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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: 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.