“These are dangerous times. Never have so many people had so much access to so much knowledge and yet have been so… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“Some educators even repeat the old saw that “I learn as much from my students as they learn from me!” (With due… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“Ordinary Americans might never have liked the educated or professional classes very much, but until recently they did not widely disdain their… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“I was a straight-A student at a university” does not mean what it did in 1960 or even 1980. A study of… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“Students, well intentioned or otherwise, are poorly served by the idea that students and teachers are intellectual and social equals and that… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“To faculty everywhere, the lesson was obvious: the campus of a top university is not a place for intellectual exploration. It is… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“What is different today, and especially worrisome when it comes to the creation of educated citizens, is how the protective, swaddling environment… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“It was probably inevitable that the anti-intellectualism of American life would invade college campuses, but that is no reason to surrender to… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“Colleges are supposed to be the calm environment in which educated men and women determine what’s true and what’s false, and where… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“As the economic writer Ben Casselman pointed out in 2016, most college applicants “never have to write a college entrance essay, pad… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“There is no way around the reality that students are too often wasting their money and obtaining the illusion of an education… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“This sense of entitlement is one reason they are continually angry at “experts” and especially at “elitists,” a word that in modern… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“Today, by contrast, students explode over imagined slights that are not even remotely in the same category as fighting for civil rights… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“The two most important facts about grade inflation, however, are that it exists and that it suffuses students with unwarranted confidence in… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“The American attachment to intellectual self-reliance described by Tocqueville survived for nearly a century before falling under a series of assaults from… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“Conspiracy theorists manipulate all tangible evidence to fit their explanation, but worse, they will also point to the absence of evidence as even stronger… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share
“Today, by contrast, students explode over imagined slights that are not even remotely in the same category as fighting for civil rights or being… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share
“And when voters lose control of these important decisions, they risk the hijacking of their democracy by ignorant demagogues, or the more quiet and… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share
“As the economic writer Ben Casselman pointed out in 2016, most college applicants “never have to write a college entrance essay, pad a résumé… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share
“People do not come to the Internet so that their bad information can be corrected or their cherished theories disproven. Rather, they ask the… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share
“If the public has no idea about the substance of an issue, and will vote based on who they like rather than what they… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share
“The issue is not indifference to established knowledge; it’s the emergence of a positive hostility to such knowledge. This is new in American culture,… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share
“At the root of all this is an inability among laypeople to understand that experts being wrong on occasion about certain issues is not… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share
“The requirements of a degree in a STEM field (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), a demanding foreign language, or a rigorous degree in the humanities… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share
“In 2015, a Massachusetts accountant named Stephen Pasceri lost his seventy-eight-year-old mother to cardiovascular disease. Mrs. Pasceri had a long history of health trouble,… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share
“The modern media, with so many options tailored to particular views, is a huge exercise in confirmation bias. This means that Americans are not… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share
“Americans no longer distinguish the phrase “you’re wrong” from the phrase “you’re stupid.” To disagree is to disrespect. To correct another is to insult.… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share
“There aren’t enough pages in this or any other book to catalog the amount of bad information on the Internet. Miracle cures, conspiracy theories,… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share
“Populism actually reinforces this elitism, because the celebration of ignorance cannot launch communications satellites, negotiate the rights of US citizens overseas, or provide for… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share
