Tamar Lewin wrote this front page article in the Times today:
I expressed my concerns which I pasted below.
“There several reasons to be concerned.
There is what Jonathan Jacobs at John Jay College points out is the inability of many graduates to even recognize a rational argument. A subgroup of these graduates teaches in high school. Prof. Jacobs is right when he worries about what this is doing to civil society.
There is what is happening to our workforce. Getting an understanding of people from Tolstoy or the Federalist Papers or Machiavelli is more than an abstract exercise. The same goes for learning to understand what someone has written or said.
Both of the above concerns is amply illustrated by reading VP Cheney’s statements that he never even met Joe Wilson, much less asked him to go to Niger; and, then reading Joe Wilson’s Op-Ed in this paper. How words were being used and what the truths were should have been manifestly obvious to anyone with a decent Liberal Arts education.
Finally, we need to worry about any actions our colleges are taking with respect to defunding Liberal Arts. University of Chicago president Robert Maynard Hutchins warned that when an institution does something for money it loses its soul. He explained that he did not mean that universities don’t need money, just that they need an educational policy first. Then they need to raise the money.
(A link to the wonderful article by Prof. Jacobs can be found at “Why the Demise of Liberal Arts (And, Thus, Clear Thinking) Matter For The Future of America” It is on my blog inside-higher-ed.com)”
(ADDED LATER: I just reread this. I seemed to have had a “verbal” problem. I’m sorry, it was a caffeine deficiency problem – kind of like the dog eating the homework. I don’t admit to any lack of proofreading.)
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