Ganging Aft Agley

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute needs to go to college.

The “Intercollegiate Studies Institute” (ISI) has a bland-sounding name, so they wouldn’t have a radical ideological agenda, would they?  It says “college” in the name!  And colleges only test knowledge, they don’t use trick questions to lead you to shakey presumptions about the world … right?

Figure 1: I aced it, in part because I saw through its false normative assumptions

Figure 2: Here’s how you might answer this question on a test: one of these things is not like the other.  No matter how little you learned in history or civics class, you probably remember that tariffs are bad, you know that “decreases in economic growth” have got to be bad, and you DEFINITELY know that “decreases in standard of living” are bad.

• So what’s good, then?  What’s the right answer because it’s not like the others? “Increase in productivity!”
• “Productivity” is much more vague than the others, though.  So, as you might or might not realize as the test taker, “productivity” can go way up while “standard of living” plummets at the same time.
• In fact, that’s what usually happens to countries around the world who open up to free trade, then have their markets flooded with cheap American food—which is subsidized by US government(’s protectionist trade policies)—, then are forced to “specialize” in jobs in factories that are more “productive,” in the sense of putting out more product, but pay less, and afford a lower standard of living.

Figure 3: A “public good” has a real definition in political science, and the “answer” to this question is incorrect.

• A public good’s defining characteristics are “non-rivalability” and “non-excludeability,” that is one person’s use of the good does not diminish another’s use of it and one person is physically incapable of excluding someone else from benefiting from the good.  
• Problems with public goods are a type collective action problem, that is, “Well, we all need it, so who’s gonna build it??”
• One problem within that coordination problem is “freeloaders,” or those who do not contribute to building or maintaining something, yet still benefit from it.  
• The concept of “freeloader” in political science is not a moralizing one.  It is a coordination one: given the rational incentive to NOT contribute to a public good (because you as an individual will benefit anyway), how do we collectively organize to create or preserve a public good?
• ISI’s unfortunate use of “a flood-control levee” calls to mind the suffering of Hurricane Katrina, and—by moralizing and vastly oversimplifying the issue—ISI seems to imply that poor people not “directly paying for” a good or service is the problem of freeloading. Hello, classism!
• Examples of the rich freeloading:

• Wal-Mart freeloading on government-provided health care because they don’t provide employee insurance and because they exploit massive tax loopholes
• Wealthy “supporters” of green energy who live in scenic places and won’t allow wind turbines to be built in their line-of-sight (e.g. Cape Cod)

Figure 4: Yes, so true, because “local knowledge” is a cornerstone of the most successful companies, which build massive chains across the country, homogenizing goods, services, roadways, and landscapes!

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A quick glance at ISI’s website confirms one’s suspicions of ISI’s ideological goals in their seemingly innocent “civics quiz.”

Here’s their website banner:

… when everyone your organization chooses to represent is white … there’s a problem.  PLUS, their first issue area is “western civilization,” under which the Wailing Wall is pictured, which is a symbol of the so-called clash of civilizations.

In their FAQ section, ISI proudly claims ethnocentrism as one of their “core values.”

My personal response?  Yer dumb.  Any organization working to  ”chart the way into the exotic landscape of Western Civilization” is simply gasping for a last dying breath of white privilege as the United States becomes more and more diverse.  Just because you are not as good as you used to be at keeping people down does not mean that your civilization is dying.

Finally, it should be pointed out that ISI specifically refers to the importance of “Western patrimony,” also described as patriarchy, that is, the systemic oppression of women by men.  Woo, go western civilization!  Part of why you’re so great is that you’ve seen no accomplishments by women, or at least not any worth mentioning, apparently …