J. Wyatt Ehrenfels, author of Fireflies in the Shadow of the Sun, recently amassed a cadre of purists attempting to raise awareness and resurrect respect for a concept of scholarship that is definitely old school and relatively self-sufficient. The knowledge and education valued by Ehrenfels & Co. accentuate the natural resources inherent in individuals, such as thinking, good old-fashioned contemplation and reflection, drawn constructively from life experience and aided primarily by book reading. "These notions may be quite attractive to recession-time legislators harassed by colleges and universities they have spoiled with entitlement spending for far too long," remarked Ehrenfels. "A great deal of this spending supports a top-heavy administration, social programs, and a bloated behemoth of a curriculum." The outspoken author can often be heard railing against the 'fat' in an over-diversified curriculum. "Our universities have utilized what I call the bulimia model of spending. First they binge on the appropriations they maintain like it symbolized their self-respect, but they do not want to appear financially well-endowed, so they purge, inventing these 'superfluous functions' across which they can spread the money thin. Then they get to point public attention to the emaciated limb that is their multiculturalism faculty, committee, or club and say 'look at how under-fed we are. And they are quite disingenuous in their argument that an under-fed university translates into a malnourished education for your children. That's BS. And I don't mean 'Bachelor of Science.' We have created all these sources of dependency, this illusion of need."

By 'illusion of need,' Ehrenfels refers to technology but also to a perverted or patrician apotheosis of professionalism that makes faculty and students dependent on textbooks and manuals. "If you really care about the financial burdens of your students, and if you want to promote real education, then cut back on the hefty $500 a semester check to the university bookstore for the 101 textbook. Students would do much better to purchase scholarly books from Amazon or bn.com, which are less expensive and which pack more substance into each paragraph than any whole textbook." While Ehrenfels claims this alone could never solve the financial crisis, he invests a lot of time in a critique of textbooks, which he believes is symptomatic if not symbolic of an attitude at the root of the university bungling and malfeasance. "Textbooks might enjoy honest and effective use as reference guides for instructors but should never be assigned to students. In what may have been my field, there is really no logical or empirical basis for the remarkable uniformity with which textbook authors break up the human condition into these chapters. They even sequence them the same way. The charge of profiteering is often levied against me for writing Fireflies, but to be perfectly honest, the critics would have to levy a similar charge against textbook authors who pump out a new edition every biennium. Let's face it. We don't learn much in our field over the course of a decade let alone a year. And the only content deemed acceptable for textbooks, concepts universally regarded as fundamental, are certainly not generated at this pace. Concepts like cognitive dissonance, which boasts an intuitive appeal among psych profs regardless of their specialized area of study. And for some reason, the textbook author does not include in his new edition the sophisticated ideas emerging out of each area of speciality. This is a mystery considering how rare these ideas are in our field (see Globus's phenomenological adaptation of connectionism to memory and personality). Could it be these concepts are too difficult for the psych prof outside his wheelhouse to digest? Could it be he or she deems it not of sufficient interest to warrant the commitment of time and energy? Could it be he or she does not feel the concept can be rewritten on a 6th grade level? Textbook authors, especially psych profs, demand that ideas be presented as such that they can be comprehended by my grandmother in her sleep. This is known in certain circles as the "grandmother test." The ability to comprehend an idea in one's sleep is a corollary I added to reflect what appears to be a growing intolerance among psych profs or any text they cannot understand with the bare minimum of expenditure. There's no meeting the author or genius halfway, and with that unwritten rule, Psychology surrendered all pretenses to high art or science in favor of USA Today-style journalism. Who knows? At this rate all dissertations (assuming we don't abandon them for psychometrically sound 1,000-item multiple choice exams that double as MMPI-style personality screening devices) will have to be readily accessible to the intelligence of a compulsive text-messenger by the year 2010.

To know that a lot of the sophisticated ideas don't even make their way into textbooks, you need only to note the absence (or grazing) of Jung in the personality chapter and connectionism in the chapter on cognition. Those who defend textbooks often call attention to their role within a survey course. You'd think they could capture something interesting in their net. I for one have always found the beauty and diversity of tropical fish quite stimulating, but the psychology curriculum is one goldfish after another. No student, especially the non-major, should be subjected to a course as dry and arid as Psych 101. And for the Psychology majors...they'll see all this same material regurgitated at least a half dozen times over their so-called advanced coursework and non-majors, well, they will have to console themselves with the fact they are being paid three credits for their trouble."

When questioned as to whether lobbyists would be receptive to his arguments, Ehrenfels shrugged with resignation, citing 'blind faith' and 'lazy loyalty.' "Who knows why they congregate around this cause? Some are driven by a love for their children. And...others because it is simple and fashionable to attack someone for breaking the 11th commandment, 'thou shalt not cut our children's education.' I have no doubt these soldiers are trained to think the service they're performing is socially conscientious, and some draw from this a sense of elevated personal importance."

Unlike the tobacco or whaling industries, universities have had no natural enemies on the hill -- until now. And if you believe J. Wyatt Ehrenfels, the lack of opposition enjoyed by our educational institutions is at an end. At the rate at which the author is broadening his social base, he projects he will be able to mobilize his supporters to match pro-university lobbying by end of the year. "This recession will expose the vanity and sophistry of universities. I would not deprive them of funding just for the hell of it. But I do get angry when I see them so heavily consecrated and insulated while they perpetrate a form of greed and while they shirk responsibilities to which the rest of us are beholden. In this way, universities are a lot like the teenage daughter who receives an allowance and marries into wealth before she ever has to work for a living. This comparison may be unfair to many teenage daughters who actually grow up to be mature adults while colleges remain a shrill cauldron of childish attitudes. And they are given to fits of fashionable expenditure. Let's see how well these unchecked and greatly unbalanced quote educators weather a counterstrike."

Only time will tell.

fireflySun.com Report List

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Brad Jesness Target of Malicious Psychologists on Usenet: Brad Jesness

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Wyatt Ehrenfels Critical of Vaunted Cornell Research Claiming Opposites Do NOT Attract: Wyatt Ehrenfels

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Wyatt Ehrenfels Offers Links to Education and Appropriations Subcommittees: Wyatt Ehrenfels

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Wyatt Ehrenfels Counsels High School Students on Choice of College Major: Wyatt Ehrenfels

APPIC Match Service Helps Veterans Hospital Psychologists Discriminate against Applicants w/ Disabilities: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Psychology Professional Development at Odds with Adult Maturation: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Republishes Work of College Curriculum Critic and FOX News Writer Wendy McElroy: Wendy McElroy

Wyatt Ehrenfels Likens Psychological Research to Premature Ejaculation: Wyatt Ehrenfels

According to Social Psychologist Wyatt Ehrenfels, Diversity Is Skin Deep, Black-and-White at University of Michigan: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Dismantles Psychology's Standard Defenses against Criticism: Wyatt Ehrenfels

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Overview of Wyatt Ehrenfels's Fireflies in the Shadow of the Sun: Wyatt Ehrenfels

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Newsweek Report Surveys Dream Research Wasteland: Wyatt Ehrenfels

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Wyatt Ehrenfels Releases Preface to Fireflies in the Shadow of the Sun: Wyatt Ehrenfels

In a Drugged States, New Mexico Legislators Give Psychologists Prescriptive Authority: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Fireflies in the Shadow of the Sun Press Release: Katheryn Moyer

Brad Jesness Exposes Malicious Stalking by Psychologists on Usenet: Brad Jesness

Psychology Majors Respond to Wyatt Ehrenfels fireflySun.com: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Offers Personality Taxonomy: Wyatt Ehrenfels

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Independent Publisher Offers Glowing Review of Fireflies in the Shadow of the Sun: Wyatt Ehrenfels

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Wyatt Ehrenfels Comments on the Short Falls of Teaching in Psychology: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Popular Psychotherapy All about Controlling Chaos: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Washington National Cathedral Site of Synchronicity in Novel by Social Psychologist: Wyatt Ehrenfels

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Wyatt Ehrenfels Attacks Psychology on Two Fronts: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Connie Vaughn Teams with Wyatt Ehrenfels to Explain Why She Is Not a Psychology: Connie Vaughn

Benjamin Willard Elected President of Wyatt Ehrenfels Fan Club: Benjamin Willard

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