Defensive Education

You’ve heard of defensive medicine.  This is where physicians perform unnecessary medical tests in order to protect themselves from potential lawsuits.  The consequence has been to drive up medical costs, while forcing a wedge between the doctor and patient.  If anything, this has worsened medical outcomes.

Today we are experiencing something similar in higher education.  Colleges too are threatened with lawsuits if they do not provide the desired benefits.  As a result, they have adopted practices designed to thwart such legal actions.  Here too the outcomes have been less than satisfactory.

The recent spate of college protests has exacerbated a long-term trend.  Ever since the 1960’s, college administrators have been capitulating to student demands.  Fearful that angry students will close down their campuses, they accede to foolish policies.

During the safe spaces movement, demonstrators stipulated that unwelcome opinions be quashed.  But more than this, they tied their requirements to the Black Lives Matter crusade.  Some of the more strident demands have therefore concerned who can teach what, so as to preclude racism.

Once upon a time competence counted.  Professors were asked to teach the courses where they possessed an expertise.  Now, in this era of identity politics, the instructor’s ethnic and ideological credentials are more salient.  Academics with the wrong skin color, gender, or sexual orientation need not apply.

This is a serious development.  People have been forced to resign their jobs; others were never hired.  As importantly, many new positions have been created to accommodate the radicals.  These were not instituted for academic reasons, but for political ones.

Kennesaw State University, along with colleges across the country, has witnessed an explosion in vice-presidents.  Most of these are intended to demonstrate that the school cares.  Their portfolios are generally oriented toward keeping problem students happy.

Mind you, the administrators who create these positions know that they are window-dressing.  Nonetheless their hands are tied.  They have learned from bitter experience that if they do not follow the lead of other schools, they will lose subsequent lawsuits.

Unless these administrators can point to programs similar to those of their competitors, this will be regarded as prima facie evidence of a dereliction in duty.  They are thus forced to defend themselves by initiating useless policies ostensibly aimed at implementing justice, but achieving nothing.

Actually, they do accomplish something.  They water down education and serve notice to all on campus that they must be politically correct or place their careers in jeopardy.  In other words, this educational defensiveness spreads like kudzu into every corner of academe.

When this is combined with other programs such as Complete Georgia, the outcomes are disastrous.  In order to make sure that every student is able to obtain a degree, standards are lowered and controversial subjects sidestepped.  Instead of genuine learning, we get pabulum disguised as wisdom.

When I was younger, social promotions allowed students who could not read to graduate from high school.  Today we permit students who cannot think to receive a college degree.  Who this is supposed to help is another one of life’s enduring mysteries.

As long a politicians continue to promise that everyone can get a college education and that no one should be offended by uncongenial ideas, this nonsense will prevail.  The administrators have little choice.  They realize either that they will be fired or that their schools will be deprived of millions of dollars.

Higher education is supposed to be on the cutting edge of scholarship.  It has long been regarded as the custodian of our shared knowledge.  This, however, is an ideal that is receding into history.  Nowadays the objective seems to be reinforcing the pretense that everyone is genius-in-waiting.

This nonsense will not stop until more of us have the courage to demand that it does.  Unless those who insist on higher standards also begin to intimidate the people who run our colleges, they will continue to cave into those who care not one bit about actual learning.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

A Time for Decision

With the New Year almost upon us, it is time to contemplate what lies ahead.  This coming year is apt to be a time of decision.  We, as a nation, will have to decide if we wish to solve our problems or indulge our fantasies.  Most Americans believe we are on the wrong track—but will they choose the right one?

Just over three years ago voters made a momentous mistake.  They re-elected Barack Obama despite four years of lies and incompetence.  Somehow they believed that he cared more about their welfare than did Mitt Romney.  Why they came to this conclusion is an enduring mystery.

By now it should be clear that Obama’s commitment is to himself and his ideology.  Time and again when confronted with a fork in the road, he chooses unwisely.  Bill Clinton assured us that no one could have done a better job as president.  In fact, a child with a dartboard would have had a better record.

Meanwhile Romney was dismissed as an extremist.  His depictions of Russia as a global adversary and the Arabs as trapped in a medieval culture were assailed as insensitive nonsense.  Nor were his business accomplishments appreciated.  As a rich man, how could he possibly care about others?

And so we got four more years of a stagnant economy and a perverse foreign policy.  Back then, people did not use their heads in evaluating the candidates.  They evidently went with the one who seemed friendlier.

Fast forward to today when voters appear to be leaning toward a bombastic real estate mogul or a failed secretary of state.  That Hillary Clinton has been caught in a series of lies plainly does not trouble many Democratic voters.  Having given us one demagogic president, they will happily give us another.

But the Republicans are even worse.  Many of them favor a casino owner with a talent for mimicry.  Apparently they believe that if he can commission tall buildings and luxury golf courses, he will be able to rescue our economy and magically deport twelve million illegal aliens.

Ordinary Americans are said to love Trump because they are angry and he “tells it like it is.”  That what he says routinely exposes his ignorance of foreign affairs and the Constitution leaves them unmoved.  That he too lies with verve is seen as a mark of authenticity.

I am reminded of the movie Network in which the unhinged news anchor Howard Beale declares, “I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it any more.”  Beale was exposed as loony.  Will Trump experience the same fate or will it be the rest of us if we vote for him?

Being angry is all well and good if we retain a sense of balance.  There is certainly a great deal to be angry about.  Nonetheless we will not feel less upset if we add to our frustrations.  If we do not fix what is broken, we will be in greater turmoil.

So this is my plea: It is time for Americans to calm down and listen to what the candidates say.  Instead of being persuaded by atmospherics and emotionality, we need to identify the candidate with the most sensible programs.  This is not Hillary; it is not Trump.

If we want our country to be strong again, we do not need someone who promises to carpet bomb civilians and to make a good buddy out of Vladimir Putin.  If we want honesty, we do not need someone who brags about successfully bribing politicians.

But neither do we need a person whose sole qualifications are that she stood up for a philandering husband and then used a private server that could be hacked by unfriendly governments.  Do we really want Obama Light or are we looking for a genuine change?

So please listen to what the candidates propose and judge them on qualities such as competence and honesty.  And then decide wisely.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

PC Fatigue

The next Republican debate will shortly be upon us and people are wondering how well Donald Trump will perform.  In the previous debates, only his mother and devoted enthusiasts were impressed.  He was neither cogent nor forceful in his presentation.

Nonetheless The Donald’s aficionados are convinced that he is honest, brilliant, and strong.  No matter what he says, they take it as gospel.  In fact, Trump is none of what is alleged.  To the contrary, he is a pathetic imitation of what a tough-minded leader should be.

So why do so many people think otherwise?  Why is he hailed as a national savior in some quarters?  This has become an enduring mystery.  Indeed, commentators of every political stripe have struggled to explain the phenomenon.  About all they can agree on, however, is that the “establishment” got it wrong.

In fact, the answer is not difficult to discern.  The Trump boomlet is a reflection of PC fatigue.   As the anti-political correctness candidate, he has benefited from a backlash that has been slow in coming.

First, Donald is not an honest man.  He routinely denies that he has said what he can be documented as saying.  Second, he is decidedly not brilliant.  His insights into foreign affairs and domestic politics really are on the junior high school level.  Third, he is not especially strong.  Anyone who brags about his accomplishments as much as he does is fundamentally insecure.

Still, there is an area in which Trump might be described as strong.  Trump has stood up against political correctness.  He regularly says things that no sane politician is supposed to say—and then he stands up to the criticism that inevitably results.

Why this has gained him a dedicated following can be understood by examining from whence his support derives.  As the polls demonstrate, his most ardent backers are blue-collar whites.  They are the ones who cheer when he lowers the boom on his detractors.

But consider the primary targets of PC.  These too are straight, white males.  They are the folks who are routinely accused of being racist, sexist, and homophobic.  They are the ones depicted as mean-spirited boobs who ought to be run out of town on a rail.

Consider too the methodology of the folks who enforce political correctness.  These card-carrying liberals, and their naïve young henchmen, are specialists in intimidation.  Their primary technique for quashing the opposition is to silence it into submission.

How do the achieve this?  Why they march through the streets chanting about how they will roast pigs like bacon.  They camp out on Wall Street in order to disrupt capitalist activities.  They flood suburban malls to prevent shoppers from patronizing the stores.

The PC folks lie.  They insist that “hand up don’t shoot” was a reality.  They firebomb senior centers.  Stand in their way and they rough you up.  And, of course, if they can, they will get you fired from your job.  Failing this, they will use the law to have you fined for not baking a cake for homosexuals.

It, therefore, takes courage to oppose to these bullies.  Yet this bravery is sorely lacking on campus, in the media, and among politicians.  As a consequence, millions of Americans are fed up with being treated like second-class citizens in their own land.   They have been looking for a champion and believe they have found one in Trump.

Unfortunately, The Donald is a bogus hero.  He is coarse, vulgar, and in-your-face, but this is not the same as genuine courage.  Truly courageous people do more than hurl insults.  They do not call women ugly, Mexicans inveterate criminals, or soft-spoken rivals weak.

Trump is not smart because he says he is.   And he is not strong because he promises to bomb the daylights out of our enemies.  PC does need to be challenged—but not in the way he does it.  A devotee of infantile rudeness cannot halt a plague of self-righteous meanness.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University