
Michel Tavernier at Areo wonders why French universities, home of intellectuals closely associated with postmodernism, seem immune from the excesses of postmodernism’s political expression that beleaguers universities in the Anglophone world:
Tuition fees, which are the product of freewheeling neoliberal economics, have spiralled out of control in the Anglophone world in general and in the US in particular. This translates into astronomical student debt that exacerbates economic inequalities and goes against the democratic principle of freedom of education that should not end after high school. In addition, the for-profit and clientelist model has had some very insidious consequences for other aspects of democratic life by providing students with a customer service that leaves the door wide open for extravagant and unreasonable requests that are, ironically, just as undemocratic.