The trend for many years has been against large lecture courses and in favor of small group discussions. That, it seems to me, inevitably puts more of a premium on grasping the approach of the instructor, rather than making up one's own mind about a long, great book. Scholars in the humanities, moreover, have become increasingly narrow. And thus, it seems to me, today's elite students graduate with the ability to assimilate arguments quickly and regurgitate them, but without much experience in diving into large amounts of data and coming out with a conclusion themselves. That in turn makes them much more likely to accept the conventional wisdom of their profession in their careers. It also makes it less likely that they will spend much of their spare time reading long books later in life. The world today is changing very rapidly, and we are having trouble coping with it, it seems to me, precisely because of a lack of long-term historical sense.\
Reading books forces us to into "the experience of deep immersion in a subject."
Our understanding of the world evolves at a slower rate than the world itself. I love economics but dislike the way it ignores history. Adam Smith had important things to say in 1776 about the industrial revolution. But we don't live in his world. Yet, we don't want to abandon Smith because he had brilliant things to say that still apply today. Nuance is everything.
Apropos of very little: March was a unique month:
There were no
American troop casualties in Afghanistan or Iraq in March, for the
first time since February 2003, ending 133 straight months when at least
one U.S. service member was killed. U.S. deaths in Iraq peaked in
November 2004, and in Afghanistan in August 2011
For the first month since February, 2003, no U.S. troops died in Afghanistan or Iraq last month. That’s 133 months, more than a decade. (see here for data)
During my years at K, I have developed a stronger sense of bias everywhere, from academic institutions to the mass media, and recognizing this has encouraged me to look at the greater picture. I do have an endless hunger for more knowledge, which is why I try to read as many books as I can in my spare time. Some books have drastically changed the way I viewhistory and current events. My favorite example is Robert Kagan's Dangerous Nation, which demonstrated that US has never been an isolationist country, but has always been an active player in the international community since its formation in 1787.
ReplyDeleteI always go out and encourage my friends and classmates to read books at their own times because it will open their eyes on what is really going on in the world.
For the 0 US causalities in Afghanistan in the month of March, that is great for us but I would like to point at that violence has been escalating in Afghanistan with the presidential elections approaching and if a security agreement is not signed to allow US military presence in Afghanistan past 2014, the country will fall into chaos, similar to Iraq right now, and there will be a greater chance for the Taliban to come back to power.
I love to read books as well. You can really get a sense of the value system of the author in a way that is difficult to do when you read an article or blog post.
ReplyDeleteBooks can be great. While they are sometimes boring and tedious, they are also very rich and full of knowledge. I prefer being engaged in a face to face encounter about an academic subject than reading dense text for hours. Some books are so well written that I just breeze through them and retain all the information, and others aren't that way for me. I hope the books assigned in this course will fall under the former category.
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ReplyDeletebooks can definitely assist in understanding a particular issue further. however, i think books also, to some extent, present similar problems encountered in discussions. questions such as who the author is, who is the intended audience and the motivation behind writing the book strongly influences one's perception and bias on the subject matter. i think a more effective way is a combination of discussions and books that seek to present every possible perspective so that one can come to a well-informed conclusion.
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