Sanity on the Chopping Block

• In Event: Surviving and Countering Patriarchal Whitelash: Public Education and Resistance Research by "Nasty Women"

Abstract

There are texts and subtexts, threads to collusion and subthreads to hacking. Among the threads which receives little press is the uptick in the number of people—one would presume liberals (“libtards”) and progressives, likely Democrats—seeking psychiatric and psychological help. If I had any brains, I would be one of them. Instead, I text/rail at my sister night after night, usually beginning with “I am losing my mind.”
It is a sign of serious toxicity in the body politic when thousands of new patients are seeking psychological help to deal with what appears to be a criminal national administration, supported by a corrupt party which refuses to acknowledge that there is something going on which is frighteningly not “normal.” Campuses are not immune to the hot and sometimes violent culture wars going on within society; indeed, the First Amendment is being fought out on the front pages of newspapers, in the media, and in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Consequently, some of the individuals seeking help in understanding, or believing, or comprehending what is going on in Washington are likely professors. Indeed, the secretary of education appears to be cooperating with the erosion or outright destruction of the Obama-era regulations, particularly regarding the mounting student debt in recent higher education graduates. And those among us deeply involved with K-12 public education are rightly alarmed by the push to extend private schools, charter schools and vouchers at the expense of the public schools. As well, massive proposed cuts to the budgets for the National Science Foundation, and educational research more broadly signal not only a constricted diet of research funding, but also the general disregard of this administration for research and science of all kinds.
It’s no wonder educational professionals are alarmed, depressed, shocked, horrified, saddened, fearful, despairing, furious, and appalled. How do we teach in this environment? How do we conduct research? For whom do we conduct research, when it is clear the policy community is set to ignore us? How do we support our research? Train and support graduate students? Prepare teachers?
It would appear the faculty has a serious re-examination to undergo, and sooner, rather than later. Colleges and universities are often accused of being bastions of liberal thinking, but we must be more so in the future. We need a plan to increase access, even as funds proposed for federal student support are whispered to be on the chopping block. We need to rethink what kinds of ideas can and should be heard on campuses. If we will be disregarded in the policy community, we need to think about how we can be heard in our communities, as public intellectuals. Action in the public sphere may be the only thing that saves our sanity, until the country as a whole regains its own composure.

Author

• Yvonna S. Lincoln, Texas A&M University - College Station