Yale, Mizzou and Others—Training a Generation of Proto-Fascists
13th November 2015
In Tuesday’s Republican presidential primary debate, Senator Marco Rubio wondered aloud why Americans insist that the only legitimate option after compulsory education is college. “For the life of me, I don’t know why we have stigmatized vocational education,” Rubio said. “Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less [sic] philosophers.”
Events this week prove Rubio right, and not just in terms of the American economy. University campuses these days produce far fewer philosophers and more outright fascists in shutting down speech and scrutiny. Two incidents in the past fortnight have shone a bright light on the failure of academics to protect the kind of free speech that succeeds in producing philosophers – or educated adults in general.