At what point do we stop thinking of college “as a path to prosperity”?

Those familiar with my posts here or my op-eds will know what my answer will be to the question in the subject line.  But, enough about me; let's bring in some real experts!

That question in the subject line of this post is a part of the interview with Glenn Reynolds, who replies:

REYNOLDS: As soon as possible. Some students do better by going to college. Others do worse. Four out of ten students, according to Gallup, wind up in jobs they could have gotten without a college degree. That makes the time, and money, spent in college a waste, at least as far as prosperity is concerned. And some students actually do worse by going to college, developing problems with drugs, alcohol, or sex that may plague them for years, or a lifetime. Then there’s the debt, which can run into six figures, and isn’t dischargeable in bankruptcy.

Of course, I agree with Reynolds.

Now, one could remark that the interview is in a publication that is clearly identified with the right side of the political spectrum and that, therefore, this is a biased and ideological position.  So, what does Camille Paglia, who is nowhere and everywhere on the political spectrum, think about this push for college?

" Michelle Obama's going on: 'Everybody must have college.' Why? Why? What is the reason why everyone has to go to college? Especially when college is so utterly meaningless right now, it has no core curriculum" and "people end up saddled with huge debts," says Ms. Paglia. What's driving the push toward universal college is "social snobbery on the part of a lot of upper-middle-class families who want the sticker in the window."

At a college like ours, where most students do not come from affluent backgrounds, the push for college is increasingly a financially disastrous outcome for many students who graduate with debt and no real jobs that will pay those promised middle-class wages.  We faculty and staff don't seem to worry about where our salaries come from!  Reynolds addresses that aspect too:

LOPEZ: You point out that you may be a potential loser in education reform — as a tenured professor “who is making out all right as it is.” You’re okay with that?
REYNOLDS: Yeah. The current professoriate has had a good ride, but in the past decade or two in particular, that ride has been mostly on the backs of increasingly indebted students and parents. That can’t go on forever, and shouldn’t.

Meanwhile, at the other end--at the graduate studies end of the continuum--the promise of the good ride of the professoriate means way more PhDs are being produced compared to the academic jobs, which means there is an army of unemployed and underemployed doctorates.  I have blogged enough about the ponzi scheme that graduate school has become.  So, again, enough about me. Here is Megan McArdle:

The fundamental issue in the academic job market is not that administrators are cheap and greedy, or that adjuncts lack a union. It’s that there are many more people who want to be research professors than there are jobs for them. And since all those people have invested the better part of a decade in earning their job qualifications, they will hang around on the edges of academia rather than trying to start over. Such a gigantic glut of labor is bound to push down wages and working conditions.
Unfortunately, I’m essentially arguing that professors ought to, out of the goodness of their heart, get rid of their graduate programs and go back to teaching introductory classes to distracted freshman. Maybe they should do this. But they’re not going to.

Happy new year!

Primary education does everything in its power to turn boys into neuters

A few days before the snow/ice freeze happened last December, the first Sunday of that month I was perched in front of the television set, to watch one of my favorite television programs: In Depth.

That Sunday guest for three hours?  Christina Hoff Sommers.

For years now, I have been in the camp that Sommers and a few others are in, worrying that the entire education system is making boys underachieve in class and in life.  I have often blogged here even with the tag line of "save the males."

It is not that I am any macho, macho man--far from that.  I am a wuss. A wimp. Further, as many of my blog posts will show, I am one heck of a supporter for rights for women, especially in the poorer countries where the treatment of women is atrocious.  But, all those are different from the evidence and logic upon which I draw my conclusions that align me with people like Sommers.

As I watched it, I got so excited that I tweeted. Like this one, for instance:

Am watching @CHSommers on @BookTV and reviewing my own blog posts: Do #professors think and say foolish things? http://t.co/R7HuPyKuz6
— sriram khe (@congoboy) December 2, 2013

I didn't have time then to blog about her comments.  So, why now?  Because I was reminded of Sommers when I read this piece about Camille Paglia in the WSJ.  During the interview, Sommers commented about "her friend" Paglia during the interview and I was all the more excited because I am a huge fan of Paglia's commentaries.  Paglia's take on Sarah Palin was a classic.

Camille Paglia, too, has been worried about the war against masculinity.  She is one heck of a feminist herself, and so is Sommers, which is all the more why their commentaries are that much more insightful.

Ms. Paglia argues that the softening of modern American society begins as early as kindergarten. "Primary-school education is a crock, basically. It's oppressive to anyone with physical energy, especially guys," she says, pointing to the most obvious example: the way many schools have cut recess. "They're making a toxic environment for boys. Primary education does everything in its power to turn boys into neuters."  

In my years of reading and listening to public intellectuals, only one other person was so brutal and powerful in conveying ideas--Christopher Hitchens.  Oh, how I miss his commentaries!

She is not the first to make this argument, as Ms. Paglia readily notes. Fellow feminist Christina Hoff Sommers has written about the "war against boys" for more than a decade. The notion was once met with derision, but now data back it up: Almost one in five high-school-age boys has been diagnosed with ADHD, boys get worse grades than girls and are less likely to go to college.
Ms. Paglia observes this phenomenon up close with her 11-year-old son, Lucien, whom she is raising with her ex-partner, Alison Maddex, an artist and public-school teacher who lives 2 miles away. She sees the tacit elevation of "female values"—such as sensitivity, socialization and cooperation—as the main aim of teachers, rather than fostering creative energy and teaching hard geographical and historical facts.
By her lights, things only get worse in higher education. "This PC gender politics thing—the way gender is being taught in the universities—in a very anti-male way, it's all about neutralization of maleness." 

Yep!

Can atheists become carnatic music maestros?

Listening to the South Indian classical music--carnatic music--was a serious passion among most elders in the extended family.  Appreciation of the music came quite naturally to me and I was beginning to get really good in recognizing the ragas even from the first couple of notes.  It was wonderful until ... I started questioning religion.

Carnatic music is built around religion.  Rare is a composition that is not about any one of the Hindu gods.  For all purposes then this classical music is also devotional music. To borrow a word from Christianity, it was ecclesiastical. 

Into my teenage years, as I started questioning religion, the agnosticism spilled over into the appreciation of this music as well.  I suppose I was consistent in my approach in questioning whether one could be into the music without being in the religion.

I was provided with a wonderful real example of this puzzle--following some of controversies related to the musician KJ Yesudas.  Born into a Catholic family, Yesudas took up carnatic music and was a student of one of the most accomplished musicians.   Yesudas' involvement with this Hindu music drew ire from the Catholic religious leaders, who even threatened him with excommunication.  The Catholic logic was that by singing bhajans and carnatic music compositions in temples, Yesudas was straying far away from the monotheism of Christianity.  The excommunication never happened, but all those developments made me think that much more about religion and carnatic music even as I was questioning the concept of "god" itself.

In fact, one of the compositions by Thyagaraja clearly lays out the relationship between carnatic music and devotion:

Sangeetha gnanamu Bhakthi vinaa,  San margamu  kaladhe , Oh Manasa
(The knowledge of music, without devotion (bhakthi) is not the right path, oh mind)

The lyrics further note that this music is a mode of worship. 

The more I moved away from religion--not merely Hinduism, but any religion and god--the more I was naturally disconnecting from this classical music as well. 

Over the decades, I have pretty much lost any interest in carnatic music, and it is only the intellectual curiosities about the music that remain within me.  Every time I visit India, which is almost always in December, I am often presented with opportunities to think about this question of bhakthi in carnatic music--it is also in December that Chennai hosts the huge music festival, and there are programs on television as well.  One of the TV programs features Q/A sessions with musicians.  Without fail, there is always a question about the role of bhakthi in the music, and every musician who has taken that question emphasizes that without bhakthi there cannot be any music.  It is like listening to baseball players responding to questions when you know exactly what their response is going to be. 

A few months ago, I was talking with a cousin and her husband about religion and god, and I laid out this aspect of carnatic music--she is heavily into it.  I wondered if ever there would ever be a secularization of carnatic music. A reformation of sorts.  She seemed intrigued!

The bhakthi is so strong that a jazzy improvisation that Susheela Raman does in her sultry voice with a carnatic classic, nagumomu, might be considered blasphemy. (Maybe I ought to ask for that cousin's opinion here.)



Oh well ... as much as an atheist that I am, one of my favorite pieces from music in this part of the world drips with religion all the way: Handel's Messiah.



All across the world, literature and the arts grew within religious frameworks.  Camille Paglia has often made this point, and she has done that with her usual vast knowledge and clarity.  A confirmed atheist, Paglia points out, and I am in complete agreement with her, that the works that resulted from this framework have been phenomenal, both in quantity and quality.

To fully appreciate world art, one must learn how to respond to religious expression in all its forms. Art began as religion in prehistory. It does not require belief to be moved by a sacred shrine, icon, or scripture. Hence art lovers, even when as citizens they stoutly defend democratic institutions against religious intrusion, should always speak with respect of religion. Conservatives, on the other hand, need to expand their parched and narrow view of culture.

Like her, despite (or because of) my atheistic beliefs, I too worry that in education we don't emphasize enough a deep understanding of religions.  Paglia goes one more step and writes:

Great art can be made out of love for religion as well as rebellion against it. But a totally secularized society with contempt for religion sinks into materialism and self-absorption and gradually goes slack, without leaving an artistic legacy.

Maybe someday there will be a body of secular carnatic music that was borne out of the rebellion against Hinduism?  You think?  Nah!

Feminism: needed, passe, or dead?

So, I finished reading Camille Paglia's essay (actually a keynote address at Harvard) where she ends with this forceful message:
we must stop seeing everything in life through the narrow lens of gender. If women expect equal treatment in society, they must stop asking for infantilizing special protections. With freedom comes personal responsibility.

And then, I thought I would read the Guardian, which I have not done for a while. There too was a lengthy piece on feminism, but from a completely different perspective.
The sex industry is booming, the rape conviction rate is plummeting, women's bodies are picked over in the media, abortion rights are under serious threat and top business leaders say they don't want to employ women. It all adds up to one thing ... an all-out assault on feminism.

I liked this paragraph there:
the obsession [with pregnant celebrities] is such that one magazine editor has said that "it's at the point now where some stars might decide to have more kids just to collect the money from their photos". We've seen Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, former child star Melissa Joan Hart and Myleene Klass all pose naked and pregnant in the past few years - as Keri Russell, an actor who has played a pregnant woman in two films in the past year has said, there is "this weird, crazy pop-culture infatuation with all these actresses being pregnant. Have you ever seen so many pictures of [pregnant] actresses?"
Indeed not. The message that these images strike home is that women's worth is directly tied to childbearing,