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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: 5, Disagree) by Virindi on Wednesday September 27 2017, @01:20PM
You are correct, an Ivy education is not entirely as bad as the GP claims. There is, at the very least, a lot of lip service paid to the concept of intelligent debate and questioning of values.
However, the issue is that there is a decline in diversity of actual opinion. Teaching that everything should be questioned is of only limited effect when everyone in the class believes the same thing.
A lot of lip service is also paid to diversity, but they are careful to mainly go for people who share a certain view of the world. This goes along with the indoctrination about how "you are the future leaders of society" and all that; people encountered there are almost universally those who trust in "the authorities", "the experts"*, and of course the concept of human control over other humans. The general philosophy that humans should control other humans is the most important. Or to put it another way, those selected to attend are those friendly to "the establishment".
*Note: do not mistake rejection of some authorities as counter-evidence, when they are really going along with the decision of their social group. There is some subtlety to this selection process.