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What was it that one learned through a great books curriculum? Certainly not "conservatism" in any contemporary American sense of the term. We were not taught to become American patriots, or religious pietists, or to worship what Rudyard Kipling called "the Gods of the Market Place." We were not instructed in the evils of Marxism, or the glories of capitalism, or even the superiority of Western civilization.
As I think about it, I'm not sure we were taught anything at all. What we did was read books that raised serious questions about the human condition, and which invited us to attempt to ask serious questions of our own. Education, in this sense, wasn't a "teaching" with any fixed lesson. It was an exercise in interrogation.
To listen and understand; to question and disagree; to treat no proposition as sacred and no objection as impious; to be willing to entertain unpopular ideas and cultivate the habits of an open mind — this is what I was encouraged to do by my teachers at the University of Chicago.
It's what used to be called a liberal education.
The University of Chicago showed us something else: that every great idea is really just a spectacular disagreement with some other great idea.
Bret Stephens's speech warrants a full read. It makes valuable points that we all need to hear, even on SN.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday September 28 2017, @10:35AM
So what you're saying is, the one thing they expected him to be competent at, he isn't.
To say he's similar to any ordinary voter is a laugh.
1 - He has lived a life of consequence-free luxury since the day he was born.
2 - His idea of "work" is playing golf, bullying his underlings and schmoozing with the wealthy. He has literally no idea what work is.
3 - The man has, apparently, no sense of compassion or empathy whatsoever. Totally emotionally stunted. He only sees other people as things to be used.
4 - He eats pizza crust-first.
5 - He has the fragile ego (and matching temper) of a spoiled pre-schooler.
6 - He can look you in the eye with a straight face and tell you that black is white, white is black and the sky is green, and fully expect you to believe him.
But yeah, he's "one of the people" because he wears a baseball cap sometimes and speaks using short words and short sentences that don't even, I mean, just like anybody else does, totally normal way of speaking. Normal. Best speech ever.