the happy conservative

I spend a lot of time bashing Washington U. The professors are generally left of center but intelligent, but the class selection is pitiful. Consider the course taught under the title The New Republic: The United States, 1776-1850. That sounds innocuous enough. Just a typical class covering the period after the Founding to the Civil War.

Check out the course description:

A survey of American history from the eve of the Revolution to the eve of the Civil War. Topics covered include: the Revolution and its ambiguous legacies; the rise of democracy; the starkly paradoxical “marriage” of slavery and freedom; the creation of much of the America that we know; mass political parties; sustained capitalist growth; individualistic creeds; formalized and folkloric racism; technological innovation; literary experimentation; distinctively American legal, scientific and religious cultures; and the modern movements of labor, feminism, and African-American empowerment. This course satisfies the modern requirement for history majors.

Great. Labor, feminism, and African-American empowerment. Racism. “Marriage.” Don’t worry about the Constitution, we’re more worried about the “ambiguous” legacy of the Revolution.

Thank you very much, that’ll be fifty thousand dollars. And this satisfies your modern history requirement, so don’t worry about taking a rigorous class later on. Here’s a degree. At least you stayed away from the obvious land mines, like Advanced Seminar: Gender, Race and Class in South Africa, 1880-Present.

Class selection like the above (which are, unfortunately, some of the least objectionable) have driven conservatives into the Business or Engineering schools. Brian makes the argument that professors in Arts and Sciences have never held a real job, and that a better education is a four year study in a practical subject with practical experts for professors. He’s an Accounting and International Business major.

I go back and forth on this. In my dark hours, I hate Arts and Sciences. I don’t have a practical skill besides running a forklift, and I knew how to do that before I came to school here. If I had to leave school today and find a job, I wouldn’t have a skill that I could sell, and certainly not one that would cover the cost of a top 12 school. Since it’s unlikely that I’ll acquire one in the next two semesters, it seems that my hate of Arts and Sciences would be justified. Surely I should have gone to the B-School and majored in Finance, so I could graduate in four years and land that cushy job selling bonds in a dark back room of GoldmanSachs for ten million dollars a year.

But that’s not the case. As I generally do in such cases, I step back and ask the truly salient question:

What would Bill Buckley do?

Liberal arts still matter. Sure, you can’t read Buckley here, but you’ll learn how to read. You won’t learn about the Federalist debates here, but you’ll learn to debate. Classes don’t require thought about liberty and individualism and family. But they do require thought.

Education isn’t about having a highly specialized tool in your toolbox. I’m not at college to get an arc welder. What if I have to lay bricks someday?

I’m here to get pliers, screwdrivers, and a tape measure. Sure, thinking critically isn’t going to put me in a Ferrari. But I live in Tarkio, and a Ferrari would just draw attention I didn’t want anyway.

No, we can’t abandon the liberal education. Better to devote resources to incremental improvements.