Category: Theory
-
The “times-are-changing, specific-knowledge-is-unnecessary” canard
I don’t know how many times I have read, “The world, and research findings, are changing so fast that it is pointless to insist on learning particular bits of knowledge. Much of it will be outdated soon. So the only really important thing to teach children is how to think.” This is dangerous nonsense. It…
-
Unobvious concepts that are important, but rarely taught
To understand history, geography, fiction, and a whole lot else besides, it is fairly important that children be taught in considerable depth certain practical yet universal concepts about history that, I think, are rarely explained in much very depth: Gathering (as in “hunting and gathering”) Animal skins (and tanning) Nomadic life Shepherding, spinning, weaving, dyeing…
-
Reply to Nathan Jurgenson on anti-intellectualism
Thanks to Nathan Jurgenson for a thoughtful critique of “Is there a new geek anti-intellectualism?” I wish I had more time to respond, especially since it is so earnestly intellectual itself. The following will have to do. Jurgenson provides a definition (which he says is based on Hofstadter’s discussion in Anti-Intellectualism in American Life), which combines anti-expertism,…
-
Geek anti-intellectualism: replies
My essay on “geek anti-intellectualism” hit a nerve. I get the sense that a lot of geeks are acting–quite unusually for them–defensively, because I’ve presented them with a sobering truth about themselves that they hadn’t realized. Consequently they’ve been unusually thoughtful and polite. This is quite new and startling to me–I mean, there’s something about this…
-
Is there a new geek anti-intellectualism?
This essay can be read in my 2020 book, Essays on Free Knowledge. Perhaps ironically, it is no longer free. UPDATE: I’ve posted a very long set of replies. UPDATE 2: I’ve decided to reply below as well–very belatedly…
-
The value of knowledge – the anti-intellectualism problem versus the philosophers’ problem
I need to complain about my fellow philosophers. But maybe I’m confused. Maybe some philosophers out there can set me straight, somehow. In recent years, as my interests have turned away from encyclopedia-building and toward education, I have become increasingly interested in the whole social phenomenon of people appearing to devalue academic knowledge. This is…
-
On Robinson on Education
This very striking video has been circulating, and I’m inspired to reply to it: First, let me say that the video design is very cool. Moreover, Sir Ken Robinson is quite an excellent public speaker. Finally, I agree with him entirely that standardization is the source of a lot of our educational difficulties. But much…
-
25 Replies to Maria Bustillos
In a recent essay, in The Awl (“Wikipedia and the Death of the Expert”), Maria Bustillos commits a whole series of fallacies or plain mistakes and, unsurprisingly, comes to some quite wrong conclusions. I don’t have time to write anything like an essay in response, but I will offer up the following clues for Ms.…
-
Looong interview with me by Dan Schneider in Cosmoetica
Off and on, for the last 2.5 years, I have been answering questions from poet and critic Dan Schneider, who has conducted a series of long, interesting interviews. My interview, posted a few hours ago, is #27 in the series; Schneider himself gives the interview four stars (out of five). That should tell you something about the Schneider:…
-
A common error of school lessons, or, why I’m homeschooling
Here is one reason why I’m homeschooling, and why I would probably never send my children to a school–even most private schools. I was looking over some instructional material recently (something I do often these days). It was a sample curriculum for teachers, explaining how, in one lesson, they should teach Kindergartners the principle that we say…