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: 2, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 27 2017, @02:20PM (3 children)
Score 4:disagree - that's impressive, in and of itself.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday September 27 2017, @08:04PM (2 children)
Your post really should be modded Disagree.
An infinite amount of Disagree mods can be applied because they don't change the score. The comment gets labeled with the mod reason with the highest number of occurrences. In the case of a tie, the last mod reason of the tied reasons get applied. So a comment that gets modded Disagree, Insightful, Insightful, Disagree, and Funny in that order should be labeled Disagree. If it then gets modded with Funny again, it will be labeled Funny.
4 Disagree beats 2 Insightful on VLM's comment.
The only exceptions appear to be Underrated and Overrated. No comments can get labeled that. You can't even mod a comment as Underrated or Overrated unless some other mod has been applied first (including Disagree, oddly enough).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 27 2017, @08:20PM (1 child)
Doh! Bug.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday September 27 2017, @09:09PM
Which part? I think I have mentioned the Disagree + Underrated/Overrated combo before but I never filed a bug on it.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]