Comments on: You’re into educational software, Robert, you might be interested in this. https://habitablezone.com/2015/08/10/50130/ Thu, 09 Apr 2026 15:15:13 -0700 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: ER https://habitablezone.com/2015/08/10/50130/#comment-32633 ER Wed, 12 Aug 2015 12:09:58 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=50130#comment-32633 Software, like all technology, is value-neutral. It can serve good as well as evil. And there is no reason why it can't be extremely effective in either manifestation. But I brought up software because it helps eliminate the teacher from the equation, minimizing his influence by diminishing his numbers and availability to the student, relegating him to a remote scrivener, making him easier to isolate from the student and enabling his work to be easily monitored and controlled. An automated history or sociology curriculum might be effective at communicating dates and names, and it would certainly be useful for marshalling sources and surveying the literature of the discipline; but the kind of concepts, values and interpretative/evaluative skills (i.e., scholarship) alluded to in Bolshie Bob's letter to his student would be difficult to maintain with online pedagogy. It would also be much easier to detect, and nip in the bud, any departures from orthodoxy. The University is one of the crowning achievements of Medieval Western civilization. Nothing like it existed in Antiquity or Classical civilization, or in Eastern cultures. Many of its institutions, such as academic freedom and tenure, seem awkward and out of date but they evolved for a reason. Modern Capitalism seems determined to dismantle all of it. After all, that is what Utilitarianism was really all about, wasn't it? "The greatest good for the smallest number." Software, like all technology, is value-neutral. It can serve good as well as evil. And there is no reason why it can’t be extremely effective in either manifestation.

But I brought up software because it helps eliminate the teacher from the equation, minimizing his influence by diminishing his numbers and availability to the student, relegating him to a remote scrivener, making him easier to isolate from the student and enabling his work to be easily monitored and controlled. An automated history or sociology curriculum might be effective at communicating dates and names, and it would certainly be useful for marshalling sources and surveying the literature of the discipline; but the kind of concepts, values and interpretative/evaluative skills (i.e., scholarship) alluded to in Bolshie Bob’s letter to his student would be difficult to maintain with online pedagogy. It would also be much easier to detect, and nip in the bud, any departures from orthodoxy.

The University is one of the crowning achievements of Medieval Western civilization. Nothing like it existed in Antiquity or Classical civilization, or in Eastern cultures. Many of its institutions, such as academic freedom and tenure, seem awkward and out of date but they evolved for a reason. Modern Capitalism seems determined to dismantle all of it. After all, that is what Utilitarianism was really all about, wasn’t it? “The greatest good for the smallest number.”

]]> By: Robert https://habitablezone.com/2015/08/10/50130/#comment-32632 Robert Wed, 12 Aug 2015 05:01:32 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=50130#comment-32632 I don't see how software might fit in, but I certainly see and decry the takeover of education by the oligarchs. They want a profitable utilitarian focus on skills valuable to their businesses, obviously. And it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that they see the downside to a broadly-educated workforce well-informed about history and able to judge the world they find themselves burdened with. Some oligarchs starting to have fevered dreams of pitchforks and torches. Again. Nothing would serve the oligarchy better than to wipe all memory of the mid-20th century and the now-mythical "broadly-shared prosperity". Of course, to be fair, there are a few rare reports of billionaires expressing some concern about the consequences of inequality. Their insight isn't always in service of greed. There are tales, perhaps merely born of desperation, of the Wandering Billionaire, a Cassandra making the rounds of his fellow CEOs warning of the dangers of squeezing the middle class too tightly. I don’t see how software might fit in, but I certainly see and decry the takeover of education by the oligarchs. They want a profitable utilitarian focus on skills valuable to their businesses, obviously. And it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that they see the downside to a broadly-educated workforce well-informed about history and able to judge the world they find themselves burdened with. Some oligarchs starting to have fevered dreams of pitchforks and torches. Again. Nothing would serve the oligarchy better than to wipe all memory of the mid-20th century and the now-mythical “broadly-shared prosperity”.

Of course, to be fair, there are a few rare reports of billionaires expressing some concern about the consequences of inequality. Their insight isn’t always in service of greed. There are tales, perhaps merely born of desperation, of the Wandering Billionaire, a Cassandra making the rounds of his fellow CEOs warning of the dangers of squeezing the middle class too tightly.

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