3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Too long on discourse and too short on solution , 2005-11-24
This author provides many facts as well as long discussions without a central theme. While it makes an interesting read on the many facets of American higher education, the solution offered to dismantle the higher education as knowledge factory and rebuild it as higher learning is far too light-weight. The author, obviously a social scientist, views the reform from the angle of humanities and social science. While this is encouraging, it is by no means adequate.
In fact, Aronowith's solution is not even as good as the one offered by the book "The Abandoned Generation," which suggests separating the undergraduate education from university and make it a separate entity much like high schools are separated from middle schools. Actually, this book is far inferior to the book "The Great Rip-off in American Education" as far as ideas for higher education reform is concerned.
4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
A Criticism of Aronowitz' Solution, 2004-02-15
I find myself sharing many of Stanley Aronowitz' worries, yet unimpressed by what I see to be his solution as elucidated in the final chapter.Firstly, I would like to address the areas where Professor Aronowitz and I share common ground. The entire book is an attempt to show that there is something wrong with the modern university ("post-secondary education") as it now exists. He does an excellent job of laying out the problems faced by the teachers, as far as job security and being able to pursue their areas of expertise are concerned, and the students, as far as outlook on education is concerned. Well laid out as well are the detrimental effects this system has, simply summarized by the title, "The Knowledge Factory," which gives light to the conformity of thinking that has replaced original thought first in the academy, and then in the masses of "educated" people. In all these areas I agree with Aronowitz. This is a very frightening trend, one that will have a profound effect first on the quality of academia, and next upon societal structure as a whole. With the professor, I agree that something must urgently be done.
In his chapter entitled "The Dismantling the Corporate University," Aronowitz lays out a proposed curriculum that he believes will preserve the fundamental mission of higher education, which he defines as playing "a leading role... in the development of general culture" (172). He goes on to lay out a historical view of knowledge, in agreement with the "conservative camp", only replacing "reverence for the texts" with "critique". It is where Aronowitz diverges from the idea of reverence for the texts that I diverge in opinion from Aronowitz.
What Aronowitz fails to recognize, perhaps in part due to his academic background, is that 70 per cent of the authors of the texts he intends to critique (4,500 of his "5,000 years of recorded history") have based their writing upon a reverence for those authors and opinions that went before them. They have recognized a common thread of the immutable inerrancy of truth, and, instead of rejecting it, they tweaked it, perfecting it with each generation of authors.
Replacing reverence with critique is an Enlightenment idea with rejects all which was previously held in esteem. The liberal arts are seven in number, with the trivium being grammar (literature), rhetoric, and logic, and the quadrivium being mathematics, astronomy, music, and geometry. In all these arts, there are respected norms. There is room for a critique of sorts, but always within the rules. Note that both the trivium and the quadrivium are based upon mathematical principles. In logic things can be proven or demonstrated, and in music, a C is never an F sharp. Here we find truth ("Veritas", which as a matter of fact is the motto of the famous Harvard University).
It seems that before one begins to critique, one must acquire a proficiency in the system of rules, that one can safely work within them, not bringing himself or herself into error, or as it would be, false or errant criticism. Traditionally, one who is working toward this mastery of the system is called a bachelor studying the liberal arts. One of achieves this proficiency is called a master of the liberal arts. Only then, as one who has mastered the rules, should one begin to add to the body of knowledge, to criticize, as it were. It seems, therefore, that Aronowitz would like his students to jump the gun, that he would like them to begin to critique before they know the rules of the debate.
This starting too soon is dangerous in that it has lead in earlier times to erring scholars who never learned the rules before carrying their "critiques" outside the classroom, causing such events as the bloody massacres of the French Revolution, or Stalins' reign in Russia, or Hitler's reign in Germany. Failing to master the arts before one critiques the truth has often led people astray in practical ways. Aronowitz is right in wanting to reform the university, yet wrong in replacing reverence for the texts of great minds with critique of those same great minds, before we consume that of truth which they have to offer.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent!, 2002-08-15
Like the previous reader, I've read both Hofstadter's "Anti-Intellecutalism..." and Jacoby's "Last Intellectuals". This work is just as enlightening as both of them.
Aronowitz sheds light on the suspicions of most anyone familiar with university life today (I'm a recent college graduate). He charts out how physics and engineering grew to dominate the university during the cold war and how corporates sponsorship largely took the place of military support in the post-Cold War era.
But what especially intrigued me was his background information on NYU and John Brademas' largely successful efforts to shake down wealthy donors and buy academic superstars. This transformed the reputation of the school. I'm going to graduate school at NYU in the fall, so I enjoyed hearing these details.
Aronowitz is unique among academics, given his working-class background and unorthodox method of attaining his degrees. These experiences are reflected in a passionate yet realistic prose. "The Knowledge Factory" is an engaging read that should be picked up by anyone affiliated with high education (students, teachers...especially administrators).
38 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent, but also nothing new, 2000-03-16
Aronowitz has written an excellent book here, but the overall message is nothing new. Richard Hofstadter, in his early 1960s book, Anti-intellectualism in American Life (which won a Pulitzer Prize), demonstrated that American culture had been anti-intellectual since the early 19th century and perhaps earlier. Approximately one-fourth of that book was concerned with anti-intellectualism in U.S. education. In 1987, the liberal Russel Jacoby published The Last Intellectuals and the conservative Allan Bloom published The Closing of the American Mind; Bloom's book also was essentially about anti-intellectual American culture, while Jacoby's was about anti-intellectual intellectuals, a group that largely overlaps with U.S. college professors. Most recently, Edward Said called attention to the dearth of public intellectuals in his Representation of the Intellectuals (including [American] colleges' responsibility for this situation), and Daniel Rigney, Leon Fink, Dane Claussen and others have written about anti-intellectualism and higher education, or (the lack of) public intellectuals and higher education.
51 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
When it comes to looking at education, nothing maches it, 2000-02-04
This is the best book on the crisis in higher education ever written. What makes it so significant is that Aronowitz never underestimates the value of education, just as he convincingly demonstrates that few colleges are invested in actully cultivating the critical minds of students. Instead, he argues, that universities -- and he persuades us that he's talking about every university, from the community college to the ivy leagues -- are more interested in the payoff of advertizing to parents and prospective students that they are able to prepare people for their work lives. While this may sound important, once you read this book and understand that preparation for work amounts to little more than a very expensive vocational training course, you'll realize how shortchanged students are, and how society as a whole has lost the chance to actually prepare individuals for citizenship and engagement in the work of repairing society. In other words, universities have not lived up to the promise of helping to make the world a better place.
The crisis Aronowitz describes may seem reflective of an idealistic belief in the power of higher education, but even a cursory glance at the political and economic landscape shows the dearth of ideas in handling the multi-layer problems facing us as a country; it's hard to avoid the fact that the evident source of this problem is how we prepare people for life in the larger world. If preparation is merely an exercise in training clerks, accountants, and even professionals, then we have what we asked for: a country of clerks, accountants, doctors and lawyers, rather than a culture committed to democracy and one that values the involvement of every person -- regardless of their occupation -- in the democratic enterprise. Perhaps -- as Aronowitz proposes in his very clear last chapter, which includes a higher education curriculum of his own -- we prepared citizens instead of proficient employees, people could attach value to themselves and their potential for being part of their society in a way that isn't linked to their career or occupation.
Hats off to Aronowitz; he's written a book that should be read by every educator, every college administrator, and every person who counts himself as a citizen above all.