In his book Why Teach? In Defense of a Real Education, Mark Edmundson constructs an argument about the paradoxical consumer culture surrounding education, involving three major parties: universities, students, and teachers. The Virginian professor takes a stance on the problems that he has both experienced in his own classroom and observed on campuses, and he approaches each problem in turn, making significant claims, which are assigned appropriate blames. It is clear that the purpose of his essay, “Liberal Arts & Lite Entertainment,” originally published in 1997, is to inform those engulfed in the academic world about the major problems in education, convince them to combat the “ethos of consumerism,” and change the established ways of thinking (23). Edmundson gives hope to the idea of the acceptance and praising of what he refers to as genius (as opposed to the alienation of it, which students endorse so …show more content…
While it could be argued from another’s point of view that professors are attempting to dismantle this consumer mentality that their students have, Edmundson counters this, claiming that professors are only more “vulnerable to the whims of their customer-students” (16). Self-concerned, just as the students are, the professors are guilty of conforming to student desires in exchange for positive evaluations, all the while feeding their own desire for self-advancement. A major concern of Edmundson’s is that his job is merely to “divert, entertain, and interest” his students instead of influencing them like he wishes to (4). In general, course material must consist of “agreeable treats” and cannot challenge or insult the students, group projects must be allowed, and frequently, and everything must be “smooth, serene, [and] unflustered” (13,