Category: Death by Education

Two Reflections On Higher Education

The purpose of higher education, as originally founded in the solid ground of the classical philosophic life, was to foster the civilized notions that there is no real safety in numbers; that truth is not amenable to popular opinion; that the adage “knowledge is power” is not reversible; that detached, quiet reflection is the only antidote to the intellectual poison of the public...

Notes From Beyond the Tinderbox

Contrary to the implicit and socially-imposed assumption of our era, it is not inherently antisemitic to disagree with, or even to soundly criticize, the policies or actions of the Israeli government, including during a time of conflict. The Israeli government is comprised of the elected representatives of the people of Israel. If Israelis themselves decided that they no longer trusted the leadership of...

Reflections on Three Private Activities: Talking, Writing, Reading

A student asks me what I make of the fact that she often talks to herself while walking, either repeating words she has recently said to someone or imagining what she would say in situations yet to come. My reply: I talk to myself while walking all the time. Sometimes I suddenly catch myself talking a bit too audibly, or with too much...

Is This The Answer To Educational Decline?

Jordan Peterson has a school. — The most inflated ego and most compromised mind in today’s world of internet celebrity gurus imagines he is going to make oodles of money by pretending to offer people some sort of university equivalency certificate from an online teaching institute named (what else?) Peterson Academy. Of course, his “school” will star all the best educators, because who...

The Inclusiveness Express Hits Another Pothole

North American Muslims, by a large majority, strongly oppose the use of public schools to promote the sexual deviancy normalization agenda of the radical left. Do they take this position because: (a) they have been tricked by the anti-democratic American extreme right wing, as Justin Trudeau has alleged, in a brilliant example of classic Trudeauesque snobbish condescension; (b) they are too ignorant to...

How Progressivism Kills Higher Education

Almost two thousand years ago, the Romans rounded up Christians and other offenders against official beliefs and fed them to wild dogs and lions, as a form of popular religious expression/entertainment. A few hundred years ago, it was Christians of Europe and America rounding up alleged witches, and burning them at the stake or hanging them, as an expression of religious orthodoxy. What...

Higher Education

The most effective way to enslave a man — most effective in the sense of providing the greatest possible assurance that one need fear no significant rebellion — is not to forcibly restrain him, against his desire to flee. For such restraint merely reminds him, at every moment, that there is a place which your interests demand that he never go, thus whetting...

The Unexamined Life Today

The challenge in teaching Plato’s Apology used to be overcoming the students’ incredulity and incomprehension faced with the historical fact of a supposedly democratic society rejecting the philosophic activity so stridently as to put a man’s freedom and his very life on trial, merely for asking questions that the political establishment did not like. “How unjust and intolerant the Athenian people must have...

The Smugness of Ignorance

When you encounter a theoretical or artistic work that has been highly regarded by advanced societies since before you were born, perhaps even before your great-great-grandparents were born, the reasonable point of view is to assume that the work must have some sort of merit, perhaps even greatness, that justifies its longevity and enduring admiration. This is not to say that you must...

Sensitivity and the Meaning of Education

An adjunct professor foolish enough to teach an art class at a totalitarian reeducation camp in Minnesota (aka Hamline University) showed a medieval painting depicting Muhammad, after having directly advised students in the course syllabus and during the semester that this painting would be shown and discussed in her online lecture, and offering an opportunity for any students who might be inclined to...