(no subject)
Prof asks: “Western Civ class, what do you know about Niccolo Machiavelli?”
The answer: "Umm, I think he was a bad leader. He wasn't very fair."
Aside from the fact that Machiavelli was a political theorist and a writer, not an official of any kind...
It wasn't an opinion question, normative claims need not apply.
The professor wasn't suggesting we become Machiavellians; the point of the lecture was to understand the political theory behind Italian despotism during the Renaissance, because understanding that helps you understand that tiny boot of the world during one specific time frame. (Which I guess is valuable, but that's another post for another time.)
I am awed by the number of college students who haven't figured that out yet!
I'm taking this metaphysics class, and it's essentially one absurd proof for the existence of God after another. God is based on archaic terminology, a vague understanding of atomism, Catch-22s and begged questions.
It doesn't exactly sell me on God, hello, it's not supposed to!
No one is trying to convince us to believe in monads; the class is a history of the evolution of thought. It was no longer, “God exists because I'll burn you at the stake if you don't believe in Christianity,” or even “God exists because it's a mystery and human brains are too puny to question it.” No, metaphysical thought slowly and sometimes strangely got off the ground. Science! Logic! Hip hip hooray!
But around me I see adult students expecting professors to tell them what to think, what is real and what is “good.” And/or, I see students judge a chunk of history as good or bad, based on whether they believe it or not today. Maybe it stems from getting a secular education at a religious institution? I just don't get it, that's not what education is!
Education is a tour of different viewpoints and occurrences. It's like standing at a table with a bunch of different glasses. You try a pair on, look at the world with them, understand how a person with those glasses interacts with history. Take notes. Cool, you can put them back on the table. You don't have smash them if they don't match your prescription. You can put on another pair of glasses now.
You shouldn't be looking for something to subscribe to, that's a different kind of research quest. Get over it; know what you believe, but be able to take in new or different information.
And I keep thinking of a professor in South Africa trying to help the Americans seems less Ugly American by explaining how to treat grades and schoolwork. Prof said an underlying staple of African philosophy is that there's only so much good to go around for the group. So don't horde the goodness by clamoring for A's-you might have made someone fail. (Or if you do get A's, don't show it off, for those reasons.)
And this girl I knew turned around and had a side conversation, saying, “Oh, that is so not true.”
She wasn't saying that the staple of African philosophy was incorrectly explained to us; she was saying that “the world totally doesn't run that way, duh!”
WHO CARES. In sociological terms, something can be true by its consequences. Meaning, people are going to believe you're an Ugly American Goodness Thief of you don't respect their culture, and you, a foreigner, should act according to custom!
I don't know how to wrap this up, really. I wish I was graduating this year; I am suffocating in this small pond.
The answer: "Umm, I think he was a bad leader. He wasn't very fair."
Aside from the fact that Machiavelli was a political theorist and a writer, not an official of any kind...
It wasn't an opinion question, normative claims need not apply.
The professor wasn't suggesting we become Machiavellians; the point of the lecture was to understand the political theory behind Italian despotism during the Renaissance, because understanding that helps you understand that tiny boot of the world during one specific time frame. (Which I guess is valuable, but that's another post for another time.)
I am awed by the number of college students who haven't figured that out yet!
I'm taking this metaphysics class, and it's essentially one absurd proof for the existence of God after another. God is based on archaic terminology, a vague understanding of atomism, Catch-22s and begged questions.
It doesn't exactly sell me on God, hello, it's not supposed to!
No one is trying to convince us to believe in monads; the class is a history of the evolution of thought. It was no longer, “God exists because I'll burn you at the stake if you don't believe in Christianity,” or even “God exists because it's a mystery and human brains are too puny to question it.” No, metaphysical thought slowly and sometimes strangely got off the ground. Science! Logic! Hip hip hooray!
But around me I see adult students expecting professors to tell them what to think, what is real and what is “good.” And/or, I see students judge a chunk of history as good or bad, based on whether they believe it or not today. Maybe it stems from getting a secular education at a religious institution? I just don't get it, that's not what education is!
Education is a tour of different viewpoints and occurrences. It's like standing at a table with a bunch of different glasses. You try a pair on, look at the world with them, understand how a person with those glasses interacts with history. Take notes. Cool, you can put them back on the table. You don't have smash them if they don't match your prescription. You can put on another pair of glasses now.
You shouldn't be looking for something to subscribe to, that's a different kind of research quest. Get over it; know what you believe, but be able to take in new or different information.
And I keep thinking of a professor in South Africa trying to help the Americans seems less Ugly American by explaining how to treat grades and schoolwork. Prof said an underlying staple of African philosophy is that there's only so much good to go around for the group. So don't horde the goodness by clamoring for A's-you might have made someone fail. (Or if you do get A's, don't show it off, for those reasons.)
And this girl I knew turned around and had a side conversation, saying, “Oh, that is so not true.”
She wasn't saying that the staple of African philosophy was incorrectly explained to us; she was saying that “the world totally doesn't run that way, duh!”
WHO CARES. In sociological terms, something can be true by its consequences. Meaning, people are going to believe you're an Ugly American Goodness Thief of you don't respect their culture, and you, a foreigner, should act according to custom!
I don't know how to wrap this up, really. I wish I was graduating this year; I am suffocating in this small pond.