Before I launch into this post, I need to ask you guys to bear with me, as I have no idea where this is going to end up and I'm formulating my thoughts as I go.
I have no walk I'd like to expostulate on first before gracefully tying in my observations about Berry's text we read this week; instead, I'd like to jump right in and begin head on. I heartily disagree with a lot of what Berry has to say. His prose is hard for me to wrestle with in general, but none moreso than that found in his essay "Higher Education and Home Defense." And the most offensive and egregious to my sensibilities is a two paragraph passage and quite lengthy for the blog, but I would like to quote it here.
"The second requirement for entrance into the class of professional vandals is 'higher education.' One's eligibility must be certified by a college, for, whatever the real condition or quality of the minds in it, this class is both intellectual and elitist. It proposes to do its vandalism by thinking; insofar as its purposes will require dirty hands, other hands will be employed.
"Many of these professionals have been educated, at considerable public expense, in colleges or universities that had originally a clear mandate to serve localities or regions--to receive the daughters and sons of their regions, educate them, and send them home again to serve and strengthen their communities. The outcome shows, I think, that they have generally betrayed this mandate, having worked instead to uproot the best brains and talents, to direct them away from home into exploitative careers in one or another professions, and so to make them predators of communities and homelands, their own as well as other people's" (51-52).
Um, excuse me? There are so many things wrong with this passage that I barely know where to begin. The smug authoritativeness with which he pens his opinion is one point. Another is the scathing, broad generalities that are busy demonizing public higher education. Nevermind that education is one of the most precious things that a person can gain in his or her lifetime on this planet, that it helps broaden intellectual and cultural horizons, breaking down prejudices and intolerances. Nevermind the fact that the freedom to choose to attend a respectable school, to be taught things and learn, is currently denied to an uncomfortably large percentage of the world. No; instead, let's make generalities about the career choices that college-minded individuals entertain, that every person who decides to leave their community for school or after is driven purely by monetary and corporate interest alone. Let's paint public education in the worst light possible to prove an already murky point, in a time when obtaining an education is possibly the most important and life-impacting thing an individual can do for oneself and the world at large.
Berry's words here betray his backwards and selfish view of the higher education system. Yes, I definitely agree with him that the commodification of education is not the route we should be taking; that instead of putting a premium on schooling, we should be exposing as many people as possible to it. But to attack it in such a broad way, under the guise of criticism for corporate negligence for the local sphere, is something I definitely disagree with and oppose.
And what of the personal choice of students that he so blatantly ignores? He's hypocritical to espouse the rights and will of local community members, and then disregard the fact that those students who choose to not attend school locally are intent on never serving their communities with their newly-gained education. I chose to finish my formal education on the complete opposite corner of the country for many reasons, but I'm pretty sure none of them involve plans to sell my soul to a corporate, impersonal job for the further exploitation of fellow humans.
The bottom line is, Berry is unfair, unjust and just plain wrong in his generalizations and nigh demonization of higher education, and I am not okay with it.
Maybe you should revisit this. I understand the cognitive dissonance that Berry can raise, but I don't think you give him enough credit for thoughful writing arising from a lifetime of grappling with higher education. He put his money where his mouth by quitting his professorship at the University of Kentucky. No one every says to themselves, "Boy, I can't wait to sell out." Most folks think they are buying into the system, fixing it, making it better. I think you need to focus less on your ad hominem attacks and more upon why he makes you feel the way you do. Methinks thou doth protest too much. More likely he is prodding the blind spots we all have when we get invested in a system. Thanks for the post. I am grateful for the conversation.
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