Friday, March 10, 2006
Self-Interest Is Not Always Intelligent
It starts with George Will's look at the Supreme Court decison regarding military recruiters on college campuses. Will doesn't mince words when he begins
Education was intended to develop those higher instincts. It has left that mission far, far behind, leaving the church as the only viable institution with the same mission. That is ominous indeed.
Related Tags: higher education, George Will, Thomas Sowell, Supreme Court, military recruiters, Larry Summers, consequences
The institutional vanity and intellectual slovenliness of America's campus-based intelligentsia have made academia more peripheral to civic life than at any time since the 19th century.But it is his conclusion that does the real damage
Recruiters are obviously not components of law schools; they are outsiders on brief visits for a limited purpose. "Nothing about recruiting," Roberts wrote, "suggests that law schools agree with any speech by recruiters." Besides, "We have held that high school students can appreciate the difference between speech a school sponsors and speech the school permits because legally required to do so, pursuant to an equal access policy." Then, Roberts's tartness: "Surely students have not lost that ability by the time they get to law school."Will reports Roberts slap at the plantiffs and in so doing points out that the professors are more interested in their personal right to free speech than to the idea of free speech itself. Selfishness is no substitute for arguement would be the eay I would sum that up. Which brings us to Thomas Sowell writing at Real Clear Politics.
The law schools and faculties earned that sip of the chief justice's vinegar by bringing this case to court. The professors deserved -- no, let us just say they needed -- better legal advice than they were able to give themselves.
In the grand scheme of things, the recent resignation of Harvard's president, Lawrence Summers, was a small episode. But its implications are large and reach beyond Harvard -- and well beyond the academic world.Summers was victimized by the very same vein of thought that the Supreme Court so judiciously slapped down in the decision about military recruiters. And Sowell is right - that type of thought betrays the finest tenants of academia and it threatens the underpinnings of our nation. Later in the piece Sowell says
David Riesman said that we are living in the cathedrals of learning, without the faith that built those cathedrals. We are also living in a free society without the faith that built that society -- and without the conviction and dedication needed to sustain it.
Is it surprising that we seem to have dwindling numbers of people willing to take responsibility and make sacrifices to preserve the social framework that makes our survival and advancement possible? Harvard is just one small example.American is a nation built on man's higher instincts, not his lower ones, yet we seem to be using the freedom we have to exercize those lower instincts and it may cost us our freedom.
Education was intended to develop those higher instincts. It has left that mission far, far behind, leaving the church as the only viable institution with the same mission. That is ominous indeed.
Related Tags: higher education, George Will, Thomas Sowell, Supreme Court, military recruiters, Larry Summers, consequences
