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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?"

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Reader comments (10) on this item

Title Commenter Date Thread
Class. [57 words]Albert E.Jun 8, 2021 15:52268022
education & Anthony Sutton [40 words]MagdaMay 12, 2021 04:34266838
5Look at our kids [449 words]JeffMay 11, 2021 23:57266829
Surviving The Impracticalities of Defective Educational Processes [312 words]M ToveyMay 11, 2021 12:47266808
1Bravo! [22 words]Lisa SchiffrenMay 11, 2021 08:06266800
4Columbia 7 years earlier [364 words]Lorenz GudeMay 11, 2021 02:04266792
Upvote [12 words]John in MichiganMay 10, 2021 21:18266781
7Causes and institutions go astray, inevitably [346 words]DaveMay 10, 2021 21:15266780
absurdity [10 words]sfMay 10, 2021 21:12266779
2We did not swim nude [180 words]
w/response from Daniel Pipes
Jonathan E BurackMay 10, 2021 21:03266777

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