I dunno. I think that the conservatives have some valuable things to say about the corporatization and vocationalism of modern undergraduate schools. Not many other folk are defending the humanities with any passion or any perspective.
I dunno. I think that the conservatives have some valuable things to say about the corporatization and vocationalism of modern undergraduate schools. Not many other folk are defending the humanities with any passion or any perspective.
> The modern history of Europe is littered with the projects of Rationalism. The most sublime of these... Robert Owen for 'a world convention to emancipate the human race from ignorance, poverty, division, sin, and misery'--so sublime that even a Rationalist (though without much justification) might think it eccentric. But not less characteristic... the common disposition to believe that political machinery can take the place of moral and political education.... The notion of founding a society... on the Declaration of the Rights of Man... 'national' or racial self-determination... re-union of the Christian churches... open diplomacy... a civil service... [with] "no qualifications other than... abilit[y]"... the Beveridge Report, the Education Act of 1944, Federalism, the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Votes for Women...
Oakeshott on rationalism is just warmed-over Burke: more systematic perhaps, but less nutritious. Hifalutin anticommunism. Meh. (Disclaimer: I adore Burke, although Regicide Peace is old-man-yelling-at-clouds. Judge thinkers by their best stuff.)
But Oakeshott wrote well about the value of a humanities education. As a conservative, he is way too elitist for my taste. Humanities for the Eloi; vocational education for the Morlocks! (He seemed to view scientists as honorary Eloi.) But it isn't hard to transfer most of his arguments to a more egalitarian frame.
I dunno. I think that the conservatives have some valuable things to say about the corporatization and vocationalism of modern undergraduate schools. Not many other folk are defending the humanities with any passion or any perspective.
Who, eggzackly? & what?
Much of the faculty of St. Johns College, for starters. Michael Oakeshott.
I'm not talking about the Trumpazoids, of course.
Never much warmed to Oakeshott:
> The modern history of Europe is littered with the projects of Rationalism. The most sublime of these... Robert Owen for 'a world convention to emancipate the human race from ignorance, poverty, division, sin, and misery'--so sublime that even a Rationalist (though without much justification) might think it eccentric. But not less characteristic... the common disposition to believe that political machinery can take the place of moral and political education.... The notion of founding a society... on the Declaration of the Rights of Man... 'national' or racial self-determination... re-union of the Christian churches... open diplomacy... a civil service... [with] "no qualifications other than... abilit[y]"... the Beveridge Report, the Education Act of 1944, Federalism, the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Votes for Women...
Oakeshott on rationalism is just warmed-over Burke: more systematic perhaps, but less nutritious. Hifalutin anticommunism. Meh. (Disclaimer: I adore Burke, although Regicide Peace is old-man-yelling-at-clouds. Judge thinkers by their best stuff.)
But Oakeshott wrote well about the value of a humanities education. As a conservative, he is way too elitist for my taste. Humanities for the Eloi; vocational education for the Morlocks! (He seemed to view scientists as honorary Eloi.) But it isn't hard to transfer most of his arguments to a more egalitarian frame.