liberal vs anti-liberal education

Liberal versus Anti-Liberal Education We have lost the tools of learning--the axe and the wedge, the hammer and the saw, the chisel and the plane-- that were so adaptable to all tasks. Instead of them, we have merely a set of complicated jigs, each of which will do but one task and no more, and in using which eye and hand receive no training, so that no man ever sees the work as a whole or "looks to the end of the work." . . . . For the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain. –Dorothy Sayers

Anti-Liberal
GOAL OR END Proximate: Increase external, material goods to obtain power and pleasure. Education as worldcraft. Remote: Adjustment to the status-quo—to remain in Plato’s cave—to increase one’s ―personal autonomy.‖ Science=specialization and fragmentation  Teaching of separate ―subjects‖ and memorization of disparate, unconnected ―facts‖  Fragmented and compartmentalized curriculum  Dependence on teacher’s opinions and skills  Authoritative lecture mode of teaching only  Research narrowed to technocratic cultural needs and profits and power Humanities=sophistry and incoherence: evidenceeschewing social “sciences”; politicized literature; atheistic, materialist psychology; agenda-ridden history; anthropocentric “religious studies,” etc.  Ideological indoctrination-social engineering  ―Dumbing down.‖  Relativistic seminar (or authoritative lecture pretending to be relativistic!)  Losing all touch with human and divine reality Modern Person: ―What are you going to do with a liberal arts degree?‖ Protagoras the Sophist: ―I teach them good planning,
both in their own affairs, such as how one should best manage his own household, and in public affairs, how one can best speak and act in the city-state.‖

Liberal
Proximate: Attainment of internal, spiritual goods to perfect the mind and soul. Education as soulcraft. Remote: To know, love, and serve God. Integration: the liberal arts  Teaching of ―tools of learning‖—the trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric; and understanding of causes of facts  Integrated curriculum: study of spirit (trivium: language as the symbols of spirit) and matter (quadrivium: mathematics and the application of mathematics to the extended, material world)  All knowledge integrated in the Logos, the Word.  Dependence on oneself after apprenticeship with teacher is over and tools of learning are mastered  Mix of Socratic, tutorial, and lecture: Teaching students how to think and ask questions, while guiding them to the truth so they can see it for themselves.

MEANS

The Spirit

Francis Bacon: ―Knowledge is Power‖ McDonalds: You deserve a break today! Burger King: “Have it your way!‖ Lucifer: Non serviam!‖

Simone Weil: ―Paradoxical as it may seem, a Latin prose or a geometry problem, even though they are done wrong, may be of a great service one day, provided we devote the right kind of effort to them. Should the occasion arise, they can one day make us better able to give someone in affliction exactly the help required to save him, at the supreme moment of his need. ‖ St. Louis de Montfort: “Wisdom is the cross, and the cross is Wisdom.‖ Mary: ―Fiat! Let it be done unto me according to Your word. Jesus: ―You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.‖

Faculty of the soul True Freedom
Intellect Will Memory

Theological Virtue
Faith Love Hope

Transcendental Property
Truth: Peter: ―You are the Son of God‖ Goodness: ―Father forgive them‖ Beauty: Transfiguration of Jesus

Vice of Modern Soul Modern “Freedom”
Intellect Will Memory Doubt Apathy/self love, randomness Resignation to despair, absurdity

Cultural Pathology
Relativism: Intolerant Tolerance Cynicism, brutality, sentimentalism Ugliness, banality, mediocrity