The WWII soldier who died fighting for the "precious ideals" of liberal arts education

[anon29537550]

@simonize

Are you really suggesting that people should not be free to found colleges and universities?

based on the “University” of Austin?
University of Austin - Wikipedia

The proposal for a University of Austin was described by Gabriella Swerling in The Daily Telegraph [16] as “anti-cancel culture” and by Alex Shephard in The New Republic as “anti-woke”.[22]
According to the university’s website, they plan to not use race, gender, or class in their admissions decisions, stating this is because the school “stands firmly against that sort of discrimination”.[7]

yeah, probably a good idea to limit this ability.

[anon61221983]

@anon29537550

based on the “University” of Austin?

Also, Trump “University”… but sure… the private sector can do everything better… I mean, there are so many sci-fi films dedicated to showing us just how wonderful the future dominated by corporations will be! /s

[anon67050589]

The fact that the fascists have been actively trying to eviscerate public education for decades now, and are doing everything in their power to force private education instead — which is so much easier to manipulate to satisfy their dangerous ends — makes it clear that a free society needs public education to stay free.

The example I always point to is Hillsdale College. That is a cancer they are actively trying to spread throughout our higher education.

[simonize]

@gracchus

That’s a major leap from what she’s calling for.

I don’t think it’s a big leap from

@anon61221983

Private universities should be made public,…

That sound like nationalization to me.

[anon61221983]

[Malarkey]

I was a business major at the University of Delaware in the late 1970’s / early 1980’s. I took as much liberal arts as I could - German, English, Political Science, Film, Ceramics… When I did my Junior and Senior check-outs, my Advisor told me I was one of the most well-rounded students on his roster. And I thought I was just satisfying my curiosity.

[jhbadger]

Only because making it more challenging would require actual understanding of mathematics and chemistry. Which weren’t required by non-majors, and no, the trivial high school versions don’t count. Which is different the other way. I took real history of science courses. The same ones history of science majors took.

[chenille]

@jhbadger

They were shallow to the point of being useless and maybe even worse than useless because they didn’t explain how biology knows what it knows and made biology look like a series of random facts rather than a way of thinking.

@jhbadger

Only because making it more challenging would require actual understanding of mathematics and chemistry.

It feels like you are arguing with yourself here, huh?

[FGD135]

@anon61221983

We figured out how to fund public education to the grad school level in the Cold War.

Back when rich people and corporations actually paid taxes (not that much, but still…) and hyper-rich people didn’t really exist yet.
Hmm, I wonder if there is some sort of connection here?

[anon61221983]

@FGD135

Hmm, I wonder if there is some sort of connection here?

[anon23281680]

@anon61221983

many administrators are also on board with those demands. The “corporate” university model has started to get lots of sway among administrations of public unis

Political appointment have an impact on this. When a public university system’s board of regents is appointed by right wing governors or neo-liberal corporate shills, this kind of thinking gets baked in at the top. Which then oozes down into who gets hired and promoted for the top admin positions, which oozes down to mid-level administration.

Also re: liberal arts degrees cannot lead to careers that make lots of money:
A good 4/5 of the people I knew in law school had a liberal arts degree. Most lawyers don’t make the gobs of cash people think they do, but some do and the rest are mostly middle to upper middle class.

[simonize]

@anon61221983

Oh no that shit. Not that “government is the problem shit”… I just can’t with that. Private industry, which ONLY cares about making money is patently worse. In housing, in health care, in education.

I would say that the biggest failing of the government is that is has been unable to meaningfully take on the powerful big money interests that have a stranglehold on healthcare in this country. We have nibbled around the edges which has resulted in a profoundly fractured health care “system” in this country. Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, the ACA, CHAMPUS, the IHS, and more. And I don’t just mean the biggest failing in health care, because our inability to have an effective health care system IS the biggest failing of government. I am not arguing that for profit healthcare is good, but that the government has been minimally effective in reigning in its evil.

@anon61221983

That’s because most health care is run by private corporations. Most other western countries don’t have this problem because they don’t let corporations profit off people’s illnesses the way that we do. You know, because they understand just how morally repugnant it is.

We’re in agreement here. Really I suspect that we would agree that for-profit enterprises play too large a role in education and healthcare. The insistence on trying to reform them to operate “more like a business,” ignores just how much self-dealing and corruption is usual in big businesses.

But then I was not the one saying that the government should treat education more like it does healthcare or housing.

@anon61221983

But we do. what do you suggest, that we tax the rich and do nothing with it? continue to let shit fall apart?

Perhaps if we taxed the rich more heavily, we could borrow less from them to make up the difference between government revenues and outlays. Because debt payments (largely to the wealthy) are an increasing percentage of federal outlays over time. And interest paid today for yesterday’s borrowing can’t buy the sorts of public infrastructure that only the government can do. Government budgeting isn’t exactly like household financing, but it is similar in that borrowing to fund capital expenditures isn’t a bad thing. Getting a mortgage to buy a house that will last longer than the mortgage and provides the benefit of housing in the mean time is a rational and prudent (depending on the purchase price vs equivalent rent) thing to do. Similarly, getting bonds to build schools or bridges is perfectly rational things for the government. However, living beyond ones means and papering over the difference with credit card debt is not a good idea and neither is having yearly operating expenses greater than revenues. At least not when the debt is growing faster than the economy.

@anon61221983

WTF does that mean? I mean part of the reason why academia has been under attack is due to the number of women and POC who are there now.

Those attacks are largely from the OUTSIDE, not the administrators at institutions of higher learning.

[TornPaperNapkin]

Oh come on it’s not that hard. I majored in the performing and visual arts. I took the science classes for majors because I don’t like being bored.

In retrospect, maybe I should have listened to the prof who wanted me to switch majors but I didn’t. Oh well. I made choices based on my values at the time I suppose.

I would say I entered University with a deficit in education around math and science to some degree but the gap wasn’t that hard to bridge.

Math isn’t that much harder than music, you just learn the idea of a thing and then practice it until you can use it on the fly… which covers most learning ime.

Lab classes are fucking fun. Following rules around tools isn’t that far from shops and studios. Art majors should understand that.

Some people will find one aspect or another particularly hard but there’s tutoring and study groups etc.

Still… if dumbasses like me could muddle through I’m sure other arts majors could too!

I would also say the main difference I see between humanities and STEM culture is this:

Humanities people understand that the sciences and resulting technological advancements are a key aspect of our species survival.

Science people seem not to understand that the humanities are also key to our species for any particular reason or that there is any value in studying humanity via any other lens than STEM.

That is the main difference I perceive, having navigated both worlds poorly all this time since.

[anon29537550]

I have a brother who straddles both of those worlds quite successfully. I think he would agree with you wholeheartedly.

[TornPaperNapkin]

I really have to question where and when and why it is that “science” and “humanities” became viewed as two opposing ideologies competing winner-takes-all for pedagogic hegemony. I think part of it also is the sustained anti-science campaigns launched by educated religious zealots and so on too. The inherent cliquishness of academia… Maybe this is just generational too as millennials have to reconcile these ways of thinking with our own children’s educations and futures now more and more etc.

*And your brother has my total respect for being successful in navigating the schism!

[anon61221983]

@simonize

I would say that the biggest failing of the government is that is has been unable to meaningfully take on the powerful big money interests that have a stranglehold on healthcare in this country.

Dude… that’s a choice. WE once did that. Not perfectly, not entirely, but corporate interests were much more regulated during the 50s and into the 70s. Reagan and the GOP changed all that. There was also a shift in the capitalist system in the 70s to neo-liberalism. A single payer system would really help. We know how it’s done, because many of our allies have done it.

I’m honestly over peoeple saying we can’t do big programs like this, because we have done so in the past and we can do in the future if we make the choices for that.

@simonize

I am not arguing that for profit healthcare is good, but that the government has been minimally effective in reigning in its evil.

Right. By choice. Neo-liberalism.

@simonize

Really I suspect that we would agree that for-profit enterprises play too large a role in education and healthcare.

Yes. And again, that’s due to choices made to deregulate and privatize, at the very same time that the field of medicine was getting ever more complex and complicated.

@simonize

The insistence on trying to reform them to operate “more like a business,” ignores just how much self-dealing and corruption is usual in big businesses

I’m sorry, but that’s literally what I’ve been arguing here, that the government stepping out of regulation has led to this exactly.

@simonize

Perhaps if we taxed the rich more heavily, we could borrow less from them to make up the difference between government revenues and outlays.

@simonize

Because debt payments (largely to the wealthy) are an increasing percentage of federal outlays over time

The debt goes down in the modern era every time we’ve elected a democrat as president (with a democratic congress) and up with tax cutting republicans. Clinton balanced the budget and left office with a surplus. So, we should start electing people who are better at running the economy and keeping us out of debt, and that’s not the party that touts itself as the party of “fiscal responsibility” but whose only trick they have is “cut taxes”. Running a government takes money. Until we have a different system of reproduction that will be true. Everyone paying their fair share actually helps and allows us to run public programs that increases wealth, as the president likes to say, from the bottom up and the middle out.

@simonize

Government budgeting isn’t exactly like household financing, but it is similar in that borrowing to fund capital expenditures isn’t a bad thing

No, it’s not. For one, a household can’t print money and regulate the economy.

@simonize

At least not when the debt is growing faster than the economy.

You DO know it’s going down, right?

@simonize

Those attacks are largely from the OUTSIDE, not the administrators at institutions of higher learning.

There are internal attacks, especially in states dominated by the GOP.

[anon61221983]

@TornPaperNapkin

I really have to question where and when and why it is that “science” and “humanities” became viewed as two opposing ideologies competing winner-takes-all for pedagogic hegemony.

Primarily from the folks who wish to return the humanities to the white male elite, have women at home, and have POC doing all the manual labor.

[simonize]

@anon61221983

Dude… that’s a choice. WE once did that. Not perfectly, not entirely, but corporate interests were much more regulated during the 50s and into the 70s. Reagan and the GOP changed all that. There was also a shift in the capitalist system in the 70s to neo-liberalism.

True, but for most Americans health insurance, and therefore healthcare has been linked to their employer since WWII and that hasn’t changed. Just saying “it’s a choice,” doesn’t really help to figure out why the rest of the industrialized world has changed and we haven’t.

@anon61221983

A single payer system would really help. We know how it’s done, because many of our allies have done it.

A spark of agreement here. Single payer would be an improvement over the current system, but then just about anything would.

@anon61221983

The debt goes down in the modern era every time we’ve elected a democrat as president (with a democratic congress) and up with tax cutting republicans. Clinton balanced the budget and left office with a surplus.

No. The budget deficit has gone down with Democrats. That is to say that the ADDITIONAL amount of new borrowing has gone down. Only for one year under Clinton did the actual accumulated debt go down.

@anon61221983

So, we should start electing people who are better at running the economy and keeping us out of debt, and that’s not the party that touts itself as the party of “fiscal responsibility” but whose only trick they have is “cut taxes”. Running a government takes money. Until we have a different system of reproduction that will be true. Everyone paying their fair share actually helps and allows us to run public programs that increases wealth, as the president likes to say, from the bottom up and the middle out.

I agree with this, but I’m not sure what reproduction has to do with it.

@anon61221983

You DO know it’s going down, right?

Except as I pointed out, the debt level of the government is not going down. The debt to GDP ratio (which is probably a fairly accurate measure of how difficult it is to service that debt) however WAS trending downward until Reagan. So we can agree that repeated tax cuts on the wealthy have left us as a country in a worse place.

Gross Federal Debt as Percent of Gross Domestic Product

Even though debt did not decrease between 1945 and 1980, the economy expanded and made that debt easier to pay for. Since 1980 the trend has been upward with a jump in 2020 because of the near collapse of the economy due to COVID. The government was spending more and taking in less. I would guess that the reason it has not gone down significantly since, despite the recovery, is that the gains in the economy have largely been hooverd up by Wall Street. We are now at end of WWII levels of debt to GDP but the countries that are our main economic competition are not recovering from having their industry and infrastructure destroyed. That means that we are unlikely to be able to grow our way out of current debt the way that we did after the war. Especially since the baby boomer cohort is retiring, which means the Social Security Trust Fund is redeeming bonds that it has from the treasury.

@anon61221983

There are internal attacks, especially in states dominated by the GOP.

I will admit that I probably don’t see this as much because I live in a blue state. One that still makes significant (albeit not keeping up with inflation) investments in higher education.

[anon61221983]

@simonize

but for most Americans health insurance, and therefore healthcare has been linked to their employer since WWII and that hasn’t changed.

I’m aware, as Lizbeth Cohen wrote an excellent monograph on that history - making a new deal - one of the issues she talks about is health insurance and how we ended up going with that model rather than universal care that other western states ended up with:

Lizabeth Cohen's Publications

But that ignores the changes to health care since the 70s. It’s more expensive, and the division of labor is more complicated. And insurance has taken over a larger share of the economy than in the past.

It’s STILL a choice we can make to do something different.

@simonize

doesn’t really help to figure out why the rest of the industrialized world has changed and we haven’t.

They went in a different direction at the same time we settled on private insurance. That’s a dissertation’s worth of discussion, but it’s different because we made different choices than our European allies.

@simonize

The budget deficit has gone down with Democrats.

Oh well, clearly the GOP is better at economy then… /s

Should I point out that running the largest economy in the world is a complicated thing, but shrinking revenues WILL NOT HELP. That’s the entire policy that the GOP has to offer. Tax cuts. It makes NO sense…

And if your budget is out of whack, a good deal of that is likely down to the largest single sucker of tax payer dollars, the Pentagon.

What I’d argue REALLY matters is how well people do under each party’s tenure, and it’s crystal clear that that is the Democrats (at least since the Kenney/Johnson era - FDR, too, but he was unwilling to go the distance on integration, so…).

@simonize

but I’m not sure what reproduction has to do with it.

Meaning how we reproduce the means of our existence as a large system… As long as we’re still mired in a capitalist system that threatens all of our health and well-being, it’s going to be chipping away at the worst aspects of it to benefit the most people. Neo-liberalism is the opposite of that - imposing the most draconian market forces to benefit the few as opposed to redistributing the wealth for benefit of all of us.

@simonize

Except as I pointed out, the debt level of the government is not going down

And that will not change until we bring in greater revenues via taxation. Tax the wealthy, and we’ll be in much better shape.

@simonize

Even though debt did not decrease between 1945 and 1980, the economy expanded and made that debt easier to pay for.

Adn this was better under Democrats than republicans (at least since Nixon).

@simonize

Since 1980 the trend has been upward with a jump in 2020 because of the near collapse of the economy due to COVID.

And Reagan’s tax cuts, and Bush’s war on terror, and Trump’s tax cuts, etc…

@simonize

The government was spending more and taking in less.

Because of tax cuts.

@simonize

That means that we are unlikely to be able to grow our way out of current debt the way that we did after the war.

Because we keep giving money away to the already wealthy.

@simonize

I will admit that I probably don’t see this as much because I live in a blue state.

It’s the absolute truth. It’s less true in blue states, but it’s happening everywhere. Liberal arts and especially the humanities are seen as luxuries for all except the most elite at the ivies. We ignore that at our peril.

[Mister44]

Re: Colleges too focused on just your education as it relates to employment:

Granted I didn’t know shit from fuck when I was 19-20, but left to my own devices I would NOT have taken several of the arts courses I ended up taking because that is what my counselor selected. I don’t know if she was just filling slots or thought it would round out my education, but looking back, even though I will probably never do several of the things I did (ceramics, jewelry/metal work, lithographs), I am definitely more well rounded. I didn’t really think I NEEDED those classes, but in hind sight I am glad I did.

Oddly, I have less of an attitude about it when it came to non-field required prerequisites, math, English, science, history, etc.