Sunday, June 15, 2008

Commencement Chaos

One can tell a lot about the state of higher education by looking at its commencement speakers. Here's part of the Bottom Ten, with editorial comments to correct falsehoods, skewer inanities, and mock the absurd. (All quotes are from today's NYT, p. A16)

At Carnegie Mellon University (known as a top science and engineering university), Al Gore. Al Gore -- the purveyor of environmentalist nonsense that seeks to destroy the fields of science and engineering. This is like having an anorexic speak at the graduation ceremonies of a culinary institute.

At Harvey Mudd College (another top science and engineering college), Bill Nye the "science guy." Seems like a good choice. Guess again. His advice? Stop procreating, stop producing, stop consuming, live like people do in the Third World.

Nice choice. A college devoted to the field of engineering -- a subject that uses basic science for the purpose of transforming nature into products that improve man's life -- invites a man to spit in its own face and to deride its own students for the careers they've chosen. If Mudd is now teaching its students that engineering is compatible with the Malthusian claims of environmentalism, then the College is guilty of a far greater sin than just inviting a life-destroying speaker.

Nye noted that "half the world's people have never made a phone call," and bemoans the fact that "[p]eople are walking less and driving more." As he sees it, the former is a problem only because the phoneless see that we have phones, and want them, too. His Malthusian conclusion is, predictably, that we need to stop consuming because, allegedly, we are destroying the planet.

To be accurate, he should have said: Stop producing dams, cell towers, refineries, machinery and tools (production precedes consumption), and stop using engineering to improve production, i.e., shut down the field of engineering and turn Harvey Mudd College into a School for the Preservation of Smelt.

Then we have actress Jessica Lange at Sarah Lawrence College whose "wisdom" consists of: "Be present." As opposed to what: be absent? (Actually, absence from many of today's liberal arts classes is an act of self-preservation because so many of them are mind-numbingly boring.)

Continuing with her theme, she warns students against the so-called danger of "anticipating the future" -- as if the abundance of now-oriented students and professors need further encouragement to ignore the future consequences of their choices and actions. (For the proper view on man's need to "anticipate the future," see "Man's Life as the Standard of Moral Value" in Chapter 7 of Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, by Leonard Peikoff.)

Finally, there was, at Williams College, Richard Serra -- a (con) artist whose work is indistinguishable from construction-site trash. (Some PGLers have requested links. Please just do a Google search.) Anyone who knows the underlying epistemology of nonobjective "art," or the modus operandi of a fraud, can anticipate Serra's comments. Frauds always need to jettison facts, reality, reason and logic: "No one perceives anything alike; . . . it is our individual reality that counts."

Now imagine if he had said to these college students: "There are no objective standards by which to determine what is and is not plagiarism. The only thing that counts is that you wish to pass off other people's work as your own. If you get busted, tell the administration that it's my 'individual reality that counts.'"

Given the facts-be-damned message peddled to so many college students, it is always surprising to me that the peddlers express outrage and shock when their graduates act deceptively and dishonestly in their respective careers.

3 comments:

Charles Johnson said...

Gary,

From deep within the belly of college, I can tell you that you are absolutely right at how they pass this type of "thinking" off as original.

Just look at what else Nye said and that HMC put up on its website. It's mind blowing how wrong those doomsday prophesies are.

http://www.hmc.edu/newsandevents/commencement2008.html

Anonymous said...

Gary and Charles,

I may be wrong, but looking at the quotes from Nye on the HMC website, it does not look (to me) like he's saying to stop production (which "precedes consumption"), but rather to do things more efficiently. At least that's how I interpret it when he says things like:

“Do more with less, my friends—that’s how you change the world.”

Now, perhaps he really is saying what you are inferring--that his "Malthusian conclusion is, predictably, that we need to stop consuming [and the production that precedes it] because, allegedly, we are destroying the planet." But don't see him saying that, at least not in the excerpts on the website.

Gary said...

To Anon at 3:57

I don't see how it makes my life more efficient to “[d]o more with less." This is a page out of the environmentalist's playbook, asking me to sacrifice the water, energy, lumber et al. that I need to live more efficiently.

It is certainly not efficient for the economy -- or for my pocketbook -- to "do with less" gas, corn, housing, roads, or golf courses. The "do with less" philosophy restricts production, artifically reduces supply, kills jobs, and increases prices for everyone.

Gary

That, to me, is not an "efficient" philosophy by which to live and prosper.