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Buy the Book
Hustlers, Hucksters, and the Betrayal of American Education
The poisonousness of identity studies.
(Page 2 of 2)
Then there is a whole discipline of men’s studies, taught at “about a hundred North American colleges and universities.” Bawer quotes Lionel Tiger, who calls men’s studies “‘a wholly owned branch of women’s studies,’ examining maleness through a feminist and social constructionist prism.” Or, as professor David Clemens of Monterey Peninsula College puts it, men’s studies is a “‘camouflage version of Women’s Studies’ in which the ‘operative question’ is, ‘Why are men so awful?’”
There is even whiteness studies. “Just as men’s studies isn’t really about maleness but patriarchal oppression, so whiteness studies isn’t really about whiteness but racial oppression.” Bawer quotes David Horowitz: “Black studies celebrates Blackness, Chicano studies celebrates Chicanos, Women’s studies celebrates women, and white studies attacks white people as evil.”
Then there is fat studies, “to a large extent, a sub-division of Women’s Studies.” At a National Women’s Studies Association meeting in Denver, he attends a session titled “Advancing Fat Feminism,” where one of the participants, a professor who describes herself as “a self-identified queer, fat, vegan,” waxes eloquent on the cow. She refuses to drink milk, not for vegan health reasons, but for feminist principles. “Dairy is a feminist issue. Milk comes from a grieving mother….no human can be free while other species are oppressed.”
But amid all this silliness, Bawer does see a ray of hope. He cites an article appearing in the Daily Beast, in which the author, discussing the rise of fat studies, seems to worry that “identity studies are becoming so far removed from any hint of academic or intellectual legitimacy that even teachers of more established and only moderately asinine disciplines are reacting to the far more extreme asininity of the newer ones.” Perhaps. And it may be that in the end, it’s just a matter of rediscovering some very simple and basic truths. Before diversity became the watchword, we called it the melting pot; E Pluribus Unum, not Ex Uno Plures, was the motto.
In his discussion of Chicano studies, which he characterizes as “a locus for Marxist propaganda”— “Briefly put: Castro and Chavez good; America evil”—he cites Francisco H. Vasquez, the editor of “a major anthology in the field,” who tries to explain why there’s a need for a discipline called Chicano studies, but “not, say, a German-American or an Italian-American Studies.” Says Vasquez: “[T]he U.S. Italian, Irish, and German populations…have in due time become accepted as ‘real’ Americans. They do not need their own ethnic studies at the university.” “
It doesn’t seem to occur to Vasquez,” writes Bawer, “that one reason why those groups have been so successfully integrated is that they didn’t have ‘their own ethnic studies at the university.’ Italian, Irish and German Americans…studied what everybody else studied. They didn’t go to college to be ‘taught’ about the one thing you could be sure they knew something about.…They went to college to learn about things beyond their own experience and to do something useful with that knowledge.”
Bawer sums it up:
We stand on….the shoulders of pioneers and soldiers, entrepreneurs and inventors, factory laborers and farmers, who…transformed a wilderness continent into the freest, most dynamic, and most prosperous nation in the history of the human race [so that] by the late twentieth century virtually every young person in America had the opportunity to acquire a real higher education.…
[T]his noblest of goals was met in America before it was met anywhere else. And it is why the replacement of a true education…by identity studies is a betrayal, in the profoundest sense, of the promise of America.
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Photo © Jorge Royan
About the Author
John R. Coyne, Jr. a former White House speech-writer, is co-author with Linda Bridges of Strictly Right: William F. Buckley Jr. and the American Conservative Movement (Wiley).
Letter to the Editor View all comments (19) | Leave a comment
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drudge ette obama| 10.29.12 @ 6:13AM
Obama taught this rubbish in law school - it was all he was qualified to teach.
I avoided all racial and sexual studies in college (and law school) because I knew instinctively that these types of courses were a waste of time (and money) and I also had little tolerance for being brainwashed.
Something tells me that most of the people who take the ___studies courses (you fill in the blank) are rabid Obama voters.
Doctor_X| 10.29.12 @ 7:33AM
The only black professor at the University I go to told the only black Ph.D. candidate that he didn’t have to worry about finding a faculty job because big name universities will hire him just so they can have another black professor on staff.
This same professor was recently given a $1.8 MILLION grant to study ‘Black masculinity’. The sad thing his research will be pointless because he will never get to the true cause of problems in the black community because the causes are politically incorrect. He won’t see the black culture lead by women, unwed mothers, ravaged by drugs, and oppressed by a welfare mentality as the problem. He will have to come to some politically correct conclusion that it is the white man’s fault.
This is nothing more than the same class and race warfare that Obama is trying to use to keep control of the White House (which I am surprised he hasn’t re-named!)
cowgirl| 10.29.12 @ 8:53AM
How so right you are!! You have mentioned all the politically incorrect issues surrounding the black community and familes in the US with the exception of one more. The percentage of aborted black babies in the US far outweighs the population of blacks in America. Yearly about 14% of aborted babies are black - The black population in America is about 11%. Along with the high mortality rates of black men between the ages of 15 and 24 - due mainly to violent crimes associated with gang membership, the black community is facing huge challenges in staying afloat. It will be interesting to see if the Democrats dump the black community in favor of some other ethnic group in the near future as the black communities continue to shrink due ot Liberal, Democratic, and Progressive thinking.
Pecos Pete| 10.29.12 @ 7:35AM
To reduce the USA to a smaller view of its inherent strengths, the object is to Balkanize the American people. Once we do not see the nation as a commonality, we then become a separate people.
Ultimately the result of Balkanization is for the states to break away through secession. And that result is smaller, weaker units of economic, social and military citizenry providing significantly less security for all.
cicero| 10.29.12 @ 8:18AM
The American educational system has devolved into an institution organized to agrandize and enrich those who work there at the expense of those who are supposed to be educated there. The end product has nothing to do with the students, who are only the excuse for the transfer of wealth to the so-called educators. It will collapse as soon as those paying notice they get nothing in return for their money. That is the parents, for the students have no basis for comparison.
Byron| 10.29.12 @ 9:18AM
I believe in the NBS rule. Since for most of human existence life has been Nasty, Brutish and Short, it is easy to measure information on that basis. What studies will further improve the human condition? History, logic, math, classical culture, literature, science, ethics, engineering, medicine, agriculture... What studies lead to a reversal in the quality of life? Marxism, egoism, racism, the politics of sexual superiority... Information is so cheap and accessible now. Unfortunately so is misinformation.
Petronius| 10.29.12 @ 10:02AM
The real crime isn't mentioned here. These courses are required for white students. Not only must they suffer the insults of their inferiors and perverts, they are told they have to like it or else; no degree. And academics wonder why Men quit school early.
Aaron Investigates | 10.29.12 @ 10:21AM
I hope this book is not just preaching to the choir. I know that when I looked at some of the books my kids were required to read the lack of scholarship and amount of propaganda shocked even me, and I was expecting some liberal bias.
The problem is that reality does not change because falsehoods are taught and thus as I believe someone else mentioned real solutions to real problems cannot be found.
tminus1| 10.29.12 @ 10:40AM
I was glad to see that "Ex Uno Plures" is still in vogue among the intelligentsia. The last mention I heard of it was by this towering intellect:
"We can build a collective civic space large enough for all our separate identities, that we can be e pluribus unum -- out of one, many."
(Source: January 1994. From a Milwaukee speech by Al Gore to the Institute of World Affairs as quoted in Investor's Business Daily, October 25, 1996.)
C. Vernon Crisler | 10.29.12 @ 11:11AM
"Bawer, who is himself gay...."
Sheesh....sounds like Bawer is part of the problem, not the solution.
Everyone knows these black studies, women's studies, or chicano studies classes are a joke. When you take calculus, physics, and other hard subjects, you have to find easy classes to balance them out. That's about the only thing useful about any of these gender or race classes.
Occam's Tool| 10.29.12 @ 6:32PM
Mr. Crisler: read "While Europe Slept," by Bawer. Think of him as an Ed Koch type, only a bit more right wing. This is a gay guy who realizes that Christian evangelicals have problems with gay marriage, while Islamists have problems with gays living, and understands the difference.
I balanced out my hard classes with interesting ones---religion and classics and history.
J.C.Eaton| 10.29.12 @ 1:38PM
When I enrolled in High School 5 2 years ago, I was informed that I would study Latin for at least two years. Never mind that it was a "dead language", I was going to breathe life into it. I was also going to study world history, algebra, English, and first and foremost: Religion. Latin was especially difficult...that was one of the best reasons for me to be forced to study it. The "studies" courses are NOT difficult: they are bulltweedle. Hence, in my view, their popularity. BTW, Conservatism is difficult too; liberalism is easy. Get a helmet- life is difficult.
gene| 10.29.12 @ 4:54PM
BEFORE WWII started, Adolf Hitler stated publicly what he was going to do to the Jewish people in Europe. No one believed him. He then went ahead and did EXACTLY what he said he was going to do.
The Liberal weinies who infiltrated the U.S Educational system? They stated EXACTLY what they were planning on doing more then a half century ago. No one believed and ignored them. They went ahead and did EXACTLY what they were planning on doing. We will pay a terrible price for many decades to come. A terrible price!
Occam's Tool| 10.29.12 @ 6:26PM
You know, I did my undergrad at TCU. My prof in sociology was a Radical; he liked me because I was a Conservative and we could get into some interesting arguments. I earned an A in his class. But we studied things like Durkheim and suicide.
My early Roman Emperor professor still teaches at TCU. He was a Progressive, and used to protest Reagan at night while excusing Caligula by day. But the class reviewed Suetonius and Tacitus, and I still like ancient history to this day. Another A, and an actual life-long interest kindled. I also took Biblical Literature and Life (A) and Religions of Mankind (A). (I also took a biology major which I did not care for---I took it for pre-med, and honors physics and chemistry, both of which I aced. Organic Chem was a B plus. I placed out of calculus with an AP 5.)
TCU cost $3000/yr then for tuition; now it costs close to $20,000/yr for tuition 28 year later. In the sciences I'm sure the classes are still good; I have no idea about the humanities. I'm sure pre-med is still solid.
But why can't we teach classics anymore? Tacitus is timeless.
Bill8472| 10.30.12 @ 1:44PM
Just to add to your point: my students (adult students at a Jesuit university) are thirsty for instructors who will tell them the intellectual history of the West. They don't Western Civilization or The Western Intellectual Tradition anywhere else. They tell me so. Unfortunately, I have to shoehorn what little I know into an ethics in business course, where I outline the history of Western ethical thought from the classical Greeks through economic theory and Locke, Adam Smith, and Marx. My students tell me that they've never been told these things in a coherent way that explains the thrust of Western thought.
Bill8472| 10.30.12 @ 1:47PM
About 99% of the time, they end up rejecting Marx, saying that Marxian idealism is nuts and Locke and Smith had the right ideas.
Occam's Tool| 10.29.12 @ 6:27PM
Oh, and TCU now has a professor of Islamic Religious Studies at Brite Divinity School. Sigh.
Butch| 10.29.12 @ 8:04PM
I had a blind date once who majored in Obese Lookist Gender Studies. I told her I was Butch's roomate, and that he was sick and couldn't show up for the date.
Bill8472| 10.30.12 @ 1:40PM
“Are crip bodies queer bodies, and can we say that queer bodies are crip bodies?”
Well now, there's a question for the ages.