For John, BLUF: Is higher education about feeling good or is it about feeling challenged? Nothing to see here; just move along.
Professor Althouse, looking at an OpEd in The Daily Californian, headlined "Occupy the syllabus", focuses on the last question in the last paragraph:
So, if you have taken classes in the social sciences and humanities, we challenge you: Count the readings authored by white males and those authored by the majority of humanity. Then ask yourself: Are your identities and the identities of people you love reflected on these syllabi? Whose perspectives and life experiences are excluded? Is it really worth it to accumulate debt for such an epistemically poor education?I challenge the author, count the number of free and democratic cultures you can find and then ask yourself: Are there good alternative writers to those on the syllabi who love and respect your cultural values? Then ask yourself if your cultural values are compatible with the American Democracy, flawed as it may be?
What are they thinking, or aren't they thinking?
Hat tip to Ann Althouse, who give a hat tip to the Instapundit.
Regards — Cliff
2 comments:
American Democracy, which we all love and consider the best form of Government in the world, is an inclusive form of Government, not exclusive to white, male, East Coast schooled authors as the blogger implies. Why can't a Hispanic American, Asian American, Black American, woman, homosexual, non Catholic person be included as an author in the syllabi?
Can, but if one is looking for the classic authors one may have a narrow field. And as for homosexuals, what do we know of the sexual proclivities of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Doesn't the Book of Maccabees talk to that?
When you say East Coast schooled authors and suggest they are Catholics I think you miss how slow Catholics were to become part of "America". It was a huge step for the Virginia delegation to attend a Catholic Mass in Philly a week before the Constitutional Convention. At that point Catholics were still three decades away from being able to hold elected office in Massachusetts, per the Commonwealth's Constitution.
And, I think the authors in question were more likely European or British, rather than from the US East Coast.
Regards — Cliff
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