Bruce Bawer:

Which brings us, as it happens, to the real thrust of Epstein’s essay. At bottom, it wasn’t a dig at Jill Biden. No, that was just Epstein’s way of introducing his actual, and serious, subject. And that subject was the increasing meaninglessness of advanced degrees in the humanities and social sciences.

“The Ph.D.,” Epstein lamented, “may once have held prestige, but that has been diminished by the erosion of seriousness and the relaxation of standards in university education generally, at any rate outside the sciences.”

For the record, I have un-remembered every essay of Epstein’s that I may have read, I have deleted every post in which I quoted him, and I have used all of his books for kindling. It’s the least I can offer to help undo the grave besmirchment our clerisy has suffered from this insolent autodidact.