Exhibit A: The internet.
I think that a good education on how to formulate an idea/construct an argument and some schooling on the history of ideas would lead to many improvements.
I also believe that of the grumpy people on the interwebs, the well-intentioned but woefully ignorant[1] outnumber the downright malignant.
I do recognize that this would lead to better armed flamers and trolls, but I think that the benefits outweigh the downsides significantly. I think that the well-phrased flamer himself is an improvement over the club-wielder. This is because you can actually understand why they are being an asshole, even if they're dead wrong.
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[1] - I want to reassure the reader that I include myself in the well-intentioned ignoramus category.
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3 comments:
When did this blog come into being?
I think your basic point here is right on (it's something I've been thinking about a lot for professional reasons) --- and the fact that discourse has already eroded shows that the connection between humanistic inquiry and public discourse has already eroded and is eroding.
The question then becomes --- are the humanities at the university part of the problem or the solution?
That, I don't know. Lots of interesting ideas we should talk about though.
This "blog" has been around on and off since 2007 but I mostly use it as a place to write down silliness. Savannah says that I use it as most people use Twitter, but I refuse to publicly acknowledge that directly.
I wonder if the humanities at the university are part of the problem insomuch as they ceded dominion over the public discourse to the parties who are more interested in personal enunciation than humanistic inquiry.
Genau.
This is like a letter I was going to write to our univ. pres. when he asked us at a lunch "what would happen if electricity shut off" and enumerated the immediate disaster (this in response to Luddites) --- i thought of sending him a letter --- what if the humanities ceased to exist and talk about how nothing would happen at first but gradually the course of public discourse and life would detoriorate. And then I'd say, "if it sounds like this is already happening, it's because it already is happening. Part of the blame lies with the liberal arts, which has refused to compromise it's perceived purity, but part of the fault lies with people who should have been promoting the humanities in the public sphere and weren't..."
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