[lit-ideas] Re: Our Superficial Scholars
- From: John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2011 23:26:04 +0900
On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 1:11 PM, Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I'm not quite sure what you think, given that, should be done. Phasing out
> humanities departments? Giving the Sophists equal time with Plato? Requiring
> historians
> to learn a useful trade? If the question is, what to do with classics,
> state legislatures have already answered it.
>
>
Do I have an answer? No. Do I favor any of the steps suggested here? No.
All that I have are thoughts largely stimulated by my extraordinary
daughter, the Annapolis graduate, former Navy helicopter pilot, now
finishing a master's in public policy at the Kennedy School at Harvard. She
chose, oddly enough, to be an English major at what is, academically
speaking, an engineering school. So, her major notwithstanding, she was not
excused from three semesters of calculus, probability and statistics, and a
year each of chemistry, physics and electrical engineering. Also, , she was
studying Shakespeare and Dante when former chief of naval operations Jeffry
Boorda committed suicide after being caught out wearing undeserved medals
for combat in Vietnam — that tragedy was part and parcel of the institution
of which she was a part and the moral issues surrounding public service,
courage, honor, and responsibility were a part of her education in a way
with a bit sharper edge than the classes she would have taken had she chosen
to go to Duke, instead. She fully appreciated the irony of taking a course
on Argument in the Age of Reason in the same semester she took a course
titled "Weapons II," which she described to me as "how far things fly and
how big a boom they make." At the Kennedy School her classes have included
both heavy doses of statistics and econometrics and a required philosophy
course on ethics in public service, as well as electives on nuclear
proliferation, fighting corruption in governmental organizations, and
Congressional rules and procedures. Her education reminds me that when the
humanities were taught to born to rule elites they were part of a similar
total package that included the playing fields and the goal of power,
ideally in public service.
But, hey. I'm sixty-seven this year, and by the time the grandkids are in
college, who knows what college will be. I just wish my friends in academia
had a bit more fire in the belly and were less inclined to moan in a way
that makes even fellow travelers like me feel like saying, "OK, I've got no
dog in this fight."
John
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
jlm@xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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