For all of the Triffling PsuedoIntellectualDuGaucheRhetoric
that leaks out of the AkademikWorld few if any of them have
any real understanding about Live 'working class heroes' who
have worked their way up the food chain.
As a broad sweeping Condemnation of the RhetoricMongers there
are exceptions to it all. But the fact that I got my BS degree
says more for the NCO's and CPO's who taught me the 'stuff you
can't get in books' than it says for the fine folks who where
standing at the Front door of Akadamia land like the Barkers
at the local Freak Show.
There is the flip side of the coin as well, and I tip my hat
to the old guard at the ParaCollege Program at St. Olaf for
their efforts to create a viable 'alternative educational opportunity'
from the ashes of the 'educational revolution' of the sixties
in that they would seek the break out of the meaningless
fillin the box approach of american 'liberal arts' certification
programs used at most UndergradFactories.
Culturally I have limited respect for the '90 day wonder' "push button"
ossifers that get minted from OCS/ROTC programs, and my time in
akadamialand helped me understand why they would show up with their
limited understanding about 'the process' - and why traditionally
it would take a 'top kick' of some stripe to sort them out about
life in the Real World! My time amongst the civilians has taught
me that there is CLEARLY a need for a 'senior enlisted corp' that
will be able to help the fresh faced boys when they arrive in
KorporateAmerika, but that is another Serman to Preach.
I remember reading the 'fiction' "BIG U" as an alledged 'spoof'
of life in KorporateEdukationInstitutus, but I am not all that
convinced that it should have been listed as fiction. Just as
so much of Monty Python's Flying Circus should be carried in the
Video Stores under 'documentary' - since they are the clearest
distillation of the culture available[1].
It is thus, that with 'liberalism' falling out of Fashion, and
losing it's Market Share in KorporateEdukationInstitutus that
there have been Other Holy Grails to Pursue, with as much
vim and vigor. Clearly with the UnderFunding of the Cold War
many Grand Ivory Towers now face the problems that they may
soon be required to actually get back to the mere process of
teaching undergraduates the content of the requisite courses,
rather than providing Undergrads as an excuse for padding
the reasons for keeping so many Cash Cow Research Professors.
The upside of this, is that there is less PRETENSE of care
and concern about the Working Klass, save as folks to take
out the garbage. Not that I have anything against the Frat
Brother Mentality of 'the bones' and the need for the Ruling
Elites to have a place to Mate, and make the Key Commitments,
but at least they would be ever so kind as NOT to confuse
that process with the quest for Truth and Knowledge!
Who Knows, some day 'logic' may become a required course in
the undergraduate program, instead of an alternative elective
for the humanities distribution. But that might oblige
people to consider sound reasoning to be a virtue of some
type in a free society.
Why They might even consider the idea of having Community
Based Education in the general core curriculum, and maybe even
spread out to ideas like expanding the roles of educational
services to the working klass....
NAAAA....
That way leads to revolution.
ciao
drieux
[1] I must confess that I owe that perspective on the Flying Circus
to the mother of My children who would be so surprised by the
behavior of the british to live up to the silliness as to suggest
that the Flying Circus WAS a documentary, and not comedy. It of
course does not help matters that some of the folklorist/anthroplogist
whom I met while sojourning in AkadamiaLand would in all earnestness
concur with the perception, and I would NOT be surprised to find
some Budding PhD thesis seeking to establish this in the canons
of Holy Learning.