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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: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @09:20PM
According to you blacks are statistically dumber than whites, but they are taller and more athletic.
Superior white intelligence created the atomic bomb, rockets, and many horrible diseases and chemical weapons. These will be used to destroy civilization, leaving us with a world where physical strength once again rules supreme. People of color will assume their rightful roles as rulers of the Earth, and natural selection will add new traits to adapt to the changed climate. Eventually new intelligent subgroups will arise from this species.
The movie came out in 1968.