From: adolphso@mizar.usc.edu (adolphson)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Engineer bashing
Date: 23 Jul 1992 14:12:21 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: mizar.usc.edu

In article <1992Jul23.191500.12036@spdcc.com> Allan Bloom writes:

Oh dear, are we in for a screed against Devil Music?

> [Arne?  Are you listening, or have you picked up your ice axe for Portland
> yet?  :-)  -SD]

I *have* been quiet on this topic this time, haven't I?  I was
going to respond to Michael's post earlier, but then I spent
most of the morning trying to frame why I don't think Martha
Nussbaum's New Republic piece provides a very compelling argument
for lesbigay studies.  (She's excellent at unmasking the motivations
of those who attack lesbigay studies, though.)  And I'm afraid that 
I won't be going to the con after all.  It's a long story, but I 
can't go.  Oh well.

> In article <13069.2a6e91fc@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu> 
> msp@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu (Michael S. Pettersen) writes:
> >In general, the broader the range of a person's tastes, the better.  On the 
> >other hand, if some natural scientists don't like the humanities, and some 
> >social scientists don't like the nat scis, then it doesn't really seem to 
> >me that you make them better people by forcing them to take classes which 
> >are wasted on them.

Hmmm.  I don't know.  When I was in college (UCLA), I had no 
interest whatsoever in the nat scis, and I was convinced that 
I had no aptitude for math, but I'm glad now that I was forced
to take the few classes I did take.

> I certainly agree that there might be people for whom learning about
> any particular field or discipline will be totally wasted on them,
> because they just won't get it, even if they try.  

If what we're talking about here are the subjects normally 
considered to be part of a liberal education, then I would 
disagree.  If you don't get how to read prose critically, say,
or think an argument through to its conclusion, then you 
should be in a trade school.

>                                                    On the other hand, I
> think they're in the minority, and anyway, particulars aren't my point
> here.  We're mostly talking about 17-21 year olds who have a firm idea
> about what they want to study, which is often not quite the same as
> obtaining a liberal education.  

This is much more common now than it was when I was in college, 
but then I didn't have any idea what I wanted to major in (as
opposed to the subjects I wanted to study).   

>  ...   But it is the
> responsibility for a liberal arts college to exert an influence on
> its students to make good choices, at least subtly.

Absolutely.  And I don't think a college needs to be all that
subtle about it.

> >Liberal arts shouldn't be forced on those for whom it is unsuitable.
>
> I think trade schools are a Good Thing.  It would at least reduce the
> number of trade school graduates coming out of our liberal arts colleges.

I couldn't agree more.

[...]
> >In any case, liberal arts education all too often means that scientists 
> >and engineers are required to take humanities, but not the other way round.

When I was in college, the scientists and engineers had to take 
about as many courses in the humanities as I had to take in the 
sciences.  (And I do hope you don't count English Comp as a 
*humanities* course.)  I have heard comments about this extra burden
on engineering and science students more than a few times around here, 
but it doesn't really hold up to any kind of scrutiny.  What a chemistry 
student feels about the intro to American lit course she's forced to 
take is pretty close to what a literature student feels about the general 
chemistry course he's forced to take.  Or are there colleges out there 
that force their engineering and science students to take semester-length 
seminars in, say, 16th-century sonnet sequences?

> ... A liberal arts education isn't supposed to fill someone's
> head with details, it's suppose to provide them an intellectual
> context by which they can make sense of the world around them,
> even on topics they haven't been exposed to before.

What he said.

Arne