The Splintering of the American Mind

July 9, 2018
In this provocative account, Egginton, director of the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute at Johns Hopkins University, investigates how higher education’s emphasis on identity affects the current political landscape. Egginton writes that students have been taught to focus on the individual at the expense of the community in which recognition of and rights for individuals exist, turning colleges into places that widen social rifts rather than foster civil discourse. He espouses renewing liberal arts curricula as a way to help foster a more expansive sense of community; while the idea that the humanities can help people develop empathy and common stories is not new, Egginton’s case is nevertheless convincing. Less convincing are his claims that students value individual experience above their communities—discussion of student involvement in movements such as Black Lives Matter is absent, as, on the whole, are the voices of students themselves—and anecdotally supported claims that identity is now considered a necessary precondition for expertise. Egginton’s pot-stirring prose—at one point he describes colleges as “boutique department stores where the elite go to purchase an education the way one might purchase a luxury automobile”—will delight some readers and rile others, but his book will interest anyone wanting a better sense of the current mood surrounding American higher education. Agent: Michael V. Carlisle, InkWell Management.