something that made me angry
This is gonna be brief and completely unrelated to anything, but I need a break from my math thesis (draft due tomorrow, not near done). Too much math thinking and I get this localized pressure headache about halfway back on the right side. I kinda hope that's a part of the brain related to some kind of spacial cognition, and that it's out of shape or something. Thesis is Feel The Burn, and that's not terrible, right? Just getting myself back into shape after a semester of no math whatsoever, and in preparation for a next couple years that will use math not at all, most likely.
Anyway, I saw this article this morning. And it waaaaaay pissed me off. It's stuff like this that makes me distrust the Academy; it's probably this type of thing that makes Tom Cruise flip his shit about psychology. Let's dissect this piece of bad journalism for a minute, yeah?
Main argument: today's college kids are horribly narcissistic--if not in a clinical way, in a way that portends the destruction of our American values and whatever. "Researchers warn that a rising ego rush could cause personal and social problems"; "That makes me very, very worried," said Jean Twenge, who last year published a book titled "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever Before." A serious charge, to be sure.
Her evidence? How students reacted to questions like "If I ruled the world, it would be a better place," "I think I am a special person". First, I think that the last six years have made it pretty clear exactly how much competence is required to rule the world, help one of America's most important cities rebuild after a catastrophic natural disaster, play games with the media about classified information, etc. It's not saying a lot for the average American to assert, "I could probably do about this well with that job."
Meanwhile, the fuss over 'special' is scary in its own right. I certainly remember how important it was in preschool to affirm that everyone in the class was special, and maybe we have all internalized it. But what's the alternative? "I am a faceless cog in the capitalist machine!" Aiyah. Give me the narcissism every time. How can the Times make a statement like "People with an inflated sense of self tend to have less interest in emotionally intimate bonds" when the alternative is apparently people who feel completely typical, replaceable, not special? Who wants to talk to someone who feels like they have nothing unique to contribute, let alone have intimate emotional bonds with them?
Next piece of evidence: surveys indicating that contemporary students are more likely to claim they are attending college for economic security than to develop "a meaningful philosophy of life" compared to students in the 1970s. My reaction is to see this as another positive change--rather than viewing higher education as a luxury (i.e. free time to think about things) to which they are entitled, college students today recognize the role higher education plays in the formation of economic class. I think that the change in survey results reflects the increased accessibility of college to more people, and a recognition among students from a variety of backgrounds that education is a tool that can ensure financial security for yourself and increased opportunity for your family down the line.
Third: a sociology major complains because she wanted to survey people, "But many students were so self-absorbed they didn't want to participate." Being solicited for psych and sociology surveys is far from the most enjoyable part of being in college, and I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that student apathy toward a three-minute survey about jury duty has little to nothing to do with narcissism or self-obsession. It just means nobody likes strangers walking up to them on the street and asking them to do stuff. Surprise!
Basically, this is another one of those articles that makes the front page (of the online edition, at least), has a splashy headline, and then backs it up with little to no real content. The LA Times, I've noticed, is really conservative when it comes to higher education, just as the faculty they interviewed seemed to be. The level of distrust in students seeping out of every quote printed in that article makes me a little sick inside. For every step of progress toward making post-secondary education accessible to more Americans (note Barack Obama's goal of universally available college education for everyone who qualifies), there are the elitists who cling to the University as the ivory tower beacon-in-the-wilderness. Mark Flacks, Asst. Prof. at Cal State LB: "The old model was a collegial one in which students and professors alike sought knowledge for knowledge's sake. The new model is 'I paid my money, give me my grade and degree.' It makes me want to ask [students], 'Want fries with that order?' "
Typical words from someone who ended up in the system himself as a professor. I've been skeptical before of the people for whom college is itself such an amazing experience that they end up working there, but this refusal to see education for what it is in our society--a means to a better job, and hence to a better neighborhood, better public schools, wealth--in order to grouse about knowledge for its own sake need to get a clue. The last four years have been great for self-discovery, life experience, call it what you want, but seeing academics as a closed machine that uses knowledge to make more knowledge showed its age decades ago. Grrrr.
And with that, I'm gonna get back to discussing some non-standard analysis.
Anyway, I saw this article this morning. And it waaaaaay pissed me off. It's stuff like this that makes me distrust the Academy; it's probably this type of thing that makes Tom Cruise flip his shit about psychology. Let's dissect this piece of bad journalism for a minute, yeah?
Main argument: today's college kids are horribly narcissistic--if not in a clinical way, in a way that portends the destruction of our American values and whatever. "Researchers warn that a rising ego rush could cause personal and social problems"; "That makes me very, very worried," said Jean Twenge, who last year published a book titled "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever Before." A serious charge, to be sure.
Her evidence? How students reacted to questions like "If I ruled the world, it would be a better place," "I think I am a special person". First, I think that the last six years have made it pretty clear exactly how much competence is required to rule the world, help one of America's most important cities rebuild after a catastrophic natural disaster, play games with the media about classified information, etc. It's not saying a lot for the average American to assert, "I could probably do about this well with that job."
Meanwhile, the fuss over 'special' is scary in its own right. I certainly remember how important it was in preschool to affirm that everyone in the class was special, and maybe we have all internalized it. But what's the alternative? "I am a faceless cog in the capitalist machine!" Aiyah. Give me the narcissism every time. How can the Times make a statement like "People with an inflated sense of self tend to have less interest in emotionally intimate bonds" when the alternative is apparently people who feel completely typical, replaceable, not special? Who wants to talk to someone who feels like they have nothing unique to contribute, let alone have intimate emotional bonds with them?
Next piece of evidence: surveys indicating that contemporary students are more likely to claim they are attending college for economic security than to develop "a meaningful philosophy of life" compared to students in the 1970s. My reaction is to see this as another positive change--rather than viewing higher education as a luxury (i.e. free time to think about things) to which they are entitled, college students today recognize the role higher education plays in the formation of economic class. I think that the change in survey results reflects the increased accessibility of college to more people, and a recognition among students from a variety of backgrounds that education is a tool that can ensure financial security for yourself and increased opportunity for your family down the line.
Third: a sociology major complains because she wanted to survey people, "But many students were so self-absorbed they didn't want to participate." Being solicited for psych and sociology surveys is far from the most enjoyable part of being in college, and I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that student apathy toward a three-minute survey about jury duty has little to nothing to do with narcissism or self-obsession. It just means nobody likes strangers walking up to them on the street and asking them to do stuff. Surprise!
Basically, this is another one of those articles that makes the front page (of the online edition, at least), has a splashy headline, and then backs it up with little to no real content. The LA Times, I've noticed, is really conservative when it comes to higher education, just as the faculty they interviewed seemed to be. The level of distrust in students seeping out of every quote printed in that article makes me a little sick inside. For every step of progress toward making post-secondary education accessible to more Americans (note Barack Obama's goal of universally available college education for everyone who qualifies), there are the elitists who cling to the University as the ivory tower beacon-in-the-wilderness. Mark Flacks, Asst. Prof. at Cal State LB: "The old model was a collegial one in which students and professors alike sought knowledge for knowledge's sake. The new model is 'I paid my money, give me my grade and degree.' It makes me want to ask [students], 'Want fries with that order?' "
Typical words from someone who ended up in the system himself as a professor. I've been skeptical before of the people for whom college is itself such an amazing experience that they end up working there, but this refusal to see education for what it is in our society--a means to a better job, and hence to a better neighborhood, better public schools, wealth--in order to grouse about knowledge for its own sake need to get a clue. The last four years have been great for self-discovery, life experience, call it what you want, but seeing academics as a closed machine that uses knowledge to make more knowledge showed its age decades ago. Grrrr.
And with that, I'm gonna get back to discussing some non-standard analysis.
posted by sam at
3:51 PM
2 Comments:
Great analysis. I agree 95% and wouldn't have said it as well as you have. The 5% I disagree with is that I think Flacks at CSLB has a point that is generally valid -- many students (though not many at Pomona) are more interested in a GPA and a degree than actually learning anything. It's great to see education pragmatically as a way to a better life, but there are misguided kids all over the place who believe the value is more in their paper resume than their knowledge or abilities... clearly this frustrates their professors. Almost everyone at Pomona had the option to go somewhere with more name recognition, so you don't see this attitude much in our classmates.
One of the most surprisingly formative moments in my education was reading an interview in BusinessWeek with a multimillionaire entrepreneur (forget who) responding to the question "What makes a successful entrepreneur?" -- the answer was (paraphrased) "a sense of entitlement. Every successful entrepreneur I've met, when they see someone else accomplish something, thinks "Why not me? I could do that."
By
Anonymous, at 4/1/07, 7:43 AM
PS - see also 10-12 for why you should expect and ignore articles like this.
By
Anonymous, at 4/1/07, 7:49 AM
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