De Prada’s ‘Involuntion’ Sparks Debate Over Declining University Standards

De Prada’s ‘Involuntion’ Sparks Debate Over Declining University Standards

The thesis is blunt and leaves no room for nuance: we do not evolve, we involute. Juan Manuel de Prada argues that the Darwinian hypothesis triumphs not because its postulates are true, but because of the euphoric infatuation it produces in those who adopt it: the sensation of moving upward toward the ‘Omega Point of human divinization’ and, above all, of being superior to past generations trapped, in his view, in the depths of ignorance. The pretext is his return to university classrooms, an experience he describes as shocking due to the ‘preschool-level’ standard of classes.

From this, he draws the conclusion that structures the entire text: we are no longer ‘dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants,’ but conceited dwarfs who have sidelined the giants in the attic because they believe themselves more evolved. The wisdom that once required deciphering archives, he adds, is now provided with a Google search.

Can one involute while believing they are pogre?

The central argument is not biological, but psychological. People believe in evolution, he says, because they need to comfort themselves by thinking they are smarter than their ancestors; hence the success of slogans like ‘the best-prepared generation in History’, which in his view flatters only the young. University degrees issued today seem to him ‘all pretense and imposture,’ with less value than the diplomas of Miss Pepis, and the reading comprehension indices of successive cohorts are comparable to those of australopithecus. He closes the circle with the law that function creates the organ: if only banality is exercised, faculties atrophy.

The repetition did not go unnoticed. Several readers counted two times the same expression, ‘massive ideology,’ and just as many the ‘in truth’ that sprinkles the text. The author himself responded to one of these jabs with a single-word exclamation.

The scientific front: evolution is not a race upward

This is where the piece loses part of its audience. The most repeated criticism is that he confuses evolution with pogre: it is argued that a species’ success is measured by its adaptation and reproduction, not its perfection; that a bacterium is as evolved as a human; and that Neanderthals had larger brains than ours. ‘There is no determinism or purpose, it is random,’ summarizes one of the most cited analyses, which also recalls that evolution leads to extinction.

Some go further and accuse him of remaining at Lamarck, precisely because of the law that function creates the organ. From the other side, it is replied that the purpose is not to perish and that dismissing chance as an explanation clarifies nothing. The discussion about Darwin ends up weighing more than the educational complaint that peine the text.

University degrees, reading comprehension, and the ghost of Bologna

The diagnosis of the collapse of classrooms, however, receives considerable support. It is argued that academic standards have been falling for decades, that reading indices for new cohorts are getting worse, and that the problem is aggravated because the texts given to read are written in a prose that demands nothing. The shared conclusion: no one with a tablet and cat videos will raise their comprehension capacity through spontaneous generation.

At this point, the Bologna Plan appears, blamed for placing relatives and acquaintances, for multiplying new degrees in a few years, and for leaving teachers without incentive to fail students, since their pay depends on passing them. The detail of how this degradation operated, with names and mechanisms, is developed in the original source and should not be dismissed in two lines. Chomsky and his media manipulation strategies are also invoked to explain why the public does not react.

Transhumanism: the mobile phone as part of the body

Against the thesis of deterioration emerges the technological counterpoint. It is argued that the internet and the phone already function as cognitive prostheses, that memorization is no longer necessary because everything is a click away, and that a child handles tools that were once the domain of engineers. ‘They do not get drunk, do not smoke, do not wander the streets, nor waste time in bars,’ summarizes an intervention. The reminder is uncomfortable: in previous generations, knowing how to change the TV channel already seemed like pogre.

Acommodated dissent and the religious drift

The final section becomes embittered with another accusation: that of controlled dissent. The author is reproached for living comfortably by signing columns, not voting for anyone, and never taking the step to a complete radical position; the most circulating epithet is ‘grateful stomach.’ Others defend him as the only active intellectual capable of uttering uncomfortable truths.

The conversation then shifts to religion. Matthew 5, 39-40 is cited to argue that Christianity teaches turning the other cheek and that this clashes with any just war, and it is discussed whether a slap on the right cheek, given backward, was the worst possible offense in the Orient of the time. It is recalled that Jesus spoke in parables, which allows twisting the meaning in any direction. At some point, the exchange shifts to identity terrain and supposed demographic replacement, which offers not a single piece of data.

If the diagnosis of involuntion were as verifiable as its author claims, the very echo of the text would be its best proof: dozens of responses, crossed criticisms, and some exclamation from the signatory. One can hope the issue will be recycled in new columns and new annoyances. What seems unlikely, however, is that data emerging from this will settle the discussion.