Academics Under Siege

Stanley Fish thinks that a corner has been turned and there is no going back on public anmus for academia. Interesting how this plays out, in light of this being the first time in history when both the American president and vice-president and both their spouses are academics. (Which he does not mention.)

But I fear that no defense of academic practices, however nuanced and moderate, will be successful because, on the evidence of the comments, the anti-academic animus that depresses Thomas Zaslavsky is deep and pervasive. There is a general sense that academics have cushy jobs they don’t even perform, that they inhabit a wonderland of “privileged sleaze” and display an “overweening sense of entitlement” (Victor Edwards). dan1138 speaks for many when he proclaims, “We simply don’t need a cosseted privileged class able to demand lifetime job security in exchange for some hypothetical intellectual function.” They just don’t believe that the yield of maintaining us in a protected enclave is worth the enormous cost.