Education, consumer style

Everything is for sale in a consumer's society. And that means that everything is really up to the consumer. They buy what they want (or what they are told to want) and avoid the stuff they don't like.

Makes sense when you are shopping for pants. I guess.

But it also applies to education. A prof of mine once remarked that education is the only place where the consumer wants less for their money. Less work. Less reading. Less learning. Just give me the goddamn grade and pass me.

I have been down this week, thinking about what I do and where I am going. Turning 40 does that to some of us. For me, I wonder what value I bring in a professional way? Do I add value to society? I think so, or at least do sometimes. I think that teaching kids to think differently; to understand their past as a complicated and often contradictory story is a good thing. I think that I can help people be good citizens; good critics of their culture; etc.

Today I am less sure. I read about creationists pushing their crap in Kansas. I read about David Barton's role as "historian" among the RepubliChristians. Both annoy and depress the shit out of me. In both cases, professionals like myself work their adult lives studying something. They read widely, do original research, and teach and write. But who gets heard?

Not the professionals. A hack writer from Oral Roberts University is given more credibility than a Ph.D. from a real university. Or drop the comparative merits of different schools. A person who has no training and doesn't practice any scholarship is listened to in lieu of professional historians.

The consumer has spoken. The conservative Christian looks at evolution and says, "that confuses me and might challenge my view of the world where God is completely in charge. I will simply reject that and wait for a better answer. Scientists who spend their entire lives studying evolutionary biology are just stupid. All they have to do is read Genesis."

or

"I have to have a Christian America. Because if it isn't a Christian America I don't feel special in this country. God has to have chosen MY country or else I am just one of the billions of losers on the planet. I don't even believe my own faith that God loves me individually. In fact, I believe that God will smite me if my country doesn't pass the flat tax as our Godly Founding Fathers once demanded. Any historian who doesn't agree with my uninformed opinion has wasted his life studying the past. All they had to do was read the Bible."

That is certainly how it feels today. Fuck history. Or science. We can read an ancient text with our conclusions already firmly in hand and be secure in our knowledge that we are at the center of the universe. No need to study. Only read stuff that you already agree with. Only study things that you already know.

Sure glad I spent all that time getting a Ph.D. Silly me. Should have just read the Bible a little more. Or gone to hack university with crazy person's name and been indoctrinated. Then I could tour the country and speak to throngs of RepublicChristians and assure them that they are superior to: other countries, liberals, academics, scholars..........