The only meme theory that interests me is the problem of cultural transmission: how to preserve those values and ideas that make liberal democracy possible? I sometimes wonder whether the old German idea of a “research university” might not have had its day, so far as the humanities and social sciences are concerned? Science and Technology, for sure, must never end the quest for new knowledge. But history? Economics? Literature? I think not.
The problem today is that you have students entering Harvard and Stanford — and, what is more, leaving Harvard and Stanford — who have but the barest notion of where our civilization came from and how we got here. They have no idea of the price that has been paid (a price that, if we blow it, will have to be paid again) so that we can enjoy all the freedom and the good things of life we have inherited, from our parents and grandparents, and they from theirs before them.
I wonder if it wouldn’t be a good idea to ditch the Ivy League undergraduate colleges with their enrollments in the thousands for each class and lectures for the hundreds, and go back to the concept of small teaching colleges, with small classes, and teachers who are not expected to publish or break new ground in research, or do anything original — but rather to pass on “the best that has been thought and said” in the (approximate) words of an old cultural critic whom I admire.
I know that, through pure happenstance, I got such an education back in the early 1960’s, during what turned out to be the golden age of the liberal arts in American undergraduate education. But I don’t see many kids getting it today; or even having a chance of getting it. I hear there’s a special program for 100 chosen freshmen at Yale, but that’s about it.
The question is: how long can our Constitution survive, along with all the liberal and conservative values we hold dear that are enshrined in it, if we don’t take the time and trouble to teach the fundamentals of our history, and of the theory of our economic and political institutions, to our successors?
I know razib refers to this general problem on occassion, and I just wanted to get my two cents in.
Posted by lukelea at 03:07 PM