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posted by
cmn32480
on Wednesday November 02 2016, @08:33AM
from the heading-for-a-new-dark-age dept.
from the heading-for-a-new-dark-age dept.
The New Yorker wonders:
My children know how to print their letters. And they type frighteningly well. Still, I can't escape the conviction that cursive—writing it and knowing how to read it—represents some universal value. I'm not the only one who thinks so. Every year, there are worried articles about the decline of cursive and its omission from school curricula. And there's a backlash, one that I secretly cheer for. When I read that Washington state is now considering Senate Bill 6469, "an act related to requiring that cursive writing be taught in common schools," I gave a little fist pump in the air.
Cursive and handwriting are dead. Communication of the future will be done with pure emoticons.
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New crypt. See /usr/news/crypt.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 02 2016, @08:53AM
So you equate "useful" with "business"?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday November 02 2016, @09:01AM
But of course! There is no value to education for a mercenary. Unless it is the Mercenary Professor! Have terminal degree, will travel, able to teach anything for the right amount of money! Will not do Windows, business case studies, or "applied" math. References upon request.
(Score: 1) by Hardness on Wednesday November 02 2016, @12:56PM
Wasn't Descartes a mercenary?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday November 02 2016, @07:15PM
Mercenary is a hard word, let's just say that Descartes joined a Dutch army, served under Maurice of Nassau, and also served under Maximillian of Bavaria. France and England both managed to largely stay out of the Thirty Years War of Religion, and back in the days before the ideology of the nation-state it was not at all uncommon for officers to serve various rulers as the opportunity arose. But this is not to say they were Mercenaries, faithless scum who only fought for monetary reward. Perhaps you were thinking of Xenophon, author of the Anabasis?
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And there is a great difference between a philosopher who is a mercenary, and a mercenary philosopher! Those who use their "love of wisdom" just to gain filthy lucre are perhaps lower than those who use their bodies and weapons. Here I think of all those syncophants and toadies who provide cover for tyrants, apologetics for organized religion, of free market ideals to libertarians.
(Score: 3, Funny) by art guerrilla on Thursday November 03 2016, @02:14AM
"syncophants"
*please* tell me this is what they call the dancing elephants in fantasia ! ! !
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday November 03 2016, @05:31AM
Intentional typos are what make SoylentNews the wonderful place it is! Do you not agree? I hope we do not loose you over such a trilobyte!
(Score: 2) by gawdonblue on Wednesday November 02 2016, @08:54PM
Rene Descarte was a drunken fart:
"I drink therefore I am."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday November 02 2016, @11:41AM
Where did the GP state that? I read it as replacing pointless-for-the-majority theory with more practical subjects.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday November 02 2016, @02:11PM
So you equate "useful" with "business"?
Do you? Even if he did, it would be better reasoning than some touchie feelie about cursive writing.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Thursday November 03 2016, @02:43AM
Why? Do you equate art with utility rather than beauty?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by tftp on Thursday November 03 2016, @05:32AM
Do you equate art with utility rather than beauty?
That is an interesting question. Many trades are not that far removed from art - if you ever worked a lathe, soldered or welded something. But trades are nearly universally recognized as useful. The value of beauty is highly subjective and varies wildly. Ask a child in early 1900's what he wants to study - to be a mechanic or to be a poet - and chances are that the child's choice will not surprise anyone. Arts are only for a few, and beauty is not essential for life. (Many are entirely blind to beauty.) Utility is for everyone, and in most cases you cannot live without it.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Thursday November 03 2016, @03:06PM
Art is just art, but Design is Everything.
There is a subtle difference, though there is obviously overlap. Art is, in my opinion, more instinctual, but true Design in any subject approaches divinity as it blends the conscious and the subconscious.