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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: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 29 2017, @02:29AM (2 children)
You desperately wish it were so, but like my mother says, wish in one hand, piss in the other, see which gets full first. And you don't actually see the "fighting them" I'm doing elsewhere, Uzzard, so you might wanna shut your beak before jumping to that conclusion :) Besides which, if you don't wanna get demonized, try adopting positions that aren't almost literally demonic.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 29 2017, @10:14AM (1 child)
It's really interesting watching the mental gymnastics play out so that you can keep from admitting how terrible of a person you actually are.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 29 2017, @06:12PM
Have you not learned your lesson yet? Accusing someone else of the same things you're guilty of pre-emptively does not remove your guilt, and anyone who's been following our respective post histories knows which one of us is the awful excuse for a human being. You've already become a by-word on these forums, and you're not even self-aware enough to see this.
And now it turns out all those times I told you to stick to code since that's all your good at might actually have been an overestimation of you. If you ever coded an actual working lameness filter it would auto-ban you.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...