[MD] Drama

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Platt]
So anyone who criticizes the Academy is a right-wing ideologue?

[Arlo]
No. In my post I was critical of aspects of the Academy as well. But, as 
Pirsig points out, "right wing politics" has always been about condemning 
the Academy. You, a devotee of right-wing ideology, have expressed the same 
ideological mandated criticisms of the Academy as those that labeled Pirsig 
himself a "radical professor".

[Platt]
Then you qualify based on your perennial vilification of the "business 
model" of education.

[Arlo]
I base my observations on experience in the Academy. Years of studying 
instructional methodology, educational pedagogy and interest in the 
historical-social evolution of a contextually placed concept of "learning". 
Years of working with both undergraduate and graduate students, and 
witnessing the changing context and the ramifications of business dialogue 
on the actual practice in the classroom. I do not base them on expectations 
of party ideology, unless you think the one party platform is about greater 
emphasis on the Arts and Literature in the Academy, or how the Academy is 
enrolling too many people. Or how too may are admitted who do not belong 
there at that point in their lives.

[Platt]
I also remind you that education in art, theater, literature, history, 
etc., traditionally the humanities, was emphasized in the Victorian era.

[Arlo]
As it was during the Renaissance. And in Ancient Greece... and Ancient 
Egypt, where the Greeks often studied. And, back then they had the fortune 
of not bearing a culture that divorced "art" from "technology", as Pirsig 
reminds us.

[Platt]
Further, in that era, graduates from high school knew how to read and write.

[Arlo]
People do what they value. Isn't that the fundamental lesson of the MOQ? If 
people are not "reading and writing", it is because they do not value it. 
Make someone value it, and you won't be able to stop them. The educational 
system is only as strong as the desires of those in its halls.

[Platt]
Educationally speaking, a return to that era would be a good thing wouldn't 
you agree?

[Arlo]
In some ways. But "basics" is not the answer. What good is a population 
that can read- and understand!- Dr. Seuss but not Robert Pirsig? The 
paradigm shift must occur on the cultural level. Our schools can bang 
fingers, and smack kids with rulers, and force everyone's penmanship to 
pristine levels, but if it is not valued culturally, and in that same 
regard valued individually, it will be for naught. When DMB reminds us that 
the majority of people can't find Japan on a map, the problem is not a 
faulty school system, but a culture that devalues such knowledge. I mean, 
if people WANTED to know where Japan was, who could stop them from finding out?