Fish Casts a Wide Net but Catches Very Little

In Stanley Fish's Save the World on Your Own Time, higher education is under attack. It's under attack by neoliberals and neoconservatives alike, all wishing to purpose and indoctrinate their ideologies on their students. What's hard about Stanley Fish's book is that a lot of his arguments follow fairly sound logic, even agreeable logic at times. My purpose in this blog isn't to outline exactly what it is that I agree with or disagree with--that argument would require much more space than I have here--but instead to focus on the last two chapters in his book. One focuses on funding and the other acts as a quick bowtie that includes two rebuttals, or voices from the opposition. Fish casts a wide net with Save the World on Your Own Time and, though he catches very little in my opinion, there are some logically sound arguments I think we should be discussing all day, every day.

I won't try to understand how a university is ran, how money is moved, how it is attained, where it goes, etc., but what I can say is that I agree with Fish on one thing: public perception makes or loses money for a university. There's a strong opinion, specifically from Republicans, that students are wasting their time in college, especially at liberal arts schools, like Ball State. They pander on their media soapboxes, write blogs and articles for Breitbart, and podcasters like Alex Jones work hard to persuade their audiences that higher education is bloated and a money pit for the public.

In chapter six, I felt there might be some solutions to academia's struggle for cash and fighting public perception. Albeit, these are two solutions Fish thinks will never be implemented. We can all agree that his lack of faith might be a ploy to move academics to action, like a truth or dare. One solution is to educate the public on the happenings of a university. This comes with a catch for it would then make colleges and universities "accountable" (159). Educating the public and then hoping for more public funding would indeed make universities more accountable. However, as Fish points out later, academics are too soft. We must stand up to the challenge, play the offensive, and not be afraid to be aggressive. I like this idea. And when it comes to funding and public perception, what better way than to be bold? Educating citizens, particularly ones outside the realm of academia, could then enable universities to justify and boldly ask for more funding, funding that could, in theory, lessen the cost for its students (even though, as Fish points out, not much of student funding goes to the school).

So should we be more aggressive when confronting false public perceptions? I absolutely think so. The people that downplay the importance of a higher education are the same ones who think we all sit around safely in arm chairs typing away on social media, attacking anyone we disagree with, when, in reality, we're in the business of fighting ignorance. Aren't we? Well, I agree with Fish on this one, we're still losing. I want to add again that I know absolutely very little on the administration side of higher ed but, as Fish details, the very same administration I'm criticizing here are the ones that have the power to confront politicians, to treat them as equals, and to show a sort of bipartisan (I don't like that word but it works here) effort to work together. We have a student loan crisis and students are not confident in their decisions to come to college since the real world is telling them to get a real job. We need to work on that.