Cancel Culture; two words that, when combined, generate a pretty fierce response from most Americans (ahh, my siren song). An extra emphasis gets placed on this phenomenon when the context of college campuses across America are brought up. While many bitch-and-moan that cancel culture has gone too far on college campuses, I can’t bring myself to feel one iota of sympathy for the terminated. After all, the only people who oppose accountability are the ones who have been running amok.
First, let’s start with tenured professors. Achieving a tenured professor position is the pinnacle of the teaching profession. Tenure comes with a whole host of perks that are far beyond the reach of a mere mortal. First, as you could’ve probably guessed with the term tenured, these jobs come (or more appropriately, came) with an aura of invincibility against things that would get mere commonfolk fired. Tenured professorships are little more than the academic version of Nuh-uh, I got a forcefield. Once the forcefield gets bestowed upon a professor, then it basically remains for life. And I do mean that quite literally; my alma-mater had a professor who earned his doctorate in the Civil Rights era who was still teaching and died mid-semester in 2016. Pre-“Cancel Culture” being a tenured professor was essentially like being a made man in the mafia.
On top of that, tenured professors make quite a pretty penny as well. These two aspects often combine to make a complete power-trippy asshole. During my college days (warning: a personal anecdote!) my Stem Cell Biology professor frequently included photos of his preferred presidential candidate into his lecture slides (In a biology class, not a policy one; the material was supposed to be about how stem cells worked). During anonymous reviews at the end of the semester, he’d “joke” about the fact that he was tenured and hence student reviews didn’t impact him in the slightest. As I’ve stated previously: if you can’t get fired for poor performance, then it’s not a real job. Go ahead and sharpen your pitchforks…
I can already here the complaints now “But Dan, many of the high-profile cases of campus firings have been the administration, not tenured professors!”. Fine, let’s go over that as well; these pampered and power-trippy assholes enjoy an even cushier gig than tenured professors do. Whenever the chair of a department position opens up, most professors practically trip over themselves to jockey for the job. And, in case you haven’t noticed; more of these bullshit jobs are being created by the minute despite a colossal student loan crisis. Therefore, the distinction between tenured professor and higher administration isn’t relevant to this discussion.
In recent years, far-right pundits have lamented the rise of echo chambers forming on college campuses (though, they never seem to lament echo chambers forming on 4chan…), that have resulted in speakers being disinvited, riots breaking out and numerous high-profiled academic firings. However, given the sweet deal that these leaches are paid and the overwhelming protections from the consequences of their actions that they used to enjoy, I am struggling to see the part where I am supposed to feel bad. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t support the suppression of ideas at all, whatsoever; in fact, this blog is full of unpopular ideas. However, if you’re attempting to appeal to the 2/3rds of Americans that lack a college degree and who have ever-eroding job security, then whining I’m a Ph.D who lost my guaranteed-for-life $150,000 per year job is not going to win any sympathy points. This appalling lack of knowing your audience shows how ill-suited to the job they were in the first place.
My power of FutureSense tells me that another complaint will arise, and it’ll be along the lines of “Well Dan, the crumbling institution of being termination-proof is causing professors and administrators to walk on eggshells”. Ok, and? Welcome to the society that the rest of us filthy commonfolk (let’s be real: that’s how they view us) have to deal with. Go into any private sector job and make a single ill-timed or mis-interpreted comment about someone’s race/religion/ethnicity/orientation/economic status/political beliefs/whatever regardless of intent and see how long you stay employed. Again, this 75-IQ quip forgot the part where I’m supposed to feel bad for the newly-unemployed in the University Industrial Complex.
“So what do you want Dan? Do you want professors to just be silent on social/political/religious issues? We just need to keep our opinions to ourselves now?” Is a follow-up question that a Ph.D-in-disguise will throw at me. Unless you’re teaching a class in sociology, religion or politics, then yes. Everyday Americans have little voice while they’re on the clock, and it’s about goddamn time that dynamic works its way into the University Industrial Complex. I once had a chemistry professor (no, not that one) that ranted during class about how “bullshit” he felt Al Gore’s stance on climate change was; the lecture was supposed to be about pH calculations. True expertise is limited in scope, so stay in your fucking lane. And if you think that is too harsh, top athletes still get told to “Shut Up And Dribble”, so that objectively is the world we live in.
My FutureSense is tingling again, a fidgeting academic will bring up “This withering away of tenure-level protections will cause Ph.D’s to leave the profession!”. To give credit where it’s due, that is happening. However, I do not view that as a bad thing. I’ll let you in on an open-secret; most tenured professors actually don’t like teaching; they are mostly just there to do research, and teaching is a nuisance to them. My anecdotal experience (gasp!) as a college student in the early 2010’s, most professors hemmed-and-hawwed when I arrived to office hours, and they couldn’t wait to get me out (except for my botany professor: shout out to Dr. Rivera!). Teaching (especially teaching undergraduates) was not something they particularly wanted to do. If you dislike a core part of your job that much, then maybe you should find a new line of work?
FutureSense is tingling once again, “Well Dan, where will these Ph.D’s go?” is a question that I’ll be asked by a bowl-cut Dr. Karen. Thinktanks, research hospitals, government agencies and large private-sector tech companies all perform research and development to one extent or another. In the case of those first three suggestions, the former-professor’s grant-writing skills would be a highly sought-after commodity. Besides, this assumes that all of them actually leave the profession, which let’s be honest, many of them won’t (after all, to complain is to be human). An alternate solution would be to separate out the teaching responsibilities from the research ones, and hence create two positions. This is a solution that Bill Deresiewicz discussed in his book, Excellent Sheep and is already implemented at liberal arts colleges, so don’t tell me that will never work.
“But Dan, the market isn’t large enough to absorb all of these hyper-specialized Ph.D’s!” Is yet another rebuttal that I’ll get, probably from someone who spent the last twenty years teaching graduate-level Swedish Dance Therapy. Setting aside the fact that counter-argument only supports an earlier claim of mine that too many of these bullshit jobs exist in the first place (thank you very much for that, by the way!), the onus will be on the newly-minted jobseeker to find a way that they can add value to prospective employers. If it sounds like that’s what the lowly workin’ man needs to do, that’s because it is. I’m sorry, did you falsely believe that a Ph.D was a lifetime meal ticket and that you could stop being valuable?
Cry me a fucking river…
Home Page 