Is your college too conservative for you? Are those nasty science classes getting in the way of the real mind-broadening that you want to do? Do you want to reject the teachings of learned PhD's so you can open your mind to people with names like "Butterfly" and "Starhawk"? Instead of having to skip boring classes like English Lit and Stats in order to protest the eeeeevil Republican regime, wouldn't you like to receive college credit for making those picket signs and wearing those goofy masks?
Well, now you can, at the New College of California. In fact, you can receive an entire degree in social activism. Telling you the city in which you can do this is, of course, unnecessary, because it's implied in the boneheadedness of this scheme.
Yes, indeedy, a college degree in activism - and at only six grand a semester, it's a bargain! It's "unlikely that conservative instructors" will be present, so you needn't worry about encountering any actual facts or science or judgements or anything like that. Just warm, fuzzy opinion and political activism. Hey, if your "professor" says climbing a tree will save the environment, who are you to contradict her?
Allegedly, the New College isn't looking for "rabble-rousers," but note that community work can take the place of prerequisites such as a high school diploma and college work, and while they say that they aren't looking for someone with a rap sheet, nowhere do they say that they'd reject someone with a rap sheet for trespassing, disturbing the peace, and other activities that leftie activists so prize these days.
In reply to the instructor who claims that, "Admission officials want to see a portfolio of community work, not a rap sheet," Joanne Jacobs replies, "Call me cynical. I think they want to see that $6,000 check." Scholarships are already available for those who don't have parents rich and dumb enough to write a $12,000/year check so their little darlings can study anarchist theory and get a masters in globalization.
I think the "teachers" at New College are not only greedy, they're also completely unaware that most people are capable of watching the news and making judgments about world events without the input of the goofy/annoying antics of your typical "social cause" activists. The anti-war attitude of those quoted in the article is, of course, brazen, and the activists quoted seem completely unaware that there might be reasons for the drop-off in anti-war activity other than that people don't really know "how to change the world." Like, say, perhaps, people noticed that some of the men and women who were genuinely changing the world for good were wearing camouflage outfits with US flag patches on the shoulders?
And why do I have the feeling that the "teachings" from this program will be so completely uninformed, one-sided, and irrational - such pure mindless propaganda, in fact - that the students who study here will ultimately have less impact on the Unwashed Masses that they wish to "enlighten"?
Posted by kswygert at August 13, 2003 01:30 PM