This post epitomizes the threads running through arguments for and against a liberal arts education in the year 2012. On the one hand... http://www.radiolab.or

This post epitomizes the threads running through arguments for and against a liberal arts education in the year 2012. On the one hand... http://www.radiolab.org/2010/aug/09/ http://www.radiolab.org/2010/aug/09/ which will far better argue and illustrate myriad points on the invention of language, its beauty and wonder and value to differentiate us as a species and to bring us joy and fulfillment and illustrate the challenges and quirks that make its study such a joy and illustrate language's evolution as a thing of wonder. Then again, you see something like the Rossetti archive http://www.rossettiarchive.org/ http://www.rossettiarchive.org/ and you are awe struck at the meticulous rigor and academic sensitivity it takes to understand permanence and context and format and physicality as intrinsic to the right of artistic expression. Would these works have as much meaning if we OCR'd them, slapped them in times new roman, and beamed them to your twitching sweaty little palm sized cubes? Probably not. It took a lot of time, a lot of arguing, a lot of hard questions and personal growth before I felt qualified to make statements like, "I don't think its a good idea to build a game engine that uses a Barthes-esque narrative decomposition to dynamically construct compelling storylines for video games." I don't think a religious education qualifies you as arbiter of language. I think his word is fun and quirky. Interesting. Highly relevant and timely.