tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post3867751566464113144..comments2023-11-02T02:14:31.901-06:00Comments on ReadMoreWriteMoreThinkMoreBeMore: In Praise of SmartypantsDoctor Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13189506916480012553noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post-55293650611860723202011-06-22T13:51:59.605-05:002011-06-22T13:51:59.605-05:00May I use your nice egghead picture for a personal...May I use your nice egghead picture for a personal blog post? I will put a related note to the source here. Very nice posting BTW!Retohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01387769413005735017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post-87416970029987965002010-06-07T14:31:10.740-05:002010-06-07T14:31:10.740-05:00@Anonymous: I've considered altering the desi...@Anonymous: I've considered altering the design of this site several times, and every time there has been an overwhelming response in FAVOR of the current settings. So, I apologize for your difficulty with the black background, but it looks like it's here to stay for the time being. (I assure you it isn't indicative of a generic emphasis on "style" over "health" on my part.)<br /><br />If it helps any, you can always become a "follower"... in which case the blog posts will be delivered to your email inbox on a regular black-type-on-white-background format.Doctor Jhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13189506916480012553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post-85204184012566843322010-06-06T20:14:17.702-05:002010-06-06T20:14:17.702-05:00Good article, but one technical question: can you ...Good article, but one technical question: can you please consider redesigning the color scheme of the blog? Right now it is so black that my eyes hurt after reading for more than 5 minutes. It would be nice if you could sacrifice style for some more health-friendly outlook.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post-22676620704560138832010-06-06T14:26:26.121-05:002010-06-06T14:26:26.121-05:00"Even if one were to grant the reductively ut..."Even if one were to grant the reductively utilitarian objections of their negative argument (i.e., "one should not go to college because it is not an economically sound decision"), what is their positive argument? Is it-- rather, can it be anything other than-- a counsel to become a "worker," and no more than a "worker," just for the sake of what makes a worker a "worker"?"<br /><br />I understand you are probably being a bit rhetorical here--and I'll hasten to add that I find most of your key ideas and considerations in this blog post extremely important and persuasive--but I don't see how ALL people that advocate the "one should not go to college because it is not an economically sound decision" position end up inevitably reducing people to simply the commodity of a "worker." Rather, it seems to me, that almost any sensible person advocating this ultimately (mis)informed position would contend that from a pragmatic point of view there are two roles/needs at stake that have to be balanced. One is the role of the "worker", which has been pretty thoroughly covered. The second is mostly what you're blog post centers on: the citizen. These two have to reach some sort of reasonable balance in order for the person involved to flourish. <br /><br />Exactly what that balance is and what its kind is seems like one of the the largest issues here, and unfortunately I don't have a well-worked out answer to that. But I am pretty confident that while the "worker" me and "citizen" me belong to two largely different realms, the act of trying to balance them when living one's life is not fundamentally a mistake, if for no other reason than how frequently the two overlap and conflict in day-to-day life (e.g. what products you purchase in the supermarket).B Blakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15896899738793941282noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post-68593886029993285672010-06-06T02:35:05.627-05:002010-06-06T02:35:05.627-05:00I mean the link near it. I'm bad with compute...I mean the link near it. I'm bad with computers.John Doehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04451472439994554388noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post-84898529634170041212010-06-06T02:33:51.208-05:002010-06-06T02:33:51.208-05:00Yeah, here you go: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com...Yeah, here you go: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/ Follow the image of the book "The Underground History of American Education."John Doehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04451472439994554388noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post-20851351149941888042010-06-05T21:17:27.468-05:002010-06-05T21:17:27.468-05:00Lelyn-
your link: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/h...Lelyn-<br />your link: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/historytour is not working for me. Is there another way to access this?rebelcellisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03572456490464768942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post-76100034057576059062010-06-05T14:36:23.263-05:002010-06-05T14:36:23.263-05:00@Emma: I often find myself torn about just the iss...@Emma: I often find myself torn about just the issue that you raise. Like you, I also don't believe that *everyone* is cut out for higher education. (And, I agree, there are many flavors of "smart.") I think MANY MORE would be cut out for college if the secondary school system in this country were better, or at least more consistent(because, the truth is, students who come into college from private schools or wealthy-neighborhood public schools are fairly uniform in their <i>preparation</i> for college, even if they aren't all equal in their motivation or inclination). Obviously, it's a challenge to tertiary instructors to teach to such a wide range of preparations-- and you're right that it's tough on the "ideal" college students to have classmates like that as well-- but I might be romantic/idealistic enough to believe that a VAST MAJORITY of entry-level college students would or could be prepared for the kind of learning that I suggest in this post if they came in with a better secondary education.<br /><br />Again, that still isn't to say that I think college is for everyone. But I'm inclined to read your alternative suggestion (even as it is couched in the stereotypically "elitist" college-is-not-for-everyone terms) as actually <i>supporting</i> the rejection of reductively utilitarian thinking that I am rejecting in this post. That is to say, I'm all for cultivating in students at the secondary-school level an appreciation for and inclination toward (as you say) following "what they are good at and enjoy." But doesn't that ALSO include cultivating in them a kind of introspective evaluation of their own capacities and potential contributions as something more than *mere* "workers"? I mean, isn't your model, at its heart, the same as Plato's model in the <i>Republic</i>, that is, to encourage each to dedicate him- or herself to an <i>ergon</i> to which he or she is best suited and which he or she can do better than others? For all of my problems with Plato, I think there is at least a version of that model that could <i>productively</i> wed the "citizen" to the "worker"... but that is NOT, alas, a model that late capitalism permits.<br /><br />My point-- as I'm sure you can anticipate and with which I strongly suspect you might agree-- is that a large source of the animus towards "intellectualism" (whatever that means)is this reductive economic/business model of measuring human capacities and potentialities, which only "counts" those capacities/potentialities that translate into income- or profit-generating work. OF COURSE there are lots of kinds of work that do not require a college education and which are of themsselves "valuable"... but if we concede the dimunition of the value of education to those who would make "income-" or "profit-acquisition" the only measure of value, then we haven't just harmed those for whom college is the most appropriate path to real, meaningful contribution, not to mention also the artisans, electricians, home-healthcare aides, and anyone else who finds the value of their work in something other than its monetary compensation?Doctor Jhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13189506916480012553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post-19447704402653628562010-06-05T14:28:35.423-05:002010-06-05T14:28:35.423-05:00Put me down as pro-education broadly speaking.
Ho...Put me down as pro-education broadly speaking.<br /><br />However, there are many forms of education that I will speak out against, because I believe our public schools are a form of state control. The state controlling what? No, the state controlling who. Compulsory education produces a particular type, a type that is easily co-opted into the corporate world or the military.<br /><br />Public schooling was not always universal or compulsory in this nation, and it's rise was not really out of a concern for having an informed and enlightened citizenry, but in creating and maintaining a uniform cultural identity, language and ideology. It is no coincidence that students begin each day with the pledge of allegiance.<br /><br />The recent text book scandal in Texas is a good illustration of my point regarding Public High Schools. What's new there is not the ideological stance, but that it made a scandal. Public Elementary and High School education has always had a bias, and that bias has never protected the vulnerable or minorities.<br /><br />In fact, our public schooling system took an even more malicious turn in the 20th century, and John Taylor Gato makes that case better than I ever could: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/historytour/history1.htm<br /><br />The fact that one's average high school experience doesn't prepare one for college is not a coincidence either. The fact that a college education doesn't lead to a job is a real crisis. Why don't we have Philosophers employed determining public policy? Until we do, I can see asking the question as to what the point is in teaching it at all. We teach all manner of things that in actual practice we prefer to ignore in our public activities, and that is, to me, the more important criticism to make.<br /><br />I'll give you an example. During my time in the Navy I had the great opportunity to work alongside military Officers. By and large the Officers that make it to the upper echelons of the military, the ones who advise Senators, Representatives and Presidents, generally come from a particular academic background. They don't read Derrida, Kant or Rawls. They don't ask questions about whether or not America should be the most powerful nation in the world, or what an ethical foreign policy would be. The paradigm of truth that runs our public policy is different in kind from the paradigm of truth that conditions our comfortable liberal humanist debates.<br /><br />Our nation dreams of truth and beauty, while we ruthlessly prosecute our "national interest" abroad.<br /><br />When someone comes along advocating that less of us go on to college, that is nothing new. Gato very skillfully tells us the story of how business interests have paired and pruned our educational system to get just the kind of subjects they need for their vision of what our material culture should be. Business interests will always have a very strong hand in education reform.<br /><br />Nor is outrage at this degradation of our already broken educational system anything new.<br /><br />What would be revolutionary, would be for someone to demand a voice for the humanities in our realpolitik. Why can't we consider axiology before we decide whether or not to go to war or drill offshore? Why does one group of academics criticize colonialism, while the one in power perfects it?John Doehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04451472439994554388noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post-60335498366330332392010-06-05T14:16:18.531-05:002010-06-05T14:16:18.531-05:00I am all for a positive defense of the liberal art...I am all for a positive defense of the liberal arts. But since I place a price on my willingness to teach, I can understand why my students would want to clarify the expected return on investment. <a href="http://www.anotherpanacea.com/2010/05/how-to-get-a-philosophical-education-for-free/" rel="nofollow">You don't *have* to go to college to study philosophy, after all</a>. (Tolstoy's "snare of preparation" and all that.) It just helps.<br /><br />By the way, that Taylor guy is a LOON. An originalist can't ignore amendments without ignoring Article 5 of the Constitution itself! A good example of progressive originalism is Jack Balkin, who asks, for instance, about the "original intent" of the 14th Amendment! Dude's a genius: he's the left's Antonin Scalia.anotherpanaceahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08170804573665745672noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post-23052951864527206292010-06-05T13:29:58.437-05:002010-06-05T13:29:58.437-05:00While I'm all in favor of an educated citizenr...While I'm all in favor of an educated citizenry, and risking an argument that would put me out of a job, I have to say that I believe that a great number of folks currently in the higher education classroom SHOULD NOT BE THERE. Secondary education needs to be improved. That's a certainty. It's a crime that so many kids leave high school unable to write a grammatical sentence. It's even more criminal that a huge number of them end up pursuing an academic degree.<br /><br />I grew up in a country where it was exceptional to attend university, and so many of my friends were massively relieved to get out of the booklearning world as they were SIMPLY NOT CUT OUT FOR IT. They went on to be artists, designers, lighting camerapeople, electricians, animators, plumbers, home-care aides and computer scientists. None of them has a bachelor's degree. They are smart people who read the papers and may not have all the tools for systematic analysis of politics and economics but certainly know enough to be responsible citiizens. Should they have tortured teachers and themselves, tying themselves in knots trying to master arcane texts and write college papers? I really don't think so.<br /><br />It does not benefit the kids who CAN and WANT TO participate in academic culture to be flooded in the classroom with those who are literally just there to try to generically improve their job prospects, in a context where a college degree is seen pretty much as a basic requirement.<br /><br />Improve secondary education, and encourage kids to follow thereafter what they are good at and enjoy - whether that's laying bricks, hairdressing, fixing cars, caring for the sick, particle physics, or understanding philosophical treatises.<br /><br />There are many kinds of smarts...Emma B.noreply@blogger.com