AKA Review - 10.03.2025

From The New York Times

Political Violence Isn’t New. But Something About This Moment Is

By Jia Lynn Yang

Today’s political violence is heir to a long history of bloody political conflict in the U.S. But previous violence arose from clashing visions for the nation, while today’s stems from nihilism and despair—“the lone individual, lost in an online void.” It is closer to mass shootings, for which social isolation is the biggest catalyst. And if we focus solely on blaming either party, the despair that feeds violence will only contaminate more of American life. When we look for a political stance,

“we forget that the bullet itself is often the [desperate] message.”

Read this article

From Compact

The Crisis of the University Started Long Before Trump

By Clifford Ando

U. Chicago’s current financial crisis is also a tale of corroded ideals and wasted money across American higher ed. The story’s roots lie in, first, 1980’s Bayh-Dole Act, which allowed universities to profit from their discoveries in federally funded research and, second, the growing view of the value of college in terms of careers and lifetime income rather than the creation of lifetime learners. The results—academic program closures, cuts to doctoral education, increased student-faculty ratios—betray an “implied contract with students, families, and donors.” Read this article

From The Atlantic
Why So Many MIT Students Are Writing Poetry

By Joshua Bennett

Amid an A.I. revolution and facing a notoriously difficult courseload, why would MIT students form an out-of-class poetry collective and devote their time to making poems? Poetry fulfills the same hunger for connection, understanding, and awe that drives interest in A.I., this MIT literature professor avers. He suggests that his students’ powerful responses to an assignment he gives each year show us “It’s worth asking where the warmth of poetry, its connective power across millennia, meets the advances and demands of our technological age.” Read this article

From The Washington Post

Colleges have had a tough year. Confidence in them is rising

By Susan Svrluga

A July Gallup poll showed the first upward tick in years in public confidence in higher ed. Last week, a national poll added to evidence for this shift. Half of respondents indicated “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence and two-thirds said that college has a positive effect on society. The real gap comes with MAGA Republicans, two-thirds of whom feel college has a negative impact. Still, while affordability and bias remain widespread concerns, these are “very different from widespread opposition to the idea of higher education itself.” Read this article

From Esquire

Welcome to the Era of Big Stupid in America

By Dave Holmes

The U.S. is canceling scientific studies, research grants, financial aid, health care, and foreign aid while repelling the world’s smartest, most ambitious international students. The author’s biting indictment of America’s leaders posits the only model that makes sense of their actions: “It’s Big Stupid. And it’s going to be the death of us” as it moves into the void left behind by the loss of our loftiest goals, highest standards, and long-standing dominance in education and entrepreneurship. You’ve heard critiques like this, just not with such dead-on vicious humor. Read this article