Once you understand two simple facts, everything will make sense:
1. We are ruled by persons whose behavior is indistinguishable from that of high-functioning (in the sense that they can fake empathy when called upon) sociopaths. According to The Iron Law Of Oligarchy, this is basically inevitable, as sociopaths are precisely the people who will do whatever it takes to gain power.
2. The middle class in the West is increasingly picked clean and left to rot. Either you become one of a shrinking number of very well-off people, or you are tossed aside with less consideration than shown for a dead bird.
Spot on! I saw a comment yesterday actually... 'why are all the worst people in power!'
Because the "best" people don't want power. They want peace.
As a lovable sociopath, I know "you're not wrong" (but there is no right). Every first world country is filled with people who have more than most, and want more. Corporations have corrupted nations. Corrupted thought. I watch people consume with less consideration than shown an empty soda pop can on the ground, while crying about the trash around them.
A friend of mine has to read and grade undergrad papers and can see loads of students are using ChatGPT. Now why on earth would you go to the huge expense and amass debt to study English or Theology at college, only to get a computer to do your assignments. It doesn’t make sense.
A college degree became a credential that unlocked a class of jobs. Enough people realized this that they'd go to college just for the credential. Enough colleges realized this that they'd tailor a curriculum to graduate as many people as possible without damaging the value of the credential too much. Note that the rate of college attendance has something like quintupled since 1960 and almost doubled since 1990.
I feel like I end up drawing this conclusion a lot: "why is thing X so different now?" is often pretty well explained by "there is a much less selective group of people doing thing X".
Great comment. There’s a philosopher on Medium who writes about the danger of taking privileged hidden knowledge typically kept by monks and shamen and making it mainstream. Either it gets dumbed down and ends up supporting the secular powers-that-be, eg capitalism/ consumerism or its existential “horrors” can’t be handled by the common man and society goes crazy, looking for meaning in some kooky fashion, creating new myths like Nazi Germany after Nietzsche and his ilk.
Ive had this thought for ages. Sure its great to make things more accessible. But the mainstream products are so distant from what there founding principles were. Its sort of given me the existential crisis because i dont know if there is anything in my life that i am doing for the right reasons at this point.
That's a really good point! In the UK, at least, the tide is turning. When I was at school, the expectation was that you went to university. (And we didn't have to pay for fees in the UK). That changed, and now it's all based on debt like it seems to be in the US. So you begin your credentialed career £60k in debt - for some that just isn't worth it anymore. Instead, you could be earning for the three/four years you're at college and be ahead of the game. I tell my own kids that employers are looking for character, not credentials (with obvious exceptions! Hey that surgeon who nearly killed me was hopeless - but what a characters!)...
Debt is discipline. The student loan debtor or mortgagor can't leave his job or do anything that might get him fired, lest those debts come crashing down.
“Credentialing” inherently cheapens the fundamental human desire sincerely to grasp truth. It substitutes appearance for reality. Truly learned people care most about getting as close as possible to accurate appreciation of what is, what was, and what can and cannot be. Little else matters much.
I am a grader for a humanities class at a university. Often times students take such a course because they are required to as part of Gen. Ed/humanities core. It is one of the biggest classes on campus but there are no students of the major. They often see these classes as just something they need to get through so that they can focus on learning what they "need" for their intended career; usually nursing, engineering, business, or marketing. Like Ted says, the problem isn't really with colleges. But such a thing can't be forced.
Yup, I can see that. And I guess there are certain courses that I might have be tempted to short cut when I studied for my degree - but it's so interesting looking at that email screenshot above: 'I didn't have time/didn't understand the reading'. How can students not have time?! That's the one thing students have! Someone should introduce them to Cal Newport...
1. Because the sheepskin is seen as a ticket to a relatively cushy job.
2,. Because college is a multi-year party and far more pleasant than The Real World, especially if joining TRW means that you have to work the kind of job that doesn't require a degree or specialized skills.
Did not Frank Zappa teach the masses thusly? Go to college if you want to get laid. Go to the library if you want to get an education."
I’m retired and taking advantage of California’s free tuition past 62 to get a degree in philosophy and it’s pretty obvious AI gets a lot of work done for people. But what is really interesting is how argument adverse kids are. Disagreeing is seen as impolite. How can you learn philosophy without arguing? I don’t know, but that’s the world.
It seems like people don’t use AI to make life easy. They are just simply terrified of being wrong. For kids growing up now “google it” is the final word on everything. The great hive mind is now the high priest of all thought.
Given that the papers are often graded on a robotic race/class/gender basis, it's unsurprising that students use robots to write the papers in the first place.
Alan Jacobs wrote a couple of months ago (sorry, can't find the link) that GPT is excellent for creating midwit papers, precisely because there are so many midwit papers to be trained upon; and that rather than entering into an arms race by blocking GPT-created papers, instead, grading should be based on evaluating the student's thinking via journals, etc.
I remember taking three quarters of African American history in the mid-seventies. The teacher was a Black woman who was difficult and demanding. By the third quarter, there were only three students in the class: two women in their late 40s and myself. I worked hard to keep up with these returning students who read every scrap of assigned reading, wanted to discuss controversial topics, and embraced writing papers. I changed; instead of thinking only twenty-something people could handle the challenges of college, I wanted to be like them when I matured. I still do, 45 years later.
But what were seeing now if that its going the other direction. Because most people fail to properly comprehend and understand the depth of something, we simplify it and make it more digestible for the common person, that it no longer contains the flavor of the original ideas.
Fantastic article. Those outreach programs are certainly one way to revive and/or keep the humanities alive in the real world. I've actually taken a couple of continuing studies classes at Stanford, and liked them a lot. First one was a beginning creative writing class, which forced me to use parts of my brain I haven't used in years. Then I just finished a wonderful music class on the Music and History of the Grateful Dead (taught by the equally wonderful David Gans). Now, that subject matter may be a special case, but I was shocked at how much learning a musical neophyte like me experienced in there. I'm about to embark on a Dostoyevsky class in the upcoming quarter. Only drawback is I have to take all of these online because I'm in flyover country. But ironically, that's technology in action too!
Your article made me reflect on how I started down that path. I'm a busy professional at a large firm doing fairly complex stuff for a living. Long hours in the trenches on client matters, and a bunch of business development responsibilities that only get more demanding each years. And am compensated accordingly. That's not a brag or boast. I only say all that to illustrate that the alienation you allude to is all too real. A couple years ago, during an especially busy stretch, the lightbulb kind of went off. There's got to be more than this. So I started thumbing through some catalogs (or whatever the online equivalent is). A lot of universities and community colleges offer just about anything you can think of in the humanities for, yes, greatly reduced prices. I only picked Stanford because it had an interesting selection of writing classes and offered the most stuff online that fit my schedule.
I'm raising two teenagers too, so time is at an incredible premium. But finding time for stuff like this has been one of the most worthwhile investments I've made in awhile. I do better in a class setting with lots of formal structure and expectations (they've been telling me that since I was seven years old!). But you are right. This same kind of learning experience is popping up all over Substack as well. People doing long, serial readings of classic novels, and then having online discussions about that. I've seen similar things for visual arts and music. You just have to look a little harder.
But keeping talk about this, and hopefully more people catch on!
I had the exact same experience that you did, as a TA at Harvard. I taught two sections of a course on political philosophy and ethics, one to Harvard undergrads, the other to adult students enrolling via Harvard Extension School. The latter didn't have the technical essay-writing skills of the former, but they had so much more interest in the subject and so much more life experience to bring to it. That section was a delight to teach and the students felt it - two of them even asked me, a year ot so later, to officiate their wedding.
Being as I am a writer and scholar in a humanity (history), I naturally support any effort made to improve the standing of the humanities academically and elsewhere. And I hope I can get a chance to instruct people about animation the same way you taught them about jazz- and get the same results.
I am not sure I agree that the root problem is the crisis in the humanities. I think the real crisis is the financialization of the economy and the resulting mass outsourcing and offshoring of jobs combined with massive legal and illegal immigration. This has created a scarcity mentality. Everyone is desperately trying to secure their piece of the pie. I certainly don't mean this as a criticism. It is a rational response to precarity. As a result, less and less value is assigned to pursuits (be it volunteering or respecting people who work with their hands or choosing a college major that does not have a direct link to a job) that do not earn money.
If the tech platforms are making money hand over fist, it is because all complaints and all exposes notwithstanding, people are continuing to use those platforms.
I am writing as an immigrant of 40 years standing. I loved the country that I came to back in the eighties because it seemed that there was an optimism and energy in the air and most people seemed to not worry about securing a job at all costs. In tech, I worked with a music major and a history major both of whom had become very good software developers, and even everyday people seemed to have a can-do spirit and an admirable work ethic. I came to see the freedom of Americans to have faith (that there would be second chances) as a true sign of a developed society and a high quality of life (beyond simply having access to cheap electronics and ample food).
I hear you. I left the States some years ago to live in South America. Even while the entire plugged-in world leans toward dehumanization, this 'other America' is 30 years behind, so it's not ruined yet.
This is assuredly racist, sexist, and violates the manifold rights of sundry sexual minorities, but there was an unspoken agreement in American society, at least for cishet white humans.
The agreement went something like this: Work moderately hard, play by the rules that matter, don't rock the boat unduly, and you will live a fairly comfortable life. Not only that, but your children will most likely lead more comfortable lives than you led.
That deal has since broken down, which is why we see so many interesting manifestations these days, casting about for saviors, crackpot conspiracy theories, etc.. That America that you miss ain't coming back, as our rulers no longer see the need to toss the masses so many crumbs.
In lieu of Elon's microchiped-brain-enhancer being available in the near future, it seems improbable for most 18 year-olds to acquire the world experiences necessitated to embrace -- or "gronk" -- what is hoped for here: depth and empathy for the human experience involves more than simply moving beyond one's' high school.
Wouldn't it be quite lovely for the tech giants to come together and create a multi-billion-dollar fund in order to provide the means for a "2-years of service" program (the military and or Peace Corps always being alternatives, of course) whereby high school graduates would contract to work in (pick one) nursing homes, inner-city tutoring, rural health clinic, community food bank and or a not-for-profit organization focused on the disadvantaged? Housing could be achieved through (monitored) dorms -- thereby also creating jobs -- and voluntary billeting.
And after the 2-year contract is completed? Free tuition to any institution of higher education in which the student is accepted.
Ongoing oversight would be necessitated, of course; a check-to-counter-check for whatever the nefarious might conjure, as is often true, sadly. But the goal would be threefold: 1) life experiences which can not be achieved within an academic setting yet would set the foundation for academic appreciation ; 2) giving back to this country, where "freedom" should never be taken for granted; 3) producing generation(s) of individuals who, by way of this program, inherently are able to live their lives within the premise of what is hoped for in the above article.
The government won't do this -- well...maybe after the next 9/11 they might have to -- yet the billion-dollar-buddy-club certainly could do this, or something similar, right now.
I think it’s fairly likely that the world will be taking a turn soon that will render national service a necessity, not a luxury or a business model. Even if it does not, your wish for two years of service from and for the young has great merit, I think. Little beats experience.
Thank you for writing this. I just turned 23 and what you are discussing has been increasingly my credo as well. The “life or death” statement hit particularly hard. I’ve had the thought before and it’s become central to my values.
People always complain about the new generations, usually in pretty wrongheaded ways. But these problems do exist and people my age are being hit incredibly hard by our dehumanizing institutions. Our values, goals, and modes of interacting with the world and each other feel like they are being irreparably changed.
It feels like we have an ‘opt-out’ culture. We opt-out of face to face interaction. We opt-out of listening to the ambient world. We opt-out of the focus required to truly enrich our lives. We opt-out of contending with the reality that 95% other humans are likely incredibly disagreeable to our little individual realities.
And who can blame us? Pandora’s Box seems so scary and depressing that a meagre dopamine hit, well-cultivated feed or “for you” page, and a close and intensely value-aligned inner circle of friends feels like it can make the difference and give us comfort. I attempt to channel my life into a sort of humanism, maybe modeled after my “pre-Infinite Scroll” childhood. If I see and talk to more people in person at my workplace than on social media in a given day, it feels like I’m at best an anachronistic, Luddite ascetic and at worst a negligent, immoral global citizen.
Swirling thoughts of great magnitude here but the bottom line is: Watch what people really do! All rhetoric aside, pro or con, people make decisions based upon how they will survive a particular situation. Mine was to disconnect my landline phone due to excessive and interminable, abusive and robotic calls of an obviously tech glitch nature. It is therefore very quiet in my home and study and I am left alone in silence without distraction. Hurray for me - and you, too. We CAN do this.
Read this and am literally in tears. Like the wanderer, who after four, six, ten years in a desolate wilderness of frayed modernisms and plugged-in-ness, stumbles into a neon-lit bar; one without a screen or monitor anywhere to be found, but Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris on a jukebox, and an old guy hands him a Schlitz with a smile, and asks, "care to tell me about the last time you just felt human?". Thanks for this.
And I am listening to Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris on the stereo doing a live set...
Ted, for a writer as typically nuanced as you, I don't see why the college/real world binary is necessary. In fact, what's happening in tech is in direct conversation with the corporatization of higher ed and the sidelining of the humanities there. The questions that you are raising are ethical ones, and they are precisely the kinds of questions that administrators are deeming too impractical to market. So the myopic focus on industry-friendly skills continues, and no one learns the critical thinking necessary to question the foundational premises. The dichotomy you posit is false. It's both/and. By which I mean to say that the one problem exists, at least in part, because of the other.
"We need to learn from the past, and the thousands of years of accumulated wisdom it can provide—something that is only accessible via the humanities. " Your call for a humanistic reawakening mirrors the post that my husband Peco and I just published on "booklegging". Intentionally collecting and preserving print books, especially when society devalues the accumulated wisdom, is a practical step that helps to bring humanities back to life. https://schooloftheunconformed.substack.com/p/a-guide-to-booklegging-how-and-why
"For man was a culture-bearer as well as a soul-bearer, but his cultures were not immortal and they would die with a race or an age, and then human reflections of meaning and human portrayals of truth receded, and truth and meaning resided, unseen, only in objective logos of Nature and the ineffable logos of God. Truth could be crucified; but soon, perhaps, a resurrection." from A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M.Miller
Once you understand two simple facts, everything will make sense:
1. We are ruled by persons whose behavior is indistinguishable from that of high-functioning (in the sense that they can fake empathy when called upon) sociopaths. According to The Iron Law Of Oligarchy, this is basically inevitable, as sociopaths are precisely the people who will do whatever it takes to gain power.
2. The middle class in the West is increasingly picked clean and left to rot. Either you become one of a shrinking number of very well-off people, or you are tossed aside with less consideration than shown for a dead bird.
Spot on! I saw a comment yesterday actually... 'why are all the worst people in power!'
Because the "best" people don't want power. They want peace.
As a lovable sociopath, I know "you're not wrong" (but there is no right). Every first world country is filled with people who have more than most, and want more. Corporations have corrupted nations. Corrupted thought. I watch people consume with less consideration than shown an empty soda pop can on the ground, while crying about the trash around them.
Your second point is clearly wrong. The middle class is shrinking, yes, but those people are moving up, not down, in income.
Certainly not in constant dollar terms.
In the past 50 years the middle class median income has increased 50% in constant dollar terms.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/household-income-distribution-wealth-inequality-united-states/
I have a stack of charts, unfortunately not links that dispute this.
Or take a look at this:, and it's not so different on this side of the border:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/secret-rcmp-report-warns-canadians-may-revolt-once-they-realize-how-broke-they-are
A friend of mine has to read and grade undergrad papers and can see loads of students are using ChatGPT. Now why on earth would you go to the huge expense and amass debt to study English or Theology at college, only to get a computer to do your assignments. It doesn’t make sense.
A college degree became a credential that unlocked a class of jobs. Enough people realized this that they'd go to college just for the credential. Enough colleges realized this that they'd tailor a curriculum to graduate as many people as possible without damaging the value of the credential too much. Note that the rate of college attendance has something like quintupled since 1960 and almost doubled since 1990.
I feel like I end up drawing this conclusion a lot: "why is thing X so different now?" is often pretty well explained by "there is a much less selective group of people doing thing X".
Great comment. There’s a philosopher on Medium who writes about the danger of taking privileged hidden knowledge typically kept by monks and shamen and making it mainstream. Either it gets dumbed down and ends up supporting the secular powers-that-be, eg capitalism/ consumerism or its existential “horrors” can’t be handled by the common man and society goes crazy, looking for meaning in some kooky fashion, creating new myths like Nazi Germany after Nietzsche and his ilk.
Ive had this thought for ages. Sure its great to make things more accessible. But the mainstream products are so distant from what there founding principles were. Its sort of given me the existential crisis because i dont know if there is anything in my life that i am doing for the right reasons at this point.
what's his name?
That's a really good point! In the UK, at least, the tide is turning. When I was at school, the expectation was that you went to university. (And we didn't have to pay for fees in the UK). That changed, and now it's all based on debt like it seems to be in the US. So you begin your credentialed career £60k in debt - for some that just isn't worth it anymore. Instead, you could be earning for the three/four years you're at college and be ahead of the game. I tell my own kids that employers are looking for character, not credentials (with obvious exceptions! Hey that surgeon who nearly killed me was hopeless - but what a characters!)...
Debt is discipline. The student loan debtor or mortgagor can't leave his job or do anything that might get him fired, lest those debts come crashing down.
This is entirely intentional.
I agree, debt is more than discipline, it's a form of enslavement -- requiring wage-slavery. It's how the banksters control much of the world
“Credentialing” inherently cheapens the fundamental human desire sincerely to grasp truth. It substitutes appearance for reality. Truly learned people care most about getting as close as possible to accurate appreciation of what is, what was, and what can and cannot be. Little else matters much.
I am a grader for a humanities class at a university. Often times students take such a course because they are required to as part of Gen. Ed/humanities core. It is one of the biggest classes on campus but there are no students of the major. They often see these classes as just something they need to get through so that they can focus on learning what they "need" for their intended career; usually nursing, engineering, business, or marketing. Like Ted says, the problem isn't really with colleges. But such a thing can't be forced.
Yup, I can see that. And I guess there are certain courses that I might have be tempted to short cut when I studied for my degree - but it's so interesting looking at that email screenshot above: 'I didn't have time/didn't understand the reading'. How can students not have time?! That's the one thing students have! Someone should introduce them to Cal Newport...
1. Because the sheepskin is seen as a ticket to a relatively cushy job.
2,. Because college is a multi-year party and far more pleasant than The Real World, especially if joining TRW means that you have to work the kind of job that doesn't require a degree or specialized skills.
Did not Frank Zappa teach the masses thusly? Go to college if you want to get laid. Go to the library if you want to get an education."
I’m retired and taking advantage of California’s free tuition past 62 to get a degree in philosophy and it’s pretty obvious AI gets a lot of work done for people. But what is really interesting is how argument adverse kids are. Disagreeing is seen as impolite. How can you learn philosophy without arguing? I don’t know, but that’s the world.
It seems like people don’t use AI to make life easy. They are just simply terrified of being wrong. For kids growing up now “google it” is the final word on everything. The great hive mind is now the high priest of all thought.
Given that the papers are often graded on a robotic race/class/gender basis, it's unsurprising that students use robots to write the papers in the first place.
Alan Jacobs wrote a couple of months ago (sorry, can't find the link) that GPT is excellent for creating midwit papers, precisely because there are so many midwit papers to be trained upon; and that rather than entering into an arms race by blocking GPT-created papers, instead, grading should be based on evaluating the student's thinking via journals, etc.
Wow! That's a great point. People are actually PAYING to put chat bots through college/university then aren't they?
I remember taking three quarters of African American history in the mid-seventies. The teacher was a Black woman who was difficult and demanding. By the third quarter, there were only three students in the class: two women in their late 40s and myself. I worked hard to keep up with these returning students who read every scrap of assigned reading, wanted to discuss controversial topics, and embraced writing papers. I changed; instead of thinking only twenty-something people could handle the challenges of college, I wanted to be like them when I matured. I still do, 45 years later.
But what were seeing now if that its going the other direction. Because most people fail to properly comprehend and understand the depth of something, we simplify it and make it more digestible for the common person, that it no longer contains the flavor of the original ideas.
It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.
William Carlos Williams
Fantastic article. Those outreach programs are certainly one way to revive and/or keep the humanities alive in the real world. I've actually taken a couple of continuing studies classes at Stanford, and liked them a lot. First one was a beginning creative writing class, which forced me to use parts of my brain I haven't used in years. Then I just finished a wonderful music class on the Music and History of the Grateful Dead (taught by the equally wonderful David Gans). Now, that subject matter may be a special case, but I was shocked at how much learning a musical neophyte like me experienced in there. I'm about to embark on a Dostoyevsky class in the upcoming quarter. Only drawback is I have to take all of these online because I'm in flyover country. But ironically, that's technology in action too!
Your article made me reflect on how I started down that path. I'm a busy professional at a large firm doing fairly complex stuff for a living. Long hours in the trenches on client matters, and a bunch of business development responsibilities that only get more demanding each years. And am compensated accordingly. That's not a brag or boast. I only say all that to illustrate that the alienation you allude to is all too real. A couple years ago, during an especially busy stretch, the lightbulb kind of went off. There's got to be more than this. So I started thumbing through some catalogs (or whatever the online equivalent is). A lot of universities and community colleges offer just about anything you can think of in the humanities for, yes, greatly reduced prices. I only picked Stanford because it had an interesting selection of writing classes and offered the most stuff online that fit my schedule.
I'm raising two teenagers too, so time is at an incredible premium. But finding time for stuff like this has been one of the most worthwhile investments I've made in awhile. I do better in a class setting with lots of formal structure and expectations (they've been telling me that since I was seven years old!). But you are right. This same kind of learning experience is popping up all over Substack as well. People doing long, serial readings of classic novels, and then having online discussions about that. I've seen similar things for visual arts and music. You just have to look a little harder.
But keeping talk about this, and hopefully more people catch on!
I had the exact same experience that you did, as a TA at Harvard. I taught two sections of a course on political philosophy and ethics, one to Harvard undergrads, the other to adult students enrolling via Harvard Extension School. The latter didn't have the technical essay-writing skills of the former, but they had so much more interest in the subject and so much more life experience to bring to it. That section was a delight to teach and the students felt it - two of them even asked me, a year ot so later, to officiate their wedding.
The cost per tuition hour vs the economic benefits of a chosen degree has shifted rapidly over the last two decades
Unless you have a rich uncle, the degree in humanities, as offered at the university level is not obtainable !
Being as I am a writer and scholar in a humanity (history), I naturally support any effort made to improve the standing of the humanities academically and elsewhere. And I hope I can get a chance to instruct people about animation the same way you taught them about jazz- and get the same results.
I am not sure I agree that the root problem is the crisis in the humanities. I think the real crisis is the financialization of the economy and the resulting mass outsourcing and offshoring of jobs combined with massive legal and illegal immigration. This has created a scarcity mentality. Everyone is desperately trying to secure their piece of the pie. I certainly don't mean this as a criticism. It is a rational response to precarity. As a result, less and less value is assigned to pursuits (be it volunteering or respecting people who work with their hands or choosing a college major that does not have a direct link to a job) that do not earn money.
If the tech platforms are making money hand over fist, it is because all complaints and all exposes notwithstanding, people are continuing to use those platforms.
I am writing as an immigrant of 40 years standing. I loved the country that I came to back in the eighties because it seemed that there was an optimism and energy in the air and most people seemed to not worry about securing a job at all costs. In tech, I worked with a music major and a history major both of whom had become very good software developers, and even everyday people seemed to have a can-do spirit and an admirable work ethic. I came to see the freedom of Americans to have faith (that there would be second chances) as a true sign of a developed society and a high quality of life (beyond simply having access to cheap electronics and ample food).
I miss the America that I came to.
I hear you. I left the States some years ago to live in South America. Even while the entire plugged-in world leans toward dehumanization, this 'other America' is 30 years behind, so it's not ruined yet.
This is assuredly racist, sexist, and violates the manifold rights of sundry sexual minorities, but there was an unspoken agreement in American society, at least for cishet white humans.
The agreement went something like this: Work moderately hard, play by the rules that matter, don't rock the boat unduly, and you will live a fairly comfortable life. Not only that, but your children will most likely lead more comfortable lives than you led.
That deal has since broken down, which is why we see so many interesting manifestations these days, casting about for saviors, crackpot conspiracy theories, etc.. That America that you miss ain't coming back, as our rulers no longer see the need to toss the masses so many crumbs.
https://www.theonion.com/relatives-gather-from-across-the-country-to-stare-into-1819575960
In lieu of Elon's microchiped-brain-enhancer being available in the near future, it seems improbable for most 18 year-olds to acquire the world experiences necessitated to embrace -- or "gronk" -- what is hoped for here: depth and empathy for the human experience involves more than simply moving beyond one's' high school.
Wouldn't it be quite lovely for the tech giants to come together and create a multi-billion-dollar fund in order to provide the means for a "2-years of service" program (the military and or Peace Corps always being alternatives, of course) whereby high school graduates would contract to work in (pick one) nursing homes, inner-city tutoring, rural health clinic, community food bank and or a not-for-profit organization focused on the disadvantaged? Housing could be achieved through (monitored) dorms -- thereby also creating jobs -- and voluntary billeting.
And after the 2-year contract is completed? Free tuition to any institution of higher education in which the student is accepted.
Ongoing oversight would be necessitated, of course; a check-to-counter-check for whatever the nefarious might conjure, as is often true, sadly. But the goal would be threefold: 1) life experiences which can not be achieved within an academic setting yet would set the foundation for academic appreciation ; 2) giving back to this country, where "freedom" should never be taken for granted; 3) producing generation(s) of individuals who, by way of this program, inherently are able to live their lives within the premise of what is hoped for in the above article.
The government won't do this -- well...maybe after the next 9/11 they might have to -- yet the billion-dollar-buddy-club certainly could do this, or something similar, right now.
I think it’s fairly likely that the world will be taking a turn soon that will render national service a necessity, not a luxury or a business model. Even if it does not, your wish for two years of service from and for the young has great merit, I think. Little beats experience.
Thank you for writing this. I just turned 23 and what you are discussing has been increasingly my credo as well. The “life or death” statement hit particularly hard. I’ve had the thought before and it’s become central to my values.
People always complain about the new generations, usually in pretty wrongheaded ways. But these problems do exist and people my age are being hit incredibly hard by our dehumanizing institutions. Our values, goals, and modes of interacting with the world and each other feel like they are being irreparably changed.
It feels like we have an ‘opt-out’ culture. We opt-out of face to face interaction. We opt-out of listening to the ambient world. We opt-out of the focus required to truly enrich our lives. We opt-out of contending with the reality that 95% other humans are likely incredibly disagreeable to our little individual realities.
And who can blame us? Pandora’s Box seems so scary and depressing that a meagre dopamine hit, well-cultivated feed or “for you” page, and a close and intensely value-aligned inner circle of friends feels like it can make the difference and give us comfort. I attempt to channel my life into a sort of humanism, maybe modeled after my “pre-Infinite Scroll” childhood. If I see and talk to more people in person at my workplace than on social media in a given day, it feels like I’m at best an anachronistic, Luddite ascetic and at worst a negligent, immoral global citizen.
Swirling thoughts of great magnitude here but the bottom line is: Watch what people really do! All rhetoric aside, pro or con, people make decisions based upon how they will survive a particular situation. Mine was to disconnect my landline phone due to excessive and interminable, abusive and robotic calls of an obviously tech glitch nature. It is therefore very quiet in my home and study and I am left alone in silence without distraction. Hurray for me - and you, too. We CAN do this.
One of your best, Ted - thank you!
Read this and am literally in tears. Like the wanderer, who after four, six, ten years in a desolate wilderness of frayed modernisms and plugged-in-ness, stumbles into a neon-lit bar; one without a screen or monitor anywhere to be found, but Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris on a jukebox, and an old guy hands him a Schlitz with a smile, and asks, "care to tell me about the last time you just felt human?". Thanks for this.
And I am listening to Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris on the stereo doing a live set...
Ted, for a writer as typically nuanced as you, I don't see why the college/real world binary is necessary. In fact, what's happening in tech is in direct conversation with the corporatization of higher ed and the sidelining of the humanities there. The questions that you are raising are ethical ones, and they are precisely the kinds of questions that administrators are deeming too impractical to market. So the myopic focus on industry-friendly skills continues, and no one learns the critical thinking necessary to question the foundational premises. The dichotomy you posit is false. It's both/and. By which I mean to say that the one problem exists, at least in part, because of the other.
"We need to learn from the past, and the thousands of years of accumulated wisdom it can provide—something that is only accessible via the humanities. " Your call for a humanistic reawakening mirrors the post that my husband Peco and I just published on "booklegging". Intentionally collecting and preserving print books, especially when society devalues the accumulated wisdom, is a practical step that helps to bring humanities back to life. https://schooloftheunconformed.substack.com/p/a-guide-to-booklegging-how-and-why
"For man was a culture-bearer as well as a soul-bearer, but his cultures were not immortal and they would die with a race or an age, and then human reflections of meaning and human portrayals of truth receded, and truth and meaning resided, unseen, only in objective logos of Nature and the ineffable logos of God. Truth could be crucified; but soon, perhaps, a resurrection." from A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M.Miller
“Canticle” is a wonderfully sobering book.