MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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‘Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters’ by Michael S. Roth
By EmmaZahn on Wed, 06/04/2014 - 8:25pm |
[T]wo distinct traditions of liberal education have “uneasily co-existed” in America. The first is a philosophical tradition emphasizing preparation for inquiry; its aim is freeing the mind to investigate the truth about things physical, intellectual and spiritual. The second is a rhetorical tradition emphasizing initiation into a common culture through the study of canonical works; its aim is learning to participate in the culture, to appreciate its monuments and to create new monuments inspired by the old. Roth characterizes the philosophical thread as “skeptical” and the rhetorical thread as “reverential.”
The central argument is that liberal education is some combination of these two traditions that aims at serving the needs of the “whole person.” Both traditions are necessary for raising free and autonomous individuals who must also participate with others in society. It is next to impossible to attain independence alone, precious little can be learned without a common culture and the society of others, and it is the special task of education to offer the tools required to understand both oneself and the world in which one lives.
URL:
http://m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/beyond-the-university-why-liberal-education-matters-by-michael-s-roth/2014/05/23/a911b3fe-cef2-11e3-937f-d3026234b51c_story.html
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Comments
Let me first say that some of the most petty inter-office politics mixed with high school clique shenanigans I've ever seen were in the English department at the university level. Which just goes to say that a liberal education is no means a path to place of mindful groundedness and maturity.
But also believe that much of what we witness on Wall Street or in the antics of the likes of the upper elite of Enron etc would be much less likely if those folks were immersed in a good liberal arts education on top of their MBAs.
The notion of two threads - inquiry and reverence - is interesting. One of the battles I witnessed throughout my time in first the History Department and then the English Department was the attack on the reverence for the "dead old white guys" and the Euro-centric approach to what constituted good literature or what a poem was or what really happened 400 years ago. Of course, it all got political, and each side dug in their heels, becoming as partisan as Congress is today.
It is a battle that is always raging. When Anne Sexton and the other poets who wrote in the style of self-confession emerged, there were those in academia and criticism who said it was not just bad poetry, it wasn't really poetry at all. And the uproar when the impressionists hit the scene way back when.
But there was one statement made in the review that caught my eye:
I think it reveals the on-going delusion that we can somehow not be shaped by changes, as well as the same-old, same-old; that somehow knowledge and a good education can provide one an autonomy and power over one's ego that just isn't the case.
by Elusive Trope on Thu, 06/05/2014 - 12:22pm