Why Would You Want an Academic Job?

I quit a tenured position at a good school in 1991 at the relatively young age of 41.  One of my reasons was the increasing political correctness and groupthink of the universities which, since the '60s, have become leftist seminaries.  Now it is far, far worse. So why would any right-thinking person want an academic post?  Roger Kimball:

Consider, to take just one example, the fate of our colleges and universities. Once upon a time, and it was not so long ago, they were institutions dedicated to the pursuit of truth and the transmission of the highest values of our civilization. Today, most are dedicated to the repudiation of truth and the subversion of those values. In short, they are laboratories for the cultivation of wokeness. This is especially true, with only a handful of exceptions, of the most prestigious institutions. The tonier and more expensive the college, the more woke it is likely to be.

There are two central tenets of the woke philosophy. The first is feigned fragility. The second is angry intolerance. The union of fragility and intolerance has given us that curious and malevolent hybrid, the crybully, a delicate yet venomous species that thrives chiefly in lush, pampered environments.

The eighteenth-century German aphorist G. C. Lichtenberg observed, “Nowadays we everywhere seek to propagate wisdom: who knows whether in a couple of centuries there may not exist universities for restoring the old ignorance.” Doubtless Lichtenberg thought he was being clever. How astonished he would have been to discover that he was a prophet, not a satirist.

You should carefully read the whole essay. Kimball has wise and very timely things to say about free speech and its limits.

Comments

[The Bad Ostrich]

Probably long overdue, but I looked up what 'woke' means.

"The act of being very pretentious about how much you care about a social issue"

Yes.

[The Bad Ostrich]

This (referred to in the article) is also good. “When the BBC promoted a smartphone app to help women speak up in meetings, it was merely toeing the standard feminist line on the intrinsic fragility of women. So we are left with the curious phenomenon of good people who are opposed to misogyny subscribing to an essentially misogynistic perspective.”

[BV]

This too is worthy of note: "In the name of anti-racism, identity politics has rehabilitated racial thinking." I would have written, 'racist thinking.'

But aren't women as a group more emotionally fragile than men as a group? If yes, then there is nothing misogynistic about pointing this out. Right?

[The Bad Ostrich]

>> If yes, then there is nothing misogynistic about pointing this out. Right?

I think you are up against the difficulty of it being forbidden to voice even the truths that are acknowledged by received wisdom. I.e. it's OK for feminists to say or imply that women as a group more emotionally fragile than men as a group. But it's not OK for you to say it. Not only can you not say what may be true, but you cannot say what they acknowledge as true.

[BV]

If it's true, then it is OK for anyone to say it. To hell with these Pee Cee idiots.

I say 'to hell with them' not because they are women, but because they are destructive, vicious, reality-denying idiots. I love women -- and I am not being sarcastic or sly.