"that only 15 per cent of the youth are 'academically talented' enough to be taught hard subjects."
Not really sure where to start with this, because there's a lot to unpack... but this push to get as many people college educated as possible and the rise so-called "wokeness" is a direct result of too many unqualified people being "educated".
We've all experienced it: someone goes off to college and the next time you see them they're an insufferable know-it-all that can't actually explain the concepts they're beating you over the head with... because they're merely parroting what they were "taught".
By the mid-00s we first started to see the results of this push... and by 2015 the general public saw the first signs that we were too deep into it to recover: the brats at Yale screaming at their professors about university being a "home" (because Halloween costumes made them feel "unsafe"). It's been nothing but downhill since then, at an ever increasing speed.
Like said, there's a lot to unpack, and at every level. Like this push for more people [women, generally] in college. I'm 42 years old, I've heard this sob story about not having enough women in universities for my entire life - the truth is: they've been the majority at universities *for my entire life*.
The reason they needed to lie about this is directly connected to the reason why so many unqualified people are admitted in the first place... and why so many of them don't understand/misunderstand what they've been "taught".
They're little more than vessels to be filled with neo-religious propaganda (CRT, "scientism", love of corporations, etc) that take out loans to live at resort-like adult daycare centers.
I would argue that this speech from Spiro Agnew (May of 1970), is equally, if not more "chilling"
-------------
"Sometimes it appears that we're reaching a period when our senses and our minds will no longer respond to moderate stimulation.
We seem to be approaching an age of the gross, persuasion through speeches and books is too often discarded for disruptive demonstrations aimed at bludgeoning the unconvinced into action.
The young--and by this I don't mean by any stretch of the imagination all the young, but I'm talking about those who claim to speak for the young--at the zenith of physical power and sensitivity, overwhelm themselves with drugs and artificial stimulants.
Subtlety is lost, and fine distinctions based on acute reasoning are carelessly ignored in a headlong jump to a predetermined conclusion. Life is visceral rather than intellectual. And the most visceral practitioners of life are those who characterize themselves as intellectuals. Truth is to them revealed rather than logically proved.
And the principal infatuations of today revolve around the social sciences, those subjects which can accommodate any opinion, and about which the most reckless conjecture cannot be discredited.
Education is being redefined at the demand of the uneducated to suit the ideas of the uneducated. The student now goes to college to proclaim, rather than to learn.
The lessons of the past are ignored and obliterated, and a contemporary antagonism known as 'The Generation Gap.' A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete core of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.
The 60's generation was unique in many ways. We still were exposed to some great music, literature, drama and poetry. Our cities had not yet fallen into complete disrepair. Woke ideology was not yet a major factor. American music was still tied to the blues, folk, real country, jazz and even aa few classical influences. Today all we need do is take a glance at the 2023 Grammy Awards to understand how far we have fallen.
I love your work Ted but sometimes you betray one of our generation’s worst character flaws: the inability to see more than one side in the debate about the ‘60s. For example, you say: “Yet by 1970, the whole society had been changed” Whole? Really? Look at the pop music charts for that year and you will find the Jackson 5, the Carpenters, B.J. Thomas, Neil Diamond, and other bands that would have felt at home sharing a stage with Perry Como, Patti Page, and the Everly Brothers. Heck, even Lawrence Welk maintained ratings sufficient to keep him on network television through most of the 1970s. Then there were the country charts.... Music, a single aspect of culture, changed for some people, not everyone.
My point is that everything changed and nothing changed. We got Earth Day and a ban on DDT, but we also got deforestation on a staggering scale and so-called forever chemicals. For every change in culture you can think of, somebody else can name something that remains the same.
Goodman’s book was brilliant, and you have done a service retrieving it from the Library of the Dead. I haven’t read Growing Up Absurd in three decades but I don’t recall it offering a strategy for how those who had grown up absurd were supposed to fix themselves.
Wow, I remember reading that back when I was a teenager. Goodman was one of many making a similar critique about the stagnation and corporate takeover of American culture. There was a counterculture back then. You could read Evergreen Review, Screw, the Village Voice or a host of other periodicals full of jeremiads against the prevalent conformist culture. Even before Vietnam exploded, these were there. One of the things that bothers me nowadays is that I don't see much of a counterculture.
Goodman called Mad Magazine the bible of the twelve year olds who could read, and Mad Magazine was popular because it satirized the vapid and pernicious culture being sold by Hollywood and the networks, the avarice and indifference of the modern corporation and the lameness and soullessness of modern working life, all in a form that even a child could understand. It was leavened with lighter humor, but it was hard to miss the message.
I'm really glad you discovered Goodman. He was definitely a prophet, but he was not alone. There were others shouting warnings, but they were shouted down, isolated and ignored. Goodman was not the only one called television a vast wasteland. Goodman was not the only one concerned with the rapid growth and creeping credentialism of higher education. Goodman was not the only one warning about the post-war restructuring of research funding. Goodman was not the only one screaming "up the organization".
The 1980s were a horrible decade, and we are likely to be paying for the sins of that era for a long time. When Thatcher said TINA - there is no alternative - she was there with Reagan and the other world leaders crushing the alternatives, alternatives that are now vital if we are to survive and prosper. If you haven't noticed the cycle of progress and repression, you weren't paying attention in history class. The powers that be will often accept cultural change and limited reforms to forestall any real change, and they'll turn the screws afterwards to make sure nothing else gets loose for a while.
P.S. Now that I think about, my parents fed me a pretty interesting reading list when I hit my teens: Mad Magazine, Evergreen Review, Bless the Beasts and Children and Paul Goodman, too.
A minor point; a given company in the 1960's and 70's could own five radio or TV stations, plus a couple more if they were FM and UHF; but only one station or combination thereof (AM-FM-TV) in a specific city or area. The three major networks each owned a full quota of them, and there were other owners of multiple stations; such as Tribune, RKO (General Tire,) Golden West Broadcasting (Gene Autry) and others. But the kind of massive group ownership that would appear later was forbidden.
Great write up which is key to understanding our current situation in America. I’m particularly attuned to our broken healthcare system with big Pharma charging unconscionable pricing, mega hospital mergers, insurance companies dictating care and the loss of independent private practice physicians.
Unfortunately I can't see where this change is going to come from either. But we definitely need it. We need something to bring us back together. Too many things seem to divide us now.
I wonder if there really is a decline in counter culture or is there just so much of it... it no longer has the same meaning. Everyone who has a keyboard can type their ideas onto a world wide information distribution channel now. When every individual has the ability to share their personal view of the world with everyone else... and do... what defines counter culture? I think you could argue that there are plenty of counter culture ideas now... so many that you can't point to just one. We are breaking down "mainstream culture" into to individual counter culture. We are so busy promoting our own view of truth... there is little mainstream consensus we agree on. Left, right, Staight, gay, non-binary, up, down, liberal, conservative... what is mainstream? When the majority starts to accept "everything"... where is the counterculture? We are sold, it's all OK... and in fact berated when we don't accept everything... or anything. When I grew up... divorce was pretty much TABOO. Looks silly now... but it was not the accepted culture... sure it happened, but we didn't talk about it. If there is no recognizable counter culture maybe it's because we are living in it.
Honestly, sometimes it's just hard to maintain the kind of energy and devotion to change things as I once had. Born in the 50's, my life was impacted greatly by the sixties (all peace and love? Not even close). The one thing I spent a lot of energy on was protesting the war in Vietnam. The idea that all these marches we did (talk about connecting with folks) and the pamphlets I handed out at school might actually help change things was important. But I had a personal stake- the draft. Once I managed to beat the draft my efforts for change waned over the ensuing years. At 70 years of age my version of "shrugging" is simply that the alarm bells regarding man's future have been ringing so loud and for so long, it doesn't capture my attention like it once did. A.I.? Sure...could be bad. Climate Change? Can't deny it. One and on it goes. Okay, gotta go check my gas stove.....
Oh yes. You do a great service by flagging Goodman. Sontag's 1972 intro to that edition is also wonderful. She points out that Goodman and Ivan Illich were friends - Illich was and remains another of the most intensely humane and brilliant commentators on the ills of the modern, capitalist system. Both should be known far more widely. Both are even more necessary now.
Change is so tough as it can be so scary and, now more than ever, many people have their "safe houses" where they can cuddle with our sounds and images and not need to connect with anyone (including family members). It's so depressing when I enter my classroom and students (mostly college freshmen) cannot talk to me or their peers on most if not all issues save for how bad/dull/overpriced the food in the cafeteria is.
In "My Dinner With Andre", Andre at one point says that "The 1960's might have been the last gasp for humanity." I read Goodman's book when I was around 20 years old. What did I know then while in college? Not much. For me the 1960's were certainly a lot more interesting than the times that we are living in. Yes some horrible events took place during the decade. One thing that I learned that one can only undergo personal transformation. The world not so much.
I had not heard of Paul Goodman. I just ordered Growing Up Absurd and The Paul Goodman Reader. Thanks for the insight on him.
“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
Eric Hoffer
I fear that higher education and scientific research are in the racket stage.
Thanks for connecting the spheres Ted!
I think the most "chilling" line is...
"that only 15 per cent of the youth are 'academically talented' enough to be taught hard subjects."
Not really sure where to start with this, because there's a lot to unpack... but this push to get as many people college educated as possible and the rise so-called "wokeness" is a direct result of too many unqualified people being "educated".
We've all experienced it: someone goes off to college and the next time you see them they're an insufferable know-it-all that can't actually explain the concepts they're beating you over the head with... because they're merely parroting what they were "taught".
By the mid-00s we first started to see the results of this push... and by 2015 the general public saw the first signs that we were too deep into it to recover: the brats at Yale screaming at their professors about university being a "home" (because Halloween costumes made them feel "unsafe"). It's been nothing but downhill since then, at an ever increasing speed.
Like said, there's a lot to unpack, and at every level. Like this push for more people [women, generally] in college. I'm 42 years old, I've heard this sob story about not having enough women in universities for my entire life - the truth is: they've been the majority at universities *for my entire life*.
The reason they needed to lie about this is directly connected to the reason why so many unqualified people are admitted in the first place... and why so many of them don't understand/misunderstand what they've been "taught".
They're little more than vessels to be filled with neo-religious propaganda (CRT, "scientism", love of corporations, etc) that take out loans to live at resort-like adult daycare centers.
I would argue that this speech from Spiro Agnew (May of 1970), is equally, if not more "chilling"
-------------
"Sometimes it appears that we're reaching a period when our senses and our minds will no longer respond to moderate stimulation.
We seem to be approaching an age of the gross, persuasion through speeches and books is too often discarded for disruptive demonstrations aimed at bludgeoning the unconvinced into action.
The young--and by this I don't mean by any stretch of the imagination all the young, but I'm talking about those who claim to speak for the young--at the zenith of physical power and sensitivity, overwhelm themselves with drugs and artificial stimulants.
Subtlety is lost, and fine distinctions based on acute reasoning are carelessly ignored in a headlong jump to a predetermined conclusion. Life is visceral rather than intellectual. And the most visceral practitioners of life are those who characterize themselves as intellectuals. Truth is to them revealed rather than logically proved.
And the principal infatuations of today revolve around the social sciences, those subjects which can accommodate any opinion, and about which the most reckless conjecture cannot be discredited.
Education is being redefined at the demand of the uneducated to suit the ideas of the uneducated. The student now goes to college to proclaim, rather than to learn.
The lessons of the past are ignored and obliterated, and a contemporary antagonism known as 'The Generation Gap.' A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete core of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.
--Spiro Agnew, May 1970
The 60's generation was unique in many ways. We still were exposed to some great music, literature, drama and poetry. Our cities had not yet fallen into complete disrepair. Woke ideology was not yet a major factor. American music was still tied to the blues, folk, real country, jazz and even aa few classical influences. Today all we need do is take a glance at the 2023 Grammy Awards to understand how far we have fallen.
I love your work Ted but sometimes you betray one of our generation’s worst character flaws: the inability to see more than one side in the debate about the ‘60s. For example, you say: “Yet by 1970, the whole society had been changed” Whole? Really? Look at the pop music charts for that year and you will find the Jackson 5, the Carpenters, B.J. Thomas, Neil Diamond, and other bands that would have felt at home sharing a stage with Perry Como, Patti Page, and the Everly Brothers. Heck, even Lawrence Welk maintained ratings sufficient to keep him on network television through most of the 1970s. Then there were the country charts.... Music, a single aspect of culture, changed for some people, not everyone.
My point is that everything changed and nothing changed. We got Earth Day and a ban on DDT, but we also got deforestation on a staggering scale and so-called forever chemicals. For every change in culture you can think of, somebody else can name something that remains the same.
Goodman’s book was brilliant, and you have done a service retrieving it from the Library of the Dead. I haven’t read Growing Up Absurd in three decades but I don’t recall it offering a strategy for how those who had grown up absurd were supposed to fix themselves.
Wow, I remember reading that back when I was a teenager. Goodman was one of many making a similar critique about the stagnation and corporate takeover of American culture. There was a counterculture back then. You could read Evergreen Review, Screw, the Village Voice or a host of other periodicals full of jeremiads against the prevalent conformist culture. Even before Vietnam exploded, these were there. One of the things that bothers me nowadays is that I don't see much of a counterculture.
Goodman called Mad Magazine the bible of the twelve year olds who could read, and Mad Magazine was popular because it satirized the vapid and pernicious culture being sold by Hollywood and the networks, the avarice and indifference of the modern corporation and the lameness and soullessness of modern working life, all in a form that even a child could understand. It was leavened with lighter humor, but it was hard to miss the message.
I'm really glad you discovered Goodman. He was definitely a prophet, but he was not alone. There were others shouting warnings, but they were shouted down, isolated and ignored. Goodman was not the only one called television a vast wasteland. Goodman was not the only one concerned with the rapid growth and creeping credentialism of higher education. Goodman was not the only one warning about the post-war restructuring of research funding. Goodman was not the only one screaming "up the organization".
The 1980s were a horrible decade, and we are likely to be paying for the sins of that era for a long time. When Thatcher said TINA - there is no alternative - she was there with Reagan and the other world leaders crushing the alternatives, alternatives that are now vital if we are to survive and prosper. If you haven't noticed the cycle of progress and repression, you weren't paying attention in history class. The powers that be will often accept cultural change and limited reforms to forestall any real change, and they'll turn the screws afterwards to make sure nothing else gets loose for a while.
P.S. Now that I think about, my parents fed me a pretty interesting reading list when I hit my teens: Mad Magazine, Evergreen Review, Bless the Beasts and Children and Paul Goodman, too.
A minor point; a given company in the 1960's and 70's could own five radio or TV stations, plus a couple more if they were FM and UHF; but only one station or combination thereof (AM-FM-TV) in a specific city or area. The three major networks each owned a full quota of them, and there were other owners of multiple stations; such as Tribune, RKO (General Tire,) Golden West Broadcasting (Gene Autry) and others. But the kind of massive group ownership that would appear later was forbidden.
Great write up which is key to understanding our current situation in America. I’m particularly attuned to our broken healthcare system with big Pharma charging unconscionable pricing, mega hospital mergers, insurance companies dictating care and the loss of independent private practice physicians.
Now a 1 inch square patch of un-inked skin will be the latest fetish. Counter culture works when there is a culture to counter.
Unfortunately I can't see where this change is going to come from either. But we definitely need it. We need something to bring us back together. Too many things seem to divide us now.
I wonder if there really is a decline in counter culture or is there just so much of it... it no longer has the same meaning. Everyone who has a keyboard can type their ideas onto a world wide information distribution channel now. When every individual has the ability to share their personal view of the world with everyone else... and do... what defines counter culture? I think you could argue that there are plenty of counter culture ideas now... so many that you can't point to just one. We are breaking down "mainstream culture" into to individual counter culture. We are so busy promoting our own view of truth... there is little mainstream consensus we agree on. Left, right, Staight, gay, non-binary, up, down, liberal, conservative... what is mainstream? When the majority starts to accept "everything"... where is the counterculture? We are sold, it's all OK... and in fact berated when we don't accept everything... or anything. When I grew up... divorce was pretty much TABOO. Looks silly now... but it was not the accepted culture... sure it happened, but we didn't talk about it. If there is no recognizable counter culture maybe it's because we are living in it.
Honestly, sometimes it's just hard to maintain the kind of energy and devotion to change things as I once had. Born in the 50's, my life was impacted greatly by the sixties (all peace and love? Not even close). The one thing I spent a lot of energy on was protesting the war in Vietnam. The idea that all these marches we did (talk about connecting with folks) and the pamphlets I handed out at school might actually help change things was important. But I had a personal stake- the draft. Once I managed to beat the draft my efforts for change waned over the ensuing years. At 70 years of age my version of "shrugging" is simply that the alarm bells regarding man's future have been ringing so loud and for so long, it doesn't capture my attention like it once did. A.I.? Sure...could be bad. Climate Change? Can't deny it. One and on it goes. Okay, gotta go check my gas stove.....
Oh yes. You do a great service by flagging Goodman. Sontag's 1972 intro to that edition is also wonderful. She points out that Goodman and Ivan Illich were friends - Illich was and remains another of the most intensely humane and brilliant commentators on the ills of the modern, capitalist system. Both should be known far more widely. Both are even more necessary now.
Change is so tough as it can be so scary and, now more than ever, many people have their "safe houses" where they can cuddle with our sounds and images and not need to connect with anyone (including family members). It's so depressing when I enter my classroom and students (mostly college freshmen) cannot talk to me or their peers on most if not all issues save for how bad/dull/overpriced the food in the cafeteria is.
In "My Dinner With Andre", Andre at one point says that "The 1960's might have been the last gasp for humanity." I read Goodman's book when I was around 20 years old. What did I know then while in college? Not much. For me the 1960's were certainly a lot more interesting than the times that we are living in. Yes some horrible events took place during the decade. One thing that I learned that one can only undergo personal transformation. The world not so much.
The quality of healthcare and education has declined in lock step with the rise of the administrative state. I compiled many more charts that explain our ills here: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-fire-a-commissar-part-2