I have written recently about how the movements that begin within the hallowed halls of academe tend to find their way outside those halls much like a scientific experiment that went wrong in a science-fiction movie. The most recent example of this is the notion of “alternative facts” that almost certainly is the bastard offspring of the postmodern movement born in Germany and France and now in ascendency in American Universities that stresses such things as the denial that there is such a thing as truth.

One of the heads of this movement that would reject all “modern” academic courses of study in history, literature, philosophy, and sociology is what is called “popular culture.” This is the study of such things as movies, television shows, comic books, and the like. This movement, in addition to rejecting the notion that history should be written without footnotes because it’s only a matter of subjective opinion anyway, has given birth to the following sorts of phenomena — as recently reported by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni:

• Rice university offers a first-year writing intensive course titled “Star Wars and the Writing of Popular Culture.”

• Appalachian State University requires its freshmen students to take a first-year seminar to help them develop “creative and critical thinking abilities.” Seminars this spring include “Death (and Rebirth?) of the Hippie.”

• The English department at the University of Pennsylvania — an Ivy League School — offers a course on “Wasting Time on The Internet.”

And this is just a tiny sample at a time when a recent poll of college graduates revealed that:

• 34% could not identify correctly when Election Day is held.

• 25% could not identify Tim Kaine as a candidate for vice president of the United States.

• 50% could not name Franklyn Roosevelt as the last president to win more than two elections to the presidency.

A number of colleges and universities now offer not only courses in Popular Culture, but also majors in that field as well as PhDs for those who want to go on to teach in that  academic “discipline.” And, A.C.T.A. concludes, “When many of our colleges and universities treat popular culture and entertainment as subjects worthy of serious study, it surely isn’t surprising that so many college graduates can’t identify key civic leaders, events, and their significance.” Indeed.

So what? you might ask. The answer is, of course, that this is coming at a time when we need young people who can think, and who can think critically. The recent election should have proven how vital that is and how far short we are falling as a nation. In this regard, there are two major problems that lie at the heart of this movement. To begin with, courses in Popular Culture emphasize information at the cost of thinking about information. I shall return to that notion in a moment. Secondly, the movement shoves aside other courses in the college curriculum that actually might help put young people in possession of their own minds, make them intelligent, critical thinking adults who can discriminate between a well-qualified candidate for president, say, and a complete fraud.

To return to the first point, it has been shown in tests conducted years ago that there are certain academic courses that help young people to think. This is reflected in tests such as the LSAT that students take in order to enter law school. Law requires critical thinking skills and the fields that do well, it has been shown, are mathematics, economics, philosophy, engineering, English, Foreign Language, Chemistry, Accounting, and History (in that order). The fields of study that score lowest in the LSAT are those that stress information and memorization. I shall not mention them out of respect to those who wasted their time and money earning degrees in those subject areas. But Popular Culture would certainly be at the top of that list if it had been offered at the time these studies were conducted.

The point is that the sorts of shenanigans that are going on behind the hallowed halls of academe have consequences for those who pay little or no attention to what is going on there. The graduates who have shown themselves to be badly informed about American history and government and also unable to think critically grow in number while those that cannot use minds filled with drivel increase accordingly, fostered by colleges and universities now being run as businesses, catering to the whims of their “customers.” And this at a time when our democracy desperately needs intelligent, well-informed, thoughtful citizens.  Courses in such non-fields as “Popular Culture” are the sort of things that guarantee that this will not happen.