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by recursivedoubts 2172 days ago
The academic humanities departments have made their bed over the last fifty years.

Now they may lie in it.

1 comments

Sorry, I'm not sure what you're referring to?
The Sokal Hoax was a loud canary in the coalmine that was ignored:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

I'm guessing over-admission, watered down standards and acquiescence to bad ideas, but I can't speak for the original poster.
Yes to all of that. A culture of fear and loathing. Charging obscene levels of tuition for it while piling the real work onto adjuncts. Close-mindedness that would make John Calvin blush. The list is extremely long.

There is no chance I would let a university humanities department anywhere near my children at this point.

> A culture of fear and loathing.

Examples?

> Charging obscene levels of tuition for it while piling the real work onto adjuncts.

This is endemic to the US university system, in general.

> Close-mindedness that would make John Calvin blush.

Again, it's all fun and games to riff and instantly disregard a vast number of fields of study, but you're not doing yourself any favors by just throwing out a laundry list. You have an immense distrust towards these departments: air your grievances, I'm sure a lot of us are interested.

> There is no chance I would let a university humanities department anywhere near my children at this point.

Universities tend to admit adults. Also, if your children go into university, are you going to refuse to pay for their general courses? They're going to have to touch a literature or history course eventually. Are you going to forbid them from taking 3 credit hours of Spanish?

Im sorry, but I'm not getting your point. A guy in a non-humanities field of study got put on involuntary leave, and, in your mind, this is due to the humanities department?
"On June 3, Klein was placed on involuntary administrative leave until June 24. The notice states that the leave is necessary to give UCLA the opportunity to consider "allegations regarding behavior made in the course and scope of your position … inconsistent with [UCLA's Faculty Code of Conduct].""

What exactly is the university to do while it pondering the issue?

Of course not.

There are wonderful resources for getting a liberal education today. More than ever, in fact, and far less expensive than ever as well.

They just have nothing to do with going into a humanities department.

A liberal education, by definition, includes the humanities.

What's the point of using a forum for discussion if you're just going to make vague assertions and never bother to back them up? You talk of fear and loathing, yet seemingly operate on visceral reaction given that you continually refuse/are unable to list your grievances.

I went to St John's College. Loved every minute of it. It may be the exception that proves the rule, however.
Humanities departments becoming de-facto meetings of the party, as opposed to a cafe where philosophers of all strokes meet to exchange ideas.