Good article. Hits home. I'm sorry you're going through this. This absence of serious interest in classical studies can be traced not only to our superficial culture but also to a complete lack in most public schools of a cultivation of interest in this subject. I'm a public education teacher (tenured...for now) and I see the laser focused attention paid to state standards of learning. Said standards created to be tied to the standardized test, the results of which tied to funding. It's brutally rational. After all, who doesn't want accountability for public funds?

But the other major problem is the crass political discourse infecting our collective mind, that constantly spills over from the Internet chamber pot and into our daily lives. We actually now fear philosophy and critical thinking and call it "indoctrination." Administration at my school fears those whack job parents who will go so far in some cases as to sue the school district over anything they disagree with. There seems to be (to me at least) nothing scarier than teaching a young mind to think. And you, my friend, have become a Boogeyman to a large swathe of the illiterate population. As Socrates did before you.

But keep up the fight. I hope you land on your feet, teaching the courses you love and are obviously good at.