If more key words for activist science like "traditional native knowledge" or "climate change" or "identity group science i.e. women's chemistry etc." were added, the percentage of suspect courses would rise significantly in STEM.
“American universities—especially in the humanities and social sciences—have undergone a decades-long shift away from the Western intellectual tradition and toward ideological and activist content.”
The situation in Ukrainian humanities and social sciences is significantly worse and seems completely incurable. Why is that? In the USA, there is something called Western tradition. In Ukraine, it simply did not exist. There was, and remains, what is known as the communist tradition. All the leading figures in Soviet social and humanitarian sciences also occupied top positions in independent Ukraine. They became university rectors and research institute directors, educating new generations of students in an old style. Instead of facing purges and dismissals as in the GDR, they began to lead Ukrainian social sciences and humanities, earning salaries they couldn't have imagined in Soviet times.
Are there any reputable articles on social sciences and humanities by Ukrainian academics, members of state academies of sciences, published in peer-reviewed Western journals?
I had the opportunity a few years ago to review the undergraduate curriculum and course content associated with a Ukrainian student studying for a combined degree in Finance and Law. In the US, if done with any rigor, this sort of study would basically set the student up for an exciting and incredibly remunerative career. They would be in incredibly high demand in the US if they had a good background in these two fields simultaneously.
In the case of the Ukrainian student (who is likely the casualty of the current war with Russia), I was appalled at the course offerings and the course content he was involved with. It was abysmal, even beyond belief. This student, who was 18 or 19 years of age, was quite proud of the fact that he had NEVER read a single book, his entire life. All of his college work (and presumably grade school work as well) merely consisted of cutting and pasting crap he found on the internet. That is it.
I was profoundly disappointed at the level of quality that I observed. As near as I could tell, any college studies along these lines was just a complete waste of time. A country and its educational system should be embarrassed to offer such worthless garbage to their students.
"American universities—especially in the humanities and social sciences—have undergone a decades-long shift away from the Western intellectual tradition and toward ideological and activist content (see Bloom 1987; Dewey 1916). "
Not merely shifting away from Western Civilization but actively acting against it.
The fundamental question is: is this irredeemable?
Thanks for providing empirical evidence for the facts (objective) academics see and believe.
The fundamental question is: is this irredeemable?
Cleaning out the Augean stables of modern academia is maybe akin to having to dislodge an occupying army that has been dug in for decades, that controls all the high ground and that still has significant weapons and powerful allies.
It would require maybe a National Guard squad in every admissions office and on every hiring committee, who also somehow had the power and ability to do major syllabus reform. Thus, it's more or less not happening anytime soon, and most likely not until after some major social/political cataclysm.
America slept and dreamed of 401(k) balances while the New Left successfully completed its Long March and fully captured our means of cultural and educational production. And while the New Left professoriate don't really do scholarship and know to never step outside their protective herd, they do consider themselves both a priesthood and a shadow govt, thus their positions and beliefs are non-negotiable and they will never temper or relinquish them. They are not abandoning their crusade to install some sort of collectivism overseen by a professorial vanguard blessed with "critical consciousness", it means as much to them as jihad means to Hamas.
Writers ranging from Chris Hitchens to Camille Paglia to Robert Hughes and Harold Bloom warned about what was happening on campus at least 20ish years ago (along w Alan Sokal) and they were either ignored or scoffed at. It's much too late now.
Moral to the story: don't let your enemies raise and educate your children, as they will grow up to hate you and to dedicate their lives to destroying everything you hold dear. Ooops!
You make some good point but are rather pessimistic. In fact, SOME progress against the neomarxists in academia is being made in the US, thank God. It's Canada, UK, ... tha are the real causes for pessimism.
I will never deny being pessimistic when it comes to modern academia.
We all have our own worldview and perspective and mine in this regard comes from a few English Depts and the current profs I know in the Humanities. None of them would be caught dead without their "Marxist lens" and need it like a blind man needs his cane. If any piece of Literature can't be repurposed for progressive politics and the culture war, it is discarded and forgotten, unless it needs to be wheeled out for denunciation. The first purpose of the Humanities now is the political, career and social needs of the professor, the notion of cultivating a love of reading and language in their students strikes them as bizarre and/or reactionary.
But of course I hope I'm wrong. Academia is currently buckling down waiting for Hurricane Trump to blow over, so we'll have to see what if any of his reforms survive him. A Dem Prez in 2029 would try to get the Social Justice band back together, no matter how many times the Supreme Court rules against DEI.
This is a sacred crusade for the Left professoriate so it will take more than one crazy Prez to dislodge them, no matter how much wreckage he can inflict.
This is great. Except for discussions with very few people, what I hear mostly at Cornell in day to day discussion are the words in Table 1: Progressive-signal keyword list by thematic category. Rarely but refreshingly, I hear the words in words in Table 2: Western-canon keyword list by thematic category.
From my limited perspective, I can say that the students are getting sick of this, and actually are ready to free themselves from the imposed post-covid intellectual lockdown. They are ready to breath fresh air through both nostrils and choose their own worldview.
It shouldn’t be surprising that Ivan’s “progressive signals” would be rising in syllabi at a time when the issues they represent play such a large role in our national discourse. Unfortunately, the data do not indicate what proportion of the syllabi examine these issue from a critical point of view. (For example, both Ivan and I have taken detours from our main academic areas to criticize DEI programs in articles and in the classroom.) In any event, it is heartening that, with the exception of a few years, syllabi containing “Western canon” signals have remained pretty constant over the period examined. -- Paul Brest, Professor emeritus, Stanford Law School.
I attended University of Chicago in the 1980s and my son did in the last 4 years, both as undergraduates. Both of us had to read many classics of the Western canon. It's weird to read an article profiling the curriculum that is badly off base. The method described here is not a “first approximation” but a mismeasure.
By the way if the point is simply that there are more liberal/left wing faculty offering electives on contemporary "hot topics", that point stands on its own. You can fairly deduce that.
But method used in this blog post to "quantify" "curricular degradation" is just not good. The way it quantifies the presence or absence of Western canon in the curriculum is based on a word search for a mere 45 words like "classics" and "Illiad". It's too insensitive and inaccurate to be used or trusted.
Take for example the following Common Core social science course, one of the main ones available to fulfill the requirement (derived from the 1930s but updated in the 1980s) to take a year-long core curriculum in the social sciences.
Course title: "Power-Identity-Resistance"
The title dates to the 1980s. It sounds like lefty buzzwords. It won't qualify as "Western canon" according to the logic of the study method above.
"“PIR” is a social sciences general education sequence that introduces students to a variety of approaches in the interpretive social sciences. Appreciating this rich history requires openness to the methodological approaches....As we begin, students encounter questions about the nature and limits of sovereign power and some of the ways identity and resistance take shape in relation to the state"
According to the methodology proposed above, this course has nothing to do with the Western canon.
And yet the syllabus is publicly available, online and not considered. Here it is:
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
John Locke, Second Treatise on Government
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality and On the Social Contract
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and A Vindication of the Rights of Men
David Walker, Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World
Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
Karl Marx, Capital Volume 1
Durkheim, The Division of Labour in Society
Hegel, Phenomenology
Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morality
In April and May there are mentions of both feminism (Simone de Beauvoir) and racial issues (Franz Fanon)
So, why should we trust a search of course catalogues for 45 key words to decide what is taught at a university like the University of Chicago?
Whoever dreamt up this keyword system seems to be quite ignorant of the core curriculum at University of Chicago. An effort to quantify what is taught that's inaccurate deserves not to be used. Of course, if "word searches of course catalogues" become a hot ticket, every university in the country is going to fill their course catalogues with those words, regardless of what is taught.
Sometimes a truly misleading proxy is harmful to public discourse. What's better it to collect real data. That is the case here.
I appreciate the dispassionate way you present these analyses and findings. hopefully those that use your methods follow a similar non-dogmatic, non-inflammatory approach.
How about a complementary AI analysis that abstracts its findings and also includes quotes so human reviewers have more data to start with than the blunt instrument alone?
If more key words for activist science like "traditional native knowledge" or "climate change" or "identity group science i.e. women's chemistry etc." were added, the percentage of suspect courses would rise significantly in STEM.
Sad but true.
“American universities—especially in the humanities and social sciences—have undergone a decades-long shift away from the Western intellectual tradition and toward ideological and activist content.”
The situation in Ukrainian humanities and social sciences is significantly worse and seems completely incurable. Why is that? In the USA, there is something called Western tradition. In Ukraine, it simply did not exist. There was, and remains, what is known as the communist tradition. All the leading figures in Soviet social and humanitarian sciences also occupied top positions in independent Ukraine. They became university rectors and research institute directors, educating new generations of students in an old style. Instead of facing purges and dismissals as in the GDR, they began to lead Ukrainian social sciences and humanities, earning salaries they couldn't have imagined in Soviet times.
Are there any reputable articles on social sciences and humanities by Ukrainian academics, members of state academies of sciences, published in peer-reviewed Western journals?
I had the opportunity a few years ago to review the undergraduate curriculum and course content associated with a Ukrainian student studying for a combined degree in Finance and Law. In the US, if done with any rigor, this sort of study would basically set the student up for an exciting and incredibly remunerative career. They would be in incredibly high demand in the US if they had a good background in these two fields simultaneously.
In the case of the Ukrainian student (who is likely the casualty of the current war with Russia), I was appalled at the course offerings and the course content he was involved with. It was abysmal, even beyond belief. This student, who was 18 or 19 years of age, was quite proud of the fact that he had NEVER read a single book, his entire life. All of his college work (and presumably grade school work as well) merely consisted of cutting and pasting crap he found on the internet. That is it.
I was profoundly disappointed at the level of quality that I observed. As near as I could tell, any college studies along these lines was just a complete waste of time. A country and its educational system should be embarrassed to offer such worthless garbage to their students.
Never read a book?! That is horrifying 😵💫☠️
Wow - surprising!
Don't they extend those communist values into K-12 teaching and so into the general population?
Aren't they on the side of Putin?
"American universities—especially in the humanities and social sciences—have undergone a decades-long shift away from the Western intellectual tradition and toward ideological and activist content (see Bloom 1987; Dewey 1916). "
Not merely shifting away from Western Civilization but actively acting against it.
The fundamental question is: is this irredeemable?
Thanks for providing empirical evidence for the facts (objective) academics see and believe.
The fundamental question is: is this irredeemable?
Cleaning out the Augean stables of modern academia is maybe akin to having to dislodge an occupying army that has been dug in for decades, that controls all the high ground and that still has significant weapons and powerful allies.
It would require maybe a National Guard squad in every admissions office and on every hiring committee, who also somehow had the power and ability to do major syllabus reform. Thus, it's more or less not happening anytime soon, and most likely not until after some major social/political cataclysm.
America slept and dreamed of 401(k) balances while the New Left successfully completed its Long March and fully captured our means of cultural and educational production. And while the New Left professoriate don't really do scholarship and know to never step outside their protective herd, they do consider themselves both a priesthood and a shadow govt, thus their positions and beliefs are non-negotiable and they will never temper or relinquish them. They are not abandoning their crusade to install some sort of collectivism overseen by a professorial vanguard blessed with "critical consciousness", it means as much to them as jihad means to Hamas.
Writers ranging from Chris Hitchens to Camille Paglia to Robert Hughes and Harold Bloom warned about what was happening on campus at least 20ish years ago (along w Alan Sokal) and they were either ignored or scoffed at. It's much too late now.
Moral to the story: don't let your enemies raise and educate your children, as they will grow up to hate you and to dedicate their lives to destroying everything you hold dear. Ooops!
You make some good point but are rather pessimistic. In fact, SOME progress against the neomarxists in academia is being made in the US, thank God. It's Canada, UK, ... tha are the real causes for pessimism.
I will never deny being pessimistic when it comes to modern academia.
We all have our own worldview and perspective and mine in this regard comes from a few English Depts and the current profs I know in the Humanities. None of them would be caught dead without their "Marxist lens" and need it like a blind man needs his cane. If any piece of Literature can't be repurposed for progressive politics and the culture war, it is discarded and forgotten, unless it needs to be wheeled out for denunciation. The first purpose of the Humanities now is the political, career and social needs of the professor, the notion of cultivating a love of reading and language in their students strikes them as bizarre and/or reactionary.
But of course I hope I'm wrong. Academia is currently buckling down waiting for Hurricane Trump to blow over, so we'll have to see what if any of his reforms survive him. A Dem Prez in 2029 would try to get the Social Justice band back together, no matter how many times the Supreme Court rules against DEI.
This is a sacred crusade for the Left professoriate so it will take more than one crazy Prez to dislodge them, no matter how much wreckage he can inflict.
Cheers
A Dem President in 2028 would be a disaster.
Long road ahead.
Dear Ivan,
This is great. Except for discussions with very few people, what I hear mostly at Cornell in day to day discussion are the words in Table 1: Progressive-signal keyword list by thematic category. Rarely but refreshingly, I hear the words in words in Table 2: Western-canon keyword list by thematic category.
From my limited perspective, I can say that the students are getting sick of this, and actually are ready to free themselves from the imposed post-covid intellectual lockdown. They are ready to breath fresh air through both nostrils and choose their own worldview.
Thanks for writing this.
randy
An excellent analysis which benefits from a basis of facts rather than opinion. I wonder what UK Higher Education Courses would look like.
It shouldn’t be surprising that Ivan’s “progressive signals” would be rising in syllabi at a time when the issues they represent play such a large role in our national discourse. Unfortunately, the data do not indicate what proportion of the syllabi examine these issue from a critical point of view. (For example, both Ivan and I have taken detours from our main academic areas to criticize DEI programs in articles and in the classroom.) In any event, it is heartening that, with the exception of a few years, syllabi containing “Western canon” signals have remained pretty constant over the period examined. -- Paul Brest, Professor emeritus, Stanford Law School.
We’re doomed. And eventually the Green half of the alliance takes over.
I attended University of Chicago in the 1980s and my son did in the last 4 years, both as undergraduates. Both of us had to read many classics of the Western canon. It's weird to read an article profiling the curriculum that is badly off base. The method described here is not a “first approximation” but a mismeasure.
By the way if the point is simply that there are more liberal/left wing faculty offering electives on contemporary "hot topics", that point stands on its own. You can fairly deduce that.
But method used in this blog post to "quantify" "curricular degradation" is just not good. The way it quantifies the presence or absence of Western canon in the curriculum is based on a word search for a mere 45 words like "classics" and "Illiad". It's too insensitive and inaccurate to be used or trusted.
Take for example the following Common Core social science course, one of the main ones available to fulfill the requirement (derived from the 1930s but updated in the 1980s) to take a year-long core curriculum in the social sciences.
Course title: "Power-Identity-Resistance"
The title dates to the 1980s. It sounds like lefty buzzwords. It won't qualify as "Western canon" according to the logic of the study method above.
The course catalogue for this class is online and it does not seem to qualify either. http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/thecollege/socialsciences/:
Excerpt:
"“PIR” is a social sciences general education sequence that introduces students to a variety of approaches in the interpretive social sciences. Appreciating this rich history requires openness to the methodological approaches....As we begin, students encounter questions about the nature and limits of sovereign power and some of the ways identity and resistance take shape in relation to the state"
According to the methodology proposed above, this course has nothing to do with the Western canon.
And yet the syllabus is publicly available, online and not considered. Here it is:
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
John Locke, Second Treatise on Government
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality and On the Social Contract
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and A Vindication of the Rights of Men
David Walker, Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World
Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
Karl Marx, Capital Volume 1
Durkheim, The Division of Labour in Society
Hegel, Phenomenology
Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morality
In April and May there are mentions of both feminism (Simone de Beauvoir) and racial issues (Franz Fanon)
So, why should we trust a search of course catalogues for 45 key words to decide what is taught at a university like the University of Chicago?
Whoever dreamt up this keyword system seems to be quite ignorant of the core curriculum at University of Chicago. An effort to quantify what is taught that's inaccurate deserves not to be used. Of course, if "word searches of course catalogues" become a hot ticket, every university in the country is going to fill their course catalogues with those words, regardless of what is taught.
Sometimes a truly misleading proxy is harmful to public discourse. What's better it to collect real data. That is the case here.
I appreciate the dispassionate tone--hopefully this is embraced by those that employ your methods
I appreciate the dispassionate way you present these analyses and findings. hopefully those that use your methods follow a similar non-dogmatic, non-inflammatory approach.
Time to take out the trash (though I have no idea how that can be done).
I consider myself lucky to have completed the Western Culture sequence at Stanford University (in 1980 and -81) before the yahoos got it abolished.
How about a complementary AI analysis that abstracts its findings and also includes quotes so human reviewers have more data to start with than the blunt instrument alone?
Can you show some examples from stem, curious how that is happening...are they history of science or something?