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What if We Faced the Facts: I Am Part of this Cult and So Are You
David Brooks’s Five Lies can empower us, one truth at a time
Before I’d finished reading Five Lies Our Culture Tells, I wanted to send it to everyone I know. David Brooks had clearly articulated my reasons for leaving a profession I’d worked so hard to join. (The article summarizes some of his new book The Second Mountain: The quest for a moral life.)
Given that higher education, business schools in particular, rely on and reinforce these lies, it was hard for me to pretend, to lie about the lies not being lies.
These lies (myths if you prefer, and I’m getting to them) have seeped into America’s water supply for so long, it’s hardly fair to pick on higher education. Or to assume that most educators and staff consciously choose to drink them down. But make no mistake: Education does Corporate America’s bidding. Whether there’s enough money for 2.5 percent merit increases or clean classrooms, the amount of corporate funding for public research and influence over curricula is staggering.
Administrators don’t push back too hard. They can’t afford to. Nor can their faculty afford the freedom to communicate ideas or facts (including those that are inconvenient to external political groups or to authorities) without being targeted for repression or job loss. A…
