Why Academia is Going Down In Flames

For one, the bread and butter of the institution - published, peer-reviewed print materials - has been fucking dead for like twenty years. Let's get over the Gutenberg problem right off the bat - the democratization of publishing that the printing press allowed, and which they feared would destabilize the tradition of scholarship, has manifested digitally... and summarily managed to do the job by just bypassing words altogether.

How has this happened? For one, media is no longer communicated in words. Marshal McLuhan was trying to sound that alarm bell, but he wound up sounding like a... well, a crazy alarmist. But his message (depending on what medium through which you encounter it [I know someone is going to appreciate that joke... and it's also true]) that we have to treat the source of our information as part of the consideration of what is being said is only more and more resonant in contemporaneity.

In fact, it's exactly one of the reasons why the entire institution is going down in flames. People don't trust experts because it's too easy to find "contrasting opinions" to validate your personal interpretation of literally any subject. Since the only remnant of our prior dependence on the printed word as ultimate arbiter of truth is the vague notion that if someone took the time to publish it, there must be something to it, there is a shocking equalization of opinion that occurs when consumed by the populace. Yes, those who "know better" recognize the relative dubiousness of the claims being made, but they don't really have any power over anything.

That's really the second thing - Academia forgot something: you have to have real, material ties to the political process in order to confer power. Sure, it's great that we've tried to remove the corrupt, dirty old men in power (TM) who have been cronying their influence for the past hundreds of years, but who is mediating that process? Other, dirtier old men in power.

Cont.

When you submit to the profit motive (which virtually all higher institutions of learning have done over the past decade or two, even if by subtly replacing their tenure tracks with adjunct and part-time positions), you buy into the game of money-making.

And education will never make money.

It's not supposed to.

Academia forgot what it was.

Sure, maybe it's a necessary transformation, and even better things will come...

The answer is academic, though, because the money's going to break the institution.

Fuck, I don't know, man. I just feel really empty inside. Like, I just didn't expect life to turn out like this. I'm not tryna blame my parents, but I really didn't know what the fuck to live for other than some stable, heteronormative relationship. I never had no religion. I never had no higher purpose. They were just "seekers." Well, so am I muthafucka... now what the fuck are we seeking? Enlightenment? Great - even if I've been there, how the fuck am I supposed to convince other people of that, and what would I tell them if I could? Ain't got no stigmata; I'm just some dude. I don't really matter in the long run, I guess, and all the feedback I thought I received was just some ego-driven interpretation to convince myself that I have any importance at all in the universe. That has to be a non-zero probability, right? But if it is, then there are only two possibilities - 1) no one and nothing matters; or 2) something matters. And whatever matters is in control, and therefore I would have to be some pawn of greater forces... which means that I have significance in a way I cannot understand.

Thus, either my choice has no significance, because nothing means anything, or I can choose 2.

Is this not logically sound?

I feel you, my dude. I used to believe in Academia. Now I can't help but look at it like yet another cabal trying suck money out of me. Now I'm thousands of dollars in debt to an institution that I don't trust anymore for a degree that's losing its value by the minute. Not sure where to go from here. Seems like no matter what, I won't be satisfied with how my life turns out

make hip hop music

Didn't finish reading because OP's rant is poorly put together and sounds like a crazy person.

That said, maybe Academia should go down in flames?

Not really. His point is simple, let me put it for you

"Academia is failing because there are limited positions in the institutions and people are losing faith in the validity of certain subjects"

You can take this to mean anything you want, but especially in humanities this applies.

The obvious big ones that spring to mind are those concerned with Evolutionary Biology or Psychology.

On the note of the profit motive, Colleges have an enormous incentive to maintain low standards. From a business perspective, the worst students are some of the most profitable. Sure, successful individuals that consider the University in high regard may donate; however, their endowments seem to come as much from pandering to identitarian groups.

Because of this, schools take on many under-prepared students. This is made worse by social justice policies. These seem rooted in the belief that a college education can somehow help a student that cannot read going in. Because just failing these individuals would be racist, elitist, or what have you. (plenty of retarded whites out there don't start shouting pol at me) Their diversity zoo is another non price form of competition between schools for that matter. Anything to make the stary-eyed incoming Freshmen coo.

So Professors are left with a dilemma.The ones that do still care that is. Either pace your course for students actually prepared for college or try and catch up the laggards. Move too slowly, for the sake of the bottom (Mariana Trench) of the class, then the actual students will become completely disengaged from boredom. Move at a rigorous academic pace, befitting of students that can read and write above a 5th grade reading level, then the bottom of the class will become demoralized and disengage. For this reason, schools jam ever more general courses into their degree requirements. In effect, the first year or two are remedial high school level classes.

Many businesses actually now require writing tests for their applicants. That a college diploma proves much of anything about an individual, such as the barest writing proficiency, they can no longer take it on faith. All it does prove is that the applicant in question was fortunate enough to trick someone else into paying for their overpriced young adults day camp adventure or fool enough to incur debts.

I don't give a shit anymore.

I also really hate the elitism of it, though - like, why should we assume that people *should* seek higher education? It should always be available, but we have utterly fucking failed to provide any reasonable option other than the military.

So, if you're young, and in America, at least (which, although it may be a tire-fire of human garbage at times, has managed to do some pretty neat things), you're being told you either have to adhere to the whims of the institution to confer some note of basic ability on you, or you can go do push ups and learn to shoot a gun.

So, either colleges need more viable vocational alternatives, or the armed forces needs to drop boot camp.

Or fuck this country and let's form a new one. I'm really sort of done right now, so that's starting to look like a better and better option.