Many of my readers have praised me for being prolific. They have also made remarks like, "I'm going to have to sit down and spend an hour exploring your blog when I have time!"
Since I'm picking up many new readers, I wanted to return to a few blogs I think are worth "assigning" to those of you who are new and wish to read my more investigative work. Here's a list below of what I think are important to understanding the heroes and the . . . ahem . . . villains in the student lending crisis. (Mind you, the reader will determine where the characters fall under each category, particularly the latter one. Most of the people I'm writing about aren't villains, but have decided to believe and work for a corrupted and broken system.
The decision to compromise one's ethics is paradoxically complex and simple. For instance, after I told a one researcher that they were on "the wrong side of the fence," they claimed that they were not even aware of how their organization functions. And, they added, "I'm just doing my job," or something like that. THAT claim is not an excuse. I like to direct anyone who makes such a cavalier remark about their "job," to this book by Hannah Arendt. (In this case, their role and their "I'm-just-doing-my-job" excuse, in fact, effects the lives of thousands and thousands of young people in America). I hesitated to make these remarks, but having studied this time period carefully (in contrast to the likes of Sarah Palin and her ilk), and I think the banality of evil is something we must, as a society, be cognizant of how. Indeed, it is our duty to be aware of how banal evil informs our thoughts, our actions, and the jobs we choose. I'm certainly not implying that the end point of your blase beliefs about "just doing a job" is leading people to gas chambers. Certainly not. I am, however, suggesting that the banality of evil appears in a variety of forms, and in the case of the student lending crisis, it seems clear to me that it exists in problematic and immoral ways. That's why we - all of us in this debate - must think about the sides we have chosen and why.
Und jetzt die Abfallverwertung . . .
As promised, here's the list of earlier blogs worthy of reading:
1) "The Resurrection of the Dept. of Ed. G-Man and America's Collective Trauma" (originally posted August 13, 2009)
2) "Part II of the Resurrection of the Dept. of Ed. G-Man and America's Collective Trauma" (originally posted August 14, 2009)
3) "BREAKING NEWS PART I: My Debate with Patricia Steele and Sandra Baum" (originally posted August 15, 2009) - Patricia Steele, a research analyst, and Sandra Baum, an economist, work for the College Board, and I had a lengthy debate over the course of two days with both of them.
4) "BREAKING NEWS PART II: The College Board USED to be LENDERS" (originally posted August 15, 2009)
5) "Quod est veritas? Why isn't the Department of Education putting out any reports on student loan debt?" (originally posted on August 20, 2009)
6) "And yet another posting about the College Board" (originally posted August 21, 2009)
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