The triumph of the therapeutic and the eclipse of the tragic ensured that students’ expectations soared even as their intellectual and mental abilities to handle inevitable setbacks eroded. The result was a weird marriage in both today’s student and professor of arrogance and ignorance—assurance that bad things either won’t happen or can be easily addressed by identifying the right -ism or -ology, but utter confusion when that never seems quite to be the case.
Interesting article. I could see some aspects of VDH’s view in the high school where I used to teach, but it was usually the students challenging me why Aristotle is preferable to whatever pop fiction novel is selling this week. As far as I am concerned, and I think Dr. Hanson would agree, teachers and professors need to be the ones who step up and explain why it is vitally important that we learn the liberal arts and the history of the West; students cannot, and will not, do it on their own.
UPDATE: Because of this post, I’m on the front page of City Journal right now:
I’m famous! Sort of.
Filed under: America, Classics, Current Events, Education, Gender War, Hippies, History, Politics, The West
