Of course, it doesn’t matter how many outright lies Romney tells, Politifact and Glenn Kessler will tell us both sides do it, that even saying the word “vouchercare” marks you as an unserious partisan, that when the far left and far right are criticizing you, you must be doing something right, and so on. That’s just what they’re set up to do.
I am surprised, though, that this didn’t get more play (it was mentioned here and in some other blogs, but not much place else):
“We’ve always encouraged young people: Take a shot, go for it. Take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents, start a business,” Romney said.
Romney says things out-of-touch rich guy things like this all the time, of course, but Democrats have to keep talking about it. Because establishment media’s mostly going to ignore it.
gogol's wife
OT but not really. My head exploded when I looked at the NYTimes Sunday magazine (“The Money Issue”). The headline is something like, “Are the Rich Worth a Damn? Let’s ask a guy from Bain Capital.” Inside it says, “So-and-so of Bain Capital says income inequality isn’t the problem with the American economy. It’s part of the solution, and we need more of it.” This article is followed by one about how Wall Street hates Obama. I guess the Public Editor got his wish. They’re working hard to eradicate their pro-Obama bias.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think it was Maher who showed the clip of Mitt waxing Willardy about the splendid mansion where his latest fund-raiser was held– What a house! What grounds! What a pool!. The man actually used the word “grounds”. Even the professional Republican on the panel was just shaking her head sadly.
The real obscenity, of course, is that it was the splendid mansion of the guy who started Papa John’s pizza. He may not yet be as rich as the Domino’s guy, but… seriously, people, if that’s the best pizza in your town, make your own!
Jeff Spender
You misunderstand poor Romney.
He’s not talking to knaves like me. He’s talking to students who can afford college without sucking on the public teat.
You know, the producers. Not the parasites, like me, who couldn’t afford college without pell grants and scholarships.
Didn’t you know that I’m part of the problem?
Hill Dweller
Bill Maher was hammering Willard for saying that last night. He also showed video of Willard at a fundraiser–wearing white pants, a blue sports coat, and enough bronzer for a small country–looking out over the estate and saying something along the lines of ‘Democrats would look around and think people shouldn’t live like this, while Republicans look around and say every one should live like this’.
In Romney’s world success is measured in dollars. Money validates him. He can’t fathom someone being happy without vast amounts of money.
Joey Maloney
I figure that Romney figures he can say anydamnthing he wants because it really doesn’t matter. All he has to do is fill time for sound bites and B-roll on the tv news shows. The Republicans have bet the bank on the effectiveness of their voter suppression program and that’s where the election will be won or lost. The speechifying is just a sideshow this year.
schrodinger's cat
NYT has another one of those both sides do it article right on the front page,
Also, what is happening with Chen, can someone do a post on this, because I has a confused.
Villago Delenda Est
If Willard Rmoney was in France in 1792, he wouldn’t have made it to the Place de la Concorde for his demise.
The peasants would have strung him up on the grounds of his estate.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Video at D-Kos.
schrodinger's cat
DougJ@top
I think Bobo knows that you have been making fun of him on BJ, so he is coming right after you. The latest object of his fact free analysis is on institutions of higher learning aka universities, the supposed bastions of liberalism. Apparently the web is going to change everything, just like it did for journalism and of course he name drops, like he always does.
General Stuck
One of the good things about shit like this, the both sides do protective wrappings the press gives the wingnuts, is that a POTUS election can focus attention on the candidates, that even the media can’t launder.
Especially in the stretch run after the conventions. They will try, but there will be so much saturated exposure of Romney running his duplicitous tone deaf mouth, voters will get to know him much more so than now. Many may well still vote Romney for the main reason of voting against Obama, but it will take some serious willful ignorance of the unmitigated bullshit lies that flow from this guys piehole.
We are already seeing the comical efforts of his right wing surrogates slinging Swiftboat shit against the wall aimed Obama. Most of it old news that is trumped by his being on the job now for four years. Like the epically stupid dem comparison with mass murderers. And that will seem like child’s play to what is coming.
And Obama will be his usual calm smiling self, that will drive the nutters crazier still.
c u n d gulag
Looks like the MITT2012 cyborg was infected once again by the Thurston Howell the 3rd worm again!
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@schrodinger’s cat:
I thought his article wasn’t bad. My view is that online lectures have no value whatsoever, but that the internet will be a fantastic teaching tool in the medium term in ways we can’t predict yet. Maybe not the printing press but not far off.
I will probably never talk much about education here because I’ve come to realize that my views are completely different than anyone else here and that you’ll all yell at me if I tell you what I think in any detail.
danielx
To paraphrase the eminent Mr. Pierce –
I’m Mitt Romney, bitches, and I got mine. Fuck you.
Brian R.
@gogol’s wife:
I’m not sure if it was their intent, but that piece is only going to hurt Romney. It’s a guy from his old company explicitly saying “fuck the poor.”
General Stuck
@schrodinger’s cat:
I did see where uber neocon Billy Kristol was spanking Mitt for running his mouth white we were negotiating with the Chinese for Chen to come to this country, that apparently is going to happen.
arguingwithsignposts
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
The master troll say what?
Redshift
Longer Mitt Romney: “Republicans look around and say everyone should live like this” and if you don’t, it’s entirely your fault.
Violet
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
I’ll be interested to hear that. I think our education system is kind of a mess.
RossInDetroit
Now spinning on the platter, a nice counterpoint to Mitt:
Iggy Pop, Cry for Love
HRA
The twit in the office next to mine was a Romney hater during the primaries. Twice she has run into my office spouting one of Romney’s flips as being his stance on the subject when it was a flip on it and whatever it is Obama is really the one to blame. Twice I had to correct her loudly and with emphasis to have her run out. Did someone say 6 more months? Arghh!
handsmile
@schrodinger’s cat: (#6)
Re Chen Guangcheng
The Chinese foreign ministry has issued a statement that Chen can apply for a foreign study permit. New York University has offered Chen a fellowship at its US-Asia Law Institute. US State Department officials responded: “The United States government expects that the Chinese government will expeditiously process his applications for these documents, and make accommodations for his current medical condition….The United States government would then give visa requests for him and his immediate family priority attention.”
What remains uncertain is whether Chen’s wife and other family members will be allowed to travel with him. Chen has openly spoken of his fears that his family will face reprisals for his recent actions.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/04/chen-guangcheng-study-abroad-china
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@Violet:
My main belief is that we are wedded to a lot of things that just don’t work, but that educated people think the system must have worked for them because of the wonder of their beautiful minds.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: seriously, people, if that’s the best pizza in your town, make your own!
Yup. Cheaper, better, and not lots harder.
me
@gogol’s wife: “Wall Street hates Obama” Sounds like a good Obama campaign ad.
Davis X. Machina
@Joey Maloney:
Hard to be an optimist. It’s worked before. Twice.
Nylund
The GOP could propose a called “Medicare” consisting of bleedings and leeches to treat old people’s health problems, but if the Democrats described this as “killing Medicare and returning us to the Dark Ages” Polifact would give them a “pants on fire.”
schrodinger's cat
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity: What are those things? I think the University system here has the advantage that you have more choice than the more rigid British system, you can take classes that are not directly related to your major, change majors, for example, of course too much choice can be a problem in itself.
PeakVT
while Republicans look around and say every one should live like this’.
More lies.
schrodinger's cat
@handsmile: Does he want to leave? Does his family? What exactly is he protesting.
I had not heard of him before last week, he seems to have suddenly burst on the scene, how y do we know that the Chinese government is not behind this media circus, because they want to distract us from something far worse that is happening right now. BTW, this conspiracy minded view is not mine, but was expressed by a Chinese student who was I talking to yesterday.
Edited for clarity.
Redshift
Mitt’s “borrow money from your parents” bit reminded me of a news story I read years ago. Texas was voting on cuts to aid to the poor, and one legislator was quoted as saying “well, they’ll just have a bit less to leave to their children.”
It’s one thing to have an inability to understand that others live differently than you do, but Mitt’s out-of-touchness is the stuff of legend.
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@schrodinger’s cat:
I think our universities are by far the best in the world. But…I think we could do even better. I’ll tell you my main things: kids should have to take more STEM classes, kids should have to read more whole books, everyone should have to take a stats class (possibly instead of calculus, I’m never sure how much they get out of it), exams should take longer (the time pressure stuff is stupid), lectures are mostly a waste of time, most social science programs should be ended permanently.
Joey Maloney
@Davis X. Machina: I’m heartened by reports that the Obama campaign has put a lot of people on the ground specifically to help people navigate the new voter registration laws. On the other hand TPM reported yesterday that both Hispanic and youth registrations are down compared to this point in ’08.
Davis X. Machina
@Joey Maloney: I hope you’re right. When this country does the right thing, hell, when it avoids doing the stupid thing, it’s by accident, and it doesn’t last.
In any country where you can make a fortune selling Velveeta™ as cheese then two terms of President Romney are entirely possible.
PeakVT
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity: The mandatory stats class should be in high school.
Triassic Sands
@General Stuck:
Romney can’t keep his mouth shut. No matter what happens, his “rapid response” mouth has to instantly try to tag Obama with something negative on every issue.
Weak jobs report? Romney comes out with an idiotic statement claiming we should be creating 500,000 jobs a month, when in the last nearly 500 months there have only been five months with that kind of job creation — 2 under Carter, 1 each for Reagan and Clinton, and 1 for Obama. It comes as no surprise that the Bush boys didn’t have even one such month between them. Is saying crap like this supposed to convince us Romney knows what he’s talking about concerning business?
Maybe Romney was thinking about how many jobs he used to eliminate in a month.
Davis X. Machina
@PeakVT: I second the motion. Stats is everywhere.
I wind up having to teach the rudiments of it in debate classes as a bullshit vaccine, but it’s way too little, and it’s not my forte.
Redshift
@schrodinger’s cat: From what I’ve read, Chen’s protest has been to demand that Chinese officials to follow their own written laws and constitution. This has made him an unusual case, because he hasn’t broken any laws, not even the usual BS about “undermining the state.” It’s why he initially wanted to stay, because his protest is easier to dismiss if he has the backing of foreign countries.
schrodinger's cat
@Davis X. Machina: Why do people eat Velveeta, it doesn’t even sound or look appetizing, it is Frankenfood.
Davis X. Machina
@Triassic Sands:
It’s ia problem only if anyone listens to the crap, and listens carefully.
He looks like a businessman. He sounds like a businessman. So, he’s a businessman — and therefore knows about business. And that means jobs!
There’s a reason why People magazine is available at every supermarket checkout, and Consumer Reports isn’t.
The problem, dear Brutus…
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@PeakVT:
I’d do it twice.
schrodinger's cat
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity: Agreed about the STEM classes, actually I think students should have had calculus and stats in High School itself not college.
ETA: May be more classes in the hard sciences at the high school level will innoculate us from the scientific illiteracy and sea of stupid, that GOP cashes in on to win elections.
arguingwithsignposts
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity: Yeah, I think you need to make a post about this sometime. Maybe you and FDB and EDK could have a roundtable.
Villago Delenda Est
@PeakVT:
Yes. Because if everyone lived like that, the Rethugs wouldn’t have anyone to look down on.
That’s what a great deal of this is about. The desire to be an aristocracy.
Violet
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
I’m probably in that “educated people” category and I think the system is a mess. That it worked for me is due to dumb luck, a good family that emphasized education and that most of my friends were also in similar situations so studying and doing well in school were considered normal and desirable.
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
Wow. Why?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Davis X. Machina:
Heh. As succinct a summary of what’s wrong with our politics as I’ve read in a while.
Rob on LI
First time commenter, and this has probably been mentioned before, but has anyone else noticed than Willard’s voice is a dead ringer for Duck Phillips from Mad Men? It’s goddamned uncanny.
schrodinger's cat
@arguingwithsignposts: And DougJ can drink EDK’s milkshake and steal FDB’s lunch money. I will bring popcorn. They are both so pompous and wordy.
ETA: How is Lady Smudge?
AxelFoley
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Damn, no more Papa John’s for me. And I kinda like his pizza.
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@Violet:
Do you think econ and poli sci are legitimate fields of study?
arguingwithsignposts
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
Of course not. Just read the titles of some of the dissertations!
handsmile
@schrodinger’s cat: (#29)
1) Apparently now, yes. Initial unconfirmed statements while Chen was at the US embassy suggested that he preferred to remain in China to continue his human rights legal work.
2) His wife, definitely; I don’t believe they have children. It seems unlikely that other family members would be granted travel visas but their fears of persecution do seem warranted. It’s commonly used by Chinese security officials to deter dissidents.
3) Chen has been long renowned in human rights circles for his efforts to expose corruption among rural Chinese officials, particularly on issues of family planning. (His blindness certainly adds poignancy to his indomitable efforts.) He was imprisoned from 2005-2010, and placed under house arrest upon release. His astonishing escape and flight to the US embassy in Beijing last month has vaulted him to wide international attention, resulting in the current diplomatic imbroglio.
The concerns of the Chinese student with whom you spoke seem dubious to me (the Bo Xilai scandal is enough of a distraction and embarrassment already), but she/he may have far better sources than I can draw upon. I will note that I’ve read several accounts that Chinese human rights activists now fear a new campaign of repression from the government to prevent others from following Chen’s example.
I
Davis X. Machina
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity: With economics and political science it all sort of of hinges on what you mean by ‘science’, doesn’t it?
PPE, the British degree — Politics and Political Economy — is a bit more forthright about the strengths and weaknesses.
schrodinger's cat
@handsmile: Thanks for the brief and succinct summary. Chinese student thinks that Chinese government is up to something really bad, and this is a distraction, I don’t really know what he meant, he did not elaborate.
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@Davis X. Machina:
I admit part of my issue is with use of the word “science”, but also, as Krugman and others have pointed out, what kind of discipline is economics when you get a Nobel Prize for theories that have no relation to reality.
PeakVT
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity: Since everyone participates in an economy and is subject to one or more governments (a few un-contacted tribes not withstanding), I don’t see how they can be dismissed.
Steeplejack
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
Tell us a little and we’ll only yell a little.
As a longtime autodidact, I can definitely see the Internet changing the face of education, but it seems a long way off.
schrodinger's cat
@Davis X. Machina: Rule of thumb, any subject with the word science in it is not a science.
example: political science (fake science)
physics (real science)
Violet
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
I learned a lot in my undergraduate economics and poli sci classes that has informed my life in general. I didn’t study them as a major in undergrad nor in graduate school. I think the basics are interesting and an important part of understanding how the world works.
As for universities churning out many grads with PhDs in those fields, I can’t speak to that.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think I am going to be sick after watching that video. Particularly nauseating were the sounds of approval from the other people there.
If the Dems don’t use that in a campaign ad, I’m not going to give one more dime to the Obama campaign!
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@Violet:
I think a few classes in them are good but I don’t think it should be a possible major or a PhD field.
Cacti
@Hill Dweller:
Which is patently untrue. They didn’t put gates around their communities because they wanted everyone to visit.
Yevgraf
@AxelFoley:
Schnatter is a fucking douchebag. He’s a grade A brander who had a conniption when local fire inspections were needed on his manse – he didn’t want them to see his safe room. They stuck to their guns, though – all access or no occupancy. He and his sniveling shit of a lawyer got pwn3d.
Steeplejack
@PeakVT:
Along with a meaty Money 101 class (“personal and public finances”).
Valdivia
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
as someone who has a grad degree in one of these (and note please that poli sci is now more econ than anything else thanks to the migration of failed economists into our field) I could not agree more with you. I would like to see something like a hybrid of philosophy, regional history, legal institutions and sociology (old school style) come into existence to replace poli sci.
oh and: totally agree on the statistics bit.
Steeplejack
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
I think econ is; don’t know about poli sci.
The fact that academic economics is a mess doesn’t mean the field isn’t worthy of study. Analogy: let’s not study science because all the alchemists are trying to transmute base metals into gold.
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@Steeplejack:
You’re probably right. It needs a serious makeover, though, close to burn it down and start over
PeakVT
@Steeplejack: I’m all for that class, too.
Steeplejack
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
No argument there.
And I see the refinement of your point about no Ph.D.’s in poli sci–and probably econ, too, until someone comes up with the economic equivalent of Hari Seldon’s psychohistory in the Foundation trilogy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Davis X. Machina: At my undergrad, the major was/is Government not Political Science.
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
Studying the ways that people organize and order their societies is, in my opinion, a very legitimate area of academic interest. I do think that Poli Sci/Government is iffy as a “science:” better to think of it as closer to the humanities than the sciences. Nevertheless, having read and studied Hobbes, Locke, Marx, Hans Morgenthau, and Karl Deutsch among others is damned useful. (Full disclosure: I was a Government major, so I have a vested interest in defending the subject).
Violet
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
The Nobel Prize issue seems to be more of a problem with the Nobel Prize committee and “politics” in the sense of who’s in fashion or what theory is in fashion at the moment.
“Pure science” has its own problems with theories being in fashion and people who challenge those theories having difficulties getting funding for their research. Higher education is extremely political and sciences are not excepted.
Cacti
@Yevgraf:
Yeah, but his pizza comes with rancid garlic flavored hydrogenated oil!
Violet
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
In your perfect world, what fields would be permissible for undergrads to major in or for people to get PhDs?
Steeplejack
@PeakVT:
Interesting curriculum. I’d throw in a class on critical thinking (or maybe have it explicitly permeate the core subjects).
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet: Math.
Violet
@Omnes Omnibus:
I love listening to my friends who have PhDs in math wax lyrical about how “math is like music”. They get this far away look in their eyes and start discussing things I can’t begin to understand. Would that mean that music is also an acceptable field of study in DougJ’s perfect world, or should musicians have to major in math?
Valdivia
@Omnes Omnibus:
Absolutely. Somewhere along the way though, the study of government became the creation of predictive models a la econ. Browse through the journals and all you see is equations that try to tell you how societies work. And just like econ the models are so abstract as to be not be able to elucidate anything useful.
I think there are lessons that science has taught the study of government that are useful (how to design a comparasion study for example) but to go from there to an econ style discipline. Ugh. it’s one of the reasons I became a renegade in my field.
PeakVT
@Steeplejack: It seems to me that teaching critical thinking would work better if it’s built-in, but I haven’t read anything on the subject.
Omnes Omnibus
@Valdivia: To the extent that I could, I went for political philosophy related courses. I also gravitated towards the more philosophical courses during law school, so maybe that’s just me.
Steeplejack
@PeakVT:
Agree that it should be built in, but possibly at some point you also have to pull back, draw attention to it and say: “This thing we’re doing? It’s critical thinking. Here are some principles and guidelines,” etc. Also: “Here’s how it could apply to your life, not just to your classes.”
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@Violet:
I hate the math is like music stuff, but I like humanities majors pretty well in general.
James E. Powell
@Davis X. Machina:
There were two courses I took in college, statistics and deductive logic, where I wondered, “Why didn’t they teach me this stuff in high school? Why don’t they teach everybody this stuff?”
Valdivia
@Omnes Omnibus:
big grin. Me too! But at the time I was in grad school the discipline had changed to the point that pretty much everything was infected with the modeling craze. I even took a couple of courses in the law school (seeking refuge) and found that parts of law school had also begun doing this kind of work. Like failed economists were colonizing every corner of the humanities.
I guess my idea of what govt study should be was a kind of idealistic end of the 19th century one were law, world history, philosophy met. I was born a century too late!
Omnes Omnibus
@Valdivia:
I agree completely. Luckily for me, I was able to go through a program that was very close to that.
Valdivia
@Omnes Omnibus:
pines for that. I do confess I was lucky to have found someone in my dept who thought a bit like me. So even when I had to do a lot of the modeling stuff my heart was elsewhere.
I am really glad there are kindred souls out there, like you, who still believe in it and got to nurture it.
Brachiator
@Hill Dweller:
Sounds like Romney should be on a late night infomercial pushing real estate scams.
Yutsano
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity: There is a slight logic to it, inasmuch as Western music is based off ratios and mathematical formulae. But it’s impossible to put emotion into an equation, no matter how much you try. Oboes, played well, bring men to tears.
Brian R.
@me:
Yep. Just listen to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Madison Square Garden, 1936:
And in a less famous passage, he called bullshit on the squeals from the rich that we were committing “class warfare” against them:
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: Played poorly, they can make people cry as well.
cckids
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity: Doug! you sound like a home schooler! :) Seriously, when you step outside the system & take a hard look at what it means to be educated & how learning is best achieved, your eyes are opened.
The timed testing is a stick in the eye for me; my son, who’s very bright but a true stress puppy, freezes up with timed tests. The SATs were a trial for him.
He is doing great his first year in college, though. Yay.
danielx
Forget the pearl clutching. If a candidate said this today the Villagers would faint dead away en masse, to be revived only by wingnuts peeing on them. The ammonia, you know.
BonnyAnne
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
goddamn better! My double degree in Latin and Classical History has enriched every single day of my life.
(Re: the practicality — there is however a reason why I’m 40 days from finishing up nursing school. Didn’t want to starve, etc.)
Tyro
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity: lectures are mostly a waste of time, most social science programs should be ended permanently.
I mostly agree with both of these. Lectures are vestigal– we keep them because we have always had them. In college, we had 3 days of lectures and 1-2 days of “recitation” with a TA. The thing is that the material could have been presented mostly in these recitations.
As far as Social Sciences, to a large degree no one is willing to stand up and say that some fields should be solely graduate-level programs. The sciences have been much better at preserving this distinction– there are no undergraduate statistics or pathology majors. The expectation is simply that you will major is math or biology and specialize in a subfield later.
schrodinger's cat
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity: You know what I hate even more, comparing quantum mechanics to Hindu philosophy.
arguingwithsignposts
Dammit, DougJ, the most interesting education discussion here in a while isn’t even an FP post!
FlipYrWhig
MSNBC has been hitting the line about borrowing money from your parents pretty hard for several days.
Also, re: social science, I’m a diehard humanities person but it seems to me that intro courses in economics, government, anthropology and sociology are a weentsy bit useful in functioning in modern society.
Skerry
Mitt and Ann gave Tagg $10 million to start his first business. From Ann’s “blind trust”.
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@schrodinger’s cat:
Don’t even start me on that, it’s so dumb.
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@Yutsano:
I just find it a pretentious comparison in general, it’s always bugged me.
FlipYrWhig
@Tyro: The material could be presented that way, but staffing is a bit of an issue. With lectures you can have one professor teaching a couple of hundred students. At most colleges it’s just about impossible to have a tenured or tenure-eligible professor teaching each small section in a seminar/discussion format, and if you’re relying on TA’s as facilitators you’re fostering the kind of underpaid underclass that also sustains the apparently effortless elegance of Papa John’s Pleasure Dome.
arguingwithsignposts
@FlipYrWhig:
No, it’s not. At most colleges with enrollments over about 15,000 maybe.
ETA: and let’s not forget the adjuncts stuck between tenure-track and TA.
AxelFoley
@Yevgraf:
Wow, didn’t know that. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@schrodinger’s cat:
Christian Science
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Omnes Omnibus:
I had a class where we read Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, the Federalist papers, and Mein Kampf among others. The title of the class was “Political Philosophy” which I thought was appropriate, and maybe the direction where the field ought to go.
Omnes Omnibus
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: I think Valdivia and I would both agree with you.
Jebediah
Are there any sciencey people in this thread that had been in the Elderville thread? I got there late but near the end of the thread I made a preliminary proposal for the Rakowski Index and would love to get some expert opinions.
Steeplejack
@Jebediah:
The end of that thread seemed like a dead drop into trollery and troll-baiting.
FlipYrWhig
@arguingwithsignposts: But that’s the thing. To make it happen, you need adjuncts to do a ton of the work, which is a lousy deal for the adjuncts. Or you could significantly expand the faculty, which is great, but depends on paying for it, and state budgets are retrenching.
FlipYrWhig
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: Political philosophy is a great class in philosophy. Political science isn’t that. A friend’s brother was doing a poli sci thesis to test the premise that when presidents gave speeches about initiatives it made them more likely to pass. My friend said that his brother was doing this project _without_ evaluating the content of the speeches, their rhetoric, or anything about their context. The whole thing seemed badly conceived and not capable of proving anything. My friend’s brother ended up… a staffer to a Southern Republican senator.
Tyro
@Violet: A lot of the people I know who were very talented at math were also pretty good musicians.
Jebediah
@Steeplejack:
Yeah, you may be right, but I got to the thread late, as usual, and felt lonely and silly.
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
This used to be required at my college, a fancy ass Ivy League school. Don’t know if the tradition has continued.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: You can certainly have a tenured or tenure-eligible professor teaching each course, but you can’t have each course also be small, discussion-heavy, and seminar-like. You’ll still get intro courses with 100+ people in them, which turns the whole thing back into lecture. The ideal would be to have only standing faculty teaching, and teaching nothing but small-enrollment courses, but when you do that you end up with students not getting the courses they want or need, and they tell their parents, who then complain about getting what they pay for. It’s very hard to break out of this cycle, even at a relatively small college like the one that employs me.
arguingwithsignposts
@FlipYrWhig: Just out of curiosity, does anyone have any idea of the size of introductory survey courses in early American universities, or even prior to, say, the GI Bill?
Omnes Omnibus
@FlipYrWhig: My guess is that one can find anecdotal evidence of similar things in any discipline.
FlipYrWhig
@Omnes Omnibus: “Just read the dissertations!”. :P
FlipYrWhig
@arguingwithsignposts: Good question, and one I don’t know the answer to. But the big public lecture was certainly a staple of intellectual life in general in the 19th and early 20th century.
Davis X. Machina
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: They’re all just chasing math anyways.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Davis X. Machina: As usual, XKCD nails it. And as an engineer who couldn’t cut it as a math major, I’d have to agree.
The Sailor
@Skerry: Do you have a link for that? I can’t find one I trust. And speaking of trusts …
PeakVT
I’ll drop this NYRB link here because it seems relevant.