[MD] The Teaching Company

[Case]

Actually, Daniel Robinson's primary field of study is psychology. The series
you mention is next on my hit parade. I have listened to his series Great
Ideas of Psychology. I thought it was excellent. His style of presentation
is witty and sophisticated. He has a clearly loves and has a great command
of his subject matter. As for his personal bias: well so what? Do you expect
to learn everything from a single set of lectures? Many many works of
philosophy start out with a survey of ancient Greek philosophy, Pirsig
included. They all have some point to make, some axe to grind, some slant to
put on things. Personally I have benefited from each of them. One person's
bias can be another person's fresh insight. Sometimes the insight results
from accepting the bias other times from rejecting it. To paraphrase a post
I made a few days ago: Please show me to a bias free zone. If, as you say in
the final lecture you listened to, Robinson "professed his faith" I would
suggest he did a service by make his bias clear. 

The Teaching Company presents academic lectures. They have an academic bias.
If one is unhappy with academia then step outside of it. Pirsig seems to
have tinkered around the edges of it before moving on and yet I get the
sense strong sense of sour grapes over the fact that he has by and large not
been taken seriously in academia.

You said, "I suspect this bias has something to do with the impression that
'it provides an effective antidote for those who think Christian thought is
simplistic.' As I see it, the Teaching Company could rightly be called the
Preaching Company."

So you think the Teaching Company is part of the conspiracy of the religious
right? You think I am some kind of religious zealot trying to sneak in the
word of God through college lectures and the Jesus Seminar? You just crack
me up. Perhaps you should cast the beam from your own eye before worrying
about the mote in someone else's eye.

As for getting ripped off: all I can say is "Sucker!" I have added them to
the list of folks like PBS, NPR and WinZip that I owe money too if I ever
hit the big time.



-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of david buchanan
Sent: Sunday, October 01, 2006 11:11 AM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] The Teaching Company

I bought a big batch from The Teaching Company and was very disappointed. 
Its hard to say exactly why, but I detect an agenda, a bias in their stuff. 
The set I purchased is called "The Great Ideas of Philosophy", which sounds 
nice in theory, but the lecturer is an Aristotelian theist and otherwise 
seemed to be fairly representative of the stuffed-shirt conservatism Pirsig 
encountered at the University of Chicago. I suspect this bias has something 
to do with the impression that "it provides an effective antidote for those 
who think Christian thought is simplistic." As I see it, the Teaching 
Company could rightly be called the Preaching Company. Professor Dan 
Robinson, in the final lecture titled, "God, really?", professes his faith. 
Basically, I want my money back. I've scrutinized the catalogues they've 
been sending and detect this agenda all over the place. Now I just throw 
them away.


>
>There are hundreds of lecture series available though these folk. You can
>load them into your iPod even.
>
>This sounds a bit like a commercial but since I have tended to preview
>rather and purchase these things, I have no vested interest; just wanted to
>share the love.
>
>moq_discuss mailing list
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