69 million page views

Surviving The Impracticalities of Defective Educational Processes

Reader comment on item: Harvard's Worst Class Ever

Submitted by M Tovey (United States), May 11, 2021 at 12:47

In Dr. Pipes previous post about the sad state of higher education in the United States, that while presumable visiting his Alma Mater recently, he observed:
[Nothing in my nearly seven decades' knowledge of Harvard (which started with preschool in 1952) prepared me for this lonely ramble. It prompted me to ponder the four existential challenges facing universities....].
This reader noted that his observation ran parallel to, but alternatively acquired perspective about the state of intellectualism in America; his being more in the vein of academic and philosophical pursuits while this reader's accumulation of such thoughts is more pedestrian and theosophically experiential.
While he increased in the following decades in the academic pursuits to obtain that certain stature of intellectual creditability, this reader was learning how to sustain a creditable means of dealing between the intelligentsia of those with academic credentials of supervisory control and the on the ground realties of truth that the higher ups only hypothecated about, but sufficiently demonstrated practical ignorance.
What was the defining difference?
How to handle the truth was always the litmus test.
In his previous observation of the major institutions, the list presumably included some of the institutions that were associated with the religious influences of the founding principles of America; now all of that is gone, as well as the truth that was supposedly part of the founding precepts.
To the Dr.'s credit, though exposed to the diffusion of the intentions of dilution of truth, he has managed to retain his creditability; even as there may be differences between his and this observer's position on certain issues, he has this observer's respect for recognizing the failures of those institutions that chose to defeat that which they were to organized to defend originally, but fell to the question they did not have the courage to answer: like Pontius Pilate could not answer, "what is truth?"

Submitting....

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".

Follow Daniel Pipes

Facebook   Twitter   RSS   Join Mailing List

All materials by Daniel Pipes on this site: © 1968-2023 Daniel Pipes. daniel.pipes@gmail.com and @DanielPipes

Support Daniel Pipes' work with a tax-deductible donation to the Middle East Forum.Daniel J. Pipes

(The MEF is a publicly supported, nonprofit organization under section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code.

Contributions are tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law. Tax-ID 23-774-9796, approved Apr. 27, 1998.

For more information, view our IRS letter of determination.)