A Bachelors in Rhetoric, Jurus Doctor (i.e. Bachelors in Law) and PhD in Communications (on a par with Gender Studies). Lawyers need rhetoric, but consider Plato's Gorgias and what his mouthpiece Socrates - who rubbishes the notion - has to say about Rhetoric.
This shows you how modern government has abetted the creation of nonsense degrees. If you're a smart young fella, but you really don't have the ambition to go to law school, or you go and realize practicing law is actually work, you can always find a job in the vast bureaucracy, with that shiny diploma certifying you are of above-average intelligence, but not particularly interested in hard or productive work, i.e., you are the perfect employee for government work.
The current depression has made state and local governments cut back, so they aren't sopping up the constant ooze of these people out of their state-funded universities, making the young grads cranky that their promised sinecures aren't waiting for them, so they go and occupy Wall Street.
I sincerely doubt that the Northern Gateway pipeline will be built. I live right on the path of the proposed pipeline and the opposition to it up here is huge. Left wing types from Vancouver and even the US have sunk huge sums of money into protest organizations up here specifically designed to stop the pipeline. Recent local municipal elections have resulted in many communities in the north with left wing mayors opposed to the pipeline. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that this has far more to do with slowing or stopping Canada's oil sands output in favour of ME oil than any left wing environmentalist's agenda or Obama's stupidity.
To see what was once one of the most valued skills in the educated Western man descend to this level speaks volumes about the destruction of Western culture.
Researching collegiate major programs in this discipline makes me want to throw up; if anyone wants to ask where the old-fashioned American masculine statesmen of old have gone, tell them they vanished with the death of the classical rhetoric program.
As a couple of other posters have pointed out, this is a great example of how we've hollowed out what used to be real degrees.
Time was a liberal arts degree meant what it (in theory) still means at St. Johns (the one in Annapolis and Santa Fe). It meant you started reading at Homer, worked through difficult texts, learned calculus by reading Leibniz, the laws of motion by reading Newton, and light by reading Maxwell. It meant a breadth of knowledge that covered all of western civilization and wasn't afraid of the fact that most of that writing was by dead white men.
As much as we like to celebrate the STEM major for knowing something useful, the liberal arts major of old did as well. He understood the human condition and the advantages and limits it brought. It wasn't people who had that kind of liberal arts degrees that brought us feminism but those who couldn't hack it and were jealous.
So they destroyed the own thing to sooth their inferiority complex.
A Bachelors in Rhetoric, Jurus Doctor (i.e. Bachelors in Law) and PhD in Communications (on a par with Gender Studies). Lawyers need rhetoric, but consider Plato's Gorgias and what his mouthpiece Socrates - who rubbishes the notion - has to say about Rhetoric.
ReplyDeleteThis shows you how modern government has abetted the creation of nonsense degrees. If you're a smart young fella, but you really don't have the ambition to go to law school, or you go and realize practicing law is actually work, you can always find a job in the vast bureaucracy, with that shiny diploma certifying you are of above-average intelligence, but not particularly interested in hard or productive work, i.e., you are the perfect employee for government work.
ReplyDeleteThe current depression has made state and local governments cut back, so they aren't sopping up the constant ooze of these people out of their state-funded universities, making the young grads cranky that their promised sinecures aren't waiting for them, so they go and occupy Wall Street.
I sincerely doubt that the Northern Gateway pipeline will be built. I live right on the path of the proposed pipeline and the opposition to it up here is huge. Left wing types from Vancouver and even the US have sunk huge sums of money into protest organizations up here specifically designed to stop the pipeline. Recent local municipal elections have resulted in many communities in the north with left wing mayors opposed to the pipeline. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that this has far more to do with slowing or stopping Canada's oil sands output in favour of ME oil than any left wing environmentalist's agenda or Obama's stupidity.
ReplyDeleteIf you are going into politics, Rhetoric actually serves a purpose. That's more than can be said for Wimmins Herstory or Zulu folk dance.
ReplyDeletePhD in communications studies is even more stupid and gay.
ReplyDeleteTo see what was once one of the most valued skills in the educated Western man descend to this level speaks volumes about the destruction of Western culture.
ReplyDeleteResearching collegiate major programs in this discipline makes me want to throw up; if anyone wants to ask where the old-fashioned American masculine statesmen of old have gone, tell them they vanished with the death of the classical rhetoric program.
Hey, a rhetoric degree was good enough for Joshua Chamberlain.
ReplyDeleteThen again, he isn't exactly politically correct among the politically correct circles that value rhetoric degrees today. . . .
Nevermind.
You could not make up this profile... good grief...
ReplyDeleteWhat next, degrees in Human Resources? Oh, wait a second...
As a couple of other posters have pointed out, this is a great example of how we've hollowed out what used to be real degrees.
ReplyDeleteTime was a liberal arts degree meant what it (in theory) still means at St. Johns (the one in Annapolis and Santa Fe). It meant you started reading at Homer, worked through difficult texts, learned calculus by reading Leibniz, the laws of motion by reading Newton, and light by reading Maxwell. It meant a breadth of knowledge that covered all of western civilization and wasn't afraid of the fact that most of that writing was by dead white men.
As much as we like to celebrate the STEM major for knowing something useful, the liberal arts major of old did as well. He understood the human condition and the advantages and limits it brought. It wasn't people who had that kind of liberal arts degrees that brought us feminism but those who couldn't hack it and were jealous.
So they destroyed the own thing to sooth their inferiority complex.