[Cornel West] DeSantis’s Revolutionary Defense of the Classics

Offended lol. No.

You may think it's funny and a joke, but I see through all of what this is - this CLT thing as a not so hidden attempt to cater to people who want white culture to dominate again and you are helping rationalize it into something good and innocent when it's not.

That's not me being offended, it's me being honest with you. If you feel like laughing at me for that, that's your right. It doesn't offend me on bit how you feel or think. But it does surprise me.

 

Sounds like an entrance exam most suited for students entering faith-based (Christian) colleges.

Students should have the choice on what college entrance exams they want to take and colleges the choice on which one they accept. State forcing one path that is geared toward faith-based colleges and serves a small minority would have a huge negative impact on student as a whole.

 

This isn't about saying that Western Civ/Christianity isn't something kids shouldn't learn about, just like we should learn about the history of racism and yet that is being excluded.

This is the problem. It's not that Western Civ shouldn't be part of a test - it's that it shouldn't be the ONLY part of a test. And that's the problem here.

 

read the quote from the test creator I posted above.

 

Christianity certainly plays a large role in the Western Civilization and modern civilization in general what I’ve always found interesting though is that it does because Christianity co-opted non Christian philosophy. The Judaic tradition that Jesus came from and likely preached was very different than what later Christian leaders and philosophers had. It’s why the parts of the Old Testament is outrightly contradicted by parts of the New Testament.

I would say that though it came down through Christian scholarship and that Christianity in the West became synonymous with civilized much of our philosophy and politics is from Pagan traditions rather than directly from Judeo Christian views. Christian philosophers like Aquinas and Augustine pretty much acknowledge that. The Enlightenment where much of our political structure comes from looked to Rome and Greece for inspiration and not to Judea.

In fact many of the Founding Fathers didn’t consider themselves religious Christians and Jefferson was openly skeptical of the miraculous claims of the Bible.

 

Also I find it ironic how current politicians push for he importance of Plato and other ancient Greeks while also railing about the need to protect children from the LGBTQ agenda and groomers

The ancient Greeks were all for same sex pedophilia. The Spartans that many on the Right love to celebrate for their uncompromising manliness were considered by other Greeks the biggest pederasts.

 

Delete

 

I simply agree that classical literature enhances education but entrance exams should measure universal academic skills

 

His a Troll to the highest order

 

Politically, I see this more as a nod to Rome than scoring points with Christians.

RDS graduated Yale and Harvard with a political track towards career politics. Given his quirky freakazoid gaffes, he's a nerd and bookworm with more experience in his mind space than in social circles... A less sycophantic Ted Cruz?

Anyhow, training with the classics is one of the core reqs of an ivy league education in the Arts. It forms an underpinning with philosophy, law, and it's combination with Judeo-Christian studies forms the bulkwark of Western literature.

I've knocked on RDS for making students dumber, but this req makes gifted students smarter. Critical thinking does not happen in a vacuum. Our biggest and most persistent conceit is that we are better and more evolved than people 2-3000 years ago. Where did democracy come from? How did they live? What were their most persistent problems of the day?

But they practiced slavery! Omg, savages! Yuck! Ptooey!
No ****s given to our increasingly worse treatment of illegals and homeless. Cancel Apple? For what?? I love their products!

 

The debate isn't about whether to let people use their TI-81 calculator on a test.

The SAT, ACT, and others already incorporate western civ to a large degree. Having a test that is exclusively around western civ and Christian values/culture is just strange. Why not have Japanese bullet trains as part of a match problems? Why not quote from black authors in reading comprehension excerpts? Why only have Christian values represented?

Law goes far beyond Christianity Especially in a global context - and we aren't talking about a replacement for the LSAT, we're talking about SAT/ACT which are really basic. To literally whitewash a test is dangerous - because then you are encouraging a curriculum that is optimized for that test.

I honestly find the whole thing disgusting. Conservative cry about their kids being indoctrinated by liberalism, anti-racims, and groomed to accept nonbianary genders - yet they want to do this?

It's just jingoism and nationalism being rationalized.

 

Whoa, missed that LinkedIn update.

"See?!!?!!" - Mary Lefkowitz

 

Fine and good until DeSantis and his ilk actually read these books themselves and realize they need to ban them...

 

Classical education, such as that focused on works by Plato and Aristotle, has limitations. If you are interested in pursuing a traditional liberal arts education, then it may be suitable for you. However, if you want to pursue modern education, especially in the tech field, you should not overly emphasize classical philosophy or Western intellectual traditions. These traditions do not fit well with modern times.

 

Tech field has tons of people coming from different majors. I graduated with a environmental science degree and started from the bottom in IT. The emphasis in all STEM is to become more cross functional and multidisciplinary. With automation and Assisted AI, skills that cultivate critical thinking and meta learning are held at higher premiums than good test takers in math and science.

You're framing it in a way where plato and Aristotle will be taught in a rigidly dogmatic matter when its usually known as a gateway towards the different branching schools of philosophy that came afterwards. Much like any person going into Western creative media needs to familiarize themselves with the Bible, it's outsized role for allegories, symbols, and themes, they don't have to be Christians or even like it rather traim themselves to recognize the art around them.

People get too hung up over the tangent that it's "too ethnocentric." Take Chinese philosophy for example, there's no one-stop "Chinese philo" week to boil down the tenets of a 5k year old civ. You could try starting from confucianism but it doesn distill the entire picture. Chinese culture is very adaptive and reflexive to the point where the philosophy itself can turn contradictory over time. Buddhism, taoism, legalism, moism are either attempts for a different approach, blending the previous influences, or tearing them down. Not exaclty a one semester course to build critical thinking upon, but more of a "history lesson" to be taught rote and left for the individual to pursue on their own. Catholicsm shares similar traits as it's also old af with some brilliant minds figuring out the deeper questions people as as Christians...

So what are "non-western centric alternatives" to carry the same objective for catalyzing critical thought, analysis, and perceiving modern social constructs without someone else telling you what it is or should be? Mind you, all three are not required to land a comp sci degree, but all three are requisite traits to make you a damn good software engineer, product analyst, project manager. It might even be a requisite for not getting shitcanned when ai starts successfully writes industrial scalable code.

The lack of a tried and true alternative is really the challenge for the equity concern bros. Sure you can use post modernist deconstruction to tear things down through it's source, but without building something more resilient and better serves the original intent, that's not deconstruction but plain old wanton destruction.

For all of ivy leagues warts of elitism and gatekeeping, it has produced free thinkers for both sides. It enabled those who were determined for change to have the tools or platform necessary to make something out of it. I wouldn't call them geniuses or our betters. Their drive was their own, but the teaching gave them a language and perspective to successfully communicate their goals.

There's something haphazard when vegetarians start invading the kitchen and demanding recipe changes like tofu or satan without understanding what the end product tastes. Indians and Buddhists have lived thousands of years without heavy meat consumption so it's definitely possible. But our hubris and willful ignorance assumes the ingredient swap is painless along with catering to tastes and whims of our culture...beyond meat, a chemical soup of reconstrued proteins with intense salt and flavorings, zero spice variety, etc...

In the end, we claim we prioritize numbers and science but these alternatives or great shifts to address past cultural grievances have zero empirical basis behind them at all.

Is that "cutting off our noses to spite our faces?"

Don't know. I'm a numbers STEM guy.

 

Overemphasizing is the key word. We need more diverse thoughts and ideas in learning. Overemphasizing classics is not a pathway towards developing a critical thinking adult who can tackle numerous and tougher challenges in the future.

I'd like to share a bit of my background as well. In sixth grade, a computer science teacher pulled me aside and said, 'I think you would do great in the computer field.' I was using an Apple computer (I can't remember the model now but it's at least 35 years old) in my spare class time to create a simple program that showed an animation of a train light with user input to change its speed and color. Although it was fun and cool, it wasn't something I was truly interested in. I ended up in the tech field because I calculated it would probably yield the best return and I was sure I could be good at it, but my interests were actually in philosophy, logic, religion, and psychology. I took a number of those classes as electives. I learned everything (but basic undergraduate level) from classic western philosophy to eastern thoughts. If making a living wasn't my priority at the time, I probably would have majored in philosophy. From my experience, while I appreciate the classics very much, overemphasizing them is very limiting.

I've been telling students, friends, and family for years now: the future in technology is not just STEM. It's the ability to come up with creative solutions. To me, that needs more of a liberal arts slant than just a technical one. Philosophy, psychology, and logic all play a vital role in developing tomorrow's minds that use powerful tools beyond our current imagination. The 1s and 0s are still there, but the opportunities for those who can't think beyond them are extremely limited.