Leaving the Blight of Higher Education: Part II–Farewell, Faculty

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | January 8, 2021 | Thomas Bertonneau

[karpov]

The previous essay dealt with the moral decline of the student body in higher education—one of the motives behind my recent retirement after three decades of teaching college English. When I began teaching, most of the English faculty members, including the chair who hired me, had earned their doctorates in the late 1970s.

They were oleaginous liberals, naturally, but they were also ladies and gentlemen of actual education and considerable high literacy. They took it for granted that the purpose of a literature program was to bring to life in students the Intuition of Form or Imagination about which George Santayana writes in his Sense of Beauty. According to Santayana, “Imagination…generates as well as abstracts; it observes, combines, and cancels; but it also dreams.”

Imagination, Santayana writes, involves spontaneity; it strives toward “the supremely beautiful.”

As the Old Guard went into retirement, a cohort of new assistant professors filled the department’s tenure-track lines. The new phase of aggressive affirmative-action recruitment ensured that this replacement-generation of instructors, overwhelmingly female, differed starkly in character from its precursor-generation.

The new hires came to the institution from the politically radicalized graduate programs of the state universities. Whereas the Old Guard corresponded to a literary-generalist or dilettante model—terms that I use in a wholly positive way—the arrivistes brought with them only their narrow specialisms, as encrusted in their conformist political dogmas.

Mention Santayana to the Old Guard and chances were good that any given one of them would be familiar with the drift, at least, of the philosopher’s work. Mentioning Santayana to an arriviste produces a blank stare.

[chajin]

When I began teaching, most of the English faculty members, including the chair who hired me, had earned their doctorates in the late 1970s. They were oleaginous liberals, naturally, but they were also ladies and gentlemen of actual education and considerable high literacy. They took it for granted that the purpose of a literature program was to bring to life in students the Intuition of Form or Imagination about which George Santayana writes in his Sense of Beauty.

I obtained my DMA in 1977. I was a McGovern liberal at the time, but my attitude towards music was similar to the attitude towards literature described here--and still is, that classical music in general (including the classical music of India, Japan, and the Mideast), along with the best of popular music, is capable of presenting the deep thoughts of humanity, and that this is something desirable. (This is also the attitude of people as diverse as Hermann Hesse and Mark Steyn, among others.) Reagan, along with growing up politically, took me from the dark side, though that lost me my first wife, who is still an unrepentent leftist in her elder years.

Luckily for me, I am still able to fly under the radar, in large part because my teaching at present is limited to online introductory courses to students in nursing programs, and enlisted mililtary. I still have to attend the annual online reeducation camps concerning wokeness, but I am able to smile, nod, and move along. I won't be teaching much longer, but whatever infiltration I can accomplish, I will continue to do.

[PerConPat]

Professor Bertonneau’s observations are precise, and his logic is inescapable.

[choctaw man]

I retired from ‘higher ed’ teaching in 2017...’higher ed’ is a sewer of liberal propaganda; conservatives keep their mouths shut in hopes of getting tenured in order to do what they love: teach their subject matter to students (not propaganda)...that said, happy to be away from that mess...

[Bob434]

I’m betting the obiden reign of terror is going to go after homeschooling now

[BEJ]

Teaching music to nurses? Music used as therapy?

I was going to audit a classical course on music theory but after reading some of the books included in the outline a lot of it goes into feminism and other postmodern approaches. That to me really narrows the talk and there is no longer the idea that art can be free of gender or that it expresses anything universal. I don’t mind that there are specialists but they, especially in this case, gets into absurd regions with no thought to the bigger picture. Or they start using their specialty as political cudgels to bash “colonialist/sexist oppressors.” So much for beauty and any humanitarian appeal. Its a damn shame.

[con-surf-ative]

Sad but accurate commentary. It has become impossible to engage in a discussion, much less an argument with the products of this vacuous system. There is no common premise from which to discuss. Even reason itself is rejected as a valid mode of persuasion or argumentation. We are all ultimately led to the same place as Professor Bertonneau— we just give up.

[Albion Wilde]

“The contemporary university forms nothing...it deforms: It stunts, connives, deprives, confuses, and misleads; it rallies neurosis, corrupts language, lifts incompetence into rank, scorns merit, and pats envy on the back, all the while enriching itself by charging extortionate fees for its systematic malpractice.”

[Widget Jr]

I am going back to school in the Seattle Colleges system and this is true. Students catch on to it, too.

[chajin]

Teaching music to nurses? Music used as therapy?

Part of the BSN gen ed requirement, though I go into using music as therapy and also discussing looking for pop music addiction in nursing diagnoses.

I was going to audit a classical course on music theory but after reading some of the books included in the outline a lot of it goes into feminism and other postmodern approaches.

I make sure each "module" has references to women composers and/or performers (e.g. Barbara Strozzi for the Baroque, Marianna Martines for Classic era, etc.) and pointing out the homosexuality of Tchaikovsky and Copland, among others. OTOH I also talk about the effects of Christianity on Baroque composers, how Liszt turned his life around at 50 (referencing Dave Mustaine as a modern example), and similar infiltrations.

[aspasia]

This moral certitude poisonously inveigles everything that novice college instructors undertake.

And you thought going to church was no fun . . .

[BEJ]

It’s good incidental historical knowledge but I can’t personally believe that sex plays a great part in creativity. What I mean is that by listening to a piece of music you can’t say that a woman wrote it or a homosexual wrote it (unless there are lyrical references). Music, I believe, can transcend sexual distinctions. Like Paul referencing that there will be no sex distinctions in heaven, that we will shed our worldly body. Yes, music is cultural but it also transcend this world and gives us beauty. Beauty is hot related to gender in any way that I can see. It is a transcendental which escape the bound of earths.

Dave Mustaine! I met his bass player in a guitar clinic. Apparently, he is a preacher in Arizona and a cool guy. Maybe he helped Dave. But it is amazing that Megadeth can flip into something wholesome. A conversion like Paul on the road to Damascus? I talked to the bass player about the negative imagery and tone of Megadeth and whether it was just a youthful rebellion thing. He said at his age he still likes the form and energy. Almost like Christopher Lee’s appreciation of the energy of metal when he was 93 — God bless his soul.

[tbw2]

Use the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) college rankings on free speech to determine the least liberal schools in your area to send your kids to.