Coronavirus Is Coming for Education
I have a new piece out at The Bellows on the effects coronavirus is likely to have on the American public school system. You can read it here:
Benjamin Studebaker
Yet Another Attempt to Make the World a Better Place by Writing Things
Tag: Education
January 19, 2020
The Higher Education Bubble Isn’t Going to Burst Without Our Help
For a long time, we’ve been sending more and more people to college. We’ve sent so many people to college that many graduates can no longer find good jobs when they leave. More than 40% end up working in jobs that used to require no degree:
Some have been waiting for market forces to solve this problem. Way back in 2015, Senator Marco Rubio argued that folks would stop going to university and start pursuing jobs in the trades. Instead of studying philosophy, Rubio suggested the kids take up welding:
December 7, 2019
Britain: For the Love of God, Please Stop Boris Johnson
On 12 December, Britain has a general election. I care deeply about British politics–I did my BA over there and am finishing up a PhD there as we speak. But more importantly, the Conservative Party has managed the country’s economy and future with stunning fecklessness, and I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do my part to point this out.
Let me tell you the story of what happened in Britain and how Cameron, May, and Johnson are making everything much, much worse.
April 5, 2019
Let a Studebaker Tell You What’s Wrong With the Mayor of South Bend
My name is Benjamin Studebaker, and I grew up in Indiana. I am not happy with the way the press is covering Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Let me tell you why. Read the rest of this entry »
January 7, 2019
Self-Care Puts Us on an Amusement Treadmill
For some years now there’s been some people who have written pieces encouraging folks to engage in “self-care” and other people who have picked at this concept from the left. The pro self-care pieces tend to give people practical life advice for dealing with the stress and anxiety of modern life. The anti self-care pieces point out that self-care puts the burden of coping with the failures of modern capitalism on the individual. We experience higher incidences of stress and mental illness because our economic system leaves us in precarious positions. We fear being outcompeted for an ever scarcer number of good, professional class jobs. This pushes us into an arms race to polish our resumes. The more we try to look good, the more everyone else feels they must try to look good. So anti self-care pieces frame the practice as a luxury open only to those who are already reasonably secure–it doesn’t address the fundamental structural causes of precarity and it doesn’t rescue people from those forces.
These are the usual arguments surrounding self-care. But today I want to make a different argument–I want to claim that self-care is itself a celebration of a behaviour ancient political theorists rightly associated with slavery.
