From: "Lydia Perovich" <fauxprophete-AT-hotmail.com> Subject: RE: EGS Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 09:32:26 -0400 The elite school question is exactly the right one, Eric. Tuition fees are not negligible, and it is almost understood that the attendee will hold a passport that will allow easy border crossings. Also, a look at the names of ex-students reveals an all-US list, even an all WASP list? But I am hoping Diane will tell us more both about the attendees and the role that Lyotard’s ideas played in the EGS inception. I’ve recently read Stanley Aronowitz’s book on US universities *The Knowledge Factory*, which is his own ‘report on knowledge, year 2000’. He details how the coporatization of universities works, the incredible shrinking phenomenon of the ‘secure’ job in the academe, and blatant dependence of academic pursuits to economico/political winds of time. The most revealing thing to me, though, was the argument that even in the relatively safe ‘Golden Age’ for academic professionals in humanities, social sciences and theoretical science (what was it, late forties, and the fifties?) the funds that enabled a life-long and secure professional developments at those departments came from the industry of the Cold War – military contracts, research for the defence and ‘national security’, sources like that. So not only was the usual suspect (science) fed by the “military-industrial complex” – we the fuzzies benefited from that dependence to a remarkable degree. What will happen to non-profitable knowledge and its wandering preachers? Also, what will happen to the kind of knowledge that does not fit into any ‘national security’ (or national anything, for that matter) scheme? Is MacIntyre right, do we really need a new/old, teleological concept of human nature in order to be able to sustain an educational system that includes philosophical, religious, literary studies, political theory, and even theoretical physics? How do I defend reading to my niece, why is it good to sit down and spend hours immobile, focused on printed lines? Which reminds me: does anybody know of an educational system that fosters time-consuming reading? I can’t think of any. In each that I passed through, long and diverse readings figured as an inefficient, inexpedient activity. After spending about 20 years in one type of school or other, I recently found myself shocked by the open-ended field of reading that I faced once (and temporarily) out of school. I could not read anything for months. The freedom to read whatever I wanted at any particular time stunned me. It de-motivated me to read. Such was the degree I’ve become one with structuring mechanisms of educational institutions. I am not in favour of various Summerhills or home-schooling either. Some alternative schools (such as EGS?) and good PhD programs offer hope. But what’s your experience with the academic Star System? How is it to work with the Olympians? L _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus
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