Question was inspired by this essay: https://whitehotharlots.substack.com/p/the-crisis-of-higher-education-is
wonder if it would be possible to organize some kind of community made socialist colleges
hexbear.college anyone? i have a little experience contributing to openedx, but if people have other preferences (or want a homegrown thing i’m down). I’m not that good a dev/ops but I’ve done a bunch of self hosting projects that have been stable other than my lack of budget to keep them up at times.
I’ve been going through the shit, but I still want to contribute to the hexatlas project I saw on here a while back.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_School_of_Social_Science
The Jefferson School of Social Science was an adult education institution of the Communist Party USA located in New York City. The so-called “Jeff School” was launched in 1944 as a successor to the party’s New York Workers School, albeit skewed more towards community outreach and education rather than the training of party functionaries and activists, as had been the primary mission of its predecessor. Peaking in size in 1947 and 1948 with an attendance of about 5,000, the Jefferson School was embroiled in controversy during the McCarthy period including a 1954 legal battle with the Subversive Activities Control Board over the school’s refusal to register as a so-called “Communist-controlled organization.”
Anyone who thinks that US universities are hotbeds of communism has never set foot in an econ department (or poli-sci).
I have a friend who used to be a family court lawyer and started teaching law at a nearby university. She said it really broke her brain to go into an environment where the stakes were, “if you don’t stay late tonight, you may be seen as lazy in the long run which could hurt your chances of tenure,” when the stakes before were, “if this paperwork isn’t filed by 3, this kid may end up back with their abusive parent”.
And also the university continuously misgendered her for no fucking reason on a bunch of her official school accounts.
I wish universities in north America even had one single bed of socialism/communism considering it’s nothing but “fuck yeah capitalism” or “capitalism has issues but muh communism is worse” in almost all faculties in the case of the university I attended.
Make school free, fire all board members, nationalize all schools
america doesn’t have universities anymore, just hedge funds with lecture halls attached
Or sports enterprises with a side hustle in education
I feel like the rise of AI is going to rapidly exacerbate any and all existing issues with education on all levels tbh
Arguably it already is
Criticizing the concept of academia is a right-wing position.
Criticizing the industrial nature of it and the absurd tutition prices for universities is a left-wing position.
Universities have developed a lot of the same issues as businesses: managerial bloat, the MBA-ification of measuring progress and outcomes, and erosion of job security, work-life balance, and sense of advancement among the people doing the actual work.
I don’t pretend to know the intricacies of higher education in the states, but getting capitalist money out of things like science journals would be hugely beneficially everywhere.
You might say the institution could use some Discipline and Punishment
The system has been eroded by the right for a reason. The “left” are too busy pandering to a voter base that doesn’t like them, so they let it happen.
An uneducated population gives the right two things, more voters due to lack of critical thinking skills and unskilled/underpaid labor. The less the voter understands the more bullshit you can feed them. Destroying education, demonizing established institutions and damning any form of knowledge is a key strategy of the right. And look, it fuckin worked. Younger kids pivoted right. The “left” keeps making excuses as to why, but it’s glaringly obvious that it’s their broken education. 21% of Americans are illiterate. Let that sink in.
First off, please refrain from using the phrase “Let that sink in” in the future. It’s cliched with heavy duty
vibes.Second, while I do think there’s a problem of willful ignorance affecting our political economy, I don’t think youth education and illiteracy are the fundamental issues. Younger generations are, relatively speaking, more likely to have college degrees or college experience. And the only youth who’ve swung right are young white men (plus youth in general are less likely to vote so it’s a murky demo to analyze). The anti-intellectual demonizing of higher education is slop for the boomers.
Likewise, illiterate people aren’t the right wing base; they’re largely non-voters and as illiteracy goes hand in hand with poverty, it’s more likely they see neither party as in their interests than siding with the right.
I think the bigger issue is that our educational system produces too many useful idiots. They can pass the standardized tests but lack the training in critical thinking to see anything past the surface level. Perfect example is the majority of Americans not understanding how marginal tax brackets work. Or just look at all the responses to the results of the election that reveal a completely inability to parse the data.
That’s the funny thing about proper leftist economy theory, it’s not especially esoteric. Most of it is common sense, you just need to think about how things work deeper that the immediate, morality play version of the analysis.
