The kerfuffle in certain circles over Jordan B Peterson reminds me that 1. I haven’t written about his book yet, and 2. there was a bit in his book that made me go “Oh, this guy is still very much a faculty member” despite his being the recalcitrant, dissident faculty that we all want to like.

I think, as well (on what might be considered the leftish side), that the incremental remake of university administrations into analogues of private corporations is a mistake. I think that the science of management is a pseudo-discipline. I believe that government can, sometimes, be a force for good, as well as the necessary arbiter of a small set of necessary rules. Nonetheless, I do not understand why our society is providing public funding to institutions and educators whose stated, conscious and explicit aim is the demolition of the culture…………….

I honestly remember there being more “there” when I first read this bit. I thought I remembered reading at least a paragraph on the positives and negatives of the university that ended in an typical faculty equivocation or digression or something equally handwavy.

Instead, now I’m getting the whiff of typical faculty butthurt. Something along the lines of : I liked the university the way it was and now these upstart non-rigorous disciplines (which is a bit rich coming from a psychologist, tbh) are alerting the public to the fact that we cannot live up to our promises and now my cushy job is in danger.

Most faculty cannot live with the fact that “a degree is something that you need to get a job” places the university squarely in the crosshairs of the capitalist marketplace. They instead imagine themselves to be in the pastoral world where only 2% of the richest, most intelligent men go to college, where they can be free of any and all constraints of the free market. Including the market of ideas and pesky things like funding.

Circling back to point 1, the only part of 12 Rules for Life that I’d reread is the last chapter about the light pen, but even that chapter begs the question IF YOU HAD A PEN AS COOL AS THAT WHY WOULDN’T YOU USE IT FOR EVERYTHING??

This is one of those books where I used sticky tabs to note passages I found interesting. But a month later, when I go back to find those passages, I’m really not sure what I’m looking at.