Storming the ivory towers

Mr. Kimball has an extraordinary talent for eviscerating those who depend upon political correctness for their livelihoods.

Retaking the Universities: A Battle Plan
Roger Kimball, Opinion Journal

"The chief issue is this: Should our institutions of higher education be devoted primarily to the education of citizens--or should they be laboratories for social and political experimentation? Traditionally, a liberal arts education involved both character formation and learning. The goal was to produce men and women who (as Allan Bloom put it) had reflected thoughtfully on the question ' 'What is man?' in relation to his highest aspirations as opposed to his low and common needs.'

Since the 1960s, however, colleges and universities have more and more been home to what Lionel Trilling called the 'adversary culture of the intellectuals.' The goal was less reflection than rejection. The English novelist Kingsley Amis once observed that much of what was wrong with the 20th century could be summed up in the word 'workshop.' Nowadays, 'workshop' has been largely replaced by the word 'studies.' Gender Studies, Ethnic Studies, Afro-American Studies, Women's Studies, Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Studies: These are not the names of academic disciplines but political grievances. They exist not to further liberal education but to nurture the feckless antinomianism that Jacques Barzun dubbed 'directionless quibble.'"

The whole article is a must read for those who want to end the domination of higher education by cloistered, America-hating wonks.