"Vindictive Protectiveness"

"Therapy often involves talking yourself down from the idea that each of your emotional responses represents something true or important."

An important new article at The Atlantic — I know, stop laughing - discusses how the campus atmosphere in the US right now has major consequences for freedom of speech, liberty of consicence, and mental health.

I disagree with the authors’ too-kind characterization of speech control as motivated by laudable and compassionate impulses that have gotten out of hand. I think instead that speech and thought control are totalitarian in their genesis, so it should surprise absolutely no one when they are applied in destructive ways. BUT, the general tenor of the article is accurate and welcome, and couched in the kind of language that makes the points in an unobtrusive and “objective” way. And because it is being published in a faux-highbrow publication like The Atlantic, at least some people (the sort who take NPR seriously too) will take it seriously.

The list of recommendations at the end of the article are particularly useful, especially the first one, which calls for the de-escalation of the DOE’s currently insane application of the term “harassment.” Alas, despite the well-modulated and undoubtedly useful thoughts of Lukianoff and Haidt, the perverse incentive structure of the 21st Century campus will stymie any meaningful reform.

Men make plans; God laughs.

“But some will say, Whence has this fellow got the arrogance which he displays and these supercilious looks? I have not yet so much gravity as befits a philosopher; for I do not yet feel confidence in what I have learned and in what I have assented to. I still fear my own weakness. Let me get confidence and then you shall see a countenance such as I ought to have and an attitude such as I ought to have; then I will show to you the statue, when it is perfected, when it is polished.”

Excerpt From: Epictetus. “A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/fM8jE.l

Which way: Horace or Juvenal?

Thus life is indifferent: the use is not indifferent. When any man then tells you that these things also are indifferent, do not become negligent; and when a man invites you to be careful (about such things), do not become abject and struck with admiration of material things. And it is good for you to know your own preparation and power, that in those matters where you have not been prepared, you may keep quiet, and not be vexed, if others have the advantage over you.

—Epictetus

There is an argument to be made (but not in the space of this forum) that a satirist is an idealist/romantic/conservative who finds himself confronting knaves and fools where he hoped to find saints and heroes. When one finds that the world is made of brass, and one finds that one’s expectations are dashed, what is there to do if one is not willing to succumb to indifference or worse? You confront the wrong! Attack!

I find myself tending toward Juvenal . . . but the problem is that his approach leads to some pretty harsh reprisals. When I see years’ worth of fecklessness coming home to roost, and consider how it affects people and institutions I care about, it’s difficult to keep my trap shut. I’m just irascible enough to not be able to pull off Horace’s gentle but piercing judgments. And so—-I guess I know how much my righteous indignation is worth.

So I try to take the advice of the Stoic instead.

SLO-mo

I am currently listening to a committee of my department colleagues work to develop a list of properly formatted SLO’s (Student Learning Objectives) so that we may meet SACS and other administrative mandates. We have even been given a book by the new Title III office to help us properly phrase the SLO’s so that they use appropriate action verbs and what-not.

It is no doubt quite useful to talk about why we are teaching what we teach, and what we hope to accomplish. Useful merely to us, though, and mainly for the sake of meeting the demands of the bloated academic-administrative class.

The same class responsible for this kind of nonsense, and for this, and for this.

In which Piers examines his moral formation

But if thou think, trial unsought may find
Us both securer than thus warned thou seemest,
Go; for thy stay, not free, absents thee more;
Go in thy native innocence, relie
On what thou hast of virtue, summon all,
For God towards thee hath done his part, do thine.

I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.

Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.

I wonder what it says about me that a good portion of my moral reasoning is filtered through the words of John Milton.

Laurence J. Peter, Vindicated

This article has been making the rounds recently, and it speaks to the greatest problem facing institutions of higher ed in this country.

It’s no secret that any educational institution is a bloated mess; the layers of regulatory oversight and legal ass-covering are so manifold and intertwined that they are impenetrable to the average citizen. Which is how these institutions get away with it; the layers upon layers of administration seem professional and competent because their actions are generally filtered through a dense screen of verbiage.

Still, a report like the one above has the virtue of highlighting unfortunate realities so that they are hard to ignore (as has been the case with other recent revelations in the news). I could cite several examples from the two institutions I’ve been most recently affiliated with, but that seems like piling on at this point.

In which Piers Observes Institutional Disarray, Part Two

A few weeks ago I reported on a distressing matter of faculty and curriculum governance on my campus — how a specific department was attempting to use a bit of bureaucratic paperwork hocus-pocus to circumvent a decision handed down by the faculty senate on my campus. I won’t repeat all the specifics.

Yesterday I found out that when the matter was brought to the provost for review, he essentially shrugged and said that the department and college in question (the department of Criminal Justice, housed in the College of Education, Health, and Behavioral Sciences) appeared to have found a loophole that made their request technically valid. Disappointing to say the least, and probably further driving a wedge of distrust between units on this campus.

The ramifications of this request and its implementation are, as I see it:

1. The department in question (the Department of Criminal Justice) now has an official catalog description of its course requirements that it will never actually enforce - and they are deliberately choosing to do so.
2. The chairperson of this department has, in his capacity as chairperson of a department and as president of the faculty senate during the period of this controversy, deliberately circumvented and even ignored the express will of the very governance body over which he has had the executive position. There is also evidence that he personally pressured individuals in his department to “get with the program.”
3. This faculty senate president has circumvented these rules and decisions—-and, I would argue, general professional ethics--with the collusion and assistance of both the chairperson of the Undergraduate Council, i.e., the faculty body with the authority to approve curriculum change requests (a woman who has also served on the UT Board of Trustees and who now also holds an administrative position); the newly elevated dean of the College of Education, Health, and Behavioral Sciences; and the university registrar.
4. Most significantly, this has now set the precedent that any department facing difficulty in meeting basic curricular requirements that the faculty as a whole have agreed upon may point to Criminal Justice as an example of how to secretly change degree requirements without going through the channels of review outlined in the Faculty Handbook.
5. The college in question is aware that its reputation across campus is . . . troubled. This only reinforces the opinions of its critics.

You know an institution has lost its way when most of the alleged professionals involved in a deeply questionable decision both hide the decision from the rest of the institution and then, when questioned, retreat into the language of bureaucratic obfuscation.