alt Hacker NewsLiberal arts education leaders haven't been doing themselves any favors. During the recent COVID-19 pandemic we saw many college administrations abandon all critical thinking to enforce blind obedience and mandatory compliance with pointless and counterproductive policies around lockdowns and mandates. Scientists were condemned for daring to even discuss alternative views.
I absolutely see value in classical liberal arts education. But popular denigration is inevitable when people see hypocritical academics casting aside true liberal thinking and using their platform to promote pernicious ideologies.
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I think it's very easy to Monday morning quarterback administrative decisions about COVID-19 mitigation now that we're past it, when, at the time, we had very little information which led to a ton of hysteria. I'm not going to relitigate the COVID-19 pandemic response, but I will say I don't think it was inconsistent or ill-advised at all to err on the side of following national health guidance in an emergent situation like that. Even from a purely legal/lawsuit-aversion standpoint, you'd ignore federal guidance/mandates at your financial peril.
I don't know how any of that had to do with liberal arts. To give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're interpretation is correct: do you blame the person when they panic in a major earthquake, as they watch their peers crushed around them?
It wasn't normal times and abnormal times need preparation. It's a great thing the acting president during COVID removed the pandemic response team the previous year. It's not wonder we were chickens wandering about without our heads.
Isolation and masking have been proven again and again to minimize the transmission of infection. There are still 700-1200 excess deaths per week: https://www.pmc19.com/data/PMC_COVID_Forecast_June232025.pdf
Million of people die in the US. In a pool of 300 million people that might be a small minority but it could be much worse.
I was diabetic and still am, and was obese. I was also young. There's no telling that a viral infection would have landed me in the hospital but I do have risk factors.
COVID is definitely a risk. It would be foolish not to practice at least some measure of risk control.
There's definitely some loss of trust in institutions, but if it weren't for RFK, I would still trust them more than some random skeptic covid. Now, I don't trust the FDA anymore, how ironic.