University politicization now terminal. This happened once before, four centuries ago. By Lance Welton.
Traditional “universities” continue to collapse before our eyes, [no longer] focused on the cold pursuit of truth …
Universities are no longer “elite” if 50% of the age cohort attend them, meaning they don’t give you the edge in employment. Quality has been dumbed down by this expansion.
Worse still, universities have been completely taken over by Woke ideology, meaning that they’re not even teaching students critical thinking or useful information. American confidence in universities fell from 41% in 2006 to 14% in 2018.
Precedent:
But this is not the first time universities have gone into decline. For example, by the early seventeenth century, English universities were completely taken over by religion. Student numbers started to fall, and they began to be perceived as seminaries and as finishing schools for the upper class …
The better students rejected English universities in favor of the Scottish universities that actually taught useful things like science and critical thinking. Thus Darwin originally went to Edinburgh University. Young aristocrats also went on the “Grand Tour” and, as part of this, spent time at a Dutch or German university. By the eighteenth century, many brighter English students attended Leiden University (which they spelled Leyden) in the Netherlands. Oxford and Cambridge didn’t start to become “prestigious” again until they got rid of their religious focus from 1871 onwards. …
Out of the ashes, a solution arises:
The internet means that you don’t need access to a physical library, operated by a university, to attain knowledge. You might want a “teacher” who’ll direct you and inspire you. But there are a number of “far right” (i.e. “non-Woke”) para-academics with significant online followings who are doing just that …
But how can these alternatives to Woke universities take off if their qualifications are not officially recognized? Well, firstly, it is already increasingly pointless doing a degree in a non-remunerative subject such as history or social science. The qualification is supposed to prove your intelligence, which it does not do if it’s merely Woke indoctrination. …
The alternative Gegen University offers modular courses, modelled on the university system, for a fee. These courses aim to teach students the unbridled truth, especially about “controversial” topics that are censored by the recognized German universities. Needless to say, the German Left is not pleased about this “Nazi network,” as they term it …
If institutions such as Gegen University are perceived as teaching students useful skills, having gone there will be a de facto qualification, whether the government recognizes it or not.
Of course, this is more difficult in technical professions controlled by guilds, such as medicine or law. … For these guilds to be penetrated, there would need to be a total collapse in public and official confidence.
But guess what? As these professions are taken over by Woke ideologues — as bad doctors are credentialled for political reasons — this collapse will inevitably happen. Thus Berkeley Life Sciences is now sifting candidates based on their “diversity statements” — not on their abilities. And where Berkeley goes, the rest will follow, which will be the death of STEM at American universities.
Affirmative Action is a danger to your health. The “credentials” associated with it will eventually start to be doubted. People will prefer a doctor who they can be certain has qualified on merit, and this can only mean from a school that specifically rejects Affirmative Action. This kind of dramatic change happens when a society collapses; when trust in all its institutions is lost, which as German philosopher Oswald Spengler argued always occurs in the “Winter of Civilization” — which there are many indications we are now entering.
Perhaps higher education will reform, as it did 1871 in England, to be truly academic and meritocratic once again. But, if it doesn’t, there are clear alternatives waiting to eclipse it and they appear to be growing.
