A very good extract. Regretfully, that section of the community that one would hope would lead the way in education for the humanities is the very section that opposes such education. I refer of course to the attitude of the various churches to the introduction of voluntary classes in ethics training and, by extension, critical thinking in NSW schools. Fearful that such classes could in some way weaken their political influence (which almost by definition it very likely would) and equally fearful of the concomitant loss of public funding, the established churches are fighting the introduction of these classes tooth and nail and, by and large, are succeeding. The recent outrageous prostitution of the democratic process by Fred Nile qua 'Christian Democrats' is a sad case in point.

With a bit more time, in the real world, this lady might actually see that the west has a real shortage of technically trained people, but a surfeit in the fairy floss disciplines.

Unless we get quite a few more doers, & a lot less talkers, our ability to fund all the talking will become severely diminished.

It must be getting hard to fill the places in some of this stuff, for this type of promotion to be necessary. Hard to get takers when once they have done these courses there are no jobs for them, [apart from the public service], which is becoming a problem. I see GYM-FISH has the answer. Lets make this rubbish a school subject. Lots of nice easy jobs in education then. Even if no one is interested, it will keep graduates employed.

Then of course, lots of even better ones in curriculum development, & the like, & someone will have to write text book or three.

While I appreciate Martha Nussbaum's concern over the Humanities, I fear her solution is actually part of the problem of the decline. The Humanities obsession with equality, race, class, and gender does little in the way of teaching critical thinking skills. For one, how can critical thinking skills be employed when the problem is already outlined and preached in advance by university professors and doctors? This is follow the leader, not critical thinking. Nevertheless, why should we be angry toward inequality? (I mean "angry" not "critical" as the term critical is employed by academics to hide their resentment against authority). The cry of equality and social justice by Humanities departments is really a euphemism for tearing down distinction, rank, and the successful. It is no mistake that Humanities departments focus on race, gender, and class, as these form the basis of their objects of resentment. Their rage, in most cases, is against whites (race), males (gender), and capitalists (class). Under this approach, every minority group is made out to be victims of these "bullies." Humanities courses then focus on tearing down these "bullies" and propping up the supposed oppressed minorities. This is not education and not critical thinking, it is merely the political project of the neo-Marxists who attempt to indoctrinate every young freshman into their ideology. As long as this project continues, the Humanities will keep declining in relevance. I, for one, hope the Humanities does not die out, but if it continues along these lines, then, it deserves its fate.

Martha’s article is so riddled with fallacies, so dripping with hypocrisy, that it’s hard to know where to begin in exploding all her bubbles.

For starters, her critique of profit of course assumes government’s superior goodness and wisdom in providing goods and services. But it is *governments* who are providing the educational services she criticises.

The advantage of supplying goods by profit and loss is that they tell you whether you are producing too much or too little. Too much, and you make a loss. Too little, and the profit is a signal direct from the great mass of society telling you they want more of what you’re producing, the value of which they consider to be *greater* than the value of the money they pay for it: see "Profit and Loss" by Ludwig von Mises
http://mises.org/daily/2321

But Martha is opposed to that. She is urging for economic growth – in the humanities - but she wants it supplied specifically on the basis that the masses don’t want it and must be forced to pay for it.

So how are we to know how much of it is to be supplied! Why Martha’s superior wisdom and goodness will supply all deficits of course!

And how will Martha know? In presuming that she is the vanguard she contradicts every one of her equalitarian doctrines to the core.

And if a youngster decides to drive a truck instead of studying humanities, so what? Who is to say that the value to him, or to society in general, is lesser from delivering bricks than it is from imbibing compulsorily-funded, centrally-dictated, collectivist doctrines about how class, and race, and gender are what make life worth living?

No mention of Martha’s personal conflict of interest by the way? Looks like profit isn’t so bad all the time eh?

As for critical thinking ... in the humanities? A horse-laugh to that! If they cultivated critical thinking, Martha wouldn't have written this article!

All conceivable arguments for government education are refuted here: "Archipelagos of Educational Chaos" by Benjamin Marks
http://mises.org/journals/jls/19_2/19_2_5.pdf

My the barbarians are out in force today! Not Gym-Fish.

Hooray for Martha.

This has been a very hot topic for forever and a day, and certainly more so in recent times. It is an argument engaged by both sides of the culture wars divide and by both religious "traditionalists" and those of a more secular orientation such as Martha.

Many very vocal religious "traditionalists" argue that the academy needs to be re-Christianized and thus brought back to its presumed Christian roots. For instance the people at First Things are very much involved in this project. Never mind that the paradigm promoted by these self-righteous dudes is itself the primary cause of the problem.

Although not identified with this movement a very influential work was/is After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre. This quote is from that book: "This time ... the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing for quite some time."

The proof of this was the fact that the 8 years of the mal-administration of George Bush was easily the worst period in USA history. But he was only finishing off the cultural and environmental wrecking project began by Ronald Reagan.

This essay was written at the start of Bush's regime.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1116/looting_planet_earth

By the way that chap from the Czech Republic is very much a supporter and propaganda hack of this looting planet earth paradigm - as is the IPA.

Unfortunately the merely good-hearted and well intentioned suggestions offered by Martha do not go deep enough to the root of what human existence is intrinsically all about - and in fact cannot go deep enough.

Early on, Peter Hume asserts, "The advantage of supplying goods by profit and loss is that they tell you whether you are producing too much or too little. Too much, and you make a loss." Doesn't this assume that "too much" and "too little" are defined solely in terms of how much people will buy; that the answer to the question of how much is the right amount to produce is the amount that will maximize the profit of the producer?

If so, why should this definition of "right amount" lead to the right or best answer as Peter Hume (I think) assumes? What if the question doesn't mean what is the right amount to maximize the producer's profit but something else, like what is the right amount to maximize human beings' average well being and to minimize its variance? Or, perhaps, the right amount to allow the planet to sustain itself for as long as possible? Isn't Peter's answer then exposed as merely a good answer to a wrong question.

At least, this is how it seemed to me and why I had difficulty taking what else he said as seriously as I probably should have. And why I suspect that he could learn a thing or two by taking GYM-FISH more seriously.

Ultimately education will be determined by what the corporates require in the way of a skilled workforce.

There was an excellent article recently in The Australian where businesses are now requiring more than just technical skills and abillity.

They are finding that graduates, while generally ok as useful machines, lack the fairy floss of relating to other human beings and being able to think for themselves.

Simple and basic things like working as a team, thinking solutions through, being cooperative with others outside the terms of their performance management agreement, asking for help when stumped with a problem outside their sandpit or even being polite on the phone.

If there is not a written procedure much less a precedent for it they come to a grinding halt.

Having experienced this first hand in the corporate financial world, it is not surprising that some universities have already responded to business calls to provide a more rounded education by including a commensurate amount of fairy floss with the machine oil.

Clearly Peter Hume has not enjoyed an education that incorporates the identification of fallacies. There are no logical fallacies in this piece - not surprising given that Nussbaum is a Professor of philosophy who, among other things, teaches logic. Of course there are things with which people will disagree but the fact that one disagree does not make the piece "riddled with fallacies".
her criticism of government is not about Government providing education but rather about the underlying assumptions of that provision.
To assume that it is reasonable to apply market forces to the provision of education fails to ask the question who is the consumer? Is it the prospective employer? The parent? The student? or Society? Given that society pays we need to ask what sort of education will serve the needs of society?
As far as truck drivers are concerned - at what stage did we know they were to be truck drivers? Should we have made that assumption when they entered school? Should we assume that truck drivers are not interested in the humanities?

I have heard it said that universities should be teaching morality, but where are the examples of morality in universities.

Now centers for research that is rarely commercialised or used by anyone, where denigration of the male gender is totally accepted if not encouraged, where calls for more and more taxpayer funding are heard almost daily, but at the same time these universities have almost no accountability or standards, other than those applied by themselves.

Finding a university academic in Australia prepared to say anything positive about the male gender is a joke, but I have also found it extremely difficult to find a university academic in Australia prepared to say anything positive about the Australian public.

Marta C Nussbaum,

“The broad humanistic vision is under threat from a retrenchment in the humanities at all levels”.

Does today anything differ from the times in which such Vision was well sustained by the Nation’s rulers who sent their scions to schools designed to retain the system of class privilege?

Are not those times precursors to the present ones?

Kindly, Lady, do not let nostalgia infect your life.

The very energy that has made you pen this article, says that you are young enough to shake away the web of academia that impedes your pursuing the real causes of today’s malaise.

Sadly our system of education is rubbish;
Hardly any of our subjects help us in the real world- and the most vital topics are taught as entirely optional courses in the last few years at school.
Students are not trained to think- but taught to assume that what is handed to them is right or important (including rubbish like Shakespeare) and they take it or leave it (most often they leave it).
The idea that we are taught only to be trained for a business is definitely the approach schools take- but sadly not the outcome.
We read plenty of papers- but not to critique them, or to understand that they are the result of the author's opinion, even when accurate and balanced- we just identify the font and format- never the semantics.

The strange thing is, businesses do not endorse this notion either- as the students would need to be trained from scratch anyway, and whatever is taught in high school may well be obsolete at the rates businesses change.

If I had my way, schools would cut down on workloads, but all economics, history, geography, politics and society courses would be compulsory and they would start much earlier. Arts and drama are fine- minus the fact that choosing them depreciates the UAI value of the graduate, on default.

Baygon

“her criticism of government is not about Government providing education but rather about the underlying assumptions of that provision.”

True, however the fact that government is not providing education as she wants it to, goes to her underlying assumptions about government (best decision-maker as to what education should be), which do involve logical fallacies, for the reasons shown by your questions.

What is the best service? How much of it should there be? What should it contain? Who should provide it? Who fund it? Who should decide? These are the questions that need to be answered, and they can either by answered by
a) the voluntary participation of the parties based on private property, or
b) by compulsion, violation of property rights and individual choice, and central planning.

But provision by central dictate involves numerous logical fallacies.

It is the fallacy of conceptual realism – to attribute to abstract collective *concepts* the character of personhood -
a) to talk of “society” as a decision-making entity. It isn’t. It’s an aspect of human action, namely social co-operation.
b) to identify “society” with the state. The state is not society and society is not the state, nor is there any evidence that the state represents society more or better than society represents itself.

It is a fallacy to assert that the state can increase whatever you want to call the ultimate human welfare criterion you assert - by providing education.

Why? Because the only thing government can offer that is otherwise unavailable is legalized force. Government is made up of people just like you and me. It is not a superbeing. It does not have superior wisdom, or goodness, or knowledge, or effectuality. The assumption that government knows better - or would if only it followed your opinion - is fallacious because value is subjective. It’s decentralized in all the relevant people. It’s not known, and not knowable, to the central planners. You cannot increase the ultimate human welfare criterion you assert, by forcibly overriding their decisions and substituting a state of affairs they prefer less. It’s logically invalid reasoning.

(cont.)

Thus the entire argument for government education is based on fallacies, or errors, that the author would have recognized if she had read less of the Frankfurt school, and more of the Austrian school.

(As for measures such as GlenC’s “the right amount to maximize human beings' average well being and to minimize its variance? Or the right amount to allow the planet to sustain itself for as long as possible?”, the problem with these is:
• other people aren’t your property for you to decide on their behalf against their will
• these also involve the fallacies of conceptual realism: the personification of society, and the deification of the state. There is no great superhuman called “society” who can know better other people’s behalf.

“To assume that it is reasonable to apply market forces to the provision of education fails to ask the question who is the consumer?”

No it doesn’t. The use of force and threats is illegal in market transactions, so there are no market “forces”. The issue is only whether provision should be by *voluntary* means by those who know and pay for themselves, versus provision by *compulsory * means by those who don’t know for others.

“Is it the prospective employer?”

It is if he wants and is prepared to pay for it. Otherwise, why should others be forced to subsidise his benefit, as now?

“The parent? The student?”

Usually and mostly, and that is as it should be, as they are the ones who receive most benefit from it.

“or Society?”

There’s that mystical Moloch again. You don’t stand for society.

“Given that society pays we need to ask what sort of education will serve the needs of society?”

Who’s “we”?

Since you, and Martha, are not “society”, then you don’t know and can’t say what society wants any more or better than anyone else who comprises it and disagrees with you. Yet the only effect of government intervention is to forcibly override society’s demonstrated preference.

(cont.)

(cont.)

“As far as truck drivers are concerned - at what stage did we know they were to be truck drivers?”

“We” don’t know, that’s the whole point. People can and do decide for themselves. It’s not decided by central planning, and the pretensions of central planners to know better are false.

“Should we have made that assumption when they entered school? Should we assume that truck drivers are not interested in the humanities?”

Who’s “we”?

There’s no need for you to decide what values other people should live by. They have a right to be free of your interference, and it’s no-one’s business but their own so long as they are not aggressing against others’ person or property. What consideration have you given to the possibility that your ultimate human welfare criterion would be better served in this way, than by attempts by government-funded academics to prescribe on others' behalf?

Well stated, Peter Hume, at his point I totally agree with everything you have said.

Martha Naussbuam assumes that those who do not agree with her views aren't thinking outside the square. She is really not thinking outside the square in believing this.

http://www.academia.org/the-origins-of-political-correctness/ far from being the solution, humanities education is part of the problem. take note the full web site name is "ACCURACY in academia".

Soviet era proverb. "the present we know, we are doing it, the future we know, we are building it, only the past keeps changing".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpZtX32sKVE&feature=feedu see if you think this one applies in the land of OZ, as well?

"repeat the lie until it becomes the truth" Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ9myHhpS9s&feature=related poor dears, when will they get the joke?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju3h7yk4Hcg&NR=1 there is no need for Breivik's solution here. try the closet communists for sabotaging our education system to produce failure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQgG3AZMj3g&feature=related there are dozens of youtube videos like this one showing graduates who can't get a job with the useless piece of paper they have that says degree on it & have a mountain of HECS/college loans to pay off, before they even start.

I think one of the problems with the humanities is that their study has been perverted by ill-conceived 'critical thinking'. It's alright to think critically as long as you come up with the answers the course coordinator wants you to come up with. They do the 'critical' thinking and you follow in your footsteps.

I have some experience as a student of the humanities. As a postgrad, I was allowed some freedom to think for myself. As an undergrad, however, I had to spout the 'official' line.

When viewing public history, I was expected to note that we erect many more statues of men than women, and to infer from that discovery that our society values men more than women. When studying ethics, I was forced into many farcical 'hypotheticals':

Your son and his friend are drowning in a pond. Who do you save if you can only save one?
a) Your son, as you have an ethic of care and, therefore, are bound to protect him
b) His friend, as you have a responsibility to bring happiness to others rather than yourself; saving your son would bring happiness to you, but sadness to the other kid's parents
c) Which one is more likely to cure cancer?
d) Your son - you have a responsibility to make yourself happy
e) Both, or die trying
f) Neither

In the end, both kids are likely to drown as I assume the foetal position because making a decision is just so hard. In fact, making a decision was rarely acceptable in these assessment tasks: it was more important that I weighed up the pros and cons of each ethical stance without showing bias towards one or the other.

I guess what I'm saying is that critical thinking has its place, but it must be blended with practicality. Learning for the sake of learning is a wonderful thing, but we must remember that the taxpayer is footing the bill and deserves some sort of result.

Skeptic - "The very energy that has made you pen this article, says that you are young enough to shake away the web of academia that impedes your pursuing the real causes of today’s malaise."

Unfortunately, Martha's been in the Academy since 1969 and has published 17 books. She's not new to academia. It's a shame that she can't see that she is part of the problem, and not its solution.

From my experience in the Humanities critical thinking is rarely employed at all. Most topics are highly skewed into a neo-Marxist and pessemistic view of culture, history, and society. "Oppression" is everywhere, apparently, and our job, supposedly, as Humanities students is be angry about that.

When I tutored a sociology course I was horrified at the pessemistic and negative view of Australia and the West that I was to teach. Again, "oppression" and "inequality" is everywhere and that, for some reason, is an evil. No critical thinking was required unless a student took it upon themselves to be critical. I encouraged them to be wary of the political slant of the texts when reading them; and to bear in mind at all times that most positions have a preconceived political ideology underpinning them.

It's also a severe lack of critical thinking when they emphasize the damaging nature of negative stereotyping, but allow negative stereotypes to be made against whites, males, and Western civilization in general. Logic dictates that if negative stereotyping is bad, then that must apply across the board, not just to the groups one politically opposes. This is simple logic, but logic has no place if you have a destined political ideal in mind. (There's also the additional problem of how does one do away with stereotyping when it's embedded within the nature of language itself? Again, this wasn't an issue for the texts).

The Humanities will undo themselves. They have marginalized themselves against the mainstream to such an extent that they will fall into irrelevancy; as is already evident.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12468#215617

Aristocrat, great comment, i see the loony left humanities academics who infest this site have chosen not to comment as they have no answer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obTNwPJvOI8&feature=related Howler did you write the script for this one?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KkluiR5Rns&feature=related or this sequel?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMvARy0lBLE&feature=related this is another beauty.