Rather than argue with you, I'll ask you that if you believe that line of reasoning is weak and unproductive then you'll agree that all of the research that speaks to unwitting bias is flawed?
Or are you suggesting that professors are above it all simply by nature of being professors?
And that includes the people teaching the humanities. That is where I am going. You are implying that the people's views of the humanities have been changed because of capitalism. Meanwhile, you're working for institutions that constantly drive up the cost of study in part to line their own pockets and provide greater economic benefits to their professors.
For all your communist rhetoric, I notice you subtlely bragging about Ivy League credentials, which I assume includes Ivy League pay to teach Ivy League students.
After proudly climbing to the table of the elite, your dedication to the proletariat is somewhat questionable. :wink:
Words, not deeds, I guess?
Not requiring much is the not the same as not requiring any. The rest of your post makes little sense to me as it doesn't address anything I said. I've never said it doesn't critique itself, the university, and society as a whole. I've never questioned it's value to society.
I question the point of charging young people tuition and lifelong debt to acquire it. Part of the self-critique should be the following: Is it right to economically disenfranchise 18-21 y.o.'s for the knowledge I'm passing along when I know that it might ruin their life?
Then you'd probably ask yourself: If this knowledge is as valuable as I claim it is. shouldn't I be giving it away?
Then you'd finish up with: I have rent/mortgage to pay and I greatly value the esteem of my colleagues over the economic well-being of my students so I choose to ignore the impact this will have on their lives since I only have to deal with them a semester at a time and retirement is far away.
Your predictable responses bore me.
I'll just say that I do not teach at an Ivy anymore. I huge issues with the very idea of elite universities, even though they are often the ones with the money to have strong Humanities programs in the first place. My relationship to the university is tenuous and tactical. I draw the means for my own survival from it, but it also allows me the luxury and time to participate and various forms of grassroots activism and mentoring as well as the various literacy projects I've both developed and participated in for students and adults.
I don't see that as necessarily a contradiction because I am aware of what I am doing and I think ultimately a radical has to make certain compromised decisions in the short term in order to build the foundations for further movement and action.
This is something I didn't necessarily believe even 10 years ago.
I still think you are conflating subjectivity in grading with the subjectivity involved in creating thematic lesson plans and in developing methodological principles in the classroom. In other words, you seem to be suggesting that a professor's overall subjectivity, (something the case in every single field), necessarily lends itself to unfair subjectivity in grading or the suppression of certain ideas. I simply disagree.
Furthermore, you are conflating my broader defense of the humanities as a field less corrupted by capitalism, with the overall costs of college. The overall costs of college is a huge problem that goes way beyond even the university level.
And your insinuation that the administration operates with the motive of giving its professors more money just shows your ignorance of the university structure. They have done everything in their power to eradicate stability and pay for professors which in turn has the effect of operating as ideological control/flak. This is a whole other topic but basically the university is trying to go full short-term contract, adjunct professors. When an older tenured professor retires, they don't look to fill the position with another tenure track position.
Is this to lessen the cost of college for students? Absolutely not.
I also think it's fair to say that the difference in funding needed to run a humanities department and a science department is qualitative in difference and absolutely less corporate and less beholden to the whims of corporate interests.