How the MSM really sees us
They see us, i.e. the American reading public, as a bunch of self absorbed ignoramuses. Check this out. And my great fear is they may not be wrong - after all, their jobs depend on being right about how little we care about anything beyond our own smug self-regard, because.... well, we actually do pay people for this.
And my school just decided to dump any history requirement for undergrads because... its hard, and students don't like it, and they might go to another school. There's certainly no need in the 21st century for Americans to know anything about history.
Also check out the main page of the linked blog - Central Asia is fascinating.
Labels: American public, MSM, silliness, twits
posted by Clemens @ 11:58 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
I find it appalling that your school dropped the history requirement. Especially because it's "hard". Do they have no math requirements then? I should think that'd be the first one to go.
Yeah, me too!
Apparently the hard sciences and math aren't too happy with the changes either. I'll look over the proposal in detail and post something on it. For the moment I am on leave and don't have to think on it, and there are some personal issues involved with how my department were treated.
So it all gives me a tummy ache and like Scarlet I will worry about it tomorrow.
Allow me to lecture the professors ;)
Most of us see college as a means to an end. It irked me that we had to drop Electrical Engineering classes to add more Freshmore fluff (even though I enjoyed a few of them such as Geography of Current Events and The Arts).
Few employers will ever say they need a person who has Excel/Word skills and a rudimentary knowledge of the Ming dynasty (they would be more interested if you are able to read documents/vases from the Ming dynasty).
Nor will most prospective employees be asked during the interview to prove that A^N + B^N = C^N has no solutions for N greater than 2. (I would do that here since I have a simple and elegant solution but I am afraid the blog comment width is to narrow to contain it.)
What is expected is that I have experience with my own field and when you have 3 electives to allow you to "specialize" many have come to the conclusion that a BS in Engineering is a certificate insuring that the bearer is teachable.
We should allow individuals to have choice. Let's say colleges start three year programs where the students start taking field relevant courses immediately (or as soon as possible prequistely possible).
If employers want the well roundedness and zest for learning that is automatically instilled in students who have no interest in being there < /snarkiness> then we will see students going the traditional route.
However, I suspect that most students and employers would opt for more relevant courses leaving the soft sciences without subsidization from students simply passing through to more market driven fields of study.
--Joey
A good restatement of the theory of University as Vo Tech. In some ways your response is an adequate respones to itself but I don't want to pursue that point. Let's take it on its own terms.
Do we want a society of technicians? Ones who can repair your computer, design a spread sheet, and otherwise perform the post-industrial scut work of a technocartic proletariat? Is that all our upper end educational institutions are to do? We already DO a superb job of this - witness the world-wide importance attached to an American graduate degree.
(American students by and large don't want to do the 'hard' fields anyway, one of the reasons we have so many foreign students in the sciences and math - and why you have such well educated Indian buddies.
And that's all fine - when you rush to the ER with something that might be appendicitis you really want superbly trained technicians and nothing more. But when you walk into a voting booth, or shape policy by public opinion polls, or rely on marketing trends to assess what is important to society, you might want to feel that your fellow citizens are a bit more than their specialty.
I have worked for every level of government from the County to the Feds, and I have worked on small constuction sites, factories and in a large high tech corporation making super computers. Everywhere the people who move forward and rise to the top are a bit more than the product of the type of education you seem to want.
And in that large corporation? They used people with degrees in computer science, math and other technical fields to get the work done. Top management did not come out of these technical fields - and they had absolute contempt for those who had received specialized training in Business Mangagement. It was recognized that such people could not communicate well and could not think strategically.
In other words, my idea of hell is when all artists have a Master of Fine Arts degree, all cooks have one in 'Cuisine Art.' all politicians get PhDs in political science and, above all, all journalists have graduated from Journalism School.
Besides, I thought Conservatives placed some value on Western Civilization as we know it.
We already DO a superb job of this - witness the world-wide importance attached to an American graduate degree.
I agree but imagine if we had graduate (or near graduate) level experience within 3-4 years.
But when you walk into a voting booth, or shape policy by public opinion polls, or rely on marketing trends to assess what is important to society, you might want to feel that your fellow citizens are a bit more than their specialty.
[...]
Everywhere the people who move forward and rise to the top are a bit more than the product of the type of education you seem to want.
And naturally two years of mandatory college courses are the only way to do that. Obligation is not the best motivator.
They used people with degrees [...] Top management did not come out of these technical fields. [...] It was recognized that such people could not communicate well and could not think strategically.
Very true...not the idea but the description of how people view techies.
In other words, my idea of hell is when all artists have a Master of Fine Arts degree, all cooks have one in 'Cuisine Art.' all politicians get PhDs in political science and, above all, all journalists have graduated from Journalism School.
Besides, I thought Conservatives placed some value on Western Civilization as we know it.
It seems like we agree. So the question I ask is should the fine arts major/self taught artist take one or two courses in Differential Equations?
As a Conservative* I place value on Western Civilization. I place value on Western Culture and specifically I place value on history (<-more so than other soft science). All the more reason not to let professors poison kids' minds with PC revisionism. You know I was seriously taught in school that Thanksgiving was Pilgrims giving thanks to the Indians for teaching them how to farm?
--Joey
*The other day after class about three other Engineers and I were speaking about the futility of describing the political spectrum in Liberal and Conservative terms since the meaning of those words has evolved/is evolving but leaves ideologies untapped. I'll stick with my moderate libertarianism label. See? Engineers are capable of nontechnical chat. We even discussed a little history about the founding of Israel.
I am listening to a book by John Dean (you're way too young to remember)called 'Conservatives without Conscious/. Seems to be a bit polemical.
But he starts off with a reasonable potted history of conservatism in the US, then he attempts to break the movement down into its many wings. Once you separate the dozen or so 'wings' there is no bird.
Liberalism is certainly as divided.
Post a Comment
<< Home