America a dim-bulb nation

[skydyvr 0]

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oh BTW reducing your rebuttal to an Ad Hominen attack indicates you have lost this argument.

Pointing out the irony of someone who doesn't understand basic punctuation techniques criticising someone else for "misusing" a single word hardly constitutes an Ad Hominem attack.

. . =(_8^(1)

[Zenister 0]

lol

You get funnier with every lame justification you attempt. The Ellipsis are used for EXACTLY what I used the for in that context.

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The ellipsis is three periods in a row. It signifies that words or figures are missing

Again because it is just to funny not to keep quoting.

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That leads us to the third and final factor behind the new American dumbness: not lack of knowledge per se but arrogance about that lack of knowledge.

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[skydyvr 0]

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You get funnier with every lame justification you attempt. The Ellipsis are used for EXACTLY what I used the for in that context.

I've not said a single word about your use of ellipsis. Sorry you're confused about that.

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Again because it is just to funny not to keep quoting.

You seem to be very easily entertained.

What keeps getting "funnier" is that you continue WRONGLY insisting that I'm misusing a word that has been widely accepted and used for years in the EXACT WAY THAT I USED IT. Your argument couldn't possibly be more silly or meaningless.

Take another look at that quote you keep posting -- maybe it'll eventually dawn on you who it ACTUALLY applies to in this ridiculous conversation we're having.

What you might be missing is that I was not referring to a "liberal education" in my original one line statement. Instead, I was referring to what liberals have done to education (and parenting).

. . =(_8^(1)

[mnealtx 0]

Thank you, NEA!!

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[tkhayes 348]

a good friend of mine once said

"There's a whole generation of people growing up today that do not have a clue about anything. And it is our job to take all of their money away."

[Royd 0]

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This is someting that bothers me increasingly; in my classes I see students who wish to become scientists and engineers, who have exactly that attitude towards knowledge that they see as not having a direct bearing on their career focus. As if anyone can predict now what scientific knowledge will be critical to society in 2030 when these people are in their forties. I don't recall seeing such an attitude to the same extent when I started teaching in the late '60s.

One of the best I've had was a student who tried to get out of a college writing class, claiming "I don't need it because I hate writing and I don't write well

So, how did you reward that student?

[nerdgirl 0]

Three issues that we -- as a planet much less nation -- do not seem to be getting any better at & all relate directly to Jacoby's thesis and the decline of rationality:


(1) Confusing correlation w/causation.

E.g., the Biothrax (nee AVA) vaccine debate and the autism-vaccine contentions, in the news yesterday.


(2) Confusing anecdote w/correlation or, worse, causation.

E.g., the "I've" seen it therefore it must be true argument. Sometime we *see* what we want in single or limited cases. Sometimes we don't know the 'whole' story; sometimes we're wrong. Because math/statistics are hard and require effort to do/understand or because the data may not support the argument one is trying to make is *not* a good excuse for dismissing the analytical tool.

And the whole subjectivity-v-objectivity debate, for which culpability *is* substantively in the laps of liberal academics, most egregiously the post-modern deconstructionist theorists. Roland Barthes was a philosopher not a physicist.


(3) Confusing historical religious text w/causation.

E.g., rise of fundamentalism: Judeo-Christian, Islamic, or Gaia-esque (whatever ELF, etc. espouses).


VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[kallend 2,028]

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This is someting that bothers me increasingly; in my classes I see students who wish to become scientists and engineers, who have exactly that attitude towards knowledge that they see as not having a direct bearing on their career focus. As if anyone can predict now what scientific knowledge will be critical to society in 2030 when these people are in their forties. I don't recall seeing such an attitude to the same extent when I started teaching in the late '60s.

One of the best I've had was a student who tried to get out of a college writing class, claiming "I don't need it because I hate writing and I don't write well

So, how did you reward that student?

I think he dropped out and became a right-wing blogger.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[wmw999 2,460]

Just as a by-the-by, here's an article about dictionaries, and the trend in whether they prescribe or describe the language. So the discussion about whether the meaning of words can, and should, change, is reflected in the language community.

According to that page, the traditional (conservative?) way is prescriptive, and the later trend (liberal? ) way is descriptive.

Of course, the source might be suspect because, well, English teachers are all liberals, probably funded by the NEA.

Um -- I could also quote Wikipedia, but that would make me a liberal, wouldn't it?

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[nerdgirl 0]

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According to that page, the traditional (conservative?) way is prescriptive, and the later trend (liberal? ) way is descriptive.

Interesting ...
Is "descriptive" synonmous with "positivism"?

I'd never thought of the normative (loosely, how things 'should' be, i.e., prescriptive)/positive (loosely, how things 'are,' objective description) dichotomy like that before.

Curious-neat. It's almost an inversion of the usual colloquial "liberal" ='s rainbows-dolphins-daisies idealist/conservative ='s pragmatic realist dichotomy.
VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[wmw999 2,460]

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Interesting ...
Is "descriptive" synonmous with "positivism"?

If by positivism you mean the philosophy that anything that doesn't come from the scientific process isn't real, not according to my language group friends . They'd refer to Webster's Third dictionary (famous for being descriptive) as being anecdotal in its approach; i.e. anything that an editor had heard was included .

It's easy to play games with a lot of this, because, well, any too-narrow a viewpoint of a complex subject like language is just a lens that distorts part of it in order to bring other parts into focus. We have to remember that by bringing the one aspect into focus we're reducing the fidelity of the rest.

Sometimes you get a better idea of a painting by standing back and not focusing too intently. I'm inherently lazy, so I kind of like that, but I do think there's a danger in losing sight of the whole while focusing on the piece.

Which is why I drag random shit in to any discussion whenever possible

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[skydyvr 0]

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Just as a by-the-by, here's an article about dictionaries, and the trend in whether they prescribe or describe the language. So the discussion about whether the meaning of words can, and should, change, is reflected in the language community.

Interesting read. I have a headache now.

. . =(_8^(1)

[billvon 3,008]

>99.99% of the folks on this board will understand exactly the body
>of persons I'm pointing to when I use the term "liberal".

Nope. Around here, 20% of the people will understand your position that "liberal" means "undisciplined irrational idiot." The other 20% will understand that "conservative" means "bible-thumping greedy homphobe."

Fortunately, most people are not so narrow-minded.

[pirana 0]

Check out The Closing Of The American Mind by Allan Bloom. It is, IMO, the most comprehensive serious look at the decay of our desire and ability to think and act critically.

As you might guess, at it's foundation is a critique of our systems of education.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[skydyvr 0]

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Fortunately, most people are not so narrow-minded.

Cast me into the 20% if you wish, but you do so at the cost of being incorrect. There are numerous liberal political positions which I appreciate, both now and especially in the past.

What liberals (who control public schools in this country) have done to fuck up education is definitely NOT on the list of things I appreciate, however.

. . =(_8^(1)

[Andrewwhyte 1]

When I hear an American say 'Liberal' I think 'socialist.' When I hear a Canadian, Britt or European say it I tend to think along the lines in the dictionary definition.

[billvon 3,008]

>What liberals (who control public schools in this country) have done to fuck up education . . .

Both my parents were teachers; they were both quite liberal (by both the dictionary definition and by their own political self-description.) My mother brought computer-based writing classes to her high school - there's a writing center named after her now. My father was principal of one of the more violent high schools on Long Island. He spent much of his time there fighting a conservative school board to get funding for basics like security, desks, heater repairs etc.

So from my personal experience, liberals don't "fuck up" education.

At a larger level, the democrats claim that conservatives want to cut funding for education to give the rich their tax cuts, want to teach creationism instead of science, and would rather have kids praying to their god instead of learning. Conservatives claim that liberals want to teach self esteem instead of math, science and english, and would rather everyone just get a medal instead of learning anything.

Which is right? Well, both are to a similar degree - which is to say, not much at all. I think if you knew many teachers you'd understand that their politics don't much enter into their desire to teach.

[kallend 2,028]

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What liberals (who control public schools in this country) have done to fuck up education ...

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In most states we elect school boards to do that.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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[Amazon 7]

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In most states we elect school boards to do that.

And the Religious Right Ultra Conservatives targeted those positions back in the 1980's to CONTROL what was being taught. To try to blame the NEA is just more right wing bluster in the face of reality.

[nerdgirl 0]

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Check out The Closing Of The American Mind by Allan Bloom. It is, IMO, the most comprehensive serious look at the decay of our desire and ability to think and act critically.

As you might guess, at it's foundation is a critique of our systems of education.

He also railed pretty strongly against rock-n-roll. Mick Jagger was a specific target, IIRC.

One of my favorite quotes from the Ivy League Professor's book, which may reflect my approach to Speakers Corner as well:
"The questions are all there. They only need to be addressed continuously and seriously for liberal learning to exist; for it does not consist so much in answers as in the permanent dialogue."

Bloom argued for a broad, rigorous, analytical liberal arts education ... perhaps not so different from Jacoby's thesis linked by the OP?

He became the proverbial 'poster child' for a certain right-wing political agenda that ironically, if one *actually* read the book, was not there. (He also basically accused the Founding Fathers of being 'card-carrying' Hobbesian & Lockean *atheists* and that duty/obligation should precede rights. )

I speculate that, if alive today, he would be vitrioloically opposed to the commodification of higher education ... & the Internet (he died in 1992, before NCSA launched MOSAIC) and wireless-everything.

VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[Andrewwhyte 1]

Locke was an atheist. Say what?

[nerdgirl 0]

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Locke was an atheist. Say what?

I would argue Locke was a unitarian, universalist theist.

Bloom makes that connection/assertion that Locke was a ‘secret’ atheist through his endorsement of Hobbes and a-biblical theism (more unitarian-universalist) and as inalienable rights were adopted as part of the Declaration of Independence (particularly evident if you go to Jefferson’s “Original Rough Draught”) and the Constitution:

“The notion that man possesses inalienable natural rights, that they belong to him as an individual prior, both in time and in sanctity, to any civil society, and that civil societies exist for and acquire their legitimacy from ensuring those rights, is an invention of modern philosophy. Rights are new in modernity, not a part of the common-sense language of politics or of classical political philosophy. Hobbes initiated the notion of rights, and it was given its greatest respectability by Locke.” (Bloom, p. 165).

.....

One of Bloom’s protegees, formerly University of Chicago/now apparently at Columbia Mark Lilla, expounded on the thesis in The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West. Lilla authored a piece featured in NY Times Sunday Magazine last year:

“Hobbes was neither a liberal nor a democrat. He thought that consolidating power in the hands of one man was the only way to relieve citizens of their mutual fears. But over the next few centuries, Western thinkers like John Locke, who adopted his approach, began to imagine a new kind of political order in which power would be limited, divided and widely shared; in which those in power at one moment would relinquish it peacefully at another, without fear of retribution; in which public law would govern relations among citizens and institutions; in which many different religions would be allowed to flourish, free from state interference; and in which individuals would have inalienable rights to protect them from government and their fellows. This liberal-democratic order is the only one we in the West recognize as legitimate today, and we owe it primarily to Hobbes. In order to escape the destructive passions of messianic faith, political theology centered on God was replaced by political philosophy centered on man. This was the Great Separation.”

VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[algboy 0]

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It's why I look back and say to myself, "I wish I would have taken a physics class." Or, "I wish that I had applied myself more in calculus."

There are so many things that I thought in the past were unimportant. EVERYTHING is important to somebody, and it'd be nice to know about that stuff.

I've told my wife that I would love to go back to school sometime and get an engineering degree - just to see if I could. Then I'd also consider myself to be more rounded.

hence the reason behind statements like youth is wasted. At the age you're supposed to be in college, you're still not mentally mature enough to fully benefit. The lessons from the writing class can take a few years to sink in - after you read a thousand crappy emails/memos and can't understand wtf was being said.

And at risk of letting the thread get rerailed, the GOP is driving this anti intellectualism right now. Bush dumbed himself down in 2000 to play the one of us outsiders, even as the son of Bush, a Yalie, and with no shortage of priviledge. Gore, otoh, was the smart ass know it all, following that hippie war protesting know it all, Clinton.

If Hillary manages to pull out the nomination, I suspect she would continue to be attacked from being the calculating cold thinking person, rather than a 'feeler.' McCain would be the seat of the pants guy acting on war honed instinct.

Re: The dumbing down thang, I agree. Porkrind-eating, American Idle-watching, Fox Noise Nation.

I dealt with a truck driver a few years ago whose greatest passion was the fact that he had FOUR TVs in his trailer and that "W" Bush talked "just like me". [hold gun to temple--keep elbow up--pull trigger]

BTW, that's how I'd say good-bye to him: "Keep your elbow up, Richard!" He'd smile and wave back, probably thinking what a nice guy . . . .

[mnealtx 0]

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Check out The Closing Of The American Mind by Allan Bloom. It is, IMO, the most comprehensive serious look at the decay of our desire and ability to think and act critically.

As you might guess, at it's foundation is a critique of our systems of education.

"The Rape of Alma Mater" is good, also.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[mnealtx 0]

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In most states we elect school boards to do that.

And the Religious Right Ultra Conservatives targeted those positions back in the 1980's to CONTROL what was being taught. To try to blame the NEA is just more right wing bluster in the face of reality.

Really? Perhaps you should read Deweys "Pedagogic Creed" and compare it to todays education. The socialists got hold of the schools decades before the 'bible-thumpers'.

(FYI - Dewey is considered "The Father of Modern Education")

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706