Don’t miss the new episode of “Conversations with Bill Kristol,” the video series in which The Weekly Standard’s editor at large talks philosophy, politics, and culture with big thinkers. A case in point is the most recent program, which features that most worthy of worthies, Scrapbook colleague (and Weekly Standard senior editor) Andrew Ferguson.
In a far-ranging discussion Ferguson offers his thoughts on television: E. B. White thought that the creation of PBS “was the promise of television being fulfilled because it was going to be public,” when in practice, now “you turn on a PBS station and you’re likely to see doo-wop groups.”
And on politics: In the contest between George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton in 1992, Ferguson says he was confident whom the voters—picking between a “World War II hero” and a “guy who talks about his underwear”—would choose. “Of course,” Ferguson notes, “I was totally wrong.”
Ferguson could not be further from wrong, though, in his assessment of higher education. The author of the trenchant and amusing Crazy U, Ferguson remains one of the most compelling critics of the modern university. Not even counting the collapse of intellectual standards, Ferguson says, colleges have made themselves absurd. Such as:
Watch the whole thing at ConversationsWithBillKristol.org.
