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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: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @07:36PM (3 children)
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @10:15PM (2 children)
Taking a tongue-in-cheek comment as some sort of validity is pretty weak, shows how desperately you're searching for cracks in the ideological armor.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @10:48PM
I think we found a witch He's made 'o wood! 'Cause 'e weighs the same as a duck. So, logically, conservatives burn! See, that wasn't that hard, was it! Thinking can be fun!
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Thursday September 28 2017, @01:49AM