The Wit and Wisdom of Cornellians

The right of Big Red Bears to babble shall not be infringed

The Wit and Wisdom of Cornellians

The right of Big Red Bears to babble shall not be infringed

Four Pictures are Worth a Thousand Professors

Do you remember a time when you picked up a magazine and just looked at the pictures? Here are the pictures from a March 1952 article by William H. Whyte Jr. entitled, Groupthink. It was published in Fortune. Although I recommend reading the whole article, the four pictures tell almost the whole story of academia today.

As social justice activism is becoming the orthodoxy in STEM departments, where anthropology, the social sciences, psychology, and group dynamics is becoming the foundation of STEM, it may make little to no intellectual difference, in terms of the teaching of STEM content, if universities post these four timeless pictures instead of hiring new faculty who are committed to the social justice orthodoxy.

Now I am not criticizing the application of the social sciences to STEM, I am just suggesting a way to free up money that can be used to build a team of high level and well paid overseers of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

After all, at the end of the day, when all is said and done, and in the fullness of time, when everything is taken into account, in the final analysis, even though in groupthink one finds moral fulfillment, how many faculty need to be hired to teach groupthink? Can’t one faculty member speak for everyone?  It seems to me that Groupspeak is Groupthink and Groupthink is Groupspeak (as long as Groupspeak is not Groupviolence).

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