The Decaying Evolution of Education...

[philosophygirl78]

I like the idea of there being the safety to encounter and engage controversial things as opposed to the current vision of safety from controversial things. If a student doesn't like something they should be well trained to produce a devastatingly well reasoned response that communicates directly with whatever entity originated the thing they didn't like. They absolutely need a certain amount of protection to practice interacting with things that in the outer world they will need protection from as well as how to question themselves.

That's the thing that has gone to the dogs, college offering students the security to think personally dangerous thoughts (even if it's only to reject them), argue things they don't believe in (even if it's only to find a way to communicate with people who believe different things) and connect with people they don't agree with (because that's going to be the world they'll be faced with). All that scary stuff!

Back when I was in college (20 yrs ago), it was a Great environment such as you speak of... I don't know now a days... I have worked in commercial real estate (aka the cream of the corporate Rat Race) for 15 years now and am ready for early retirement at 39.... I am thinking of going back to grad school and writing. It's amazing the enlightenment of purpose a condensed life can offer.... Who knows what I will find though... I fear I may be just as disappointed.

 

[LizzieMaine]

...and connect with people they don't agree with (because that's going to be the world they'll be faced with). All that scary stuff!

Ideally, the Internet itself would be a place where people could do that. Certainly here at the Lounge we have a wide range of thought represented, and most of us, at least, are able to handle our philosophical differences in a cordial and enjoyable manner. But I think the Internet -- as the real world itself -- has become increasingly dominated by bubble thinking, the tendency of people to isolate themselves in little intellectual bubbles where everybody thinks exactly the same way.

This is not just a "college thing," nor did it originate on any campus, nor are any fanatical professors responsible for it. Rather, it's been building steadily in every area of American society for at least the past thirty years, and for one reason -- it sells. The average college kid today has *grown up in a world* where you need read only websites that agree with your particular point of view, watch only TV channels that agree with your particular point of view, read only books that agree with your particular point of view, and, basically, limit your association only to those persons, either online or in person, with whom you agree. Don't like my politics? Unfriend me!

The kids didn't learn this way of thinking from college -- they learned it, by and large, from the world they live in. Not some spleeny "pee cee" world, but a world in which only WE and THEY exist. And they're going to live their post-college lives in a world where it's perfectly possible to have a functional existence without ever having a serious conversation with someone whose worldview is different from theirs. It's not the college kids I blame. It's their parents. The Boomer generation made this bed out of its own self-absorption -- and then they've got the nerve to blame their kids for sleeping in it.

 

[JimWagner]

It's not the college kids I blame. It's their parents. The Boomer generation made this bed out of its own self-absorption -- and then they've got the nerve to blame their kids for sleeping in it.

OK, that's quite a statement without you providing a single example of how the boomers "made that bed". Are you one of those people who think all, or even the majority boomers were hippies? Or that we were "free spirits" who didn't have traditional careers? Or any of many media fantasies concocted to sell the image? What do you even mean by the boomers are self-absorbed? How so any more than anyone else?

Frankly, I'm sick to my soul of all this "hate the boomers" crap. The largest cohort in American history paid all their lives into Social Security and now we get blamed for daring to want some of that back?

That's a pretty wide brush you are painting with there, Lizzie.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm a tail-end Boomer myself, and I've been paying into Social Security since I was thirteen years old. Does that qualify me to comment, or must I wait another ten years?

You need only look at the history of the past thirty years to see the way in which the Boomers, as the movers and shakers of society, the people in the boardrooms, the people running the show, have given us a mediascape which is exactly as I describe it: one in which every aspect of thought has its own little self-absorbed bubble in which to percolate. Do you believe in X? Here's your X church, your X radio station, your X cable channel, your X publishing house publishing your X books, your X bloggers with their legions of X commentors reinforcing how absolutely right you are to believe in X, and even your X colleges teaching your X worldview to a new generation of X, ad infinitum. This is *very much* a development of the Boomer era, and, I submit, a manifestation of the Boomer tendency to believe that its beliefs -- hippie or hard-hat -- are the standard by which all other belief systems must be defined. As a generation, yeah, I consider that pretty self-absorbed.

And now the Boomers who built this whole setup with their own hands are throwing their hands up in dismay over these ridiculous millenials who can't stand a point of view other than their own. Oh, my giddy aunt.

 

[JimWagner]

The mediascape, as you put it, is NOT the real world and never was. It is no more a reflection of the real world than 1930's movies were accurate depictions of the real world of the 30's experienced by real people.

Take newspapers, for example. In the heyday of newspapers each and every one had its editorial viewpoint and slanted the news to support that viewpoint. William Randolf Hearst is a prime example of that and considered to have been a major such influence. Ever hear of the Spanish-American War? And people read the newspaper they agreed with. Nothing at all new there now, is there? Boomers certainly didn't invent yellow journalism.

Nothing at all in what you just posted is unique to the last thirty years other than maybe the technology employed and I guess we boomers did in fact invent an awful lot of that technology.

Every single generation has its demagogues and Rush Linbaugh is nothing new. What is new is that such people can reach wider audiences more easily than ever before. And anyone with a keyboard can reach anyone else nearly instantaneously. Unfiltered.

Maybe the boomers enabled that through technology, but the educational system certainly doesn't look like it's kept up with educating the young to be critical thinkers able to deal with that information overload.

 

[MikeKardec]

Ideally, the Internet itself would be a place where people could do that. Certainly here at the Lounge we have a wide range of thought represented, and most of us, at least, are able to handle our philosophical differences in a cordial and enjoyable manner. But I think the Internet -- as the real world itself -- has become increasingly dominated by bubble thinking, the tendency of people to isolate themselves in little intellectual bubbles where everybody thinks exactly the same way.

All I know is my own experience. I live a reality where I can insulate myself from much of life but I do not have an existence where I can get away from things I don't like all that well. I'm also not highly motivated to unfriend the world I don't completely love because I have no tribe that thinks like I do to run home to. In these days of fragile connections and easy offense I'm sure that nearly any group could find a belief of mine to take exception to if they knew what I was thinking. If my experiences are any guide I'd say they are going to have to engage differences of opinion and lifestyle often enough and none of us know what the future has in store for our society.

I agree that the kids don't learn it from college, the behavior on campus seems to start sooner than it could possibly be taught. I just wish that they could UNlearn it in college but the schools seem dead set against that. They are an amplifier, not a mute. I actually feel for many of their professors who are getting attacked by student movements fairly commonly ... I also feel that there is some ironic justice in it too. Even if they are very political for the most part they believe in some academic openness and balance. The scariest campus organizations in my slight experience are the Residence Life administrations (the people who run the dorms etc) and their curriculum. My first take was "why would residence life even HAVE a curriculum?" In fact that was the attitude of a number of professors when we first experienced this. I won't go into it here but you could google: "University of Delaware Residence Life controversy" and see what comes up. With any luck the original document is still around though they took it down quickly at the college.

That particular issue is over, it was back in 2007 when I was doing more teaching but I suspect that UD was just the tip of the iceberg ... there were hints that similar stuff was a well kept secret in some of the schools I donated my time to. I've no qualms about controversial topics in class as long as they are allowed to be debated. I just don't like them in places where the price is social acceptance or ostracization.

Back when I was in college (20 yrs ago), it was a Great environment such as you speak of... I don't know now a days... I have worked in commercial real estate (aka the cream of the corporate Rat Race) for 15 years now and am ready for early retirement at 39.... I am thinking of going back to grad school and writing. It's amazing the enlightenment of purpose a condensed life can offer.... Who knows what I will find though... I fear I may be just as disappointed.

I doubt you'll be disappointed because you'll shop for the right experience and you can look out for yourself. It's the kids who only really figure out the college environment in their last year that I worry about ... and they tend to care more about acceptance of their peers and all the peripheral things to learning that we no longer take as seriously.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm quite familiar with the journalism of the Era -- I've written for publication about it, and the bound volumes of 1930s newspapers are still under my bed. I've also posted quite a bit here about the journalism of the period on the Lounge in various threads -- my antipathy toward Hearst, McCormick, Patterson, and others of that ilk are no secret.

But -- and this is the big difference -- it was far, far more difficult to isolate yourself in a tight little intellectual bubble in the Era. Broadcasting was highly regulated to ensure this -- between the Fairness Doctrine and network standards and practices, broadcast news had to be militantly neutral, and if broadcasters provided one point of view they had to provide *all of them.* If you provided air time to the Liberty League, you also had to, by law, provide the same amount time to Earl Browder or Farrell Dobbs or any other legitimate political group that asked for it. It wasn't optional, you could lose your license by failure to comply. Listeners could certainly turn off things they disagreed with -- but a good percentage of them, interestingly, if the surveys of the time are to be believed, didn't. A program like America's Town Meeting Of The Air routinely featured every possible point of view, from Fascist to Communist, and had a very strong audience across the board. And most importantly, *the host didn't slant or try to control the discussion.* Every particpant, whether William Z. Foster or Lawrence Dennis, got to say his piece, and members of the studio audience were required to conduct themselves in a dignified and respectful manner when questioning the participants.

Does that sound like anything that's on the air today? It doesn't to me. The Fairness Doctrine was gutted in the mid-80s and repealed entirely in 1987. That's just about thirty years ago. And not coincidentally, that's the point where the whole intellectual bubblification of the mediascape began to escalate toward what it's since become.

The mediascape isn't "the real world." But it is, in fact, the way in which all of us intersect with the "real world." We don't travel the globe ourselves covering the news and seeing everything that's happening first hand. We rely on media to do this for us - doesn't matter if it's a daily paper or a radio talk show or a blog, *it's still part of the mediascape,* and it shapes the worldview of every single one of us. Anyone who says it doesn't is either a liar, delusional, or a hermit living in a cave.

I contend that there is, in fact, *no* unfiltered news on the internet or anywhere else. Not one word, not one site. I consider "unfiltered" simply a dogwhistle term which refers to information that *that the speaker agrees with* with no critical commentary or questioning of the perspectives attached. The editor or blogger who posts the article is certainly applying a filter, and it's nearly always an ideological one. (I'd say "always" but I haven't read every news outlet and blogger online. But every single one I have read does apply some sort of ideological filter, whether it's in the articles posted or the editorial commentary around them.)

Part of dragging the Boomers into this, I have to admit, was to prove a point. The millenials are criticized by the Boomers for being unable to accept criticism of their points of view. But every time the Boomers are criticized, for anything, anywhere, anytime you can expect a chorus of HEY NOW WAIT JUST A MINUTE THERE! to arise. It happens here on the Lounge as regularly as the sunrise, and it happens in the Real World. So, I again suggest, before the Boomers take the splinter out of the Millenials' eyes, perhaps they should devote a bit of attention to the six-by-eight in their own.

 

[JimWagner]

Well, I certainly have to agree with you about what a disaster TV and radio news has become since the FCC backed off and the news departments were reorganized as part of the entertainment division with all that implies. As far as who was really behind that (meaning any particular cohort) other than the money boys I can't say. From what I understand from the outside looking in it was mostly about selling commercial time, which needs Nielsen numbers, and the news divisions historically lost money.

As far as unfiltered, per your use of it, information I think it's a matter of degree. There have almost always been various publications, magazines, organization media, etc. that have only espoused the point of view of the organization that published it. Nothing new under the sun there, except for the internet. I would say that there were very few publications that really tried to present opposite views, except when the opposite views were both different than the publication's views. There certainly had to be some exceptions, but I can't cite any of those myself.

Actually, I'm sure that any group that anyone here identifies with that gets hit with the broad brush will react about the same. It was my turn this time.

I'd bet that with very little effort I could get a massive reaction here by making some inflamatory statements about living in an imaginary past.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I can't imagine anybody ever coming on here and doing that.

 

[ChiTownScion]

BTW... the Fairness Doctrine was ruled constitutional per Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. Federal Communications Commission, 395 U.S. 367, 89 S. Ct. 1794; 23 L. Ed. 2d 371 (1969), and is still constitutional. The only reason it isn't in effect now is because of the policy established by FCC commissioners in the time (1980's) as Lizzie indicated. They could bring it back tomorrow, if they wanted to being it back. Personally, I wish that they would. The airways are a public resource and are regulated for the common good, broadcasters owning licenses subject to regulation in the public interest. That isn't a political statement: it's just the law.

 

[MikeKardec]

It seems to me we've always had a mixture of either centeredness or fringe and media that the mix has ebbed and flowed over the years. In the heyday of narrow point of view journalism there were lots of papers each with their own take and, quite possibly people's interests were more specific to their local surroundings and local economy. The country may have held more regional pockets of interest. Then, as mobility and communications increased, the idea of news for a general audience became more important. Just what I'm thinking about as I read all this. I'd have to actually do some research to figure out if I actually believed it.

Talking about the great period of fairness doctrine and general news, however, I'll relate the following story: I founded an educational non profit in 2003 that grew out of work with a sister organization that goes back to the 1960s. Back in the 90s, I believe we had Ben Bradlee in to speak among a host of others. A student asked him about political balance in the media and if the news was presented with a left wing slant. His answer was something along the lines of: No it's not left wing, we're just very wise about news and we know what's important for people to hear. Basically, not left wing but we're a lot smarter than the unwashed masses. I had always admired him and the Post and am sort of center/left myself but I was shocked at how arrogant and condescending his answer was (and I'm not doing it justice because I know I'm not repeating it exactly) ... actually, I shouldn't say shocked ... that's wrong. In those days I was working in Hollywood and making TV movies and the same disrespectful attitude I saw from TV executives toward their audience was echoed in his answer. I just wanted him to be above it.

The internet can bring you exactly what you want to hear or it can provide a bewildering set of alternatives ... I experiment constantly but it's more democracy than I really have the time for. I usually go for NPR, if they have a prejudice I know what it is and can "read between the lines." The internet is amazing but it's also the great hatred machine ... hard to have the arrogance to say the world should live without it, though. I wish people could take a class on living WITH it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's as I said. No journalist is "neutral." No human being is "neutral." Some are just better at presenting a convincing facade of neutrality than others.

Broadcast journalists in the Era chafed at the requirement of official neutrality -- some, like Walter Winchell, got away with being opinionated, flamboyant characters on the air by presenting themselves as entertainers. Others, like H. V. Kaltenborn, learned to present their opinions in a couched manner -- rather than say "I believe thus and so," he would say "It is said in some quarters that thus and so." Kaltenborn left CBS in anger in 1940 after he was told he wasn't concealing his opinions sufficiently and went to NBC, where the Broadcast Standards office was willing to be lenient with him.

Given my own beliefs, which are unapologetically labor-lefty, I have no choice but to read media I disagree with, because they don't print the Daily Worker anymore. That being the case, practically everything in the public media seems slanted to the right to me -- which points up another thing. Slant is as much in the mind of the person receiving the news as the one transmitting it. We all tend to perceive our own points of view as the "correct" ones, and tend to identify slant by the degree with which any given media disagrees with us.

 

[Harp]

BTW... the Fairness Doctrine was ruled constitutional per Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. Federal Communications Commission, 395 U.S. 367, 89 S. Ct. 1794; 23 L. Ed. 2d 371 (1969), and is still constitutional. The only reason it isn't in effect now is because of the policy established by FCC commissioners in the time (1980's) as Lizzie indicated. They could bring it back tomorrow, if they wanted to being it back. Personally, I wish that they would. The airways are a public resource and are regulated for the common good, broadcasters owning licenses subject to regulation in the public interest. That isn't a political statement: it's just the law.

A constitutional challenge would be probable due to the lower standard applied by the Court in Red Lion; Justice Brennan's acknowledgement
in FCC vs League of Women Voters of California, 468 U.S. 364 that the doctrine itself was tenuous and subject to reconsideration.

 

[p51]

A college diploma is indeed now what a high school diploma was, say, in the 60s or 70s. You can get by without one but you gotta work 4 times as hard to get the same job (if at all).

After WWII an uncle of mine went to UT Austin on the GI Bill. It paid full tuition for four years, books and school supplies issued free, plus a generous stipend. That's the difference between a popular war and Vietnam. When I got back from Vietnam and went to college I got a stipend of $250 per month. It would have soared to $275 when I got married, but they would never believe we were married no matter how many times I submitted the documentation. For some reason everyone seems to remember the civilian population treating the returning Vietnam vets like crap. What I remember was how the government screwed us at every opportunity.

The funny thing was when I went through Army ROTC, they paid us a monthly stipend. the silly thing was it hadn't changed at all since Vietnam. The amount that used to pay your monthly rent and a lot of your food, by the time I came along, was just beer money and nothing more. Seriously, they hadn't raised it in several decades and as far as I know, they still haven't raised it. And this is for people who would be serving their country as soon as they graduated.
Worse still, I was 28 when I pinned on, and then there was a cutoff age for scholarships. Nobody could explain why, but you can't get a scholarship if you're done after you're 25 years old. So, I went through all that, on my own dime, when I had better grades and a tougher major than all but one of my peers in my year group for commissioning.
I still carry some bitterness over that.

 

[MikeKardec]

The funny thing was when I went through Army ROTC, they paid us a monthly stipend. the silly thing was it hadn't changed at all since Vietnam. The amount that used to pay your monthly rent and a lot of your food, by the time I came along, was just beer money and nothing more. Seriously, they hadn't raised it in several decades and as far as I know, they still haven't raised it. And this is for people who would be serving their country as soon as they graduated.

When I worked in the fiction magazine biz in the 1990s we still paid rates similar to what my father made when he was writing for the pulps in the 1940s ... it's no wonder writers don't care about doing short stories any more.

 

[Fading Fast]

When I worked in the fiction magazine biz in the 1990s we still paid rates similar to what my father made when he was writing for the pulps in the 1940s ... it's no wonder writers don't care about doing short stories any more.

Fitzgerald used to fire off short stories all the time to make a buck (there is speculation that his wife wrote some of them and then they used his name as he got paid better and those two were always burning through money), but that was a pre-TV age. Today, with TV and all the digital options, very few people seem to read short stories. That said, it seems that there must be more opportunities for TV script writers as there must be a billion new shows on everything from network TV, obscure cable channels and now companies like Amazon and Netflix. My guess is the writing opportunity has shifted.

 

[MikeKardec]

I could take us wildly off topic on the subject of TV writing! Let me just say that while the opportunities have increased in the last 30 years (the era in which I broke in, worked a bit, and then escaped that business) it's still a very small, interconnected/incestuous, world where the number of people who can get things done or even be hired to do the drudge work is as severely limited by the powers that be as possible. It's sure better than the era that led up to the 1990s, however, you are right about that.

If there is one breath of fresh air in the world of writing it is the rise of Direct Published ebooks which are a HUGE market. Many fail in that area but the success stories are significant and the amount of money being made (by the entire market, not each writer) is so large that the people who are doing it (like Amazon) and the people who aren't (the 4 to 5 major publishers) are both keeping it a secret for opposing reasons.

Back to education: I studied film at what is now a top film school (California Institute of the Arts), it was a bit goofier when I was there. But many of the other disciplines taught there like Dance, Theater and Music set extremely high standards just to remain past your second year. Those people were animals, highly motivated and fiercely creative. They inspired the rest of us who had slightly more laid back areas of study.

Students both inspire and instruct other students, more than half my education came that way ... it had to because we joked that in some of the schools if you did enough drugs and had enough sex they give you a diploma. Of course, whether it was true or not, that joke was also a good sign. It meant some of us were focused enough so that we thought goofing off was a joke. But I never really saw that kind of focused attitude among the students I later taught.

The majority of my students expected to make the documentary that would save the world from itself "next year," without having learned much anything. Some of them were admirably working very hard to stay in school but I rarely saw anyone working very hard at their studies. This may be just a certain group, I taught in film programs places like Colorado and Arizona, not LA or NYC. But many film students tend to attract narcissists and film schools tend to teach a certain narcissistic attitude ... I was one of them and it took a good deal of getting slapped around for me to get my perspective back!

 

[philosophygirl78]

I could take us wildly off topic on the subject of TV writing! Let me just say that while the opportunities have increased in the last 30 years (the era in which I broke in, worked a bit, and then escaped that business) it's still a very small, interconnected/incestuous, world where the number of people who can get things done or even be hired to do the drudge work is as severely limited by the powers that be as possible. It's sure better than the era that led up to the 1990s, however, you are right about that.

If there is one breath of fresh air in the world of writing it is the rise of Direct Published ebooks which are a HUGE market. Many fail in that area but the success stories are significant and the amount of money being made (by the entire market, not each writer) is so large that the people who are doing it (like Amazon) and the people who aren't (the 4 to 5 major publishers) are both keeping it a secret for opposing reasons.

Back to education: I studied film at what is now a top film school (California Institute of the Arts), it was a bit goofier when I was there. But many of the other disciplines taught there like Dance, Theater and Music set extremely high standards just to remain past your second year. Those people were animals, highly motivated and fiercely creative. They inspired the rest of us who had slightly more laid back areas of study.

Students both inspire and instruct other students, more than half my education came that way ... it had to because we joked that in some of the schools if you did enough drugs and had enough sex they give you a diploma. Of course, whether it was true or not, that joke was also a good sign. It meant some of us were focused enough so that we thought goofing off was a joke. But I never really saw that kind of focused attitude among the students I later taught.

The majority of my students expected to make the documentary that would save the world from itself "next year," without having learned much anything. Some of them were admirably working very hard to stay in school but I rarely saw anyone working very hard at their studies. This may be just a certain group, I taught in film programs places like Colorado and Arizona, not LA or NYC. But many film students tend to attract narcissists and film schools tend to teach a certain narcissistic attitude ... I was one of them and it took a good deal of getting slapped around for me to get my perspective back!

"it's still a very small, interconnected/incestuous, world" - YEP. with a couple of the major players being the Rothchilds and Murdocks...

 

[LizzieMaine]

But many film students tend to attract narcissists and film schools tend to teach a certain narcissistic attitude ...

I have to deal with a lot of genius-in-their-own-mind documentarians and documentary-festival producers in my line of work, and there is no better word to describe them than the one used above. Just once -- just ONCE -- I'd like to meet a film-school graduate whose only goal in going into the business is to make people *laugh.*

If I were running a film school, the first thing I'd do is force every professor and every student to watch "Sullivan's Travels" over and over and over again until they got the message.

 

[philosophygirl78]

I have to deal with a lot of genius-in-their-own-mind documentarians and documentary-festival producers in my line of work, and there is no better word to describe them than the one used above. Just once -- just ONCE -- I'd like to meet a film-school graduate whose only goal in going into the business is to make people *laugh.*

If I were running a film school, the first thing I'd do is force every professor and every student to watch "Sullivan's Travels" over and over and over again until they got the message.

Re: to make people laugh - I think there is value in comedy, particularly satire... however, most art forms are (or were until modern technological manipulation), an expression / extension of the going-on's of a society.... I am not sure there is much to laugh about right now... What Would be interesting is to see more documentaries and movies on the realities behind social movements, revolutionary ideas against vested interest groups, the truth behind organized religions etc in the mainstream...