Thread by @richardabailey

I am a fan of and subscriber to @theatlantic. The writings there regularly challenge me to think critically about important issues. In fact, the recent December 2023 issue, _To Reconstruct the Nation_ is really fine work.

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For the last day or so, many people that I follow on the “network-formerly-known-as-Twitter” have been promoting a recent article (linked below from Apple News) by @bensasse, a trained historian, former US Senator, and now university president.



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I read that essay this morning, thankfully, before I saw all the praise of it (and the reasons for such praise). I would not classify it as “must-read.” I would describe it as worth one’s time, albeit deeply flawed.

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In fact, I think the essay demonstrates the need for a concept like “robot soft exorcism,” as coined by @DavidDark, most completely in his recent book _We Become What We Normalize_ (which I would also describe as worth one’s time and attention.

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What demands such an exorcism? Well, let me offer a few in-process thoughts.

1) Early in the article, Sasse treats the decline the public has in higher education—from 57% in 2015 to 36% now. Why is that an issue?

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It is problematic, in my estimation, because he dons the wardrobe and character of a culture warrior to make sense of this information, attributing the decline (and the one he predicts to come) to the “grostequeries” of many of those involved in higher education.

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His language here (and throughout the essay) matters. He paints with an overly-broad brush regarding the work and motives of many of those in higher education. At best, doing so is a misrepresentation of many and at worst it is an outright lie.

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In either case, he falls right in line with culture warriors who all-too-often turn to fear.

2) He continues this tactic over the next several paragraphs. For example, he describes the presidents of Penn, Harvard, and MIT as “true believers in a new kind of religion.”

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Again, language matters, implying that this new religion, if it even exists, must be one that is less than orthodox. But its existence is never proven. Only asserted as heterodox at best. Fear mongering. An exorcism is in order.

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These three also, he continues, have “drunk the Kool-Aid of a new and cultlike worldview.” More fear mongering and culture warrior assertions. Such thinking, he insists, is something that “normies” cannot “roll our eyes at and ignore.”

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Even if we can put aside the idea that the Yale-trained, former Senator, University of Florida president seriously counts himself among the “normies,” these assertions are little more than fear mongering and the efforts of a culture warrior. A exorcism is in order.

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3) Then, as seen in this paragraph, Sasse turns his attention to the concept of “Intersectionality,” which he had earlier described as a “shallow new theology.” Unfortunately, he makes it clear his grasp of the concept is even more shallow.

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His treatment of intersectionality, in fact, is little more than rhetoric. Such a claim, though, does not mean his treatment is meaningless.

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In fact, in my estimation, he knows what he means in describing the concept the way he does. And like his governor, he knows how to say what he means to be heard by other culture warriors.

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4) He then turns to attack “tenured Ivy Leaguers earning five times the median American income.” Is this criticism to be taken seriously while he makes how much more than the median American income?

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5) Sasse’s discussion of Martin Luther King Jr. and his idolization of him seems especially problematic to me, given the claims of his essay that stand in stark contrast to the work of King. An exorcism is in order.

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6) He writes a few paragraphs later that this new “religiosity has colonized humanities departments.” So, he questions the legitimacy of theories that consider the oppressed, while them using that language himself.

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With his tongue firmly in his cheek? Most likely. But it seems such a weak and maybe even disingenous argument. What does such language (seriously intended or not) mean for the people laboring diligently in Florida’s public and private institutions of higher learning?

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7) He then wants to engage in some sort of questioning of character, describing “many of [the] country’s putatively best minds” as “unable to make basic moral judgments.”

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Because their judgments differ from his own? Are they the "putatively best minds" because of the pedigree they share at least in part with the author? More than a few of us, especially those teaching at non-Ivies, know things don't necessarily work that way.

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8) In this paragraph, he then likens these universities to seminaries for his asserted “new kind of religion” with a doctrine that is “both insecure and oppressive in its prohibitions of insiders and outsiders from pursuing free inquiry.”

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Here I find it interesting that many of those praising Sasse at this point teach at actual seminaries or faith-based institutions of higher education that are prohibitive of free inquiry based on their own statements of faith. An exorcism is in order.

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9) Sasse’s treatment of and claim “Intersectionality is a religious cult that’s dominated higher education for nearly a decade with the shallow but certain idea that pawer structures are everything” is simply not a good faith reading.

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Power structures are something. And they help explain many things, but they are not everything. Such a reading would be a good faith reading.

And then describing such a view (incorrectly mind you” as Neanderthal? An exorcism is in order.

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10) I appreciate his treatment of issues surrounding free speech on college campuses. But framing these issues as if they are only an issue at “liberal” institutions is again not a good faith framing. It is, to use Sasse's language, a grasping at straws

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@threadreaderapp unroll.

11) “Higher education is facing a crisis of public trust.” My concern here is that even if correct, how is an article rife with fear mongering doing fostering public trust? Are only those who agree with Sasse are “committed to the pursuit of truth”? I think not.

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12) As someone in higher education, I value everything in this paragraph and especially the final phrase, reminding me that we “tend to the high calling of educating.” Of course, I also wonder how much of such educating Sasse himself has ever done.

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Is he an expert and practitioner or mainly a voice calling for a specific type of cultural change, fostering the continued industrialization of higher education.

13) Sasse tries to attack critical theory in this article—all while championing the very thing it offers.
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You see, I relish his call for “big-hearted debates about Important issues.” That is what critical thinking (a hallmark of a classical liberal arts education) offers. And, as @Daviddark reminds us, critical theory is critical thinking. Fear no theory!

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@DavidDark In the end, I agree with @bensasse that we “owe it to future generations to build something better.” But his vision, in my opinion, is decidedly not that something better.

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@threadreaderapp unroll.