Academia - An Anti-Pattern Factory for the 21st Century
A university faculty is 500 egotists with a common parking problem.
It has been almost 40 years since I graduated with two undergraduate STEM degrees - one in biochemistry and the other in cell biology. Hard science degrees that took a lot of hard work to master. As promised, completing a college degree in the Before Times opened doors. A degree from an accredited university or college served, as it had for several hundred years, as a reliable signal that the graduate could be relied on to think competently and critically in their chosen area of study. For much of the 20th century, a college degree served as a reliable indicator of a job candidate's competence and reduced much of the risk for an employer related to an individual's claims of competency.
The value of a college degree has since devolved to the point that today it has become a more reliable indicator of solipsistic incompetence and outrage masked as "passion." In many cases, an individual's university credentials are better used to deselect rather than select. In this respect, a college degree fits what software engineers refer to as an anti-pattern - common practices or techniques that are more likely to be ineffective, counterproductive, or even harmful when used to solve problems or work toward a desired outcome.
I thought I could no longer be surprised, much less stunned, by the hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance displayed each day on any given college campus. The past two weeks, though, have been truly stunning. The vulnerable narcissists - on both sides of the college pulpit - have allowed themselves to be carried far across a line and revealed themselves to be living in a reality that is no longer just uncomfortable to most people, but disturbing. What part of "Never again" do they not understand?
To be clear, I know from having completed a graduate degree and from teaching several years as an Adjunct Instructor for American University, there are many good people within Academia. From their individual perspectives, it's easy to understand they are acting rationally when they decide to remain silent. But at what point do they become complicit in later, more extreme events?
"In my view, the psychological discomfort from cognitive dissonance isn't near as intense as it needs to be in many cases, particularly here in the hyper identity-driven and mob enforced 21st century. If I could wave a magic wand and change one thing about the world it would be to install a biochemical mechanism that causes headaches to occur in varying intensity according to the level of cognitive dissonance inside someone's head. A structural engineer, for example, who is adamant that 2+2=5 would experience a debilitating migraine until they either permanently stop working as a structural engineer or reassess their mathematical prowess and see the wisdom and social justice behind two and two adding up to four." - The Agile Mindset - Beginner's Mind, Cognitive Dissonance
I don't have a solution for what ails academia. Alas, no magic wand. But high profile employers and alumni donors are noticing and withdrawing in a very public way from the sick charade. Have we turned a corner and awaken to the wrongness of wokeness? I think we haven't, but perhaps are close. Echo chambers the size of a college campus are extremely resilient. The likely future for academia is a slow-motion implosion resulting in a highly credential but poorly educated zombie institution that lives on for decades. Trade schools and micro-degrees appear to be ascendant and, from an employers perspective, probably can't come soon enough.
If you have any questions, need anything clarified, or have something else on your mind, please use the comments section or email me directly.
Photo by Susan Q Yin on Unsplash