In Lieu of Campus Idiocracy

And why you should learn more about the world before you dictate how people should live.

I try not to wander into territory for which I don’t know too much about, but with the rampant protests going on across university campuses in the West I am reminded of the sad state of education as it is today.

That’s because the protests going on don’t appear any different than protests that we have seen before such as the protests at Evergreen State University or the protests during the supposed “summer of love”.

Maybe it’s because it’s an election year; maybe it’s because the weather is getting nice enough for outdoor activities; or maybe it’s because universities are nearing finals and graduation. Either way, from the surface the current goings don’t seem any different than what we’ve seen in the past- just with a different coating of X ideology being propped up by campus activists.

And if anyone asks I don’t view these activists as being pro-Palestine, anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic, or pro-Hamas. What I view them first and foremost are students, and clearly ideologically driven ones.

This is why, in some regards, I roll my eyes at the protestations of these students who believe that they have an understanding of how the world works. They believe that they can stir movements and push for political and global change through the means they have taken. They believe that their worldview is the only worldview that is worth achieving and will take any means to do so, with minor inconveniences such as protests but with even more egregious actions including the blocking off of roads or the desecration of beloved works of art.

But what worldview to these students have, and quite frankly have they even lived longer enough or experienced enough of the world to gain any semblance of a real-world perspective on life?

And also, how many children chanting and protesting on these campuses are knowledgeable about the current affairs in the Middle East and can form their own educated thoughts and opinions? Or are they just receiving talking points from their favorite streamers and online personalities?

It’s as Jordan Peterson used to say:

Clean your room before you dictate how others should engage with the world.

Note quite the phrase I believe, but the sentiment is there. To what extent do these students have things in order and are therefore making points from an educated viewpoint? How many of these children are able to do their own dishes and laundry, understand taxes, or heck even read and write at an adequate level?

Because irrespective of the ideologies going on with these students they are students first and foremost. It is at least the predominant reason that they should be going to school in the first place- to get an education, better perspective, and greater curiosity for the world at large.

But as many of these students tackle whatever “current issue” is going on at the moment they are also falling behind intellectually.

Just look up any video on YouTube regarding teacher’s complaints about students and it becomes quite apparent that many students are no longer capable of even performing basic math and reading skills, and are also acting unruly and combating instructors (apologies for using a reaction video but it at least collects various videos together):

And this is also reflected in various accounts across the country where students are simultaneously performing severely under expected levels:

From Fox 45 News

Or honors and AP courses may be removed due in order to create a more “equitable” learning environment:

From Reason

And because so many students began to perform poorly during the pandemic many school districts took to considering removing failing grades entirely:

From The HIll

There’s a serious problem going on where people seem to be aware that children are not doing well in school, and yet the answer seems to pivot in ways that may inflate their actual performance numbers while not correlating anything with actual academic achievement and learning.

Bear in mind that many of the currently graduating students are those who were in high school during lockdowns, meaning that they are likely part of the cohort of students who have fallen behind and have been pushed forward with inflated grades and lower expectations. They’re already far behind where they should be and yet they are soon-to-be expected to enter into the real world and take on whatever challenge life throws at them.

But let’s also be clear- colleges aren’t in the best shape already. In some regards it’s college where students may first experience ideological viewpoints, and it’s here where they can be easily swayed into certain ideologies. It’s been one of the most prominent critiques of colleges in the past few years where colleges themselves no longer appear to be in the business of education but rather the business of indoctrination. The social sciences, rife with replication crises are now the bedrock of sociocultural ideology. It’s where the fields of “X" studies took hold and have reshaped many impressionable youth.

It’s the irony that the blight most colleges are experiencing are self-inflicted. They allowed the foxes into the henhouse and now the ideologues continue to enforce their beliefs.

It also doesn’t help that many employers appear to be dissuaded in hiring Ivy League school graduates because they seem ill-prepared and more focused on their emotions rather than their prowess, as a recent Forbes report suggests:

From Forbes

Rather than hire Ivy League graduates it appears that, at least in the case of the employers surveyed, employers are turning to state/public schools for their new hires:

It started with an abdication of trying to find great, well-rounded students in lieu of, as admissions offices blather, a “well-rounded class” of amalgamated specialists. Weird, if well-intended, admissions policies that can actually hurt different minority groups, as the Supreme Court recently ruled, both through distorted screening and eliminating standardized tests—the best way, paradoxically, for people from under-privileged backgrounds to show they belong. (For all this effort, the Ivies still inordinately favor the rich and connected.) And then, once the students matriculate, the schools undermine the standard that otherwise makes their degrees mean anything. At America’s two most august universities, Harvard and Yale, nearly 80 percent of all undergraduates average an A or A-minus.

And guess what? Employers have figured this out. Forbes surveyed nearly 300 subscribers to its Future of Work newsletter, with three-fourths of respondents holding direct hiring authority. Among those in charge of employment decisions, 33% said they are less likely to hire Ivy League graduates than they were five years ago, with only 7% saying they were more likely to hire them.

This, in part, is reflected in the fact that more employers now view the Ivy League as being worse at preparing students rather than being better at it relative to a few years ago:

It comes down to preparedness. Some 37% of those with hiring authority in our survey said state universities were doing better than five years ago in preparing job candidates and 31% thought non-Ivy League private colleges had improved. Just 14% had similar praise for the Ivy League, while 20% said they’re doing worse, making this the only segment in which negative appraisals of the trend in job readiness exceeded positive ones.

The conclusion: great state schools and ascendant private ones are turning out hungry graduates; the Ivies are more apt to turn out entitled ones. And in creating the latter, the Ivies have taken the value they’ve spent centuries creating—a degree that employers craved—and in just a few years done a lot to forfeit it.

A rather damning realization to be honest, and it further emphasizes the point that the outlook for these protestors may not be that good, especially if they are getting their degrees in the social sciences and from Ivy League schools.

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It’s your job to learn and gain perspective

Right now we’re entering into a dangerous crossroad in education. Students are not learning anything in school- paired with the fact that education may not mean much anyways. Students are turning to social media and are showing growing proclivities towards narcissism, arrogance, and histrionics. Their worldview is being shaped by what they see online and the groupthink that engulfs them- they find it more fitting to be socially accepted rather than be humble.

Irrespective of what position you take on the college campus protests it’s apparent that what we are seeing is emblematic of an already growing issue, only brought to light by the events that have transpired over the past few years. It’s indicative of how much rot has infected our sociocultural milieu where people are more focused on being right than they are open to being wrong. They let their biases and need to belong drive their intuition rather than taking a moment to question their own biases. They pursue social media relevancy and being on the “right side of history” more than trying to even understand history or any subject for that matter.

At the end of the day these protestors’ fun in the sun will come to an end. They will have to enter into a world of the mundane as much as it pains them. They’ll enter into social media irrelevancy and have to deal with all of the trials and tribulations of being an adult and being out in the real world- things that these students are likely ill-prepared for and likely dreading due to their anxiety-riddled, social media-stunted brains.

But in all honestly there is nothing wrong with the mundane. The biggest problem is that we seem to have lost perspective on what it means to be mundane. Foregoing social media clout and influence in lieu of personal, meaningful relationships is far more important than living off of the parasocial dynamics of the online world. Understanding that you should learn something even if it may not be applicable in your life is still a virtue worth pursuing- there’s nothing wrong with learning for the sake of learning. You don’t need the attention of millions of strangers, and you don’t need to fight for any perceived injustice out there in the world- especially if it comes from an uninformed position. A life of the mundane is a life of humility and understanding.

Don’t take for granted these virtues in lieu of the trivialities of the modern world. Gain perspective, understand your shortcomings, and strive to be a better person even if no one will recognize it.

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