, that I do not belong anywhere.
What made me laugh at the time was that many of those who sold 'Socialist Worker' in the Students' Union building and screamed the loudest often had the poshest voices and obviously had not done a hard day's graft in their lives. It makes me weep, as well as making my blood boil, that these are the folks who are now in charge of us, ruining our lives and directing our destinies - and look at the consequences thereof?! :(
I agree with much of what you say Jenny, with the exception of your perception of what exactly a "posh voice" entails.
What do you actually class as a "posh voice"? Do you mean someone who has taken the trouble to learn how words should be pronounced, as opposed to someone who pronounces the letter "T" as a "D"? Or sometimes doesn't even pronounce it at all?
I know that some people seem to think that a London accent is "posh", with the exception of Eastenders of course. I personally cannot stand hearing people put on a "Mockney" accent, usually in the hope that others will think they are "cool" if they speak "lark dat...ya no wot ar mean?"
As for anyone that speaks "posh" never having done "a hard day's graft in their lives" that is just ridiculous. Where I live, we have a team of dustmen - bin-men, whatever name you want to call them, who incidentally emptied our bins this morning, and I often have a few words with one of them, who speaks absolutely perfect English, what you might term "posh", and I can assure you, that this guy has certainly done a lot more days "hard graft" than many of your so called Mockneys.
Peter, I think what Jenny means, is wealthy middleclass kids from private schools who never had to worry about where their next meal came from or if their parents would be able to afford their full term uni fees. What we now call celebrity socialist students, who went on to govern us.
As regards the dumbing down of universities, I think it has more to do with the dumbing down and planting of uni professors and teachers for purpose!!
Or - continuing Jenny's theme of the Middle Class Fun Revolutionary:
I well remember a self-proclaimed 'card-carrying Communist' at a certain law College in the late Eighties - name of 'Claire' - who proudly boasted that she was carrying offers of employment (as a trainee solicitor) from THREE of the top commercial law firms in London.
I congratulated her on her courage in resisting the seductive attractions of life in an East End Law Centre (with all those deserving Proles, positively gagging for her high-minded ministrations on their behalf), and opting instead for the GHASTLY prospect of an immediate salary around 50% above the national average - and a Porsche just down the road.
Well, I suppose it was ONE way of combating the evils of 'Thatcherism'.
You've got to admit it: your typical 'marxist' is nothing if not versatile - and the best Revolutionary that money can buy.............
Sincere apologies Peter and all - just got back and read the comments and I realise the implications of 'posh voice'. What I was meaning was young people from very well-off backgrounds - rather like Ann kindly explained - compared with proles like me who obviously spoke with a Yorkshire accent!! One thing which annoys me immensely today is the adoption of the 'estuary accent' (another topic!). It's the way people behave towards each other that matters, and not necessarily how they speak although I draw the line at listening to continual swearing and 'f' words because I, personally, would prefer to listen to a better vocabulary range. I'll try to choose my words more carefully in future.
Jenny -
Please STOP apologising !
It's perfectly OBVIOUS what you meant: Middle Class Youth affecting the voice of Solidarity With The Workers.
Probably grew up in the mean streets of Guildford (the notorious 'Stockbroker Quarter'), or the Lower East Side of Virginia Water.
Have a natural sympathy with the 'Working Class' because:
a) They once spoke to Daddy's gardener, and
b) Watch 'Eastenders' regularly, and have 'The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropist' on their reading list.
OPENLY despised Margaret Thatcher for her Conservatism and Supply-Side Economics (whatever THAT is), but SECRETLY despised her for being the daughter of a shopkeeper and having an attractive hair-do.
A Walmart Mentality in a Benetton Jumper.
In short - NuLabour in the making.
Yep - know 'em well.
We used to call 'em "Champagne socialists", the worst example of the genre being Viscount stansgate ( aka Tony Benn)