Up@dawn 2.0

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Collaboration in the marketplace of ideas

A good book on the state of the modern university by Louis Menand, The Marketplace of Ideas, notes that the university is supposed to "help people think better by helping them think together." That's why we try to co-philosophize here. [LISTEN]


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Also worth considering, as another academic year begins: 

College: What it Was, Is, and Should Beby Andrew Delbanco

As the commercialization of American higher education accelerates, more and more students are coming to college with the narrow aim of obtaining a preprofessional credential. The traditional four-year college experience--an exploratory time for students to discover their passions and test ideas and values with the help of teachers and peers--is in danger of becoming a thing of the past.
Andrew Delbanco offers a trenchant defense of such an education, and warns that it is becoming a privilege reserved for the relatively rich. In arguing for what a true college education should be, he demonstrates why making it available to as many young people as possible remains central to America's democratic promise.
Delbanco explains how the idea of college arose in the colonial period from the Puritan idea of the gathered church, how it struggled to survive in the nineteenth century in the shadow of the new research universities, and how, in the twentieth century, it slowly opened its doors to women, minorities, and students from low-income families. He describes the unique strengths of America's colleges in our era of globalization and, while recognizing the growing centrality of science, technology, and vocational subjects in the curriculum, he mounts a vigorous defense of a broadly humanistic education for all. Acknowledging the serious financial, intellectual, and ethical challenges that all colleges face today, Delbanco considers what is at stake in the urgent effort to protect these venerable institutions for future generations.
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Also of interest:

SCIENCE SALON # 79

Michael Shermer with Anthony Kronman — The Assault on American Excellence

The Assault on American Excellence (book cover)
The former dean of Yale Law School argues that the feverish egalitarianism gripping college campuses today is out of place at institutions whose job is to prepare citizens to live in a vibrant democracy. In his tenure at Yale, Anthony Kronman has watched students march across campus to protest the names of buildings and seen colleagues resign over emails about Halloween costumes. He is no stranger to recent confrontations at American universities. But where many see only the suppression of free speech, the babying of students, and the drive to bury the imperfect parts of our history, Kronman recognizes in these on-campus clashes a threat to our democracy. Shermer and Kronman discuss:
  • free speech vs. hate speech
  • how language effects how we think about other people
  • diversity of characteristics (race, gender) vs. diversity of viewpoints
  • the search for universal truths vs. understanding other’s perspectives
  • affirmative action in the academy: from the University of California to Harvard
  • taking down statues of Hitler and Stalin vs. taking down statues of Confederate Generals
  • the problem of applying current moral values to the past, and
  • how to reform the academy to refocus on excellence.
Anthony T. Kronman served as the dean of Yale Law School from 1994–2004, and has taught at the university for forty years. He is the author or coauthor of five books, including The Assault on American ExcellenceEducation’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life; and Confessions of a Born-Again Pagan.
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“The question of how to spend my life, of what my life is for, is a question posed only to me, and I can no more delegate the responsibility for answering it than I can delegate the task of dying.” 
― Anthony T. Kronman, Education's End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life

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