From: imbibe@mindspring.com   
      
   Why Go to College if the World Is About to End?   
   It’s a rhetorical question that suggests climate-change catastrophists have   
   become a religious sect.   
   By James Piereson and Naomi Riley, Dec. 10, 2023, WSJ   
   The Jehovah’s Witnesses have long preached that going to college is a waste   
   of time because the world as we know it is going to end soon. “No doubt,   
   school counselors sincerely believe that it is in your best interests to   
   pursue higher education,”    
   advised the faith’s official publication a few years ago. “Yet, their   
   confidence lies in a social and financial system that has no lasting future.”   
      
   This admonition sounds a lot like the Nov. 5 viral tweet from Notre Dame   
   professor Alexander O. Hsu, who claimed to be “tired of defending ‘the   
   humanities’ every five seconds.” Mr. Hsu asked: “Given the very real   
   risk of climate extinction due    
   to capitalism, what are some defenses of business schools? What possible   
   justification is there in making more businesspeople?”   
      
   It would be interesting to know how soon Americans actually think the world is   
   going to end. A growing number of secular progressives have begun echoing the   
   apocalyptic rhetoric of religious sects. Their views aren’t driven solely by   
   fear of imminent    
   environmental doomsday. They believe the whole “system” is broken and   
   don’t want to bring children into a world plagued by structural racism,   
   sexism and irreversible oppression. It is one reason campus protests are so   
   common, with some spilling    
   over into violence. According to this worldview, there’s no time for   
   considered political persuasion.   
      
   But the Jehovah’s Witnesses have a point. If one thinks the world will run   
   out of time to save itself from climate catastrophe in 2030, as the U.N.   
   Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared in 2018, then there isn’t   
   much point in going to    
   college or planning for the future.   
      
   American higher education began as a religious enterprise, with most   
   colonial-era colleges serving as training grounds for ministers. Church and   
   academic leaders understood that while the world might end at any time, they   
   still had a duty to understand    
   God and man, along with the secular order. Their writings reflect a   
   seriousness of purpose in this enterprise that many schools should emulate   
   today. If 18th-century American scholars decided that the world would soon   
   end, they wouldn’t have inspired    
   the authors of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.   
      
   When those institutions abandoned their religious roots in the 20th century,   
   they embraced the progressive view that the world can be improved by the   
   acquisition of knowledge and intelligent political reform. No matter how   
   misguided that premise might    
   have been, its advocates believed that they were working in the direction of   
   progress and the relief of man’s estate.   
      
   The humanities in particular have always centered on addressing eternal   
   questions and understanding how people should conduct their lives. Vocational   
   training, by contrast, was focused on meeting shorter term goals and earning a   
   living. A Nov. 3 article    
   in the New York Times chronicled the decline of funding for the humanities on   
   campuses around the country. Ohio’s Miami University is “reappraising 18   
   undergraduate majors, each of which has fewer than 35 students enrolled,   
   including French and    
   German, American studies, art history, classical studies and religion.” At a   
   school of 20,000 students, few are convinced of the importance of studying the   
   humanities. Many more are choosing majors such as computer science or nursing,   
   which have    
   clearer connections to postcollege employment.   
      
   But today, unlike in the past, those who are engaged in these practical majors   
   may have more hopeful views of the future. No one who seriously thinks the   
   world is ending soon would go to the trouble of starting a business or   
   undertaking years of    
   professional education. Americans who train to be nurses and doctors, or   
   embark on careers in finance or law, are looking for ways to support   
   themselves and their families decades into the future. They may even think   
   about creating a nest egg, buying a    
   home and eventually doting on grandchildren.   
      
   In a different era, a few might have been tempted to study philosophy or   
   English literature to find inspiration from the best that has been said and   
   written in the past about the enduring challenges everyone faces. That was a   
   worthwhile course of study,    
   but it is no longer what students receive today. What they tend to get instead   
   from the humanities is a message that the world is meaningless, there are no   
   truths to be discovered, and they are guilty of wrecking the environment or   
   oppressing people here    
   and abroad. It is no surprise that more young people hear these messages and   
   say no.   
      
   The belief that the world is ending has a long history in the West, dating to   
   the ancient world and the Book of Revelation. Norman Cohn, in “The Pursuit   
   of the Millennium” (1957), wrote that this outlook proceeds from the idea   
   that the world is    
   controlled by an evil power of great destructiveness—a demon that will   
   eventually be overthrown on a specific date by God’s designated messengers.   
   It usually happened that when the end didn’t arrive as predicted, leaders   
   would recalculate their    
   calendars and repeat the process.   
      
   Cohn noted that this outlook is also embedded in some of our modern secular   
   ideologies, including fascism and communism, both of which identified demonic   
   powers that had to be overthrown. It is also present to some degree in the   
   climate movement, which    
   designates capitalism as the great evil and identifies rolling dates when the   
   world will end if nothing is done to end the burning of fossil fuels. By the   
   looks of things, the climate catastrophists may have to move up their   
   end-of-times calendars. They    
   are losing followers fast.   
      
   Mr. Piereson is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Ms. Riley is a   
   senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.   
      
   https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-go-to-college-if-the-world-is-a   
   out-to-end-climate-change-14305b07   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)