While trolling over the internet, I came across an excellent essay by George Leef that I had to share. For those of you with an interest in college life and higher education overall, you have to read this essay. It’s a great combination of interesting, biting truth regarding the end results that we expect from students at our universities and colleges. My favorite part of the essay:
The final bad answer Henrie discusses is the idea, derived from John Stuart Mill, that the purpose of college is to get students to challenge reigning beliefs. The trouble with this approach is that it tends to collapse into a universal skepticism. Students are conditioned to think that all our traditions and institutions must be defective if they can’t pass the test of rigorous rationality. Utopian reformers love this, since it creates a horde of young people who imagine themselves to be deep and “critical” thinkers, but who actually have very shallow minds.
Ha ha! You really have to read the entire essay to understand where Mr. Leef is coming from. How many of us know people who have ridiculous, anarchist views on government which they attribute to their college experience (* raises hand *)? How many of us know people who justify the use of drug use because it allows them to produce deeper thoughts (* raises hand again *)? I love this article!
And it’s so true, too. Many people might be able to recall a college experience where great time and effort was put into competing theories of government, for example. Then those competing theories were used to measure up against the American system (again, for example). But how many students or graduates can recall a class that talks about how the American system (or some other system) of government is the best, feasible working government? Not many.
Anyway, just sharing – I thought it was enlightening.
