[CurtisTH]

It's settled. Asher and wiggy agree!

[Tw1anJOO]

Hey, Washington U. in St. Louis is a pretty damn good school.

I was hoping for an actual discussion here, but this thread has gone south pretty quickly. However, please continue.

opcorn:

[singleGirl]

How is it an own goal considering I never had an Elite Education It's an own goal because you are still willing to look down on other schools. Even though you aren't the elite, you still take their attitude which is absolutely hilarious.

and I don't frown upon the tradeskills? I don't even have a problem with artists -- I love music and many forms of art. Then why the issue with history? In all schemes of classical education history is considered one of the most important parts.

I do have a problem with many people who go to schools -- elite or otherwise -- to get stupid degrees they never use. And yet you say we should build minds not careers? Isn't the whole point of 'stupid' degrees that you never use, is that they enlighten and educate the student? If you sincerely believe that education is the primary motive, then the utilitarian measure of 'useful' never comes into play.

Take you, for instance. What's your degree in, again? Complete waste of taxpayers' money, and don't even try to tell me otherwise. We need historians along with painters too.

[casinobonusese]

Originally posted by Asher
Having a University of Washington in St Louis. It's just all kinds of ****ed up. It's a pain having to explain it to people who've never heard of it...

Me: I go to Washington University...
Them: Oh, that's in Seattle, right?
Me: No, actually it's in...
Them: Of course, it's in DC.
Me: St. Louis, actually.
Them: Why does the University of Washington have a branch in Saint Louis?
Me:

They should change it back to its original name. Or naming it after me works too. Course, they'd probably just name it Danforth, just like everything else is being renamed now...

[heennaRaf]

The author can't speak with his plumber, and blames Yale for that. Even though I bet he's never interacted with people in lower economic "classes" before or after college. And he probably went to Yale in part to avoid those people. Then at the end he says liberal arts colleges are the way to go. Because those guys at Williams sure can speak to plumbers?

I'm pretty sure the whole sense that God loves him more than other people is more his fault and less his college's. Or maybe his whole article is true as far as it applies to graduate students.

He complains that he can't talk to the plumber, but then frets that undergrads are too practical and don't like to study "Bildung" (which, when I think about it, is the absolute perfect word for "building up the soul." I'm using this word more often).

He gives no reason to think schools admit people only for their analytical intelligence. They probably should, but they don't. There are all sorts of non Asians, Olympians, writers, activists, idiots at all these schools.

He thinks people at Cleveland State don't get second chances. I'd imagine Cleveland State is a second chance for a lot of people. And is he actually saying that people at Cleveland State adhere to deadlines more rigorously than Yale students? I'd take that ****ing bet.

In conclusion forthwith I can't believe this closet case thinks there are "few out lesbians and no gender queers" on college campuses. There are entire clubs for such people. The writer must be an activist. His complaint seems to be mostly about dress. Nobody dresses like a hippie anymore. But that has to do with the evolving fashion sense of the last forty years, not class. You know what would happen if you dressed like "hippies or punks or art-school types" at Cleveland State University? You'd get the **** kicked out of you, is what.

Indeed in fact whereforth, the author ultimately seems to be disgruntled with modern life. He doesn't like that academics has become a systematic, gradual, efficient process. You can't sit around your whole life and study poetry to find your Bildung. You can't write unsupported Big Idea papers and have them taken as Gospel. And you have to in some way try to contribute to the economy and society around you, including plumbers.

I wonder how the plumber would react if he knew somebody wrote an entire essay about the two minutes before he fixed some idiot's toilet.

This is a crap article. Nothing Bildung about it.

[Bymnbypeten]

First thought:

English professor, right? Mad about the trend he sees toward "vocational training." He thinks a more tradition liberal arts education (with a liberal dose of English lit classes) is better. Makes sense, given what he does.

How does English lit class equip you to have a meaningful conversation with the plumber, btw?

-Arrian

[PVaQlNaP]

Asher - just for reference, how have you been educated? I'm interested for two reasons - because I'm in the field, and I want to know how your experience was.



As for the article - I agree almost totally with it. Since the elite universities and institutes started becoming "vocational training for the elite", they have lost their sheen and purpose.

Once upon a time, an education in the arts/humanities was really, really hard. Sometimes even harder than in the sciences, because you had to juggle not only the rigorous parts of your curriculum (the analytic parts of philosophy, to take an example), but also the subjective ones. Your output had to be not only correct but also elegant.

And this wasn't meant to be vocational training, it was meant for people who were either already rich or were willing to live a humble life to pursue what they loved, because they wanted either the power (this isn't really the right word, but I can't find another) or the perspective (or both) that this education could give them. Taxpayer money should never have been allocated for this.

I remember reading in a book about Islamic education that nowadays, the elite Madarsas' (Qum, Al-Azhar, Deoband, and the like) primary product is people who are capable only of teaching in Madarsas. It seems this is what is happening to the humanities/arts in our system now. It's sad, really, that they've gone so much out of touch with the mainstream of public life. Maybe this is why the quality of popular culture has dropped so much in the last half a century?

Maybe the error lay in reducing the difficulty of the arts/humanities courses. It probably let the riff-raff along with the really good people. And all it takes is one bad apple......

[Kitdowstyhodo]

Why was he trying to talk to the help in the first place?

[sestomosi]

You don't make small talk with the help or with the shags beyond 'fix that' or 'fancy a ****?'

[DrJonson]

The idea is that a University should try to give its students the ability to think openly. Sure. My small liberal arts college made that attempt. I'd like to think that in my case it largely succeeded. Plus, I can have an ok conversation with hired help. Yay me, or something.

Still, the author of this article rants on at length about not being able to talk to the plumber. He could care about the plumber. He could find worth in the plumber. But he would still have no ****ing idea what to say to the guy (or gal), unless he had some experience with interacting with (non-elite, I guess) people.

According to the article, your typical Elite University Student would think themselves too good to speak to the "help" To the extent that this is a fair assessment of Ivy League/Elite schools... ok, I can't disagree. That be bad.

-Arrian

[Mjyzpzph]

Originally posted by Arrian
Still, the author of this article rants on at length about not being able to talk to the plumber. He could care about the plumber. He could find worth in the plumber. But he would still have no ****ing idea what to say to the guy (or gal), unless he had some experience with interacting with (non-elite, I guess) people.

-Arrian Well, one of the problems in the modern university that the author does cite is the lack of class diversity - that for many students, the only people they meet while in college are people of their same socio-economic crowd, and thus aren't able to have experience dealing with the non-elite. Of course, students can volunteer or join organizations that would put them in contact with such people, but for anyone who views their education from a careerist viewpoint, there would be no point.

Having gone to just the kind of institution this guy is talking about (thought thankfully while I was there the place was too self-depricating to instill the same hubris that a Yale or Harvard Alumus has), much of what the professor says is valid, but there is no going back. Sadly my Alma Mater is trying to become just like Yale or Harvard, so they can get more Alumni funds.

[kaysions]

Having never been to an Ivy League school or met a grad thereof (except for my Dad, who graduated Brown sometime in the fifties, before the scope of this article), I can't really comment on that. But I'm wondering why any college education ought to especially prepare you to talk with plumbers. Or how Yale could address that shortcoming. Perhaps he wants them to do anthropological seminars, where they bring in hotel room-cleaners and short-order cooks to explain to the students what it's like to live without horses or a yacht?

[10traistintarry]

Originally posted by GePap


Well, one of the problems in the modern university that the author does cite is the lack of class diversity - that for many students, the only people they meet while in college are people of their same socio-economic crowd, and thus aren't able to have experience dealing with the non-elite. Of course, students can volunteer or join organizations that would put them in contact with such people, but for anyone who views their education from a careerist viewpoint, there would be no point.

Having gone to just the kind of institution this guy is talking about (thought thankfully while I was there the place was too self-depricating to instill the same hubris that a Yale or Harvard Alumus has), much of what the professor says is valid, but there is no going back. Sadly my Alma Mater is trying to become just like Yale or Harvard, so they can get more Alumni funds. I didn't go to an Ivy, and the only one I know who is at an Ivy (Brown) is getting his PhD in history to become a college professor... and hell, he grew up in NYC with no money. So maybe it's just that this guy is talking about a phenomenon I haven't seen or experienced.

-Arrian

[animilius]

I look down on certain schools only if certain people I know to be remarkably stupid managed to get a degree there. Then you should be praising the school in that they successfully got me through.

I have a very hard time understanding why we need people using tax dollars to simply memorize what happened hundreds of years ago. Several points.

First. It's not about memorisation. Sure the facts are important, but that's not why people go into history, to learn what's already there. That's like saying the goal of an archaeologist is to memorise digs and findings.

Second, History is all about research first and foremost. Think of the facts as a steel framework of the building. It tells you where and when and how things happened overall. What history is, is the space between that. You have to know the names and dates and places and be familiar with them in order to do any conductive research. To find the stuff in the middle? That takes plenty of skill in both finding the proper material in the first place, and then you have to take all the material you have and distill it into a coherent account.

I feel sorry for you that your teachers only taught the facts and the framework of history, which is essential, but nothing else. It's only the start of what history is really about.

History is important and we should all be taught history to some extent (in primary and secondary schools), but I've never met a single person who studied History who then goes and actually uses that degree in any meaningful way. To use it in a meaningful way, you can either use it to teach as either a professor, teacher or even a tutor as I do. The second is to publish or write a book about history.

There are tons of spin off jobs, which either concentrate on several areas. Either they do research of some sort, in being able to dig into an archive or they write for a living doing something else.

I would say there are really three aspects that a history degree can be used, in teaching, writing or research, and there are plenty of jobs that rely on those skills.

The vast majority of them become tutors for people too dumb to find a better tutor, Gee thanks. My students consistently get A's. I could even get you an A in history.

I think History is one of the most wasteful public university disciplines because many people take that course, and the public subsidy, to study something just because they find it interesting. It teaches you skills and a mindset of the world which is very helpful for later on.

Then they go and do something completely different. Remember you are talking about building minds, not careers.

You can do that if you wish at a private school, I just don't want to pay for it. So we should only pay for practical things? That's a philosophy Asher, which is contrary to the one you are promoting here. I think it's so funny, you list all these ideas, but you don't have a clue where they came from, you just toss them out there. Did you ever wonder who came up with this philosophy Asher?

You must've missed the part where you successfully argued that studying history in university means you are both enlightened and someone with a competent "mind". I don't think history in university enlightens anyone in any meaningful matter that they couldn't get simply by going to a public library or even wikipedia today. Wikipedia has issues which you don't even have a clue about. The fact that you rely on wikipedia opens you up to so many problems. Wikipedia is a signpost, nothing more. It can point you to where you should go, but it is not reliable.

As for the public library, where would you start? Do you even know how to find the materials that you need?

Do we need our painters all educated with a BA in Painting? Do we need all our computer programmers with a BA in Computer Science?

Fine Arts will do.

You raised an excellent point, but one you are oblivious to and is counter to your position. History, like painting, is not something that needs to be taught at a university level. Another idea. You can learn how to paint yourself, and it's important that you develop your own style. But learning the tricks of the trade from the masters allows you to go beyond them rather then reinventing the wheel.

I haven't had the time to study much of Art and techniques associated with painting, but there is much more involved then you percieve. A computer program may look simple, but you don't see the code underneath.

[i6mbwwdh]

One of the great errors of an elite education, then, is that it teaches you to think that measures of intelligence and academic achievement are measures of value in some moral or metaphysical sense. But they’re not. Graduates of elite schools are not more valuable than stupid people, or talentless people, or even lazy people. yes they are

[Fdmnrnba]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

yes they are Certainly more valuable than an Israeli, to be sure.

[viagradiscounttt]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

yes they are He specifically says "valueable in some moral or metaphysical sense." Still, it's a questionable line.

-Arrian