SOCY 122 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Allan Bloom, Richard Sennett, Sputnik Crisis
Liberal Education; Intellectual Craftsmanship
Friday, September 30, 2016
What is a university?
- Humboldt’s university:
o Real knowledge through scientific inquiry and critique
▪ Professors were specialists
▪ Research to expand knowledge
▪ Academic freedom—follow research to where it leads
▪ Philosophy **
- Because of the Sputnik crisis, the university shifts to becoming more scientific based??
Allan Bloom:
- University is no longer “preserves for the quiet contemplation of the permanent questions
of humanity”
Liberal Education:
- Allan bloom:
o University is the critical space between the “intellectual wasteland” of high school
and the “dreary” world of work.
o Liberal education asks students to follow the Delphic oracle’s command – “know
thyself”
▪ “who am I?” “what is humankind?”
o Wrestle with the permanent concerns of humanity
o Learn to resist the easy and preferred answers – others merit consideration
- Impact of neo-liberalism
o From the 1980s—Thatcher, Reagan, Kohl, Mulroney, Harris
o Let the market prevail – “unseen hand”
o Government involvement minimized
o Problem solving falls to individuals
o Education defined by the market – strong job orientation to education
- Bloom “the crisis of liberal education”
o Resisting the dominant social trends
o “see the world as it was seen in the most thoughtful perspectives”
o Teach from area of specialization to enable students to grow broadly
o Study the “classic works”
o Sociological imagination; sociology as a craft
Craftsmanship:
- Richard Sennett “the craftsman”
o “special human condition of being engaged”
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