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Continuing with the current St. John's College president on articles on liberal education by Jacob Klein (former Dean of SJC), Sidney Hook (critiquing the SJC program), and Martha Nussbaum (critiquing Allan Bloom).
What's the practical application of a liberal education? Is it really liberating or indoctrinating? How can we justify learning for learning's sake in a world with so many problems that need our attention?
We continue discussion of the SJC model, where students are forced to grapple with texts without the benefit of a professor telling them what it means, and they study things like the history of science that even scientists don't generally study. As with the PEL community, the SJC program involves a group of students all literally on the same page, working through the same texts over multiple years.
Listen to part 1 first or get the ad-free Citizen Edition along with the follow-up discussion featuring Wes and Dylan talking about two more essays by Leo Strauss and Richard Rorty. Please support PEL!
End song: "Preservation Hill" by The Bevis Frond; Mark interviewed Nick Saloman on Nakedly Examined Music #75.
‘Liberal education’ post-script:
A more nuanced explanation of contemporary preferences for practical degrees over classically liberal ones?
Oh, the Humanities!
New data on college majors confirms an old trend. Technocracy is crushing the life out of humanism.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/08/opinion/oh-the-humanities.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region