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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Australia's conservative government announced plans Friday to double university fees for humanities students, in a bid to push people into more useful, "job-relevant" courses like maths and science.
Under the proposal—which critics panned as an "ideological assault"—the cost of degrees like history or cultural studies will rise up to 113 percent to around US$29,000, while other courses such as nursing and information technology will become cheaper.
Education Minister Dan Tehan—an arts graduate with two advanced degrees in international relations—said the government wanted to corral young people towards "jobs of the future" to boost the country's economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
"If you are wanting to do philosophy, which will be great for your critical thinking, also think about doing IT," Tehan said.
The plan would help pay for an additional 39,000 university places by 2023 and for cost cuts for courses like science, agriculture, maths and languages.
[...] "I'm an arts graduate and so is the minister for education so I'm not sure you can draw the conclusion that we're completely unemployable," said opposition lawmaker Tanya Plibersek.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @01:02AM (31 children)
What good are free thinkers when they don't even have a basic understanding of how the world works. Shouldn't you actually try to understand how the world works with science instead of believing in some old superstitious humanities sermon? It's time to leave Plato's cave whether you want it or not.
The humanities studies are for bourgeois, those rich enough to support themselves by merely dreaming away their days with nonsense, with the rest of humanity toiling away to support their idleness.
(Score: 5, Touché) by c0lo on Monday June 22 2020, @01:47AM (30 children)
What good are scientists who can't relate to society's moral/ethics/culture?
Point: it's not an either/or, need to have both types of education (which may be different from schooling).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Troll) by Phoenix666 on Monday June 22 2020, @02:48AM (18 children)
What good are humanities graduates who can't relate to society's moral/ethics/culture?
None of them today have delved at all into the Western canon, or any canon. They have never read Marx, or Adam Smith, or Kant, or Weber, or any of the great books. For them it's all cliff's notes with brownie points for parroting the professor's talking points. If they even get that far. They have been raised on smartphones and do not have the stamina to get through an entire news article, much less a weighty tome written by some of the smartest, most complex thinkers who have ever lived. And that goes double or triple for the great thinkers from other traditions. None of them have read Lu Xun or Rumi, or even know who they are.
The most tragic is for their pitiful excuse for education they are paying higher tuition than anyone else in history ever has.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday June 22 2020, @03:01AM (6 children)
Are you suggesting the humanities produce only "graduates who can't relate to society's moral/ethics/culture"?
Or, by extension, that every STEM graduate is a success?
A exceptionally categorical claim that one. I think it requires proof.
Did you miss the "education is not equivalent with schooling"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday June 22 2020, @03:21AM (5 children)
I don't require proof. Kant says I can be as categorical as I want.
I not only suggest it, I assert it (see above). Where are the brave intellectual voices speaking out in defense of the Western canon, the foundation upon which all of their intellectual inheritance is built? There are none. There are only the nihilist narcissists of the neo-Red Guards.
There was a time when the ACLU fought hard for the KKK's right to be heard. That was a principled stand to take in defense of such an odious group. But those days are long, long gone. Now it's only cancel culture, tearing down statues, and erasing history that makes us feel uncomfortable. It is totally repugnant to any who wants to claim a shred of integrity on any moral or intellectual ground.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @03:41AM (1 child)
No, Kant did not say that, and for you to misunderstand so profoundly one of the great ethical thinkers of the past couple millennia, well, it makes me think you have a degree in Engineering. Or Railroading.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 25 2020, @12:56AM
my categorical imperative brooks no challenge. for you to misunderstand so profoundly one of the great ethical thinkers of the past couple millennia, well, it makes me think you have a degree in basket weaving. or that you went to Brown.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Monday June 22 2020, @03:42AM
Exactly. Liberals betrayed the liberal idea in general and all of us in particular.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 4, Touché) by c0lo on Monday June 22 2020, @03:49AM
And you ask me to believe him. How convenient for you (grin)
You assert nothing, you only use argumentum ad verecundiam, see above (grin)
Because the society doesn't have time anymore for odious and idiotic speech - productivity is king. The corporates took care of that.
So, you either demonstrate it or GTFU (large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @05:41AM
Ah, the phonies of your day, and the Fox News, have combined in your head to give you the notion that everyone to the left of Reagan is trying to destroy western values.
Businessmen being scared to lose money angers you, so you complain about cancel culture when your old shit gets taken off the air, or down from wherever it was. Why do you hate capitalism?
Nobody erased history, that's written in books and recorded in video and audio. Statues are art.
Nobody is expecting you to respect them or acknowledge what integrity they possess, that's why they riot. Nihilism isn't a fight for change, it's a release of pent-up rage and frustration. The ~45% who don't vote mostly don't believe they can change anything. Those are your rioters. They are tired of being exploited, ignored, and blamed for what society has done to them. They are tired of seeing injustice on the street and content corruption in the halls of power. They are tired of being intimidated, robbed, raped, beaten, and murdered by the people who are supposed to protect them. Your petty complaints about a statue are just more whinging from someone so out of touch they think this is just a D/R political game.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @04:59AM (9 children)
Oh, dear, Phoenix666! You are exposing yourself as an aged no-college Trump supporter! Let me explain, College is different than the preconceptions of those who have never been, and especially different from the experience of those who dropped out because they were not intelligent enough to participate. Turning Point [thegrio.com]
What do you think we do, in Academia? The loss of attention span among recent college students has been noticed. If you treat a course on the History of Imperial China as if it were a video game, you will not pass! And if you treat it as if it were a differently-eyed version of Lord of the Rings, you still WILL NOT PASS! So what is your beef, Phoenix? Those of us in the trenches are dealing with real problems, and your "Get off my lawn!" and "In my day we had to walk to University, and it was uphill both ways!" is of no help whatsoever. So, get off my campus, you layman.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @05:26AM (7 children)
Phoenix666, through his many posts, has shown himself to be a free thinker -- "his own man."
Sometimes he expresses opinions that favor the right, and sometimes the left, owing allegiance to no one. He usually gives a good explanation as to his reasoning which includes a fair amount of empiricism. I'm not stroking his rod; I'm just pointing out we need more people here who are truly unafraid to think for themselves rather than play soldier for one side.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @06:54AM
FTFY. Granted, a step above of those capable of only double-plus-good thinking, but still so much to go.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday June 22 2020, @01:12PM
Okay, yes, but he's also not starting from a place of information. It's not enough to be a maverick; you also have to have good technique.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @04:09PM (4 children)
To me he comes off as a typical middle class white privilege pundit. We elected a black president, so racism is abolished. He somehow argued all of the Trump talking points about how the economy was in shambles and Trump saved us all, ignoring EVERY economic metric that showed the economy on a 10 year boom rolling along with the momentum of a supertanker (this well before the covid thing). He argues every industrial effluent and pollutant should be ignored because, well I don't know why, because we've lived with smog before. And he is fully onboard with "only pussies are scared of covid", even pushing the "Chinese virus" and "Wuhan virus" tag for a very long time.
This is your idea of "his own man"? It just sounds like your run of the mill Fox News viewer to me. Critical thinking requires critical thinking, not just supporting contrarian views and thinking "wow, what a rebel!"
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 23 2020, @04:54AM (2 children)
Wow, a whole sub-thread dedicated to moi. I have never been anyone's hobgoblin before. It is quite flattering, but I don't deserve it.
If you hate me because I have challenged you, then you're welcome. The best professors I ever had were fucking assholes; and I hated them so much I worked three times harder to show them up. Maybe I haven't challenged you and you just think I'm an asshole. That's OK, because you're right: I am an asshole.
If you think you have me all wrapped up in a tidy little box, though, you're wrong. In fact I think a lot of you guys are wrong to do the same to a lot of our community members. How many of you guys dismissed MDC out of hand? How many have dismissed aristarchus or Runaway out of hand? Not a few of you. As far as I see it, we're all diamonds in the rough. It's why I keep coming back.
Anyway, I'm gonna go print out this little tussle and hang it on my wall and laugh. Love you Soylentils!
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2020, @04:03PM
That would indeed be more useful than your contributions here.
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Tuesday June 23 2020, @04:41PM
Quoting Cato the Elder in one's tagline adds street cred.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 27 2020, @04:12AM
And here we go with another rant about someone's perceptions that has nothing to do with reality. "typical middle class white privilege pundit", followed immediately by lip service to anti-racism, and not a trace of sarcasm.
The obvious rebuttal being employment [bls.gov].
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 23 2020, @05:04AM
I know very well what you do in academia, though I have not paid much attention to the inside baseball stuff the last few years. If you guys really still are wrapped up in post-modernism then you have my sympathy. Nihilism is depressing and self-defeating. And if you're in the trenches in that environment, trying to educate Millennials with their strident narcissism, ugh, it doesn't bear thinking about. God bless you for what you do.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @08:27AM
None? I can assure you that many of my students have read those authors you mention. One I met with not too long ago has more Kant memorized in the original German than you've ever read in your life and has definitely written more peer-reviewed articles about him. You also seem to underestimate how many foreign students come from other countries and how many students are interested in their immigrant culture.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @03:17AM
Cretins who do not even understand that the gadgets they play with are not some kind of wild fruit, are exactly the problem the humanities "education" created.
Scientists need the society much less than the society needs scientists, but NEITHER need parasiting humanities students.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MostCynical on Monday June 22 2020, @03:41AM (4 children)
"History and Philosophy of Science" was a unit, and is now available as a Major [sydney.edu.au] at at least one Australian university.
Perhaps what is missing from both the debate external to universities, and the teaching within is perspective and an appreciation of the 'other'..
It should also be noted that there is an element of competition/capitalism in the way course fees are set - the more popular courses (often/usually, the ones that lead to more lucrative employment) are more expensive than the less popular courses. No one wants to be a teacher or a nurse, so they are cheap(er) courses.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @04:09AM
Actually, from what I saw as a college student in the 1980s the courses that tended to be the most popular were the ones that were easy A grades; that tended to be a tip off (for me) on classes to avoid because I knew they would be vapid. The exceptions were classes in computer science; those were nearly impossible to get into because everyone perceived them to be a ticket to a lucrative career.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Monday June 22 2020, @04:51AM (2 children)
Pretty sure they're both a bit pricy, and I've met quite a few people who want to be teachers or nurses.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @05:51AM (1 child)
A lot of young people want to be teachers and nurses, and they're encouraged because we always need more of them. We wouldn't need more if they paid decent wages and gave something resembling a normal schedule instead of 12/6 or worse. Capitalists have been pushing their failures to train and retain talent into the government's hands for too long - let the market fix itself for once.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @09:16AM
Both those jobs sound interesting, fun, and like they'll pay well enough. And then you get the job and are treated like shit with horrible support systems. And then everyone looks around and wonders why the turnover is so high and retention so low.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Monday June 22 2020, @04:44AM (3 children)
I'm a retired scientist* who never had any trouble relating to humanities graduates and sharing intelligent (and I like to think mutually enlightening) discussions with them. However I never felt any sense of connection to humanities students - it was like we had no common language or point of view.
Double plus true.
The one bit of potentail good is that it MAY result in all degrees costing students the same. It would mean the humanities students subsidising science students, but I see that as the lesser evil; uniersity fees should only be high enough to dissuade most timewasters taking places from people who want the education (disclaimer - I attended university before hex** fees were introduced).
*Who would have studied science even if there was pressure towards humanities because it's science that really floats my boat.
**Not a misspelling
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 22 2020, @06:48AM (2 children)
I am a still active software engineer - it's still under the Technology, in STEM - after graduating physics, who worked with another one that graduated history, in Australia**. Had absolutely no problems communicating on the job with him.
** before that, in the country of origin (somewhere in East Europe), the situation was more frequent after the communism fell - one had to do something, so learning skills on their own was more of a norm than an exception. In Australia, the experience is singular.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Monday June 22 2020, @07:09AM (1 child)
I've found it easy to communicate with humanities graduates in work and social situations, the divide is at the student level; would not surprise me to hear the same about science students.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @07:45AM
It's the "student" part. Young people are ignorant of many things, often including their own ignorance, because they haven't been alive for long, and most of their life has been spent in schools. If you're even slightly more informed, and not letting your hormones do the thinking, it's no wonder you couldn't stand them.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 22 2020, @01:25PM
A hell of a lot more good than a humanities graduate who can't do the same.
I think this emphasis is more on the mark. The formal schooling has deviated substantially from education due to ideological rot and a great deal of corruption. It's worse outside of the STEM fields, but no field is safe from it.