Philosophy Professor: ‘Don’t go to College! Become an Electrician.’

I don’t think you should send your kids to any universities. [I told] my daughter, “Don’t go to college. Become an electrician.” I never would have imagined 10 years ago that I would [say] that. … It’s better to stare at a wall … [or] do nothing than to learn things that are false. -- Peter Boghossian, former Philosophy Professor Portland State University, Feb. 28, 2023

It is astonishing when a liberal philosophy professor tells people, including his own daughter, not to go to university because they have become “indoctrination mills.” Many other types of professors can make a living outside universities. However, there is no real market for specialists in Kant’s transcendental deductions outside the university. With slight exceptions, philosophers have little choice but to work in universities. So, when Prof. Boghossian tells his own daughter not to go to university, he must believe that universities have become dangerously unhealthy. Although Boghossian cites Harvard, Yale and Oberlin as “non-starters”, he says that all universities have been destroyed by “woke” nonsense and should be defunded. University people, Boghossian says, “live in make-believe land.”

Boghossian was one of the professors who exposed the lack of academic standards in a set of “woke” journals in the 2017-2018 “Grievance Studies affair,” also referred to as the "Sokal Squared" scandal (referring to a similar case in 1996 perpetrated by NYU physics professor Alan Sokal). James Lindsay, Peter Boghossian and Helen Pluckrose, using pseudonyms or borrowed identities, submitted absurd papers to journals in culture, race, gender, fat, and sexuality studies to test the integrity of their editorial peer review process.

One of the articles by M. Smith (pseudonym) was titled "Going in Through the Back Door: Challenging Straight Male Homohysteria and Transphobia through Receptive Penetrative Sex Toy Use"

One of the articles by M. Smith (pseudonym) was titled "Going in Through the Back Door: Challenging Straight Male Homohysteria and Transphobia through Receptive Penetrative Sex Toy Use" was published in Sexuality & Culture in 2018. Another was by Richard Baldwin (borrowed identity) "An Ethnography of Breastaurant Masculinity: Themes of Objectification, Sexual Conquest, Male Control, and Masculine Toughness in a Sexually Objectifying Restaurant" was published in Sex Roles in 2018. Another paper which consisted in a rewriting using feminist jargon of passages from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf was accepted by leading feminist journal Affilia – which tells one about all one needs to know.

The hoax was exposed when a Wall Street Journal writer became suspicious and began asking questions. By that time four of the papers had been published, one had won an award, three had been accepted but not yet published, six had been rejected, and seven were still under review. This highly successful record for getting deliberately absurd papers published, including a feminist rewriting of parts of Mein Kampf, seems to support their view that many of these “grievance” journals operate with little to no real academic standards. Needless to say, the “grievance studies” sector of academia were none too happy at being exposed.

“I do a lot of home repairs but electricity and plumbing I will not touch. A repair man did a couple of things at our house, cost $50 an hour $200 minimum. Had to wait 4 days for him, said he was putting in 10 hours a day and could not keep up. Just doing basic home repairs.”

Just turn off the water and power first. Use PEX and a good wiring diagram...but stay away from the 220.

What happened to Trump’s apprenticeship program?

I, personally, hate a career push in any direction. We should expose young folks to all of the various careers.

What we should push, though, is personal responsibility and tell them it's up to them to do the research on which careers are good for them. Before they leave high school they should pick a career, have talked to people already in that career, asked them what it's like in real life in that field, and the kind of training that's good to get the student into that career, then research the costs and time needed to get there. If they don't like that career then pick their 2nd favorite career and repeat the process until they find a career they're willing to do what it takes to get into.

Don't ask the school counselors (high school or trade school or college) how to get out of the academic bubble they've chosen to stay in. They've chosen to make a career out of school. The high school student should ask the people who'll years later the student will want to hire him. They are best suited to tell the student what training to achieve to get their attention. Those are the people the student has to impress anyway, so might as well ask them ahead of time which path to take to get there. That's what I did. And I don't think it genius; it's common sense.

Before I finished 11th grade I iterated through 3 career options, asked the people already in those fields what it's like and what it took to get where they are, and picked one. Programmers told me which training was good (back then it was a BS in computer science from a handful of colleges they suggested, all of them picking the same college as their #1 pick). I did as they suggested and accepted my first IT position in the weeks between finishing school and the graduation ceremony, starting out at what today is the equivalent of $60K to $65K, in low cost of living Sweet Home Alabama.

I do a lot of home repairs but electricity and plumbing I will not touch.

Electrical I will do if it doesn't involve the breaker panel or crawling around in the attic. I will do some plumbing if it doesn't involve soldering. Not going to trust my work on that. I have done it under the tutelage of someone who knew what he was doing. Saves a ton of money. Is it code? Dunno, but the lights and receptacles still work and the fans come on when I need them. Mostly replaced switches, receptacles, ceiling fans, and running wire for a hot tub (120 not 240).

One’s career should be something that pays the bills and that one can stand to think of doing for 40 years (although they may not do it for that long).

The whole “find yourself,” “do what you love and the money will follow,” and “you should find fulfillment in your career” philosophy has really messed up a lot of people.

I feel bad that I did not figure all this out before my children went to college or I would have done exactly what you recommend!

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.