Amor Mundi

Diversity Mathematics

Roger Berkowitz
Three leading mathematicians Percy Deift, Svetlana Jitomirskaya, and Sergiu Klainerman argue that the United States is falling behind in mathematics and other fields in large part because of its rejection of a pedagogy based on merit. The three mathematicians embrace efforts to improve math education for all and claim that this is the best way to support non-immigrant black and hispanic citizens.

Institutional Values

Roger Berkowitz

James Kirchick writes about Matthias Döpfner, the CEO of the German publisher Axel Springer, who recently ordered that the Israeli flag be flown for a week at corporate headquarters in solidarity with both Israel and European Jews after a spate of anti-semitic attacks in Germany. When some Springer employees complained and accused Döpfner of taking sides in a geopolitical conflict, Dopfner responded sternly...

Unprincipled Power

Roger Berkowitz
Alexei Navalny was poisoned and almost murdered by Vladimir Putin and the Russian government. Languishing in a Russian prison, Navalny has a front row seat to witness the depravities of the Putin regime. The real danger of contemporary authoritarians, Navalny argues, is corruption.

Masters Degrees and the Bureaucratic Boom in Bullshit Jobs

Roger Berkowitz
William Deresiewicz asks after the boom in Masters programs--“From 1991 to 2019, the number of master’s degrees awarded rose by 143 percent. That’s 70 percent faster than bachelor’s degrees and 84 percent faster than doctorates.” These programs are cash cows for universities and are frequently financed by huge amounts of debt by students seeking to invest in their futures.

The College Pyramid

Roger Berkowitz
Rebecca Gordon asks about the ethics of teaching in Universities where students increasingly graduate with immense debt and few meaningful prospects. She notes that “The average number of doctorates earned over the last decade is almost 53,000 annually. In other words, we're talking about nearly 530,000 PhDs produced by American higher education in those 10 years alone.

College Hierarchies

Mitchell L. Stevens argues that despite the “enduring faith that a college education creates opportunity for rising up social ranks,” empirical evidence suggests that at least some college degrees may actually reinforce social and economic stratification. 

VIDEO: Crisis in Education 

As part of the Richard Saltoun’s Gallery’s reading group around its Exhibit “On Hannah Arendt,” Roger Berkowitz hosted a conversation with Griselda Pollock on Arendt’s essay “The Crisis in Education”

The New Class War

Roger Berkowitz
David Brooks revisits what he got right and wrong about the rise of the creative class. Above all, he admits that he was wrong when he wrote in 2000,  “The educated class is in no danger of becoming a self-contained caste. Anybody with the right degree, job, and cultural competencies can join.” That view that the creative elite was benign and open to all was, he writes, “one of the most naive sentences I have ever written.”

Against Bad Ideas

Glenn Loury writes the inaugural essay in the newly launched Journal of Free Black Thought: