Clyde Wilson, Education for Oblivion

Educating for Oblivion
by Clyde N. Wilson

What is it that the multi-billion-dollar American higher education industry is supposed to be doing? (Set aside scientific and vocational education for the moment.) Its justification would seem to be in a mission to raise the civilizational level of the young by passing on our cultural inheritance and training minds in independent thinking.

If so, it is a fraud and a waste. Of professors of history, English, political science, and other “humanities and social sciences” today, not one in twenty is doing either of those things. Most of those who have recently been or are now being processed through advanced education would not even understand what I am talking about here, though they would vaguely sense that I am thinking an unacceptable thought. Whatever it is that they think they are supposed to be doing, it is not passing along civilization, and their concept of “independent thinking” is defined by the Leninist ideal of Political Correctness.

Decline of the “hard” sciences cannot be far behind because scientific discovery rests upon the Western cultural inheritance of imagination and inquiry, much in the same way that creative entrepreneurial capitalism rests upon pre-capitalist virtues. Without that inheritance, scientists can only repeat what has been done by their predecessors. They can learn “how to,” but not “why.” Not that it matters much, because American resources for scientific education are today devoted almost entirely to educating Asians.

I would go even farther and say that the "hard" sciences are in trouble now; indoctrination in the hard sciences reveals that tradition plays a greater role than those who believe in the pure "rationality" of the hard sciences might recognize. While there may be some original "thinking" when it comes to their own experiments, scientists do rely on the discoveries made by others in their field, and rarely do they double-check the work of others as a matter of course, unless it contradicts their own notions, in which they devise an experiment to confirm or deny those findings. Moreover, it would surprise the American public to learn that the logic skills of those in the hard sciences are generally in an appalling shape. (After all, logic is rarely required of anyone going through the university these days.) As for discoveries outside their specialty, they are as indoctrinated as non-scientists. As they clearly lack expertise, they cannot be cited as an authority. (Even if one were to accept an appeal to authority as a form of probable argument.)