Culture

Defund Colleges & Universities Immediately

This was written in a fit of optimism, and with the tacit assumption that you should no longer go to college or let your kids go to college.

I cannot insist on this strongly enough. You should consider removing your children, if you love them, from all public schools. Home school if you can. In any case, get them out of college.

If you are a professor who still believes in Truth and Reality now is your time to be a man. Go down fighting. Do not get purged as a coward.

College is not necessary. Listen: the oligarchs will not do their own plumbing or wiring, and they’ll still want it done competently. Remember a line from 1984: only the proles are free.

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People like to have electronic toys. The best way of producing them is to put men who know all about electrons to work making these toys.

Wait a second. Change “know all about” to “know most about.” Nobody knows all about electrons. There is a vast, and maybe even infinite, number of things yet to learn about electrons.

The best way to do this learning is the obvious: set those men who have the highest aptitude for learning about electrons to studying the subject and pay them well. Identify who these men are as boys and begin teaching them early, and see who has the talent and enthusiasm for the subject.

Now, if you instead despised electronic toys and wanted to sabotage the process, the best way to do that is to force the boys who want to be electronists to also learn about gender identity, grievance, “racism”, bad poetry, Whig history condemning science as white supremacist, and similar subjects. Make him spend half his time on these debilitating subjects, insisting that if doesn’t give the required answers to exams on these areas, then he will not be allowed to become an electronist. Even if he’s good at it.

If he complains, tell him these indoctrination sessions will make him a well rounded person.

The sessions, because they are mandatory, pay via tuition the salaries of the quota hires colleges were forced to employ to avoid being sued for “discrimination.” It was never enough just to hire women professors, they also had to be given something to do. And that something was to annoy and harass people who only wanted to become electronists.

The original reason for college was sound: train men in the ways of the scholar and the pursuit of Truth, all Truth being from God. That purpose still exists, and the need is just as strong as ever. Which is to say, it is not that strong. This calling is only for the very, very few. We need, in a country of our size, perhaps four institutions devoted to training and housing scholars.

We also need electronic toys. Trade schools, which take in fresh boys of, say, thirteen, and spit out electronists at eighteen would fill our needs of men to make these toys. These trade schools would produce better electronists than the current practice of forcing boys to sit through four years of mind-numbing high school and four more of college, half of which is devoted to indoctrination.

We do not need to worry about these electronists not being “well rounded”, just as we do not worry that car mechanics are not “well rounded.” If electronists want to read, they will read, and they are less likely to read bad books when on their own. If they do not read, they won’t. Why worry about it?

Naturally, we can expand trade schools to cover every subject that requires memorization and facility with a deep background of facts. Medicine, math, chemistry, priests, hairdressing. Whatever. The hairdressing is not a joke: we need good barbers (England in particular does). Priests and hairdressers already have their own trade schools, as does medicine and law, but entrance is inefficiently and inexplicably restricted only to the indoctrinated, except for hairdressers.

We also need car mechanics, plumbers, carpenters, surveyors, people who can wrestle PowerPoint to produce slide “decks” to annoy people with at meetings in megacorps.

All of these things, indeed everything but becoming a scholar, could be done faster, better, cheaper, and with less political manipulation at tech or trade schools. If Intel was smart, they’d fund their own, requiring those that graduate to work for them a certain number of years. The students would emerge without astronomical debt, and without anything stuck up their nether regions to demonstrate their commitment to Pride.

If there is an interest in a trade school for grievance studies, why, they can create one for that, too. As it is, a griever emerges from a college with a “degree” which tells its holder she is much smarter and more deserving of respect than she really is. Just as the blubber, piercings, and blue hair dye hide her beauty, the “degree” disguises her mental weaknesses. Colleges are the Dr Frankensteins who created the army of monsters, Karens and Karls, who think they know something because a piece of paper says they do.

We barely listed the benefits of defunding colleges and universities. It would eliminate the farce of “amateur” sports, it would cancel High school, it would keep schools lean and as free as possible from infiltration, it would lessen publish or perish, it would to some extent lift the weight of government influence over research. Kids get jobs and start families earlier, without all that de rigueur campus “experimentation”.

Even if none of that is true, there are scarcely any weakness to the plan. It therefore has no chance whatsoever of being implemented—until the restoration.

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Categories: Culture

18 replies »

  1. “…we need good barbers (England in particular does)”.

    Hey. From England.

  2. Most children should not begin formal schooling until age 8. Until that point, they have a much greater need to run around, play, and learn household chores, with their families. All of K-8 could be taught in 5 years, ages 8-13, and the kids would probably learn more. Like their ancestors did.

    And then at age 13, kids should go into trade schools leading to apprenticeships. Like their ancestors did.

  3. Agree 100%. Most of my grand kids didn’t or won’t go to college even though their parents could well afford it. For most college is a waste of time and money and even worse is a despoiler of truth and common sense. The various trades are a good avenue for a good life, while going trough college is often a bad one for all the reasons listed.

  4. Seems like a chicken and egg problem. Intel doesn’t care about whether or not their employees are indoctrinated; they might prefer it, being indoctrinated themselves. So why would they invest in a trade school?

  5. I really, really hate Bryan Caplan, but his book “The Case Against Education” was superb. I would really like to see your review of it Mr. Briggs. You would probably have some interesting commentary to add.

  6. “Identify who these men are as boys and begin teaching them early,”
    That was me. Disassemble electronics at six. Started learning to re-assemble or assemble kits around age 12-ish. I built several Heathkits, my favorite was a shortwave radio but it was designed as a learning platform where the fist thing I made with it was a very simple almost just crystal radio, then unsolder a few things and build a super-regenerative receiver, then unsolder a few things and finally build the final superheterodyne receiver.
    Dilbert’s “The Knack” describes me well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx6HojLBsnw “I’m afraid your son has (pause) THE KNACK.”
    “Can he lead a normal life?” “No. He’ll be an engineer.” (Got that part right).

  7. Kyle: No, we know what came first. And we know why.
    *****
    “if you love them,” WHICH PEOPLE DO NOT. Loving children went out in the fifties. Now we’re friends with the little monsters, if anything. Mostly, they occur because of biology and to show off. Love??? Nope, too much bother. At least two generations of brats running free and despised by those who created them. No, people NO NOT LOVE their children. Actually they treat their dogs better. No one I know of sends a dog to class to learn to bite, raid garbage, tear up yards and raise hell. Yet they do this with their kids.

    I want to see Zuckerberg do his own plumbing. It would really be worth the price of a ticket. The whole mansion he lives in. He can get to the wiring thereafter.

    Now, if anyone understood “only the proles are free”, it might be a useful line. I’ve tried for years to get people to understand the power they have and they are either too stupid or too cowardly to care. I guess violence, hatred and starvation are WHAT AMERICANS WANT.

    Should never have let women get power, you cowardly, worthless males. Now you get the revenge and hatred they so wanted to pile on you. Maybe you should have grown a spine.

    The lockdown proved we need good barbers and hairdressers. These were the most missed of all.

    Forget defunding colleges, defund and close TRADE schools and watch the morons burn their houses down, slog through backed up sewage and whack at their curly locks with kitchen shears. After all, misery is the goal, let’s let them have it.

    Nothing will change with the cowardly, stupid population we have. Nothing. Only a smackdown by “Mother Nature” and natural consequences will reverse any of this. That takes decades sometimes, but humans are so stupid and stubborn. Forty years, or forty decades, in the wilderness coming soon.

  8. Michael 2: Can we do with girls too? I built an electrical circuit at 8 years of age for science fair. I was always fixing vacuums, lawnmowers, etc. and still do. As an adult, I moved into computers and IT. Girls can show a flair for repair, too, and should be encouraged. I will note that I did this in spite of my mother saying “Girls don’t do that”. I think that just made me want to do it more. Children show aptitudes early and should be allowed to follow their desires, within reason.

  9. Defund Government Schools?
    Excellent idea! Except for the whole reality thing!
    The reality is that our government is still run by elected politicians (at least for now).
    Elected politicians respond to blocs of voters
    They especially respond to blocs of voters who give them money.
    Delegates to the national convention of the Democrat Party (PC-Progressive) who are members of teachers unions are usually the largest bloc. A tenth or more of the total number of delegates are representatives of teachers unions. That’s a formidable political force.

    Teachers union funding of (PC-Prog) politicians (2016 data):

    Political contributions hit a high in 2016, where donations hit $33.2 million. Of the money that went to politicians directly, 93 percent went to Democrats.

    The top three contributors (including money to candidates, parties and outside groups) were:
    The National Education Association ($23.7 million)
    American Federation of Teachers ($8.8 million)
    AFT Solidarity ($425,000)

    The three top recipients of direct donations were:
    Hillary Clinton ($147,801)
    Former Montana State Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau ($36,790)
    Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif. ($35,000)
    Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt. ($29,756)
    Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. ($26,500)

    Total contributions to Congress given by teachers unions:
    $2,176,523 to House Democrats
    $138,786 to Senate Democrats
    $199,664 to House Republicans
    $13,195 to Senate Republicans

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/by-the-numbers-teachers-union-political-contributions-in-2016

    Matt’s suggestions are great for “higher education.” But K-12 “education” is nearly all funded by local property taxes. Federal funding of K-12 is comparatively small. State funding is usually more, depending on the district.

    What can we do to counter PC-Prog K-12 indoctrination?
    Move out of PC-Prog-dominated taxing authorities (cities, counties, towns, etc.) Stop giving them your tax dollars to fund PC-Prog destruction.
    Putting your kids in private schools, or home-schooling, while still paying taxes to the PC-Prog infrastructure, lets them have their cake and eat it too.

  10. The apprentice system in Christendom produced artists and craftsmen of astonishing brilliance. The great cathedrals of Europe with their sublime decorative arts, the dazzling stained glass, the stone artisans, the architects, et cetera, all these professions were filled with men who started out as young apprentices to master craftsmen, who in turn had learned from their masters, and so on, in long chains of skill building, technological development, and aesthetic refinement.

    But under the malign influence of wicked men we foolishly traded away that priceless heritage for cheap crap from China. Come the Restoration, after we vanquish the present reign of lies, ugliness, and evil, we’ll bring back apprenticeship for boys and young men. A good start would be hunting down this Satan fellow and putting a serious dent in his nefarious operations.

  11. Dear Briggs. Great ideas but America’s inertia into insipidity, insanity, inanity, and insolvency is such that there is nobody in the political class whose possession of right reason is puissant enough to apply as a force against the inertia.

    The best one can do is to stay away from Big Cities and do one’s best to dodge the debris and detritus descending upon us following what is being blowed-up in Dodge (Dodge as a synecdoche)

    A political movement is not what is needed. What is required is for Traditional Catholic Fathers and Mothers to raise their children as Catholic Traditionalists and for those children to raise their children the same way and for those children to raise their children…etc etc etc

  12. We simply do not need those buildings called colleges and universities anymore.

    Any of the crap they teach can be done online over Zoom. Heck, many lectures can be found on Youtube for free. Individual professors should just so solo. Stream their same lectures every year, do update videos to attach to them, let people be flexible about when they learn via subscription fees, do live Q & As, have them e-mail in their papers for review, and finito.

    Why all this waste of money? Why are campuses needed? Why have to worry about some moron watching over you of being subject to stupid HR scrutiny? If someone doesn’t like you, they can subscribe somewhere else.

    Costs could be greatly reduced this way, heck, even if you wanted government-funded education, this would be a major cost-saving and more efficient measure.

    Let the stupid-rich waste their money on campuses and fancy rooms.

    Only Trade Schools that require actual practical hands on are necessary. And in the advent of technologies like VR, AR etc. we can shorten the necessity for a lot of that too to make costs lower and accessible for everyone.

    Better idea – go back to the format, where corporations run the schools themselves in order to keep themselves alive.

    Back in the day, if you wanted to be a blacksmith, you went directly to the blacksmith and said, “Hey, make me a blacksmith.” And the blacksmith said, “Okay, first you sweep the floors, put the tools in order, feed the horses, and once that is done, I’ll teach you something every day.”

    So the companies should employ the students, who will work and pay for their education at the company that teaches them on the job.

    Want to be a doctor? Your education is free, but you work starting from the bottom. Sweep the floors, clean the bedpans, talk nicely to the patients from this am to this pm, then eat lunch and from this pm to that pm you do some learning. Feel free to opt out anytime.

    Even contracts for minimum commitments and non-compete and opt-out clauses etc. can be legally handled to prevent someone from learning under you being poached by a competitor etc.

    All this can be worked out.

    End the crap education system as we know it. More distributism and power back to the direct places of employment and worker without the government middlemen.

  13. While I applaud the sentiment of de-funding the ideological cesspools
    masquerading as colleges of more immediate concern are the propaganda
    organs operating as news media. Case in point the kickoff of project 1619
    in the New York Times in August of 2019 ostensibly commemorating the
    400th year of Africans in America while providing a template for racial
    division, victim culture, and rationalizations for violent protest we now see
    playing out across the country. Just as ‘Event 201’ presaged the corona
    doom and it’s recent update the ‘Great Reset’ outlines the dystopian future
    planned for the planet, everything is done in plain sight nothing is hidden.
    The ‘learned response’ mechanism wielded by media and academia to create desired outcomes. No one believes it’s possible to ignite the masses in such a controlled fashion least of all the dupes…that’s the beauty of it.

    UNZ
    Behind the Veil of the Protest Movement, the War on the American People Is Gaining Pace
    https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/behind-the-veil-of-the-protest-movement-the-war-on-the-american-people-is-gaining-pace/

  14. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/06/far-left-companies-pepsi-hp-doritos-paypal-adobe-bmw-pull-ads-facebook-ban-conservative-voices-president-trumps-posts/

    Seems Americans slept too long and let the communists take over everything. You cannot shut this down now without drastic action, and probably not even then. America is flat out screwed and Americans did it to themselves, sitting at computers and using Facebook, Twitter, etc, and buying crap from commies. Now the commies OWN us and I can guarantee that this will not be opposed by the “normals” who are busy posting all over Facebook about this and cannot see how really, really stupid they are.

  15. All true, students already know it, hence why there is such low turnout to class. They are well aware they need the certificate to just get a job. The industry uses this process to filter students, those who are willing to comply and obey. Hence, why universities don’t teach skills, especially not critical thinking, it is not what they are expected to do. Of course, entrepreneurial individuals don’t go to uni, it serves no purpose for them.

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