Bookmarking an Article on Humanities Depts

by John Zmirak of Taki's Magazine for George and Jared to read. Wow. His 2 university recommendations are very interesting.

And check out his article on how Beagles Can Cause Blindness too! LOL!

Historic Gender roles in education

After attending orientation with our son, my husband told me that there are more girls/women enrolled at the liberal arts school, the University of Dallas than boys/men. I stated my own bias in my last post that it is more practical for a woman to study liberal arts than men because they are not expected to make as much money. I still have the notion that most who study it become teachers, a highly respectable vocation, btw. But in my experience conservative women usually quit their jobs when they become mothers and then the hormones and the multi-tasking tend to lessen their intellectual prowess. So what becomes of the rich education? I don't think it's wasted because motherhood is an extremely important job and I think an educated mind will be a benefit to the family, whether one homeschools or not. But Liberal Arts are about adult conversation, and are meant to be improved upon during a lifetime. I have been saddened by women, mostly someone I know who I don't think reads this, who absorb books but who do not work as hard on their output. I tend to think of education as a flowing stream, not a dammed up lake. What we learn should be shared, first to our kids, and then to others. I admire the women in the blogosphere who join book clubs where they have conversations about what they learned, how they were affected, etc. But I wish they were more specific and detailed when they blogged. I've written how I don't read that many books, but I love them and really want to know what they mean to people. I read very slowly for one thing.

I think there are several factors as to why women do not feel they should talk intellectually, even though I guess they did in college. I wouldn't know because I went to a community college and got an AD in nursing. Input was in the classroom, output was in the patient room on their level. Dr.'s were to be silently obeyed without question, for the most part. I think I would like to go back to college when my daughter gets older though and study literature, philosophy or something like that. But I don't know if I could keep up with the reading.

One reason women keep mum I think is because smart women are called names. It is traditionally considered masculine or old maid librarian to be intellectual. Also there is a belief that smart women are unattractively domineering and that men will not want them around. And I think there have been occasions where some women have neglected their feminity. I'll leave it to individual opinion as to which strong or smart women have done this and which strong or smart women haven't.

Then there are religious reasons, which I haven't sorted out yet. Women are supposed to be quiet in church and not teach men. I think this can be taken to extremes. I don't believe in a female priesthood, so that rules out women giving the homily in church anyway. But what it means in other venues I'm not sure.* Most primary and secondary educators, homeschool or not, are women and that seems ok. And I believe there is a natural time to let our boys go and to not be in charge of them anymore. In charge seems to be the word and it goes along with dominance which goes along with the Genesis curse, 'your desire will be for your husband but he will have dominion over you'. I don't want to exegete that passage but I think St. Maximus' Recapitulation allows for that seemingly dialectical relationship to be healed, not that distinctions, which I don't want to try to forensically dissect, don't remain. So perhaps things changed after Christ. The Samaritan Woman at the well became an Apostle, and there are a few other women Saints with that title. And we all know about the women deacons. So somehow women are allowed to speak confidently in an adult setting, perhaps even beyond women's retreats. Speaking of, there was a recent meme about which book changed your life the most. My most life-changing input was from a woman speaker during camp as a young person and ladies' Bible studies as an adult.

Another factor is less gender based. Orthodox are very fearful of prelest. I shouldn't say anymore about that.

Still, my heart lead me to Orthodoxy and it tells me, as does my husband and some Priests, not that the latter have critiqued what I've said, that I have permission to blog, so I'll speak my mind and heart here and sometimes on other people's blogs where I hope they don't mind letting my voice enter into the conversation, no female domination intended.

* I was told growing up and during my first marriage, especially when it was failing, that if I would just be quiet, God could work on him. Sometimes I think this is true, and maybe my speaking up at home and blogging is rebellion, but maybe it's legitimate expression. I'll leave it to God's mercy to decide. When I was a child I was ridiculed and called names when I spoke so being told to be quiet is very painful to me, though I usually oblige my perhaps paranoid or abused perception of this command in public. And this is probably one reason I am more comfortable writing.

Oh, the Humanities

Taki's Magazine has an interesting article on the decline of the humanities departments in universities. It seems to suggest that students aren't as interested in learning about the meaning of life as they are in making a living. This indicates to me that there is a disconnect between the intelligentsia in this country and the working class. Apparently the wise ones do not need to earn a living, or I guess they feel that people should appreciate their wisdom enough to supply their living for them. Just for being? And what does "being" mean again? I love the anecdote in the comments about Duke University hiring the best English Department in the country and then having them almost self-destruct the department because apparently great minds do not think alike.

Not that I think the humanities are unimportant. I do however have a fear that most people cannot earn a very good living with an advanced degree in them except as a professor or rarer, a popular author. They seem to me to be best studied as an undergraduate to enhance a continued path toward a law degree or political career or even a career in business. The humanities provide an opportunity to study people and life which can make a person more well-rounded, and they help people communicate better. There is value to a well-expressed view even if it is wrong, which brings me to NeoChalcedonian's quote on his philosophy blog,

Why study philosophy? To reach truth, of course. But when you consider for how many centuries philosophers have been pursuing the truth, and how widely they still differ, what are your chances of capturing that truth? Not high, one must agree. Is the study therefore wasted? Not at all. For if you pursue the truth seriously, and fail to get it, as you may, you come out with a mind invaluably honed and whetted, and that in itself is prize enough. (Brand Blanshard)

As this quote says, philosophy, and I would say even psychology, history, and literature, does not bring us to ultimate, contextualized truth. Critical thinking can help us recognize what isn't true, but only revelation will reveal what is. This is why I'm not so worked up against post-modernism. It is a reaction against misrepresented truth, imo. Not that they have the answers either, duh. My main objection is against the immorality and atheism among secular post-modernists. The truth of the meaning of life and the source of joy is in my view the Orthodox Church, which is barely represented in America's schools and universities. Without the proper balance you have guilt-and-shame, externally imposed morality, while maintaining a rationalistic, secular view of truth, or an anything-goes, undisciplined shallow, liberal, or given-up-on view of truth.

As I consider these things, so far we have chosen the moral, rational, with the naive premise of universal, self-evident, view of teaching truth for our son who's interested in the humanities, though he is going to focus more on a math degree until he can get into an Orthodox Seminary. With another son, we've chosen a technical university for engineering for his chosen career in that field. Our oldest son is pursuing an undergraduate business degree that I do not relate to at all, but I'm not going to dictate his path. Nevertheless, I hope someday that America will have more Orthodox options for lower and higher education.