17 ms·

Novelist warns against utilitarian trends in higher education

132 points by wyclif 11y ago

astazangasta 11y ago
Putting on my cynical hat, the problem is much worse than merely higher education. In the previous Gilded Age, the rapaciousness of our ruling classes was met with a storm of organizing from our working classes. Millions of people worked together to advance their rights and those of others. There were hundreds of civic organizations, political parties and other popular organs being formed. This time, crickets. Now there is no class consciousnesses, no faith in politics, no collective action of any kind. Something is very different, I don't know what.
- snerbles 11y ago
  The abuses of the late 19th century's Gilded Age were more directly experienced by the average first-world worker, and today's breads & circuses are more pervasive by orders of magnitude. To really mobilize the general public, the distractions from the pain will have to subside or the pain itself must grow.
- cstross 11y ago
  Robinson's point about the shift towards vocational education (and student debt) inadequately preparing students for participation in democratic society deserves emphasis: this is what the parties responsible want to see happen. (Who, in an entrenched position of power, wants to see a strong middle class take an active interest in politics?)
- arca_vorago 11y ago
  Many will balk at the idea, but the oligarchy recognized this danger and planned against it since the early 1900's. Hanlon's razor only applies to the middlemen, for the .01% the conspiratorial view of history (based on facts of course) is the correct one. http://www.scribd.com/doc/3768227/Dodd-Report-to-the-Reece-Committee-on-Foundations-1954 http://www.scribd.com/doc/3768227/Dodd-Report-to-the-Reece-C...
  - laotzu 11y ago
    >Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we've got to stay together. We've got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity. -MLK, I've Been to The Mountaintop, last speech the night before assassination
    - arca_vorago 11y ago
      I just want to point out how relevant I find your username, or more specifically, Lao Tzu, these days. He is a very undervalued character in philosophy. Also, thanks for the MLK quote. I think for Americans at least, the bill of rights and the constitution should be our unifying point, which in turn is why people who threaten to undermine the division of people, such as MLK, are seen as such huge threats to TPTB.
- laotzu 11y ago
  Divide et impera
calibraxis 11y ago
> To "water the desert a little bit and then see what they become," Robinson said, is the "whole project of American education." That's always been under contention (in probably most of the world) by competing movements. The talk of "citizenship" and "American" is also disturbingly nationalistic. (To those lucky enough to have an awareness of nationalism.)
mori 11y ago
IMO: teaching people to appreciate culture or be good citizens is something that is nearly impossible (at least with the tools we have now). As it stands, it'd be a waste of everyone's time and money. There is a lot of talk about how good it is to do this- yes, of course. But there is little talk of whether it is possible or how to make it possible. Comprehension of, say, math: that's something that can more-or-less be measured by a test. How do you measure someone having the attitude of a free thinker? Until practicalities are talked about, I can't see any of this as anything but posturing. There should be pushes for investigation like CFAR does.
- MisterBastahrd 11y ago
  I'd rather be around people who have some understanding of the world they live in than a bunch of automatons who can code but are luddites in all other endeavors.
- rquantz 11y ago
  That's silly, of course it can be taught, and it can even be measured if that's so important to you. Can this person read a text and understand the arguments that are being made? Can this person tease out subtexts and narratives and ideologies in the world around them? Can they write and make themselves understood? Can they follow an argument to its logical conclusions or pick apart failures in an argument? Can they recognize aesthetic and technical choices, or stylistic and intellectual affinities within a work of art? These are all skills necessary to be engaged in civic and cultural life, and they can absolutely be taught.
dataker 11y ago
It's really easy to be agains't utilitarian trends in higher education when: 1) your parents have money 2) you are lucky/skilled enough to make a living off a Humanities degree Most people are not like that and a Humanities degree is a terrible choice. There's no self-discovery when your own survival is at stake.
- coldtea 11y ago
  Maybe we should fix the "education is expensive and people have no money" things also then? Instead of taking them as granted and designing education around them? Education is quite cheap in Europe for example -- to the point of a few thousand dollars per year or less plus living expenses (which can be near zero if you live with your parents as lots do).
  - Kurtz79 11y ago
    Actually in some countries is to the point of "free", or even "getting paid".
  - gaius 11y ago
    A good start would be massive taxes on super-rich authors such as JK Rowling in order to fund arts education then. Why should ordinary workers be taxed more?
    - gambiting 11y ago
      But.....why? Purely on the basis that she has a lot of money? You go to work to exchange some of your time for money - government takes certain % of your money as taxes. Then you go and spend that money in exchange for a good Rowling produces, because, well - you both want that. You want to have that physical product and certain mental pleasures that come with it, she wants to get money for it. So the question is - why should she pay higher % in taxes than you or me on that money she makes?
      - Fargren 11y ago
denniskane 11y ago
So by this logic, MIT, Caltech, GaTech, Carnegie Mellon, as well as every community college that focuses on real world training is doing a fundamental disservice to our civil society. I disagree, to say the least. If everyone were an engineer, that probably would not be such a terrible thing, but if everyone were a novelist, that probably would.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- astazangasta 11y ago
  I am both. Actually, MIT trained me for both. Everyone ought to be both, a little bit.
  - denniskane 11y ago
    If you want to throw around oughts and shoulds, I would confine those to the rational/empirical side of the spectrum because that is the very foundation upon which a society may be constructed. Now, once that society is constructed, all of the other stuff is nice to have, but I would not describe those things in morally imperative terms like that.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      > If you want to throw around oughts and shoulds, I would confine those to the rational/empirical side of the spectrum Oughts and shoulds are the foundation on which rationality in decision-making is founded, but cannot be reasoned to or empirically tested without assuming an axiomatic ought or should to start with.
    - astazangasta 11y ago
      Eh? No, humanity is not constructed on a rational/empirical basis. For example, most people want children; this is not rational, it's simply the way humans are constructed. We enjoy music. We need sunlight to be happy. We have a desire to live; none of these things are rational, they just are. We have deep-seated fantasies about our position in the world; we imagine ourselves to be heroes in a long-running saga. We cleave the world along the planes of this narrative into 'good' and 'evil'. We hate, despite assurances that the contrary is better, to be told what to do. Unless we respond to this, our human side, our efforts will always fall dead. We can't construct a society that doesn't acknowledge our humanity and expect that people will want to live in it.
mc32 11y ago
So, it's nice to think of civics and arts. I think these should be more heavily stressed in k-12. The great majority will go beyond secondary education, so we can "waste" more time on civics, art and morality. On the other hand, people first and foremost want survival, they want to find a modicum of success in this new world economy. Liberal arts students know all too well how their prospects compare to those of others who chose CS, finance, statistics, etc. Just listen to the bitter kids on npr who rag on the new economy. They feel left out, and they are right, they are falling behind. Their professions of choice are not as prestigious any more. She can make these claims being an exception at the top. Most people following her would probably feel disappointed at their achievement, if they were to follow. Higher ed is not like it was 100 - 200 years ago where the idle children of the rich could explore their fancy ideas about civilization and humanity. Most people just want to be employable, that is all.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Folks today have it easier, not harder, than folks 100-200 years ago. There's something very wrong if we cannot afford more arts and civics today. Also, I'm not ready to consign the bulk of the country to a life of labor. Instead of, for instance, exploring what makes us human. Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?
  - soneca 11y ago
    Not to contradict your conclusion, but I believe "folks" in general have it easier now. But the "folks that went to university" 200 years ago had it easier than "folks that go to university" now. 200 years ago the privileges of the elite were much more permanent and resilient than they are now. And even if this is false, the university was much more exclusive back then. Meaning it was a much more elite elite.
    - cstross 11y ago
      200 years ago, we're talking about 1815. Universities were largely training schools for clergymen; surgeons were jumped-up barbers: medical doctors were a trade guild taught by apprenticeship -- only in 1815 in England with the passing of the Apothecaries Act was a requirement introduced for those practicing as doctors without a university degree to be examined for a license. Women were excluded not only from higher education but from education in general (with the exception of a governess or tutor for the daughters of well-to-do families), and the really privileged didn't bother with university at all -- that was for younger sons, the eldest (inheriting) sons went to Eton or Harrow then into the House of Lords. The great flowering of universities as colleges of liberal arts -- and of scientific research in general -- happened a lot later, generally in the 1870-1970 period. History is another planet, populated by fascinating aliens.
josefresco 11y ago
Hate to pull an ad hominem attack, but do we expect any other opinion from someone so entrenched within the existing higher education world? Robinson, who has taught at a number of colleges and universities, including her current position at the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, identified a troubling trend in higher education today. Acedemics and hackers alike tend to idealize their choices, and often turn a blind eye to those that don't fit their chosen educational or business model. Also, "self-discovery" works only for those that have the luxury to explore without the pressures to support themselves or their immediate family.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Cuts both ways: makes her an expert at her field, no? Can we now criticize and ignore experts because they're 'entrenched'?
  - josefresco 11y ago
    Bias is always an important consideration. Yes IMHO we should discount (not ignore) opinions from those heavily entrenched on either side of this argument (which is why I mentioned hackers). There's no one solution that applies to everyone. Some need "self discovery" but can't afford it, some need job training but are pressured to obtain a degree solely for the prestige. I'd like to hear from voices without extensive skin in the game. This includes the other extreme, such as successful business people who advocate against higher education simply because that's the route they chose.
  - jff 11y ago
    This reminds me of how philosophers seem to spend 50% of their time writing about how important philosophy is. The other 50% is often spent writing philosophy based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the topic (see: any philosophy of technology book)
- bmj 11y ago
  Also, "self-discovery" works only for those that have the luxury to explore without the pressures to support themselves or their immediate family. Not every writer or artist is embedded in academia. Robinson's point is that we as a culture are becoming more utilitarian, and therefore losing any sense of the importance of the arts. Certainly, she is most interested in the university setting, but I think her critique applies outside of the academy as well.
rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
I have maintained for a long time that our society should focus on apprenticeships - not education - as the primary means to gain job skills. There is a place for k-12 and higher ed, but with a BS being the modern entry ticket to the middle class, it will only continue to raise costs for everyone. Subsidizing apprenticeships instead gives people meaningful skills and a decent income, and they don't spend 2-4 years of their working life either not working and sitting in class, or working out of necessity to make ends meet, which is a detriment to their education.
- alwaysAttending 11y ago
  In a country that looks down upon unions and guild-like structures meant to protect their workers, you'll never have enough people who trust apprenticeships. Dedicating yourself to one specific task within the private market is too foolish of a thing to do for any smart person in America.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    That's how most folks get trade jobs now! You work in a shop while taking some classes at community college (welding, bookbinding or whatever). You then get promoted after a couple of years, or even save your money and open your own shop.
    - Retric 11y ago
      This directly leads to lots of older workers who only know one skill and can't get a job. Right now States are dumping these people on Social Security Disability to keep them off their welfare / unemployment rolls, because industries are just not that stable and younger workers are healthier and cheaper. PS: 65 - 18 = 47 years. Just how many bricklayers do you need with 45 years experience and back problems?
      - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
        ...and yet, its an efficient way to learn a trade. How else? We can't yet run a tape through your brain to program skills.
DennisP 11y ago
For at least as long as we keep bundling diplomas with large amounts of debt, this trend will continue.
nickysielicki 11y ago
Maybe I'm just a person with a very pessimistic outlook on the future of the US and our economy, but I think articles like this are going to be laughed about in 20 years. Oh no! An faltering economy is emphasizing specialization! The horror! The kids won't discover themselves!
hockeybias 11y ago
It doesn't have to be 'either or'. Go to a liberal arts school and get a major in CS or some other 'utilitarian' degree.
utefan001 11y ago
"Water the desert a little bit and then see what they become" This many not be the type of watering she is referring to but if you are interested in helping people gain marketable skills I can say from experience it is very rewarding. I recently posted my availability as a mentor in the software job category on Craigslist ($35) and have found 3 great people that are financially poor, but rich in work ethic and motivation. We have only connected via email, but have already started to make great progress towered their goals. Many of us on this site have great knowledge that might be taken for granted. If people don't have experience many employers will not give them a chance. Being a bridge between the job at Walgreen's to their first industry job is a joy to be a part of.
candybar 11y ago
I don't have the numbers handy but I'm reasonably sure that more people are studying liberal arts as previously defined than ever before in history. I think there are really two large phenomena that underlie the apparent decline of liberal arts education: 1) More and more people are attending 4-year colleges due to inflation in expectation without necessarily any fundamental change in demand for skills which means 4-years colleges are increasingly forced to perform the roles previously filled by vocational schools and community colleges. 2) As our understanding of the world increases and our technological capability expands, more and more things are brought under the umbrella of STEM. A lot of what counts as science (social sciences, for example) for example would have counted as liberal arts going back a few hundred years. Even much of computer science as we know it today would've fallen somewhere between math and philosophy. Study of languages at one point was an extremely liberal-artsy pursuit, but Linguistics is a quantitative discipline with strong connections to math and computer science. Likewise political science had its roots in political philosophy and humanities but now it's a discipline strongly influenced by statistics, economics and even game theory.
cafard 11y ago
'The original rationale behind an American liberal arts education – to play a vital role in democratizing privilege – "is under attack, or is being forgotten," Robinson said. Now, universities by and large do not attempt to "prepare people for citizenship and democracy."' I would like to know what "original" means here, other than "what I think it should be". Harvard was set up primarily to train clergy. The University of Pennsylvania seemed to teach pretty much everything from the start (if I remember my reading correctly). I would very much question whether Thomas Jefferson had the democratization of privilege in mind when he founded the University of Virginia.
timtas 11y ago
This is not a new argument. It certainly goes back even before conservative Russell Kirk's 1957 classic, The Inhumane Businessman [1]. It seems to me quite obvious a that the waning of liberal [2] education is a bad thing. But these fashionable leftist laments miss the point and fail to recognize some obvious causes of their own making. In Kirk's time as now, the motivation to gain immediately marketable skills is a strong one. The difference is that elites like Robinson see such motivations as base and immoral, whereas Kirk saw them as deceptively un-utilitarian. To the degree that ROI is a driver, the decline in general ed is certainly accelerated by massive price inflation of that last few decades. But there's another reason. The fact is liberal education in most American universities has become a shoddy product. In many, it's become quite illiberal. This is not abstract for me. I recently helped my son decide on a college. It came down to two: School A, a school that's focussed on more practical topics such as business and engineering. Scarcely one-fifth of the coursework is general social sciences and humanities. And School B, an old and venerated bastion of liberal ed. Both are top 40 national universities. Now, we had already weeded out all the schools that have entirely thrown over the western cannon for ideologically driven grievance-based curriculum. In other words, our list was pretty small. The last step in our decision process was to visit School B. I was hopeful because I want my son to go deep into great ideas, for the very reasons that Kirk gives. Then came the orientation. Announcement: we have a new core curriculum. Wha...? Students, it turns out, will no longer choose from among courses in history, philosophy, literature, phycology, economics, etc. Now they will all be funneled through a few newly developed "integrated" courses. Courses where Greek classics are compared with Harry Potter. Classes that focus on the dying American Dream. Courses where science and history are now a branches of climate change activism. No thanks. School A please. This is what the market looks like when it's working. [1] http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/detail/the-inhumane-businessman http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/detail/the-inhumane-busi... [2] It's worth pointing out that "liberal" here means classical liberal, which is nearly the opposite of "liberal" in the context of American politics.
- rquantz 11y ago
  Edit: to respond to your main point, you don't think this experience your kid had at whatever elite college is exactly what Robinson is decrying? This is the infiltration of the market into education, where students are treated as consumers rather than scholars and citizens. Original post: It's worth pointing out that "liberal" here means classical liberal, which is nearly the opposite of "liberal" in the context of American politics. I'm assuming by "classical liberal" you mean the ideology that arose in the 18th Century? Because liberal education is not that either. It is in fact orthogonal to modern American political liberalism. Liberal arts are the areas of study appropriate for a free human being (as opposed to a serf).
romaniv 11y ago
> Now, universities by and large do not attempt to "prepare people for citizenship and democracy." Instead, they educate them to be members of a "docile, most skilled, working class." You need to go to liberal arts college to be prepared for citizenship and democracy? Really? If by the time you get to college you're not interested in "humanities", you're very unlikely to get interested after being forced to listen to some mediocre lectures. And make no mistake, that's exactly what the wast majority of students will get.
gdubs 11y ago
I used to be an avid reader of Newtekniques magazine, which was required reading for anyone obsessed with Lightwave3D and the Video Toaster. There was Mojo's opinion column on the back page where he mused about rendering, the Amiga, and sometimes things a little deeper. I remember one column where mojo said (paraphrasing), "I see a lot of people going to film school, learning everything they can about making movies; cameras, lighting, props..." "Problem is, when they get out of school, they know everything about _how_ to make a film, but no clue what to make a film _about_." The value of a liberal arts education is the world of stuff you don't know you don't know. You get exposed to a wide range of topics, and you never know what might catch your eye and reach deep inside of you, to your core, beyond technical mastery of a skill. As an entrepreneur, having empathy and a deep understanding of the humanities is extremely useful throughout your personal journey.
- romaniv 11y ago
  Exposed to a wide range of topics for the low price of $23,410 per year ($46,272 in private colleges). No thanks. I'd rather go to the nearest bookstore, library or use the Internet for what's intended. http://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_payarticle_tmpl.jhtml?articleId=10064 http://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_payarticle_tmp...
  - abruzzi 11y ago
    There are plenty of much cheaper (and still good universities). The local one here is $2000 a semester and while it doesn't have prestige, it's a very good all around university. Also, the Internet makes it easy to learn random things about different topics, it's not very good at guiding you through topics that you didn't know to investigate. It's also not able to force you to study topics you don't want to, or take an entire class worth of material instead of a single Wikipedia article.
    - koopuluri 11y ago
      "It's also not able to force you to study topics you don't want to, or take an entire class worth of material instead of a single Wikipedia article" - It's entirely possible to cover a class worth of material & study topics you don't want to without paying for someone to help you do that. I think the point is that given two people that learned a course (say computer science), with one learning formally at a university and the other learning through a combination of sources on the internet, and they both end up with roughly the same knowledge and competence - the one who went to university is likely to have more options open to them. A system that requires that kind of money to "certify" people of their skills is unfair as it blocks off the chance of certification for a large population of citizens. (-Certification here is one that is accepted by other members of society such as employers).
glxc 11y ago
tl;dr colleges are more focused on getting students employed
- anigbrowl 11y ago
  ...to pay off their massive college debts.
mariodiana 11y ago
Allan Bloom was lamenting this more than 25 years ago, when college was already not like it used to be: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Closing_of_the_American_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Closing_of_the_American_Mi...
- eropple 11y ago
  Thank you for this. More people should read Bloom; I was pointed to his work--by a Ph.D. in political science, as it happens!--and it crystallized a lot of my own severe misgivings about the way we teach (and don't teach).
  - wyclif 11y ago
    It's an excellent book and hasn't dated much at all.
afsina 11y ago
>Now, universities by and large do not attempt to "prepare people for citizenship and democracy." Instead, they educate them to be members of a "docile, most skilled, working class." Is she complaining that universities stopped being indoctrination machines and do their actual job as to create professionals?
evtothedev 11y ago
I feel like everyone in this thread is willfully misunderstanding this article. Her argument is that it's inherently democratic and leveling to teach the humanities to all students. Moreover, the humanities contribute to a stronger democracy, whether it's through the development of empathy, or whether it's in the ability to read an argument and understand the writer's point (such as in this article). And it is the poor students, particular though push into pre-professional degrees, that miss out on this sort of education.
littletimmy 11y ago
The amount of sheer ignorance in this thread is astounding. The political-myopia of tech culture is on full display here... What is being argued here is that there should be more to an education than a vocation. The purpose of a higher education is to make one a thinking, learned human being. It doesn't matter if you're Knuth when it comes to CS, if you don't have a working knowledge of history and philosophy and political theory, you're uneducated. Another theme I see is that people have to earn a living so they must learn ONLY STEM. That's false for 2 reasons. The first is that one can do non-utilitarian study in philosophy, for example, while also learning CS to get a job. It is also wrong because it is a reflection of the high cost of an American education that forces people to think about "return on investment". That is the very notion that is being criticized here! Education should not calculated solely in economic terms because there are social returns to it. The fact of the matter is that it is absolutely disastrous - morally and culturally - to uncritically accept the views of our neoliberal system. The humanities and non-utilitarian education helps you examine the system. That's what ultimately makes the world a better place.
- laotzu 11y ago
  >Education should not calculated solely in economic terms because there are social returns to it. Tell that to Pearson and the rest of the private education industry. They are legally obligated to view education in economic terms over social returns. Effectively infiltrating and subverting public education.
- DaveWalk 11y ago
  Your points are well-argued. They remind me of an article in Harper's, "The Neoliberal Arts"[0] which had a similar effect on me. Allowing for just the possibility of non-financial rewards of an education shows how shallow our "return on investment" culture is. When we see no value in learning about art, philosophy, history...what does that say about our values? [0] http://harpers.org/archive/2015/09/the-neoliberal-arts/ http://harpers.org/archive/2015/09/the-neoliberal-arts/
  - wbillingsley 11y ago
    No, all of society (including the most free-market of conservatives) sees value in learning about art, philosophy, history -- in fact every single one of them at some point will have paid to learn about art, philosophy, history etc (even if it's just going to the theatre or buying a book). The debate from their perspective is simply that you only seem to see value in learning about art in education if someone else pays for it for you, but not enough to pay for it yourself. The question of "the value of your education" can never win the argument against privatisation/optimisation of education, because the more "value" there is the more the consumer ought to be willing to pay for it. The reasons for keeping education largely public and unoptimised are outside of that -- avoiding competition on price (richest-student wins), that the lecturers have a by-product that is useful to society (mulling problems where we don't yet know whether they have value or not and the market cannot price them), getting students from multiple backgrounds to bounce off each other (avoid social silo-isation by discipline) etc.
mucker 11y ago
You can't require everyone to go to college and then also have it be an academic paradise. People "need" college now to work on Starbucks (which is beyond ridiculous). We've bought into a social narrative where college is a magic wand that makes everything better. Well people want you to _wave the damn wand_ so they can move on with their lives.
jeffdavis 11y ago
Great vision, but it's really the fault of a horrible trend in the liberal arts. Liberal arts is supposed to be about passing down and building upon wisdom and culture gained over thousands of years. Instead, at most universities, it's an uncriticized and unaccountable platform for instructors' personal agendas. Political agendas are common, but it's more than that: it's about self-promotion and self-aggrandization. And the education is more confusing than enlightening. Vague, unintelligible jumbles of keywords pass for brilliance and depth. I've had really good teachers in liberal arts, and they are amazing. But unfortunately that's the exception rather than the rule. In other words, fix the liberal arts, and then maybe more people will appreciate them.
wbillingsley 11y ago
Good luck with her "watering the desert" analogy while bemoaning the rise of productive disciplines, like civil engineering. The article reeks of bland arts prejudice -- that it is more noble to be the "educated" artist writing verse about how ghastly a problem must feel like, and then write something even more verse about how dreadful it is that so few read or understood your beautiful words, than the "merely utilitarian" person who understands how to analyse the cause of the problem and is equipped to design and create a means to fix it. There is nothing inherently less "prepared for citizenship or democracy" about an engineer. And neither, in these design-intensive times, do they necessarily understand humanity or social ills any less than an artist writing about them.
- eropple 11y ago
  I don't think you actually understand what a liberal arts education is. It has very little to do with being an "artist", it has to do with a broad and humanistic--opposing mechanistic--education. Such an education, in my experience, tends to make one interested in creation, and perhaps thus art, but isn't directly related. I have a CS degree and was fortunate to luck into a liberal education--one with grounding in literature, history, economics, sociology, and political science. Not only does it make me better at my day job, because much of it is easily applicable, but it makes me able to meaningfully parse the world around me. Most engineers I know are not particularly good at this--they do not have a liberal education and it shows when one gets outside of a narrow band of small, usually very self-focused interests. (It shows, in the aggressive disregard of history and the corpus of human experience needed to think that the Austrian school, or even your garden-variety libertarian fantasy, has bearing on the real world.) Your "merely utilitarian" person is not equipped to understand (much less solve) the causes of the problems that she describes. That's her point entirely.
jwatte 11y ago
"Utilitarian" is a trend in all of society. We're all choosing a society that grinds us down, one step at a time.
sopooneo 11y ago
Imagine if everyone knew a bit of serious first aid. That would be good for society. But if a given person chose not to learn, it probably wouldn't hurt them or those around them at all. I look at general education from this angle: it is for the benefit of society, not just the individual. A critical mass of the population having a grounding in "the arts and sciences" makes us richer as a whole.

132 points by wyclif 11y ago

Putting on my cynical hat, the problem is much worse than merely higher education. In the previous Gilded Age, the rapaciousness of our ruling classes was met with a storm of organizing from our working classes. Millions of people worked together to advance their rights and those of others. There were hundreds of civic organizations, political parties and other popular organs being formed. This time, crickets. Now there is no class consciousnesses, no faith in politics, no collective action of any kind. Something is very different, I don't know what.

snerbles 11y ago
The abuses of the late 19th century's Gilded Age were more directly experienced by the average first-world worker, and today's breads & circuses are more pervasive by orders of magnitude. To really mobilize the general public, the distractions from the pain will have to subside or the pain itself must grow.
cstross 11y ago
Robinson's point about the shift towards vocational education (and student debt) inadequately preparing students for participation in democratic society deserves emphasis: this is what the parties responsible want to see happen. (Who, in an entrenched position of power, wants to see a strong middle class take an active interest in politics?)
arca_vorago 11y ago
Many will balk at the idea, but the oligarchy recognized this danger and planned against it since the early 1900's. Hanlon's razor only applies to the middlemen, for the .01% the conspiratorial view of history (based on facts of course) is the correct one. http://www.scribd.com/doc/3768227/Dodd-Report-to-the-Reece-Committee-on-Foundations-1954 http://www.scribd.com/doc/3768227/Dodd-Report-to-the-Reece-C...
- laotzu 11y ago
  >Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we've got to stay together. We've got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity. -MLK, I've Been to The Mountaintop, last speech the night before assassination
  - arca_vorago 11y ago
    I just want to point out how relevant I find your username, or more specifically, Lao Tzu, these days. He is a very undervalued character in philosophy. Also, thanks for the MLK quote. I think for Americans at least, the bill of rights and the constitution should be our unifying point, which in turn is why people who threaten to undermine the division of people, such as MLK, are seen as such huge threats to TPTB.
laotzu 11y ago
Divide et impera

calibraxis 11y ago

> To "water the desert a little bit and then see what they become," Robinson said, is the "whole project of American education." That's always been under contention (in probably most of the world) by competing movements. The talk of "citizenship" and "American" is also disturbingly nationalistic. (To those lucky enough to have an awareness of nationalism.)

mori 11y ago

IMO: teaching people to appreciate culture or be good citizens is something that is nearly impossible (at least with the tools we have now). As it stands, it'd be a waste of everyone's time and money. There is a lot of talk about how good it is to do this- yes, of course. But there is little talk of whether it is possible or how to make it possible. Comprehension of, say, math: that's something that can more-or-less be measured by a test. How do you measure someone having the attitude of a free thinker? Until practicalities are talked about, I can't see any of this as anything but posturing. There should be pushes for investigation like CFAR does.

MisterBastahrd 11y ago
I'd rather be around people who have some understanding of the world they live in than a bunch of automatons who can code but are luddites in all other endeavors.
rquantz 11y ago
That's silly, of course it can be taught, and it can even be measured if that's so important to you. Can this person read a text and understand the arguments that are being made? Can this person tease out subtexts and narratives and ideologies in the world around them? Can they write and make themselves understood? Can they follow an argument to its logical conclusions or pick apart failures in an argument? Can they recognize aesthetic and technical choices, or stylistic and intellectual affinities within a work of art? These are all skills necessary to be engaged in civic and cultural life, and they can absolutely be taught.

dataker 11y ago

It's really easy to be agains't utilitarian trends in higher education when: 1) your parents have money 2) you are lucky/skilled enough to make a living off a Humanities degree Most people are not like that and a Humanities degree is a terrible choice. There's no self-discovery when your own survival is at stake.

coldtea 11y ago
Maybe we should fix the "education is expensive and people have no money" things also then? Instead of taking them as granted and designing education around them? Education is quite cheap in Europe for example -- to the point of a few thousand dollars per year or less plus living expenses (which can be near zero if you live with your parents as lots do).
- Kurtz79 11y ago
  Actually in some countries is to the point of "free", or even "getting paid".
- gaius 11y ago
  A good start would be massive taxes on super-rich authors such as JK Rowling in order to fund arts education then. Why should ordinary workers be taxed more?
  - gambiting 11y ago
    But.....why? Purely on the basis that she has a lot of money? You go to work to exchange some of your time for money - government takes certain % of your money as taxes. Then you go and spend that money in exchange for a good Rowling produces, because, well - you both want that. You want to have that physical product and certain mental pleasures that come with it, she wants to get money for it. So the question is - why should she pay higher % in taxes than you or me on that money she makes?
    - Fargren 11y ago

denniskane 11y ago

So by this logic, MIT, Caltech, GaTech, Carnegie Mellon, as well as every community college that focuses on real world training is doing a fundamental disservice to our civil society. I disagree, to say the least. If everyone were an engineer, that probably would not be such a terrible thing, but if everyone were a novelist, that probably would.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
astazangasta 11y ago
I am both. Actually, MIT trained me for both. Everyone ought to be both, a little bit.
- denniskane 11y ago
  If you want to throw around oughts and shoulds, I would confine those to the rational/empirical side of the spectrum because that is the very foundation upon which a society may be constructed. Now, once that society is constructed, all of the other stuff is nice to have, but I would not describe those things in morally imperative terms like that.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > If you want to throw around oughts and shoulds, I would confine those to the rational/empirical side of the spectrum Oughts and shoulds are the foundation on which rationality in decision-making is founded, but cannot be reasoned to or empirically tested without assuming an axiomatic ought or should to start with.
  - astazangasta 11y ago
    Eh? No, humanity is not constructed on a rational/empirical basis. For example, most people want children; this is not rational, it's simply the way humans are constructed. We enjoy music. We need sunlight to be happy. We have a desire to live; none of these things are rational, they just are. We have deep-seated fantasies about our position in the world; we imagine ourselves to be heroes in a long-running saga. We cleave the world along the planes of this narrative into 'good' and 'evil'. We hate, despite assurances that the contrary is better, to be told what to do. Unless we respond to this, our human side, our efforts will always fall dead. We can't construct a society that doesn't acknowledge our humanity and expect that people will want to live in it.

mc32 11y ago

So, it's nice to think of civics and arts. I think these should be more heavily stressed in k-12. The great majority will go beyond secondary education, so we can "waste" more time on civics, art and morality. On the other hand, people first and foremost want survival, they want to find a modicum of success in this new world economy. Liberal arts students know all too well how their prospects compare to those of others who chose CS, finance, statistics, etc. Just listen to the bitter kids on npr who rag on the new economy. They feel left out, and they are right, they are falling behind. Their professions of choice are not as prestigious any more. She can make these claims being an exception at the top. Most people following her would probably feel disappointed at their achievement, if they were to follow. Higher ed is not like it was 100 - 200 years ago where the idle children of the rich could explore their fancy ideas about civilization and humanity. Most people just want to be employable, that is all.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Folks today have it easier, not harder, than folks 100-200 years ago. There's something very wrong if we cannot afford more arts and civics today. Also, I'm not ready to consign the bulk of the country to a life of labor. Instead of, for instance, exploring what makes us human. Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?
- soneca 11y ago
  Not to contradict your conclusion, but I believe "folks" in general have it easier now. But the "folks that went to university" 200 years ago had it easier than "folks that go to university" now. 200 years ago the privileges of the elite were much more permanent and resilient than they are now. And even if this is false, the university was much more exclusive back then. Meaning it was a much more elite elite.
  - cstross 11y ago
    200 years ago, we're talking about 1815. Universities were largely training schools for clergymen; surgeons were jumped-up barbers: medical doctors were a trade guild taught by apprenticeship -- only in 1815 in England with the passing of the Apothecaries Act was a requirement introduced for those practicing as doctors without a university degree to be examined for a license. Women were excluded not only from higher education but from education in general (with the exception of a governess or tutor for the daughters of well-to-do families), and the really privileged didn't bother with university at all -- that was for younger sons, the eldest (inheriting) sons went to Eton or Harrow then into the House of Lords. The great flowering of universities as colleges of liberal arts -- and of scientific research in general -- happened a lot later, generally in the 1870-1970 period. History is another planet, populated by fascinating aliens.

josefresco 11y ago

Hate to pull an ad hominem attack, but do we expect any other opinion from someone so entrenched within the existing higher education world? Robinson, who has taught at a number of colleges and universities, including her current position at the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, identified a troubling trend in higher education today. Acedemics and hackers alike tend to idealize their choices, and often turn a blind eye to those that don't fit their chosen educational or business model. Also, "self-discovery" works only for those that have the luxury to explore without the pressures to support themselves or their immediate family.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Cuts both ways: makes her an expert at her field, no? Can we now criticize and ignore experts because they're 'entrenched'?
- josefresco 11y ago
  Bias is always an important consideration. Yes IMHO we should discount (not ignore) opinions from those heavily entrenched on either side of this argument (which is why I mentioned hackers). There's no one solution that applies to everyone. Some need "self discovery" but can't afford it, some need job training but are pressured to obtain a degree solely for the prestige. I'd like to hear from voices without extensive skin in the game. This includes the other extreme, such as successful business people who advocate against higher education simply because that's the route they chose.
- jff 11y ago
  This reminds me of how philosophers seem to spend 50% of their time writing about how important philosophy is. The other 50% is often spent writing philosophy based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the topic (see: any philosophy of technology book)
bmj 11y ago
Also, "self-discovery" works only for those that have the luxury to explore without the pressures to support themselves or their immediate family. Not every writer or artist is embedded in academia. Robinson's point is that we as a culture are becoming more utilitarian, and therefore losing any sense of the importance of the arts. Certainly, she is most interested in the university setting, but I think her critique applies outside of the academy as well.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago

I have maintained for a long time that our society should focus on apprenticeships - not education - as the primary means to gain job skills. There is a place for k-12 and higher ed, but with a BS being the modern entry ticket to the middle class, it will only continue to raise costs for everyone. Subsidizing apprenticeships instead gives people meaningful skills and a decent income, and they don't spend 2-4 years of their working life either not working and sitting in class, or working out of necessity to make ends meet, which is a detriment to their education.

alwaysAttending 11y ago
In a country that looks down upon unions and guild-like structures meant to protect their workers, you'll never have enough people who trust apprenticeships. Dedicating yourself to one specific task within the private market is too foolish of a thing to do for any smart person in America.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  That's how most folks get trade jobs now! You work in a shop while taking some classes at community college (welding, bookbinding or whatever). You then get promoted after a couple of years, or even save your money and open your own shop.
  - Retric 11y ago
    This directly leads to lots of older workers who only know one skill and can't get a job. Right now States are dumping these people on Social Security Disability to keep them off their welfare / unemployment rolls, because industries are just not that stable and younger workers are healthier and cheaper. PS: 65 - 18 = 47 years. Just how many bricklayers do you need with 45 years experience and back problems?
    - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
      ...and yet, its an efficient way to learn a trade. How else? We can't yet run a tape through your brain to program skills.

DennisP 11y ago

For at least as long as we keep bundling diplomas with large amounts of debt, this trend will continue.

nickysielicki 11y ago

Maybe I'm just a person with a very pessimistic outlook on the future of the US and our economy, but I think articles like this are going to be laughed about in 20 years. Oh no! An faltering economy is emphasizing specialization! The horror! The kids won't discover themselves!

hockeybias 11y ago

It doesn't have to be 'either or'. Go to a liberal arts school and get a major in CS or some other 'utilitarian' degree.

utefan001 11y ago

"Water the desert a little bit and then see what they become" This many not be the type of watering she is referring to but if you are interested in helping people gain marketable skills I can say from experience it is very rewarding. I recently posted my availability as a mentor in the software job category on Craigslist ($35) and have found 3 great people that are financially poor, but rich in work ethic and motivation. We have only connected via email, but have already started to make great progress towered their goals. Many of us on this site have great knowledge that might be taken for granted. If people don't have experience many employers will not give them a chance. Being a bridge between the job at Walgreen's to their first industry job is a joy to be a part of.

candybar 11y ago

I don't have the numbers handy but I'm reasonably sure that more people are studying liberal arts as previously defined than ever before in history. I think there are really two large phenomena that underlie the apparent decline of liberal arts education: 1) More and more people are attending 4-year colleges due to inflation in expectation without necessarily any fundamental change in demand for skills which means 4-years colleges are increasingly forced to perform the roles previously filled by vocational schools and community colleges. 2) As our understanding of the world increases and our technological capability expands, more and more things are brought under the umbrella of STEM. A lot of what counts as science (social sciences, for example) for example would have counted as liberal arts going back a few hundred years. Even much of computer science as we know it today would've fallen somewhere between math and philosophy. Study of languages at one point was an extremely liberal-artsy pursuit, but Linguistics is a quantitative discipline with strong connections to math and computer science. Likewise political science had its roots in political philosophy and humanities but now it's a discipline strongly influenced by statistics, economics and even game theory.

cafard 11y ago

'The original rationale behind an American liberal arts education – to play a vital role in democratizing privilege – "is under attack, or is being forgotten," Robinson said. Now, universities by and large do not attempt to "prepare people for citizenship and democracy."' I would like to know what "original" means here, other than "what I think it should be". Harvard was set up primarily to train clergy. The University of Pennsylvania seemed to teach pretty much everything from the start (if I remember my reading correctly). I would very much question whether Thomas Jefferson had the democratization of privilege in mind when he founded the University of Virginia.

timtas 11y ago

This is not a new argument. It certainly goes back even before conservative Russell Kirk's 1957 classic, The Inhumane Businessman [1]. It seems to me quite obvious a that the waning of liberal [2] education is a bad thing. But these fashionable leftist laments miss the point and fail to recognize some obvious causes of their own making. In Kirk's time as now, the motivation to gain immediately marketable skills is a strong one. The difference is that elites like Robinson see such motivations as base and immoral, whereas Kirk saw them as deceptively un-utilitarian. To the degree that ROI is a driver, the decline in general ed is certainly accelerated by massive price inflation of that last few decades. But there's another reason. The fact is liberal education in most American universities has become a shoddy product. In many, it's become quite illiberal. This is not abstract for me. I recently helped my son decide on a college. It came down to two: School A, a school that's focussed on more practical topics such as business and engineering. Scarcely one-fifth of the coursework is general social sciences and humanities. And School B, an old and venerated bastion of liberal ed. Both are top 40 national universities. Now, we had already weeded out all the schools that have entirely thrown over the western cannon for ideologically driven grievance-based curriculum. In other words, our list was pretty small. The last step in our decision process was to visit School B. I was hopeful because I want my son to go deep into great ideas, for the very reasons that Kirk gives. Then came the orientation. Announcement: we have a new core curriculum. Wha...? Students, it turns out, will no longer choose from among courses in history, philosophy, literature, phycology, economics, etc. Now they will all be funneled through a few newly developed "integrated" courses. Courses where Greek classics are compared with Harry Potter. Classes that focus on the dying American Dream. Courses where science and history are now a branches of climate change activism. No thanks. School A please. This is what the market looks like when it's working. [1] http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/detail/the-inhumane-businessman http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/detail/the-inhumane-busi... [2] It's worth pointing out that "liberal" here means classical liberal, which is nearly the opposite of "liberal" in the context of American politics.

rquantz 11y ago
Edit: to respond to your main point, you don't think this experience your kid had at whatever elite college is exactly what Robinson is decrying? This is the infiltration of the market into education, where students are treated as consumers rather than scholars and citizens. Original post: It's worth pointing out that "liberal" here means classical liberal, which is nearly the opposite of "liberal" in the context of American politics. I'm assuming by "classical liberal" you mean the ideology that arose in the 18th Century? Because liberal education is not that either. It is in fact orthogonal to modern American political liberalism. Liberal arts are the areas of study appropriate for a free human being (as opposed to a serf).

romaniv 11y ago

> Now, universities by and large do not attempt to "prepare people for citizenship and democracy." Instead, they educate them to be members of a "docile, most skilled, working class." You need to go to liberal arts college to be prepared for citizenship and democracy? Really? If by the time you get to college you're not interested in "humanities", you're very unlikely to get interested after being forced to listen to some mediocre lectures. And make no mistake, that's exactly what the wast majority of students will get.

gdubs 11y ago

I used to be an avid reader of Newtekniques magazine, which was required reading for anyone obsessed with Lightwave3D and the Video Toaster. There was Mojo's opinion column on the back page where he mused about rendering, the Amiga, and sometimes things a little deeper. I remember one column where mojo said (paraphrasing), "I see a lot of people going to film school, learning everything they can about making movies; cameras, lighting, props..." "Problem is, when they get out of school, they know everything about _how_ to make a film, but no clue what to make a film _about_." The value of a liberal arts education is the world of stuff you don't know you don't know. You get exposed to a wide range of topics, and you never know what might catch your eye and reach deep inside of you, to your core, beyond technical mastery of a skill. As an entrepreneur, having empathy and a deep understanding of the humanities is extremely useful throughout your personal journey.

romaniv 11y ago
Exposed to a wide range of topics for the low price of $23,410 per year ($46,272 in private colleges). No thanks. I'd rather go to the nearest bookstore, library or use the Internet for what's intended. http://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_payarticle_tmpl.jhtml?articleId=10064 http://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_payarticle_tmp...
- abruzzi 11y ago
  There are plenty of much cheaper (and still good universities). The local one here is $2000 a semester and while it doesn't have prestige, it's a very good all around university. Also, the Internet makes it easy to learn random things about different topics, it's not very good at guiding you through topics that you didn't know to investigate. It's also not able to force you to study topics you don't want to, or take an entire class worth of material instead of a single Wikipedia article.
  - koopuluri 11y ago
    "It's also not able to force you to study topics you don't want to, or take an entire class worth of material instead of a single Wikipedia article" - It's entirely possible to cover a class worth of material & study topics you don't want to without paying for someone to help you do that. I think the point is that given two people that learned a course (say computer science), with one learning formally at a university and the other learning through a combination of sources on the internet, and they both end up with roughly the same knowledge and competence - the one who went to university is likely to have more options open to them. A system that requires that kind of money to "certify" people of their skills is unfair as it blocks off the chance of certification for a large population of citizens. (-Certification here is one that is accepted by other members of society such as employers).

glxc 11y ago

tl;dr colleges are more focused on getting students employed

anigbrowl 11y ago
...to pay off their massive college debts.

mariodiana 11y ago

Allan Bloom was lamenting this more than 25 years ago, when college was already not like it used to be: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Closing_of_the_American_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Closing_of_the_American_Mi...

eropple 11y ago
Thank you for this. More people should read Bloom; I was pointed to his work--by a Ph.D. in political science, as it happens!--and it crystallized a lot of my own severe misgivings about the way we teach (and don't teach).
- wyclif 11y ago
  It's an excellent book and hasn't dated much at all.

afsina 11y ago

evtothedev 11y ago

I feel like everyone in this thread is willfully misunderstanding this article. Her argument is that it's inherently democratic and leveling to teach the humanities to all students. Moreover, the humanities contribute to a stronger democracy, whether it's through the development of empathy, or whether it's in the ability to read an argument and understand the writer's point (such as in this article). And it is the poor students, particular though push into pre-professional degrees, that miss out on this sort of education.

littletimmy 11y ago

The amount of sheer ignorance in this thread is astounding. The political-myopia of tech culture is on full display here... What is being argued here is that there should be more to an education than a vocation. The purpose of a higher education is to make one a thinking, learned human being. It doesn't matter if you're Knuth when it comes to CS, if you don't have a working knowledge of history and philosophy and political theory, you're uneducated. Another theme I see is that people have to earn a living so they must learn ONLY STEM. That's false for 2 reasons. The first is that one can do non-utilitarian study in philosophy, for example, while also learning CS to get a job. It is also wrong because it is a reflection of the high cost of an American education that forces people to think about "return on investment". That is the very notion that is being criticized here! Education should not calculated solely in economic terms because there are social returns to it. The fact of the matter is that it is absolutely disastrous - morally and culturally - to uncritically accept the views of our neoliberal system. The humanities and non-utilitarian education helps you examine the system. That's what ultimately makes the world a better place.

laotzu 11y ago
>Education should not calculated solely in economic terms because there are social returns to it. Tell that to Pearson and the rest of the private education industry. They are legally obligated to view education in economic terms over social returns. Effectively infiltrating and subverting public education.
DaveWalk 11y ago
Your points are well-argued. They remind me of an article in Harper's, "The Neoliberal Arts"[0] which had a similar effect on me. Allowing for just the possibility of non-financial rewards of an education shows how shallow our "return on investment" culture is. When we see no value in learning about art, philosophy, history...what does that say about our values? [0] http://harpers.org/archive/2015/09/the-neoliberal-arts/ http://harpers.org/archive/2015/09/the-neoliberal-arts/
- wbillingsley 11y ago
  No, all of society (including the most free-market of conservatives) sees value in learning about art, philosophy, history -- in fact every single one of them at some point will have paid to learn about art, philosophy, history etc (even if it's just going to the theatre or buying a book). The debate from their perspective is simply that you only seem to see value in learning about art in education if someone else pays for it for you, but not enough to pay for it yourself. The question of "the value of your education" can never win the argument against privatisation/optimisation of education, because the more "value" there is the more the consumer ought to be willing to pay for it. The reasons for keeping education largely public and unoptimised are outside of that -- avoiding competition on price (richest-student wins), that the lecturers have a by-product that is useful to society (mulling problems where we don't yet know whether they have value or not and the market cannot price them), getting students from multiple backgrounds to bounce off each other (avoid social silo-isation by discipline) etc.

mucker 11y ago

You can't require everyone to go to college and then also have it be an academic paradise. People "need" college now to work on Starbucks (which is beyond ridiculous). We've bought into a social narrative where college is a magic wand that makes everything better. Well people want you to _wave the damn wand_ so they can move on with their lives.

jeffdavis 11y ago

Great vision, but it's really the fault of a horrible trend in the liberal arts. Liberal arts is supposed to be about passing down and building upon wisdom and culture gained over thousands of years. Instead, at most universities, it's an uncriticized and unaccountable platform for instructors' personal agendas. Political agendas are common, but it's more than that: it's about self-promotion and self-aggrandization. And the education is more confusing than enlightening. Vague, unintelligible jumbles of keywords pass for brilliance and depth. I've had really good teachers in liberal arts, and they are amazing. But unfortunately that's the exception rather than the rule. In other words, fix the liberal arts, and then maybe more people will appreciate them.

wbillingsley 11y ago

Good luck with her "watering the desert" analogy while bemoaning the rise of productive disciplines, like civil engineering. The article reeks of bland arts prejudice -- that it is more noble to be the "educated" artist writing verse about how ghastly a problem must feel like, and then write something even more verse about how dreadful it is that so few read or understood your beautiful words, than the "merely utilitarian" person who understands how to analyse the cause of the problem and is equipped to design and create a means to fix it. There is nothing inherently less "prepared for citizenship or democracy" about an engineer. And neither, in these design-intensive times, do they necessarily understand humanity or social ills any less than an artist writing about them.

eropple 11y ago
I don't think you actually understand what a liberal arts education is. It has very little to do with being an "artist", it has to do with a broad and humanistic--opposing mechanistic--education. Such an education, in my experience, tends to make one interested in creation, and perhaps thus art, but isn't directly related. I have a CS degree and was fortunate to luck into a liberal education--one with grounding in literature, history, economics, sociology, and political science. Not only does it make me better at my day job, because much of it is easily applicable, but it makes me able to meaningfully parse the world around me. Most engineers I know are not particularly good at this--they do not have a liberal education and it shows when one gets outside of a narrow band of small, usually very self-focused interests. (It shows, in the aggressive disregard of history and the corpus of human experience needed to think that the Austrian school, or even your garden-variety libertarian fantasy, has bearing on the real world.) Your "merely utilitarian" person is not equipped to understand (much less solve) the causes of the problems that she describes. That's her point entirely.

jwatte 11y ago

"Utilitarian" is a trend in all of society. We're all choosing a society that grinds us down, one step at a time.

sopooneo 11y ago

Imagine if everyone knew a bit of serious first aid. That would be good for society. But if a given person chose not to learn, it probably wouldn't hurt them or those around them at all. I look at general education from this angle: it is for the benefit of society, not just the individual. A critical mass of the population having a grounding in "the arts and sciences" makes us richer as a whole.