Rives, Tyler: Paglia

Insulting at the least, Camille Paglia’s article “Revalorizing the Trades” is nothing more than pessimistic banter.  Yes, it is clear that the global economy is not exactly performing to the highest standards (congratulations on figuring that one out), but is this necessarily a bad thing in the realm of higher education?

Speaking in reference to Southern Arkansas University, admissions are at an all time high. The reason for that just might be the receding economy.  With fewer jobs requiring skill-less workers, more high school graduates are relying on a form of higher education to find better occupations in the American workforce.  However, Paglia is not a believer in today’s form of higher education stating that, “college education is doing a poor job in preparing young people for a life outside of the narrow band of the professional class.” Devoted to joining the professional class, my opinion is truly obsolete and possibly biased, but I have to disagree with Paglia on this. Paglia lends blame to the flexibility of the American education system stating that the system leaves very little room for “alternative career tracks.” To me, this idea is nonsense, the university is built on the idea of flexibility and clearly embraces that fact.

Paglia continually reiterates the importance of a job-centered education and stresses that this should be the primary concern of educators.  “The idea that college is a contemplative realm of humanistic inquiry, removed from vulgar material needs, is nonsense.” Now there is an idea that I can agree with Paglia on, but I have a hard time believing that Paglia is actually naïve enough to believe that students are attending college simply for human inquiry.  Camille Paglia is in desperate need of a wake-up call. If what she proposes is true, then honestly the only solution is less flexibility, contradicting some of her previous concerns.  Paglia states that, “[she] was lucky enough to experience college in the 1960s.” So, what gives her the expertise to write on the problems of the internal structure of the American collegiate system today?  Paglia clearly has strong opinions of the higher education system of the Western world most of which appear to me to be assumptions that lack verity.

Possibly, I am the one out of the loop and I am naïve to believe that my university is preparing me for a career, but as a student, an internal and pivotal part of the collegiate system, I cannot find a stitch of truth within “Revalorizing the Trades.” And too as an admirer of the professional class, I am an exception according to the article, which may explain why I so strongly disagree with Paglia. Either way, the ideas expressed within Paglia’s article were certainly polarizing and definitely got my gears going.