What Is A "Fair Share" When It Comes To Taxes? Topic

Printing is killing trees.   Save a tree and read it off your screen.
8/30/2011 12:45 PM
Although, to be fair, reading long pieces off the screen isn't easy for me either.    So I read them in pieces.

Dehumanized appears to be a piece of idealism on education vs. practicality.  

It's probably good for debate but neither side will change their mind.
8/30/2011 12:51 PM
Here's a question for the "academics":

Little Johnny, starting high school, reads at a 3rd grade level and struggles with basic math.  He has little to no interest in improving either skill.    What courses should he be taught?
8/30/2011 1:15 PM
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As I read on, I see it's less about education vs. practical application and more about what is taught. 

I suppose, at the higher levels of education, the real problem the writer has is that students choose practical education.   I hope, at the end of essay, he has a solution for people choosing what courses to study.
8/30/2011 2:29 PM
He didn't.
8/30/2011 2:40 PM
Ha.  Well, the writer didn't look into the camera and shout out a bumper sticker solution to a complex issue, as one of your cable news anchors might.  But the "solution" is there in his essay, if you read closely enough.  

Hint: More courses that turn students into human beings, fewer that turn them into human capital.
8/30/2011 3:35 PM

Hint:  Students choose courses in college.   If the college they intend to attend require courses they don't care to take or don't offer courses they want to take, they will choose another college.

IOW, more/less courses will have no effect. 

8/30/2011 3:40 PM
In summation, and taking it full circle, if you want to be a philosopher, you can be one.  Most people are going to choose a career that pays well.    And, therefore, get the education that furthers that career. 
8/30/2011 3:41 PM
You simplify too much.  You don't need to aspire to be a philosopher to want to be a well-rounded person.

Look at these three paragraphs:

The case for the humanities is not hard to make, though it can be difficult—to such an extent have we been marginalized, so long have we acceded to that marginalization—not to sound either defensive or naive. The humanities, done right, are the crucible within which our evolving notions of what it means to be fully human are put to the test; they teach us, incrementally, endlessly, not what to do but how to be. Their method is confrontational, their domain unlimited, their “product” not truth but the reasoned search for truth, their “success” something very much like Frost’s momentary stay against confusion.

They are thus, inescapably, political. Why? Because they complicate our vision, pull our most cherished notions out by the roots, flay our pieties. Because they grow uncertainty. Because they expand the reach of our understanding (and therefore our compassion), even as they force us to draw and redraw the borders of tolerance. Because out of all this work of self-building might emerge an individual capable of humility in the face of complexity; an individual formed through questioning and therefore unlikely to cede that right; an individual resistant to coercion, to manipulation and demagoguery in all their forms. The humanities, in short, are a superb delivery mechanism for what we might call democratic values. There is no better that I am aware of.

This, I would submit, is value—and cheap at the price. This is utility of a higher order. Considering where the rising arcs of our ignorance and our deference lead, what could represent a better investment? Given our fondness for slogans, our childlike susceptibility to bullying and rant, our impatience with both evidence and ambiguity, what could earn us, over time, a better rate of return?

8/30/2011 3:53 PM
I'm not simplifying "too much" in my response to you.

The vast majority of people going to college are doing so to open up career opportunities.   They choose the classes required to get their degree.   They may choose a few "electives" to make themselves more well-rounded or they may choose basket-weaving.   Offering more courses that "turn them into human beings" has no effect unless they take those courses.   

Tell me how you make that happen.
8/30/2011 3:59 PM
Here's a crazy idea.   Rather than wait until college to turn kids into humans, let's start when they're children.   Family values and all that BS.
8/30/2011 4:04 PM
It would be difficult.  One way would be for the colleges to mandate it (this would be hard).  Another way (much harder -- well, probably impossible) would be to change the current culture where money/profit is valued above all else.  Basically, to "unmarginalize" the idea of a well-rounded human being.
8/30/2011 4:05 PM
Colleges are in business to make money.   To pretend otherwise is folly.    So, if College A decides that students must take extra "humanity" courses to get a degree, students will choose College B.  So that's impossible.

As for option B, please see my previous post.    And, yes, it is impossible.
8/30/2011 4:11 PM
FWIW, while I largely agree that our society has gone to hell in a handbasket, I don't know how to reverse the procedure.   Standing on a soapbox and saying "We need re-humanize our society!!!" isn't the answer.
8/30/2011 4:13 PM
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