by Mish Shedlock, Mish Talk:
Proposed Theory: Academia Is Finally Learning Hard Lessons
Washington Post writer Megan McArdle says Academia Is Finally Learning Hard Lessons. I respond inline in brackets. That is a free link.
The Trump administration is not just trying to get the government under control or save taxpayers money. It is mounting a frontal assault on every center of left-wing institutional power it can reach: academia, the civil service, nonprofits. The object is to break these institutions so badly that the next Democratic administration will not be able to put them back the way they were.
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I probably don’t have to tell our readers why this is bad. [Actually you do, but can’t, because it’s a good thing]
Since you know that, [Well, we don’t know that because it’s false] let me make a less obvious and probably less welcome point: The left, not the right, picked this fight. This was politically naive and criminally stupid for institutions that rely so heavily on U.S. taxpayer support. [For starters, it’s completely obvious, not less obvious, and the Left did it on purpose, too. But the following two sentences are things McArdle gets right. It was criminally stupid and politically naive]
It has long been clear that cuts to research funding could be the first step if Republicans were so minded. The student loans and Pell grants that subsidize tuition could be slashed, the tax rules that let elite institutions accumulate massive endowments could be changed, and in red states, government aid to public schools could be reduced. The resulting budget holes would be calamitous in many cases and would filter through the ecosystem even to schools that survived. [Let’s hope so]
Nonetheless, school administrations began issuing left-wing hot takes on news that played to the culture war, and students agitated, often successfully, to de-platform right-wing speakers and punish students or faculty who deviated from progressive orthodoxy. [Another correct paragraph]
Even if you think this was a move in the right moral direction, it was dangerous behavior. [No one in their right mind should believe this was the right moral directions. And academia did not only go along for the ride, it embraced and fostered the cancel culture]
Fundamentally, they took their prestige and public support for granted and seemed unable to imagine a world where the word “education” no longer conjured reverent deference among most of the population. [Again correct, but where the hell is proof the Left learned anything from this?]
Like children throwing rocks from an overpass, they felt protected by their elevated position, assuming their targets could do little but yell back. They weren’t expecting one of the drivers to get out of the car and grab a baseball bat from the trunk. [More accurately, the Left welcomed this battle in the foolish belief that Trump could never win again. Now they whine about the result]
None of which justifies what Republicans are doing now. It is crude, destructive and — like a baseball bat — unconscionably disproportionate. [That statement shows how clueless not only McArdle is, but all of the Progressive Left. Dismantling DEI is 100 percent welcome and needed]
But complaining about Republicans, while emotionally satisfying, isn’t very useful. The institutional left can’t control what Republicans do. It can only control its own behavior. And that behavior, however well-intentioned, was reckless in the extreme. [Complaining about DEI dismantling is further proof the Left learned nothing. They should be admitting DEI was a big mistake and apologize for the mistake. Instead they take DEI out of department names hoping to disguise what they are still doing]
What Lesson Was Learned?
Does anyone get a sense the Left learned anything from this?
McArdle mostly blames Trump. She also says the Left picked this fight.
Thank goodness I can freely say “she” without having to ask ridiculous questions about pronouns. But it was the “extreme-Left”, led by academia, that picked this fight, not just “the Left”.
The average center-Left, center-Right, Libertarian, and far-Right person is sick of Black Lives Matter, ridiculous nonbinary sex theories, favoritism for non-whites, praise for Hamas, college application favoritism, men playing female sports, and all the other bullsheet that the radical Left supports.
Originally Posted at https://www.sgtreport.com