Killing Thinking: Death of the Universities

by Mary Evans

Throughout the twentieth century, many critics of bureaucratisation have predicted the increasing loss of intellectual creativity through the growth of institutional forms of direction and control. This book argues that this is now occurring in universities - and occurring in ways which suggest that the ability (and space) to think freely will become more and more a matter of access to power and privilege. Mary Evans demonstrates how this is both profoundly anti-democratic and anti-intellectual and provides suggestions for reversing this destructive trend.

Genres: Education, Academia

184 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Alison · Rating 2 out of 5]

A howl of outrage from this esteemed academic whose work I love, but it's very British and very literary and sometimes satirises the kinds of discourses and practices hopefuls adopt in order to find work. These critiques of university culture are well needed but humane generosity for those having to engage with these neoliberal factories would be more rewarding to read.

[Michael Palkowski · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I believe that the author's central thesis is correct and many of the secondary arguments that result from her central claim strike me as being true, the failure of this book rests in its inability at adequately linking the literary analysis and allusions into the point of the book. Often it veers dramatically off point and the analysis doesn't seem appropriate or reasonable to the ideas being discussed before and after, or are too vague to make any clear conclusions from. There is also dramatic overstatement or understatement depending on the issue in question and a staggering refusal to deal with substantive points regarding educational relativism that was largely the result of the subject that she teaches, mainly gender studies, which had a deliberate and powerful influence in pushing for outright revisionism. Instead she attributes much of this pluralism to the market economy and how neo-liberalism effectively distorted the notion of "education for educations sake" and equipped the university as an arm of the state in providing for the demands of the labor market, which was de-industrializing at the time. This certainly is true and the increased participation of the population into education was a double edged sword due to the depletion of the value of a degree and the lack of worth given to non profitable endeavors like learning Hellenistic poetry. However this application of fordism to the academic world in the form of increased surveillance, control and 'performance' assessments was not purely the result of government intervention but of academics restructuring the university and crushing dissent and debate. She doesn't spend nearly enough time dissecting this because I believe it would undermine much of her arguments later concerning gender and undermine her credibility as a writer complaining about the destruction of critical thinking in universities.

Kingsly Amis and Bourdieu are analyzed extensively in the first chapter and compared, essentially two opposing views both centered on cultural capital and class. What is striking however is that the analysis takes up a lot of space and time but the author's contention deriving from it seems faulty. She mentions with lamentation that 50% of the population now go to university and mentions that the curriculum now includes popular culture and academic interests that were not considered worthy in the old university, however still is persistent that the university is still classed. There is no evidence provided to back her claim up but even if it were true it certainly is superfluous to the central thesis as discussing the persistent nature of class as a social signifier in education doesn't show that the university is 'dying' or that 'thought' is no longer being encouraged but rather the university has similar social hierarchies which has persisted over generations, which I would argue is dependent on the institution and is not a generalizable category considering that 50% figure mentioned earlier.

The same is true for the chapter on gendered spaces and the narrative surrounding Virginia Woolf's "outsider society". The chapter deviates so much from the central idea of university education that it discusses bishops, the military and other institutional inequalities that women suffer from. It mentions in passing the greater number of women entering university and neglects the statistical data showing that they outnumber men in almost every subject. The author almost seems to lament that the entire university is not matriarchal as the curriculum is apparently 'male centered' contradicting her own contentions earlier of a feminized curriculum in modular structures and essay assignments. Again the idea of a male centered patriarchal educational system is part of the reason why such anti intellectualism and reformism has taken place in schools. It's this tacit assumption without clear evidence that men dominate the school and that subjects focus too heavily on male figures and so the entire system needs to be reconfigured to make it more 'equitable'. Such equalization frames her analysis of Orwell in the earlier chapter, where she brilliantly discusses his mistrust of unclear, euphemistic, bureaucratic sounding pieces of jargon. However her analysis is not sober and critically sound, instead its full of emotive language such as "Furtive Zealots" and accusing university assessment as a form of Stalinism and Authoritarianism; saying that certain ideas came straight from the pit of hell. It's almost ironic that her central idea is that universities have killed critical thinking and then writes a book showing uncritical thinking. Wolf's central solution for example was to merely refuse to participate within institutions that do not allow women to take part and this is pondered over. Again this is superfluous because more women than men enter university and so there is no exclusion predicated on gender and so looking at the idea of women not participating is pointless and probably just a way of name dropping Woolf. It's clear her gendered analysis is rooted in her own ideological Stalinism that similarly doesn't have any evidence. An example is her incessant delineation concerning powerful positions in the university being mostly men, without understanding that there is not a single organization anywhere that has clear equity between the sexes and furthermore implementing a quota wouldn't solve the crisis she is mentioning in her analysis. It's almost as though she is implying that men are the problem and more 'equality' in the university would help. She doesn't understand however the differing work patterns that both genders have (Hakim's work in preference theory etc) and the fact that it differs depending on the subject and institution. Furthermore the repetition becomes overwhelming after a while as the key claims are summarized rather quickly with historical antecedents and laws that rooted the change in education announced very quickly. It's almost as though attention is not paid at all to preceding essays and that they were merely taped together for the sake of publication.

E. P Thompson's satirical poke at academia as containing the species 'academicus superciliosus' is perhaps appropriate in also labeling the author who over-exaggerates the authoritarian might and power of university Stalinism by dramatically underplaying any significant reforms, or pedagogical alternatives that she favors. It is mentioned of course that recourse back to the previous 'deeply patriarchal' paradigm of education is impossible but the ideal seems marginalized by the fervor of criticism that the author has to the current system which destroys her capacity for logical conclusions and appropriate application of her examples and materials. Another case where I agree with the book's premise and several of the arguments presented but cannot accept the way the book works and the way the arguments are expressed.


Sowell - The Myth of Proportional Racial and Gender Distribution http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul0q35...

[Dora Okeyo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this book as I am graduating led to consider what the use of a university education is nowadays.
A friend once said that a certain speaker at a graduation ceremony had asked where Africa would be, and the world, if the graduates read as much books as they consumed alcohol an attended parties.
This is also a main concern for Mary, as she takes you through education in Britain and the USA. It's a good book, an eye opener to the kind of education one receives in the university-and it also serves as a reminder of the importance of scholastic achievement.
If you like this book, I'd suggest "Where have all the Intellectuals gone?" by Frank Furedi.

[Leonard Houx · Rating 4 out of 5]

For me, Killing Thinking was a breath of fresh air. As anyone (like me) who works in UK higher education knows, regulation, continued social inequality, inter-university inequality, and subsumption into government's economic agendas weigh down British HE and have left a morass of angry staff, under-supported students, and the same old social inequalities that existed before the Robbins report, the Dearing Report, and the rest of it. Well researched and delightfully readable, Evans book is colourful, self-piss-takingly humourous, and surprisingly balanced. Also, it's short (about 150 pages).

To anyone who is in the unenviable of position of working British higher ed, I happily recommend it.