[MD] ‘Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters’

[david]

What's the difference between an obedient mule and free thinker?


"Jane Addams and William James thought autonomy should be tempered with mutual support and responsibility. She sought an education that would cultivate empathy and cooperation. He stressed the study of literature in developing imagination, which can help overcome blindness to others’ points of view.
In his last chapter, Roth assesses the current state of higher education, which on the whole overstresses autonomy and economic advancement. In John Dewey, Richard Rorty and Martha Nussbaum he finds support for a new notion of utility in the academy: Higher education must reach out “beyond the university” and show itself to be what it is in its highest form — namely, cultivation of the whole person for the whole of life. Now more than ever, we need both reflective and pragmatic liberal education if we are to shape accelerating change rather than be shaped by it."