Yale, Academia, and Power

This is a fascinating article by Natalia Dashan about her own experiences at Yale and the endless, seemingly pointless political/social controversies there. Read the whole thing; it's a bit long but very insightful.

One thing which struck me very profoundly was her point that the Yalies (both faculty and students) are actively abdicating power. This is odd because the whole point of a liberal-arts education is to prepare students to hold positions of power. Seriously: that's what it's about. You learn history and rhetoric and logic so that you can understand and, yes, influence other people. At least, that's what it used to be about. Now, I'm not sure.

Anyway, read the article.