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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 Wednesday September 27 2017, @08:42PM (6 children)
That was looking very close to a troll post until the last couple sentences, and I'm still undecided. The fallacy there is the "...liberals propose that people are all inherently equal, but we need programs to help the less privileged" bit. Specifically, you're equivocating; inherent equal worth is not the same thing as having equal intellects, strength, talents, etc.
Don't confuse the two; it's precisely that conflation that leads to the racist-arguments-from-statistics problem I pointed out above.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @10:46PM
But mehhhhh logic is haaaaaard!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @01:28AM
The greatest lies ever told:
1) The check's in the mail.
2) I won't cum in your mouth.
3) All men are created equal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @05:35AM (3 children)
How, precisely, would you define an individual's worth?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @10:25AM
as being equal to all other individuals.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 28 2017, @04:50PM (1 child)
We're talking about innate humanity here. Human? Worth 1 human. There are other dimensions, but they have nothing to do with basic humanity.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @06:52PM
Right, I think you're more or less obligated to answer this way following your last comment - though I did not want to make assumptions. Let me explain why this belief might be hampering progress. I think my views are relatively typical in that I've always understood that there are biological differences between individuals, but felt that these differences are mostly irrelevant - and largely supplanted by environmental factors. If we're using a scoring system then people might start on a range of 0-10 where genetics adds or removes a point or two, but then environmental factors add or remove 5 or 6 points.
Because of this I've always been hugely in favor of systems for helping to improve the education, opportunity, and access for groups for disadvantaged groups to rise to their full potential. As mentioned, the 'Big Brothers and Big Sisters' certainly 'worked' for me. However, at the same time I've always looked a bit dubiously on things that work to provide comfort. I worked my way out of the 'hood' in large part because it was awful. I did not want to be stuck there for the rest of my life and the only out I saw was education - my state university, which is also very highly ranked, had guaranteed enrollment for anybody in the top x% of their class. So it set a clear target.
In hindsight, and particularly as I've learned more - I didn't actually achieve much of anything at the time. I never really had to try to get into the top 10% or even 1%. Until I got older I thought my achievements were mine. They weren't. I was a lazy and bad student. It was purely thanks to things entirely outside of my control that made it easy for me to achieve things that others would struggle with. Seeing that study was kind of the epiphany in what this all meant. And it also completely changed my views. I still do believe that we need to provide every opportunity to disadvantaged groups, but that is more for the outliers. The reality is that the vast majority of these individuals will never be able to effectively compete in society today, regardless of what we do. The data from that adoption study show the individuals who genetically had two black parents as falling about 1.2 standard deviations away from those who had two white parents. 1.2 sigmas translates to about 89% of that group having a lower IQ in spite of the fact that they were given the same privileged upbringing. Pretending these two groups can compete or perform against one another is just a lie that makes us feel good, but in reality is borderline sadistic. Can you even imagine being encouraged to do something that no matter how hard you try is always for some inexplicable reason just outside your reach? Can you imagine the frustration, the anger that would build inside of you? It's cruel!
For some data to support my proposal that most people do not believe people are inherently unequal, 69% [rasmussenreports.com] of individuals oppose government efforts to expand food stamps, 56% [rasmussenreports.com] of Americans believe "too many" people receive welfare, and so on. These numbers obviously transcend politics. I think the only way forward for our society is to begin being truthful. On the other hand it is absolutely crucial that we always distinguish between the individual and the population. We need to ensure the Neil DeGrasse Tysons have a way to reach their potential, but we also need to stop pretending that everybody can be Neil degrasse Tyson if they just put their mind to it.