{"id":501,"date":"2016-05-03T12:00:18","date_gmt":"2016-05-03T20:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.viu.ca\/compassrose\/?p=501"},"modified":"2016-05-04T16:39:13","modified_gmt":"2016-05-05T00:39:13","slug":"book-review-in-defense-of-a-liberal-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.viu.ca\/compassrose\/book-review-in-defense-of-a-liberal-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review – \u201cIn Defense of a Liberal Education\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Zakaria<\/a>In Defense of a Liberal Education<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n

Fareed Zakaria<\/strong><\/h3>\n

204pp. Paperback $15.75<\/p>\n

Zakaria is an American author and journalist, a contributing editor of the Atlantic and a columnist for The Washington Post. Zakaria has authored four books including international bestseller <\/em>The Post-American World. He is best known as the host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS. <\/em><\/p>\n

A review by Stacey Harper<\/em><\/h3>\n

Liberal Studies is under attack, and everyone from Obama to my mother-in-law seems to have an opinion on its usefulness. Have you seen that meme \u201cThe only thing that can stop this asteroid is your Liberal Arts degree\u201d? <\/em>No? Let me paraphrase: NASA employs a barista to head a team of astrophysicists attempting to nuke an asteroid hurtling to Earth \u2026. Because they \u201cneed someone with four years of broad-but-humanities-focused studies and the ability to reason across multiple areas of study\u2026 When you\u2019re lowering a hydrogen bomb into a craggy mass of flying astronomic death with barely any gravity, you\u2019re going to need to draw on all the multidisciplinary analysis you\u2019ve got\u201d.[1]<\/a> As far from the point as it is deliciously sarcastic, this kind of barbed criticism is part of an entrenched trend in post-secondary to devalue the Liberal Arts. When did literature, philosophy and history become so useless to our lives? Isn\u2019t that what we would be saving the world for?<\/p>\n

It was nothing short of heart warming to see best-selling author, intellectual heavyweight, and popular television commentator Fareed Zakaria take on the fight.<\/p>\n

Zakaria presents a concise, well-defended argument, traversing the revolutionary (and of course uniquely American), nature of the Liberal Arts. He takes us through the history of how Americans have funded and valued higher education. He speaks eloquently on the polarization of knowledge\u2014the way science and the arts have become somehow mutually exclusive. Zakaria highlights the need to see these two aspects of general education meet again in some common forum\u2014as symbiotic aspects of grooming future minds. Liberal Studies is guilty of failing to teach its students even the basics of scientific principals and Science students need to develop the values, political literacy, and familiarity with the humanities that can give an ethical framework to technological development. And I heartily agree with his proposition of a \u201ccommon core\u201d for all undergraduates, giving a strong basic framework that students can specialize from within.<\/p>\n

Zakaria argues his points well and would make fast work of my friend David who likes to crack jokes about Liberal Studies and \u201cplatonic dioramas\u201d at my dinner parties, but I will admit that I found Zakaria\u2019s defence more of a pandering appeal to business than an incisive cutting defense of literature and philosophy. He easily devotes 26 pages to dropping the names and opinions of American CEOs like Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner (69) or Jeff Bezo\u2019s founder of Amazon (74), or Fortune\u2019s Adam Lashinsky, or Norman Augustine CEO of Lougheed Martin (74).\u00a0 I assume because all things considered, it is Zakaria says, economically useful to \u201chave a well-trained population\u201c (97).<\/p>\n

As a Liberal Studies major with technical training in business I am constantly defending my educational choices: \u201cWhy Liberal Studies instead of Commerce, for example, or a Bachelor of Business Administration?\u201d I regularly trot out many of Zakaria\u2019s arguments: \u00a0I have learned how to learn. On top of my technical skills, I am skilled in research. I am an excellent writer and communicator able to present, defend ideas, and collaborate with co-workers. \u201cI am a flexible thinker,\u201d I tell those potential employers, \u201cI have not simply learned that A=B and memorized a sequence of transactions\u2014I can think on the ground and work well in ambiguous situations where I must use judgement and weigh possible outcomes.\u201d I also argue that Liberal studies allowed me to develop a strong ethical sense; an increasing concern in business these days – as the Enron scandal and the 2008 financial crisis might highlight.<\/p>\n

I have managed to become gainfully employed despite my degree\u2019s lowly coinage \u2026 but when did this become the point of higher education\u2014managing to trade your labour for the necessities of life? The increasing commodification of education, the transformation of Universities into trade schools, is a disturbing trend. I flicked through the pages of Zakaria\u2019s defence desperate to find some dazzling logic and cutting social commentary that I could flay Dave with when he next comes over. But it just didn\u2019t arrive. I was downright puzzled by Zakaria\u2019s discussion of MOOC\u2019s (Massive Open On-line Courses) as a viable alternative to well-funded and valued public education system.\u00a0 I see MOOCS as the fodder of canned program types\u2014for the study of accounting, let\u2019s say, or software programs, typing, and basic economics. Liberal Arts entails the exchange of ideas, reading and arguing in groups, honing one\u2019s writing, and a certain amount of personal transformation\u2014the development of a community of thinkers\u2014not just acquiring basic skills and jumping through credential hoops. Zakaria paints himself as a man of a new age of technology. He argues that we can embrace MOOCs as a way of levelling the playing field and engaging new audiences with the technology youth are so addicted to. However, I can\u2019t help but feel we would lose the skills of readership, debate, and community. And wouldn\u2019t we end up with the monotone and prescribed opinions of the few celebrity \u2018greats\u2019 chosen to present?<\/p>\n

Zakaria\u2019s take on what constitutes a Liberal Education, and the failings of teaching from a \u2018Canon\u2019 of texts, run contrary to my own view. Zakaria tells us \u201cthose [courses] I took out of genuine curiosity or because I was inspired by a great teacher have left a more lasting and powerful impression. After all, one can always read a book to get basic information about a particular topic, or simply use Google\u201d (61). Seriously? Uncovering and rediscovering the greats works of our cultural, philosophical, and literary history seem to me to be key to the Liberal Studies project. I disagree with the suggestion that a \u201cGreat Books\u201d education clutters young minds with \u201cantique furniture\u201d and a patriarchal imposition of \u201cmoral authority\u201d (59). Even when I felt this was the case I was driven to pull the text apart. I thought of a John Stuart Mill quote when reading these passages: \u201cit is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.\u201d[2]<\/a> Smashing into texts like Plato\u2019s Republic<\/em>, unearthing and exposing new interpretations, or uncovering weaknesses and discarding old ideas is a hallmark of the Liberal Arts. I would also argue that these are \u201cGreat Books\u201d because they have stood the test of time. They are the thoughts and writings that have built the world around us; they contain the history of our political, social, and ethical development. Sure, a canon of texts should always be added to, critiqued, and edited. I think the process of having students pick them apart and challenge them, fight about them in seminar, has had great intellectual usefulness \u2026 and the process has created a more inclusive and broad range of core texts. I also feel that there is something in the reading of \u201cGreat Books\u201d that creates a common language\u2014it moves up the starting point for many difficult conversations by becoming reference points and summations of incredibly complex ideas. Moreover, I depended on my professors to guide me through a series of texts that built upon ideas and understandings. I needed to be shown the pitfalls of relativistic thinking, and the shades of grey in ethical positions I once thought absolute. I learned to vigorously defend my position, which is best done when fully understanding another\u2019s. The kind of \u201cfree exploration\u201d Zakaria describes as an alternative strikes me as vastly inferior.<\/p>\n

The economic precedence placed on utility versus quality in education is an important debate. Yet, Zakaria\u2019s defence of Liberal Studies occasionally feels like a hollow appeal to commercial viability rather than that of becoming a well-read and thoughtful citizen. However, he does have his moments of real clarity. In a discussion about virtue Zakaria raises a concern that we have become morally inarticulate. He finally points to the true heart of the matter: Doesn\u2019t an educated and thoughtful population have intrinsic value? Good and healthful citizens seek to live together in a just, safe, inclusive, and mutually profitable ways. I think we lose something very valuable in instrumentalizing our youth as factors of production. \u00a0Are our societies tools to benefit business and economic value? Or the other way around? Zakaria relies too much on arguments based around global economic positioning and employment forecasting and far too little on the true meaning of the Liberal Arts, which ultimately seeks to answer the question of \u201cWhere are we going?\u201d and \u201cHow should we live\u201d? When the asteroid hits\u2014is the iPhone 7 the most valuable thing we are going to lose? Is the production of technology what will describe the apex of human potential?<\/p>\n

All in all Zakaria\u2019s book was worth the read, and it is excellent prep for Liberal Studies students come job search time\u2014but don\u2019t expect salvation.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> http:\/\/www.mcsweeneys.net\/articles\/the-only-thing-that-can-stop-this-asteroid-is-your-liberal-arts-degree<\/a><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> On Liberty<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Defense of a Liberal Education Fareed Zakaria 204pp. Paperback $15.75 Zakaria is an American author and journalist, a contributing editor of the Atlantic and a columnist for The Washington … Continue reading “Book Review – \u201cIn Defense of a Liberal Education\u201d”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":333,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-issue","category-book-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.viu.ca\/compassrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.viu.ca\/compassrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.viu.ca\/compassrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.viu.ca\/compassrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/333"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.viu.ca\/compassrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.viu.ca\/compassrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":554,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.viu.ca\/compassrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions\/554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.viu.ca\/compassrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.viu.ca\/compassrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.viu.ca\/compassrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}