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"I don't know much about history don't know much about biology ..."
WestlinnDuck
Member Posts: 15,298 
in Tug Tavern
At least our modern leftards don’t. Reducing everything through the lens of post-modernism Marxism is a recipe for cultural and literal suicide. As Black Sabbath once put it, “I’ve seen the western world go down in the east”. When it takes a PhD in history to equate the contribution of George Washington to that of George Washington Carver to the development of the United States, then there is no point in “learning” history at a politically correct American university. Not one leftard on this board can explain how the adoption of socialism will end well for the US. Of course, ending well really isn’t the point of socialism. Just ask a North Korean, a Cuban or a Venezuelan. Scratch a leftist find a fascist.
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/
ANALYSIS: TRUE. The Liberal Arts Weren’t Murdered — They Committed Suicide.
The tragedy, then, is not just that a campus of the University of Wisconsin would drop the history major but that the custodians of history in the 21st century lost the ability to teach and write about history in a way that sustains a hallowed 2,500-year tradition. In other words, what is being jettisoned is likely not just history as we once understood it but rather de facto poorly taught “-studies” courses — which sadly become snapshots of particular (and often small) eras of history — designed to offer enough historical proof of preconceived theories about contemporary modern society. The students then are assumed by the course’s end to be outraged, persuaded, galvanized, and shocked in politically acceptable ways. Usually they are just bored, as supposedly with-it professors endlessly regurgitate the esoterica picked up in graduate schools.
Of course, not all historians see the past as an orthodox way of fixing the present, but enough do to discourage students, especially when younger faculty members draw on their rather specialized doctoral theses or narrow journal-article expertise to drive home an agenda that seems preachy or proselytizing to naturally resistant young spirits. To the Millennial mind, calcified Sixties-era radicalism is about as edgy as once was the Stalinist 1930s Old Left sermonizing to the Woodstock crowd. Trendiness that once pleased faculty committees and careerist deans did not always please students, and therefore the result is now not so pleasing to faculty committees and careerist deans.
As I’ve written here before about the Left: They’ll destroy or smear what they cannot seize.
Anyway, it’s Victor Davis Hanson so read the whole thing.
Comments
The country will do worse over time if we eliminate areas of study like history in favor of vocational studies. The average person has lost the meaning and sense of importance of what it is to be educated.
The very idea of a school like Wisconsin not offering a history major or have a robust history department is just ludicrous, but practical people will cheer. FS
Whatever. Congratulations. More winning.
You need a college course on reading and comprehension. I have a history degree. A degree that largely taught classic Western Civilization and US history. A degree that taught me how we got to be where we are. The wealthiest and freest culture in the history of the planet. A degree that about the fall of Rome. A degree that taught me about the economic and human misery caused by communism. A degree that celebrated the western concepts of equality of opportunity, liberty, reason and freedom and the rule of law.
The failure of the current post-modernistic approach teaches none of this. Hence we get the morons that support Bernie Sanders and Cortez. Illiterates who know nothing of history and economics. I’m happy to see the failure of post-modernism. I’m unhappy that a great liberal arts major like history has become so corrupted as to constitute negative education. Hope that clears it up for you. If you knew who Victor Davis Hanson is then this wouldn’t have been confusing to you at all.
Behold the dumbfuckery that is Hondo.
The debt isn't growing because of SS or Medicare.
Medicare is projected to bring in $275B in revenue to the Federal Government this fiscal year. Total Federal payments for Medicare in 2017 were over $700 Billion. But according to Hondo the stupid Kunt our debt isn't growing because of SS or Medicare.
In 2017, Medicare benefit payments totaled $702 billion, up from $425 billion in 2007.
https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/the-facts-on-medicare-spending-and-financing/
So where does the federal government's revenue come from? Individual taxpayers like you provide most of it. Income taxes contribute $1.688 trillion, half of the total. Another third, $1.238 trillion, comes from your payroll taxes. This includes $905 billion for Social Security, $275 billion for Medicare, and $47 billion for unemployment insurance.
https://www.thebalance.com/current-u-s-federal-government-tax-revenue-3305762
So, btw, we've had commie dumb fucks around forever. It's not a new problem. The point of a classically liberal education is to produce people who can think critically and on their own. It's not generate a bunch of bots who you find acceptable.
And, apparently you need some reading comprehension classes yourself, because the point of my post was that with all the kids and young adults and others in my immediate familial circle, I don't get any of this "sky is falling" shit from our current system of higher ed. People pursue their political leanings for all kinds of reasons; I think the role of faculty is overstated and their influence fades dramatically each day that follows the course's conclusion. That's what I was saying asshole.
They do, still, in fact, teach all of the things you listed, and those are good things to learn. But the point of learning them is not to generate good little people who fit your bill. The world changed over time and it will continue to change over time. Sure, today, I'm in lock step with a lot of people here as it relates to political philosophy: liberty, freedom to succeed, freedom to fail, rule of law, free and trustworthy markets. My family fled a communist revolution and lost almost everything that wasn't in between their ears. I hardly need a lesson in it. It's pretty hard-wired at this point.
But, the smartest guy I had at Washington was in Savery Hall. A fellow by the name of Ken Clatterbaugh. Ken was chair of the philo department and a card-carrying commie. He taught how to think and how to write. He taught me a lot of history, economics and political science. We argued and he put me to my paces. THAT is an education. Not an indoctrination. And, again, the guy was a bright red communist of the first order. But a brilliant one.
Post-modernism is a word that is thrown around a lot, often by people who barely understand it. Again, I can guarantee you from empirical experience that kids attending university today are still getting a great education and are learning the things you mentioned, and more.
I don't care if you disagree with me. I see it. My kids come home from college and argue with me about shit all the time. Only thing that has changed is that they're better at it than they were before they left.
We don't need to overreact to this shit. And part of that overreaction is this almost white-hot hatred of anything intellectual, and that sentiment is becoming very fashionable in our culture. And anything with the word "liberal" in it. The liberal arts are, in fact, under assault, not just by the political right and their constant refrain about "indoctrination camps", but also by the world that wants college to be practical and vocational and consist of glorified job training. Some of this is the fault of the system, which has made it unreasonably expensive. But some of it ... a lot of it ... is a shift in culture. A shift that is suspicious of intellectualism.
I'm an M&A lawyer and a Corp. Fin guy. I've never been sympathetic to socialist views, and my philosophy degree from UW serves me very well at my office every single day.
Of course not its to make bots who are dumb enough to think socialism can work
Socialism and communism should get the same treatment that Nazism gets in academia
Never a fucking again
Remind me again of the political affiliation of those who are attacking the teaching of the writings of “dead white male?”
It should all be taught and discussed. Nothing should go in the closet. That a half-dozen bananas who want to bury Shakespeare because he was white does not mean that our colleges are indoctrination camps. If they were, they've been so since the 1960s, and if so, we'd have been overrun by now. To be clear, I would vehemently oppose anyone arguing for the censorship of the study of the Nazi movement. It is part of any poli sci or history or philosophy class discussing the concept of fascism. They are studying today as much as they ever have. Believe it and don't believe this hysterical bullshit.
Too much chicken little.
Yeah, that's all it is. Just a "half dozen."
Study: Top universities dropping Shakespeare requirement
William Shakespeare's works are no longer required reading for English majors at most top universities, according to a study
The Chicago Sun-Times
April 23, 2015 by Sandra Guy
“Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven,” William Shakespeare wrote in “Henry VI, Part II.”
Educators would likely agree. But for English majors at top schools including Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, a working knowledge of Shakespeare is no longer required, according to a study published Wednesday.
Indeed, only four of 52 universities and liberal-arts colleges ranked highest by U.S. News & World Report required their English majors to take a class delving into Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies and historical works, according to the study by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.
What shade of purple are these professors saying haven't tried communism?
A professor who said we just need REAL Nazism would be gone. No warning, just gone. As they should be
Saying anything other than never again about a system that slaughtered 10s of millions of people while enslaving the rest is not an education it is an indictment
It should all be taught and discussed? But it isn’t discussed. It is forced indoctrination. Disagree and you get shouted down in the class room, encouraged to drop the class or given a bad grade. You seem intentionally ignorant of the actual facts on the ground. You think the University of Oregon Bias Response Team is looking at commies and sharia supporting muslims? Nope, they are looking for conservatives and hate speech as defined by leftards. The last think a leftard wants is an honest discussion. Ask a leftard about limiting CO2 production and how much it will cost and what it will accomplish and you get spit and a claim that you are a denier. Ask a leftard to define black for AA purposes and you again get spit and an accusation of racism.
1. Many top-tier universities have open curriculum. We can debate whether that's a good thing or not, but it was not invented as a means to bury white historical figures. The general view out there is that for very elite schools that only admit the best of the best of the best, the kids are typically intellectually curious and motivated enough to structure a solid education with fewer specific requirements than what has historically been the case. There is still some structure, but there aren't as many or any lists of specific classes one needs to take. It's not a designed assault on white authors. There is similarly no requirement to take, for example, an African American Lit. course. Or a course on history of south america. This might not be a good idea a schools with less talented and less motivated students. As a parent of a graduate of one of those schools, I can tell you it wasn't a problem. She took advantage of what was there, and then some. And the University of Chicago is, trust me, a very open place where all kinds of views are expressed and there are no safe spaces. None. Chicago in particular is not a great place for sensitive people. Nor is Dartmouth. Nor is Wesleyan. Nor is Harvard. Nor is Washington & Lee. There are other places that are similar. Schools are not as uniformly liberal as hysterical people suppose.
2. Why are you worried about Shakespeare? There are things that were studied at Oxford at the turn of the century that weren't required reading when I was at the U either, and that was a long time ago. So what? Things change. Nobody made me read Invisible Man. Nobody made my kid read it either. Shakespeare is there and taught at all those schools for those who want to take it. If you posit that kids should have to take Shakespeare, then we should talk about the other writers they should have to study as well.
3. I think/thought what we were discussing was the PC pressure by some to reject Shakespeare because he was dead, male and white. There are PC people out there. I don't deny it. But our colleges are not indoctrination camps for commies. I've been an adjunct at UW, Seattle U & SPU. I've almost completed educated three smart kids who attend or have attended schools that one would guess are not right wing heavy ... that is, I didn't write checks to Liberty University or Hillsdale College.