German University students in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century differed quite dramatically from Anglo-American students in that
1) they were less subject to the discipline of ‘Proctors’ and, instead, were answerable to their own fraternities- i.e. the medieval notion of students as comprising a ‘nation’ continued to flourish whereas in England or France the student was dependent on his parent or guardian who expected the College to exercise an infantilising ‘in loco parentis’ type of care. In other words,
2) German students (especially those who supported themselves by giving tuition or doing copyist work etc) had more freedom- in particular the freedom to transfer to another University with a more popular or dynamic Professor.
3) Germany had fewer well paid jobs for the ‘Bildungsburgertum’ so students had to earn more and more credentials or act as an unpaid privatdocent for longer periods. Like Balzac’s idealized ‘Cenacle’, some German students spent 20 years living in garrets on starvation rations, while grappling with the most recondite and intractable of Research Programs. To be discovered in one’s lifetime was an actuarial improbability for most of them. By contrast, University education was often a good investment showing a quick return for Anglo-Americans- and even the State supported French, or Church supported Spaniard or Italian.
4) Even after German Unification and the State sponsored nexus between ‘Finanzkapital’ and Technological Industries, the Collegiate decision system common to Germany and Russia meant that the German savant/bureaucrat had a longer neotenous latency and only came into his own in advanced middle age.
1) they were less subject to the discipline of ‘Proctors’ and, instead, were answerable to their own fraternities- i.e. the medieval notion of students as comprising a ‘nation’ continued to flourish whereas in England or France the student was dependent on his parent or guardian who expected the College to exercise an infantilising ‘in loco parentis’ type of care. In other words,
2) German students (especially those who supported themselves by giving tuition or doing copyist work etc) had more freedom- in particular the freedom to transfer to another University with a more popular or dynamic Professor.
3) Germany had fewer well paid jobs for the ‘Bildungsburgertum’ so students had to earn more and more credentials or act as an unpaid privatdocent for longer periods. Like Balzac’s idealized ‘Cenacle’, some German students spent 20 years living in garrets on starvation rations, while grappling with the most recondite and intractable of Research Programs. To be discovered in one’s lifetime was an actuarial improbability for most of them. By contrast, University education was often a good investment showing a quick return for Anglo-Americans- and even the State supported French, or Church supported Spaniard or Italian.
4) Even after German Unification and the State sponsored nexus between ‘Finanzkapital’ and Technological Industries, the Collegiate decision system common to Germany and Russia meant that the German savant/bureaucrat had a longer neotenous latency and only came into his own in advanced middle age.
Thus, the relative ‘autonomy’ of the German student (itself the paradoxical result of inferior life-chances) was the cause not the consequence of German Idealistic Romanticism in all its incarnations- including the phenomenological and deconstructive. However, this also meant the relative retardation of German Socio-Economic thought. Britain had Jevons & Marshall, Italy had Pareto, Belgium had Walras, France had a whole bunch of guys starting with Bernoulli- but when the Germans get a Gossen they ignore him and just carried on drudging away at Historical/Institutional shite- i.e. not seeing the wood for the trees.
The American Higher Education system did grow way too big between ’45 and ’69 and, no question, quality suffered. Edward Said pointed out that for the first time in history, you had Professors of Literature who couldn’t read a Classical or even a second Modern Language. David Lodge mentions an American Prof. of English who had never read Hamlet. Of course, our position now is far worse. We have Professors who think they have read Hamlet because they wrote a dissertation, in the style of Spivak or Butler, bitterly attacking the Prince of Denmark for having a penis. What's more it was a white penis. That's totes triggering to me.
Philosophy, of course, has suffered more because a lot of young Associate Professors think they know some Math or Econ or whatever because they took Post Grad courses specifically designed to be worthless simply so as to inculcate that individually profitable but collectively disastrous delusion. Of course, the opposite is also true. Philosophy has made a sterling contribution to stupidity in every other Discipline.
This is a good thing. Society only works, we only have an incentive to use Language, if we all believe other people, on average, are stupider than us. Also a waiter with a PhD just makes the pizza taste better. Unless, of course your tax dollars paid for his PhD- in which case you should refuse to tip.
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