Higher education shapes, fosters, and rewards conformity, thus creating a professional class that is willing to leave its independence — and critical thinking — at the door
You know...conformity runs amok within the culinary industry as well - not so much with creative chefs coming up with something different (those are the elite who can afford to experiment)... What I'm talking about has to do with the entire system of getting things done in a restaurant or even carefully remaining within the strict guidelines of cooking technique - I see this all the time as a vegan chef living in an otherwise non-vegan industry. In many ways, it is precisely as you described your theater education experience.
Closing thoughts - I would rather live a non-conformist life in relative obscurity than become an unhappy conformist chasing fame and fortune!
That's fascinating, Jack. I would never have guessed that the culinary industry could be plagued with conformity as well, yet it makes sense. I love that you're a restaurant rebel!!
I agree 100% with your closing thoughts. It's taken me a while to get to this place, but now that I'm here, it feel just right. :-) Thanks for your comments, as always.
I knew I just needed to wait until the time was right to read this post. It did not disappoint! I’m still so taken back by the fact that conformity exists in the theatre world- we’re supposed to be the damn weirdoes!
Mad props to Cox for stepping up to fill the void of a thousand conformist lawyers. And props to you for putting your finger on the pulse.
Also, what’s wrong with community theatre?!? I’ve seen some powerful theatrical presentations by people who had never set foot on a stage, more powerful than some of the elitist bullshit you can catch at the Goodman in Chicago (don’t get me started on seeing A View From the Bridge there, I was reviewing at the time and as all other critics lapped that BS up, I wrote a pretty scathing review. Come to think of it, that was the last show I reviews there. 😂).
I'm taken aback, too. I don't know when or how it happened, that the theatre became such a conformist institution, while still thinking of itself as the rebellious rule-breakers. It's funny, isn't it, that not following any rules of dramatic structure or meaning could itself become a rule?
And hmm... funny coincidence that you're not reviewing at the Goodman anymore. I'd love to read your write-up of A View From the Bridge! :-)
Well, the joke was on me because looking back upon my experiences, I think the conformity was always there, it was me that had idealistic lenses and failed to see the signs. At least, here in the States. My theatre experience in Bulgaria while it was under Communist rule was edgier- you always had to think of novel ways to say what everyone is thinking without tripping the censors.
Just rereading my review now, it feels like I wasn’t as hard on them as I remember. Or maybe in contrast to all the embarrassingly masturbatory reviews from all other critics, mine felt more damning than it was. It’s a short read:
I’ll tell you what was the most soul crushing experience tho: I left during the standing ovations that lasted quite a while. Outside, was a woman with a stroller. It’s a long play, it was 11p, and she is begging for money. As the audience spilled onto the street, clamoring over one another to get to the reception at the restaurant next door, they completely ignore this woman. They just spent the last three hours congratulating themselves over their intellectual superiority, but had to stampede over one another to go get that free drink. I was so disgusted. I didn’t go to the reception. Instead, I headed into the subway, paid and waited on the platform. Then, as my train approached, I turned on my heals and went to find the woman and asked if she had a place to stay, that I was really uncomfortable with her being out on the street at almost midnight with her toddler in a stroller. I told her I’ll get her to a shelter if she didn’t, but if she did, then she is not allowed to use her baby as a prop to get sympathy coins. She pulled out a cellphone and called (her brother, I think) and I waited until a car came to pick her up. I know, in the grand scheme of things, she probably just moved locations. But the experience colored me cynical and I went home to write that review.
"The conformity was always there, it was me that had idealistic lenses and failed to see the signs..." Amen to that. Totally agree.
I so enjoyed reading your review of A View From the Bridge. Ivo Van Hove was becoming a big name during my master's program; my professors swooned over him. Your assessment is definitely not as scathing as I (or you!) imagined, and it hit a nerve with me. Minimalism is great as an artistic aesthetic -- I write plays with an eye toward it, almost all the time. But some plays can't survive the stripping down, and weren't meant to, especially if they are making a statement about class, poverty, etc.
Your experience AFTER the play says it all. Thank you for sharing so much here, Tonika.
I like minimalism just fine. It could have been executed there too but for whatever reason instead of aiding the play, it worked against it. It worked well in one scene, from what I remember.
Just realizing I'm needing to catch up on a few of your posts. And this reply is three weeks delayed. 😬
Hey, Mary, Woo-Hoo! This is great. I love it! It’s so interesting to read, but you have really opened up a can of worms here. Way to Go!! Your readers are already recognizing this kind of group think in their own fields of endeavor.
So, my thoughts went to my suspicions about our present political class, and how they are most likely those types of “Head Girls or Boys” you talk about. I immediately thought of Rhodes Scholars, like Rachel Maddow, Bill Clinton; also the Yale Skull and Bones Crowd, John Kerry, GW Bush Sr. and Jr. Not to mention the Young Globalist Leaders Program launched by Klaus Schwab to promote his Great Reset agenda that includes people like Macron, Merkel, Trudeau, Jacinda Arden, just to name a few. No wonder we can’t break through the brainwashing of our citizens here. Our leaders have all been groomed, and probably sworn to uphold the WEF tenets. This is how they were able to shut the whole world down (almost) over the last 3 years.
I have also become aware of this kind of “schooling” going on in other fields of employment. I wrote to you about my son being required to participate in a class at his place of employment. It's a corporate program consisting of a series of classes to improve employee's personal interaction skills, how to work as a team, to think collectively and to conform to certain norms of behavior which supposedly will enable the employees to be more productive. None of the instruction content has anything to do with our son’s area of expertise, construction remodeling. The employees are even taught a new vocabulary to use when communicating with each other. I didn’t like the sound of it right away. I suspected that it’s designed to get everyone thinking with the same mind. Once the employees learn the basic program then it can be implemented thereafter to indoctrinate them further in certain attitudes and perspectives that will turn them into good soldiers to further some other agenda. I know that sounds paranoid, but I see it happening elsewhere. Just look at the public schools imposing their CRT curriculum on the staff and students.
This leads me to mention censorship and blackballing, ostracism, and termination of anyone who doesn’t go along with the agenda. Many of us have experienced this over the last three years trying to honor our own personal sovereignty in terms of our health and other freedoms.
OK, part 2, bring it on!!
**BTW, I did not receive your email about this essay being posted. I had to go look for it myself.
Massive can of worms, no doubt about it. You identified quite a few wigglers in your comment, Rocket, thanks!
I also appreciate the anecdote about your son's employer requiring him to participate in corporate training. I can completely understand your misgivings -- I would be wary, too. I remember asking my professor in grad school (at the very beginning) why the "lingo" had to be so very dense and convoluted; why couldn't we just say what we needed to say, as simply and directly as possible? She acknowledged that it was indicative of being part of the "club," without questioning whether it was good or bad; it's just the "way it is." Creepy.
Re: the posting of my essay, that's strange. Did it go to junk mail, perhaps?
Thank you, Mary. "It's just the way it is". Don't you just hate that? "Creepy" is right. It reminds me of that old song, "I'm in With the In crowd". I like the tune but I never much gravitated to the "In Crowd". Now, I'm beginning to think, we people on Substack are the REAL "In Crowd"!!
I really need to read Schmidt's book, and glad you highlighted "assignable curiosity", that's it in a nutshell pretty much. Curiosity is the natural resource that threatens any status quo, and so it needs to be directed, derailed or just disabled.
Yes! Curiosity is a superpower. I'm staggered by the lack of it in some very smart people I know. Sometimes I wonder if it's a protective mechanism, keeping them from hearing stuff they intuitively know will re-order their comfortable world...
Brilliant essay...I'll have to look into Schmidt, currently reading another recently-fired-by-UC academic Aaron Kheriaty--his book, The New Abnormal, also shows how the patterns of prestent totalitarianism are emerging from the careerist compromises that riddle Official Academia.
For more of my work, that of another "under-employed academic," see the group substack I write for, PostModernConservative. You might particularly like my recent essay on Naomi Wolf's visit to Yale (that's where I saw you stack) and my essay earlier this year on the "Swarms of Spontaneity-Smotherers" at Stanford. That is another expand-on-another's-essay essay.
Thanks so much, Carl. I'm intrigued by Kheriaty's story and his new book. It's on my list now! And I will definitely check out both of your essays you recommend. Hurray for the under-employed academics!
This is a hugely important issue. Most parents have no idea the degree of indoctrination they send their kids into, and ultimately nothing can be fixed without addressing it. Some are aware of course, hence the huge rise worldwide in homeschooling. Noam Chomsky, though I'm not fully with him on all of his worldview, set out the problem on this with devastating clarity some decades ago (I'd guess the 1980's from his age in the video. It's still really worth watching and circulating:
Michael, that clip of Chomsky is PERFECT. (And like you, I think some of his viewpoints now are troubling.) I shudder to calculate how many students have gone through indoctrination posing as "education." It helps explain the mess we're currently in. Thanks for commenting and for posting the video!
We cannot put things right until more people realise what is happening in the schools - and I think most are going to have to hear it in many forms and from many places before the light begins to go on. So keep up the good work!
You know...conformity runs amok within the culinary industry as well - not so much with creative chefs coming up with something different (those are the elite who can afford to experiment)... What I'm talking about has to do with the entire system of getting things done in a restaurant or even carefully remaining within the strict guidelines of cooking technique - I see this all the time as a vegan chef living in an otherwise non-vegan industry. In many ways, it is precisely as you described your theater education experience.
Closing thoughts - I would rather live a non-conformist life in relative obscurity than become an unhappy conformist chasing fame and fortune!
That's fascinating, Jack. I would never have guessed that the culinary industry could be plagued with conformity as well, yet it makes sense. I love that you're a restaurant rebel!!
I agree 100% with your closing thoughts. It's taken me a while to get to this place, but now that I'm here, it feel just right. :-) Thanks for your comments, as always.
I knew I just needed to wait until the time was right to read this post. It did not disappoint! I’m still so taken back by the fact that conformity exists in the theatre world- we’re supposed to be the damn weirdoes!
Mad props to Cox for stepping up to fill the void of a thousand conformist lawyers. And props to you for putting your finger on the pulse.
Also, what’s wrong with community theatre?!? I’ve seen some powerful theatrical presentations by people who had never set foot on a stage, more powerful than some of the elitist bullshit you can catch at the Goodman in Chicago (don’t get me started on seeing A View From the Bridge there, I was reviewing at the time and as all other critics lapped that BS up, I wrote a pretty scathing review. Come to think of it, that was the last show I reviews there. 😂).
Looking forward to part 2!
I'm taken aback, too. I don't know when or how it happened, that the theatre became such a conformist institution, while still thinking of itself as the rebellious rule-breakers. It's funny, isn't it, that not following any rules of dramatic structure or meaning could itself become a rule?
And hmm... funny coincidence that you're not reviewing at the Goodman anymore. I'd love to read your write-up of A View From the Bridge! :-)
Well, the joke was on me because looking back upon my experiences, I think the conformity was always there, it was me that had idealistic lenses and failed to see the signs. At least, here in the States. My theatre experience in Bulgaria while it was under Communist rule was edgier- you always had to think of novel ways to say what everyone is thinking without tripping the censors.
Just rereading my review now, it feels like I wasn’t as hard on them as I remember. Or maybe in contrast to all the embarrassingly masturbatory reviews from all other critics, mine felt more damning than it was. It’s a short read:
https://open.substack.com/pub/visceraladventure/p/a-view-from-the-bridge?r=xi283&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
I’ll tell you what was the most soul crushing experience tho: I left during the standing ovations that lasted quite a while. Outside, was a woman with a stroller. It’s a long play, it was 11p, and she is begging for money. As the audience spilled onto the street, clamoring over one another to get to the reception at the restaurant next door, they completely ignore this woman. They just spent the last three hours congratulating themselves over their intellectual superiority, but had to stampede over one another to go get that free drink. I was so disgusted. I didn’t go to the reception. Instead, I headed into the subway, paid and waited on the platform. Then, as my train approached, I turned on my heals and went to find the woman and asked if she had a place to stay, that I was really uncomfortable with her being out on the street at almost midnight with her toddler in a stroller. I told her I’ll get her to a shelter if she didn’t, but if she did, then she is not allowed to use her baby as a prop to get sympathy coins. She pulled out a cellphone and called (her brother, I think) and I waited until a car came to pick her up. I know, in the grand scheme of things, she probably just moved locations. But the experience colored me cynical and I went home to write that review.
"The conformity was always there, it was me that had idealistic lenses and failed to see the signs..." Amen to that. Totally agree.
I so enjoyed reading your review of A View From the Bridge. Ivo Van Hove was becoming a big name during my master's program; my professors swooned over him. Your assessment is definitely not as scathing as I (or you!) imagined, and it hit a nerve with me. Minimalism is great as an artistic aesthetic -- I write plays with an eye toward it, almost all the time. But some plays can't survive the stripping down, and weren't meant to, especially if they are making a statement about class, poverty, etc.
Your experience AFTER the play says it all. Thank you for sharing so much here, Tonika.
I like minimalism just fine. It could have been executed there too but for whatever reason instead of aiding the play, it worked against it. It worked well in one scene, from what I remember.
Just realizing I'm needing to catch up on a few of your posts. And this reply is three weeks delayed. 😬
Hey, Mary, Woo-Hoo! This is great. I love it! It’s so interesting to read, but you have really opened up a can of worms here. Way to Go!! Your readers are already recognizing this kind of group think in their own fields of endeavor.
So, my thoughts went to my suspicions about our present political class, and how they are most likely those types of “Head Girls or Boys” you talk about. I immediately thought of Rhodes Scholars, like Rachel Maddow, Bill Clinton; also the Yale Skull and Bones Crowd, John Kerry, GW Bush Sr. and Jr. Not to mention the Young Globalist Leaders Program launched by Klaus Schwab to promote his Great Reset agenda that includes people like Macron, Merkel, Trudeau, Jacinda Arden, just to name a few. No wonder we can’t break through the brainwashing of our citizens here. Our leaders have all been groomed, and probably sworn to uphold the WEF tenets. This is how they were able to shut the whole world down (almost) over the last 3 years.
I have also become aware of this kind of “schooling” going on in other fields of employment. I wrote to you about my son being required to participate in a class at his place of employment. It's a corporate program consisting of a series of classes to improve employee's personal interaction skills, how to work as a team, to think collectively and to conform to certain norms of behavior which supposedly will enable the employees to be more productive. None of the instruction content has anything to do with our son’s area of expertise, construction remodeling. The employees are even taught a new vocabulary to use when communicating with each other. I didn’t like the sound of it right away. I suspected that it’s designed to get everyone thinking with the same mind. Once the employees learn the basic program then it can be implemented thereafter to indoctrinate them further in certain attitudes and perspectives that will turn them into good soldiers to further some other agenda. I know that sounds paranoid, but I see it happening elsewhere. Just look at the public schools imposing their CRT curriculum on the staff and students.
This leads me to mention censorship and blackballing, ostracism, and termination of anyone who doesn’t go along with the agenda. Many of us have experienced this over the last three years trying to honor our own personal sovereignty in terms of our health and other freedoms.
OK, part 2, bring it on!!
**BTW, I did not receive your email about this essay being posted. I had to go look for it myself.
Massive can of worms, no doubt about it. You identified quite a few wigglers in your comment, Rocket, thanks!
I also appreciate the anecdote about your son's employer requiring him to participate in corporate training. I can completely understand your misgivings -- I would be wary, too. I remember asking my professor in grad school (at the very beginning) why the "lingo" had to be so very dense and convoluted; why couldn't we just say what we needed to say, as simply and directly as possible? She acknowledged that it was indicative of being part of the "club," without questioning whether it was good or bad; it's just the "way it is." Creepy.
Re: the posting of my essay, that's strange. Did it go to junk mail, perhaps?
Thank you, Mary. "It's just the way it is". Don't you just hate that? "Creepy" is right. It reminds me of that old song, "I'm in With the In crowd". I like the tune but I never much gravitated to the "In Crowd". Now, I'm beginning to think, we people on Substack are the REAL "In Crowd"!!
Now, get back to work on Part 2 !
That was magnificent, thank you!
I really need to read Schmidt's book, and glad you highlighted "assignable curiosity", that's it in a nutshell pretty much. Curiosity is the natural resource that threatens any status quo, and so it needs to be directed, derailed or just disabled.
Yes! Curiosity is a superpower. I'm staggered by the lack of it in some very smart people I know. Sometimes I wonder if it's a protective mechanism, keeping them from hearing stuff they intuitively know will re-order their comfortable world...
Interest that you say that. A couple of years ago we gave our Britannica to a friend who had 2 young daughters. This was the note I wrote to them:
Curiosity is a superpower.
Curiosity of self, of others and of the world.
Curiosity about what is true.
Like all powers, it is a muscle that gets stronger with use but withers otherwise.
May it [Britannica] bring you much wonder.
May you always be curious.
That's beautiful. 🙏
Brilliant essay...I'll have to look into Schmidt, currently reading another recently-fired-by-UC academic Aaron Kheriaty--his book, The New Abnormal, also shows how the patterns of prestent totalitarianism are emerging from the careerist compromises that riddle Official Academia.
For more of my work, that of another "under-employed academic," see the group substack I write for, PostModernConservative. You might particularly like my recent essay on Naomi Wolf's visit to Yale (that's where I saw you stack) and my essay earlier this year on the "Swarms of Spontaneity-Smotherers" at Stanford. That is another expand-on-another's-essay essay.
Thanks so much, Carl. I'm intrigued by Kheriaty's story and his new book. It's on my list now! And I will definitely check out both of your essays you recommend. Hurray for the under-employed academics!
This is a hugely important issue. Most parents have no idea the degree of indoctrination they send their kids into, and ultimately nothing can be fixed without addressing it. Some are aware of course, hence the huge rise worldwide in homeschooling. Noam Chomsky, though I'm not fully with him on all of his worldview, set out the problem on this with devastating clarity some decades ago (I'd guess the 1980's from his age in the video. It's still really worth watching and circulating:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgXZuGIMuwQ&t=60s
Michael, that clip of Chomsky is PERFECT. (And like you, I think some of his viewpoints now are troubling.) I shudder to calculate how many students have gone through indoctrination posing as "education." It helps explain the mess we're currently in. Thanks for commenting and for posting the video!
Ah, we are on the same wavelength!
We cannot put things right until more people realise what is happening in the schools - and I think most are going to have to hear it in many forms and from many places before the light begins to go on. So keep up the good work!
"in many forms and from many places..." Yes.
I will. You, too.
For sure. I have a long, long list of topics I have to take up on my Substack, and education is certainly one of them!
I look forward to reading them all!