aukštojo mokslo absolventas šiandien - apmokytas kvailys

Nuo praėjusio amžiaus vidurio, vedantis Čikagos Universitetas uždavė toną visam aukštąjam išsilavinimui skatinti buldozerinį mokymą, grįžti prie viduramžių metafizikos ir iškelti išsilavinimo tikslu reikiamų dogmų indoktrikavimą studentams. Tuo pačiu siekta atsisakyti pavojingo užsiėmimo skatinti jaunimo kritinio mastymo sugebėjimus. 

Ekonomikoje ir politikoje pirmoj eilėj, šiandienos diplomuoti specialistai yra taip apdirbti, kad šventai tiki jiems įteigtomis nediskutuotinomis dogmomis. Net jei bet kuris gatvėje sutiktas žmogus išsijuoks kaip iš kvailio, toks ekonomistas ar politologas tvirtins, kad laisva rinka puikiai veikia, o žmogelių gatvėj niekas neišnaudoja.

Gideonse už savo atsakymą rektoriui buvo išmestas iš Čikagos universiteto, nors tuo metu buvo populiariausias ir labiausiai mylimas dėstytojas. Palikęs Čikagą, Gideonse sugebėjo per porą dešimtmečių savo vadovaujamą koledžą Niujorke paversti geriausiu šalyje, nors pradėjo nuo nulio naujai įkurtam koledže.

Harry D.  Gideonse, Higher Learning in a Democracy, 1937 – a reply to Mr. Hutchins books

keletas ištraukų iš šios knygelės:

p. 6 “Science stresses generalization, logical analysis, and systemization, but it insists that every analysis, every generalization, every systemization be held subject to revision whenever new data seems to warrant it. Thus scientific principles are necessarily formed in the presence of empirical data and, however much they are developed by logical analysis, they are never removed from the control of new data. The Great Tradition in metaphysics, to which Mr. Hutchins seeks to recall the modern university, seems to hold that after confrontation with a certain amount of data it could reach first principles which were absolute and subject to no further modification.”

p. 10 “But the fact remains that the misapprehensions-if misapprehensions they be- are responsible for the idea that the higher education in America is to forsake the path of science and humanistic concern for a democratic society and to return to the Ivory Tower of absolutistic metaphysics. There are even rumours-incredible as it may appear-that the faculty of the University of Chicago, nourished by Scholasticism, is to take the lead in charting this new course for the higher learning.”

p. 7, quote of Santayana from The Genteel Tradition at Bay – Absolutism “Smells of fustiness as well as faggots”.

p. 7, quote of Galileo “Do you doubt that Aristotle would have modified his meaning and corrected his writing, if he had had access to the recent astronomical discoveries; that he would have disavowed doctrines not based on sense evidence and shunned all those small-minded zealots who exceed each other in upholding every one of his words, not seeing that if Aristotle were as they portray him to one another, he would be an obstinate fool, a barbaric soul, tyrannically will wilful, regarding all others as stupid cattle and offering first place to the demonstrations of his wilfulness rather than to sense observation, experience, and nature itself? His disciples have invested Aristotle with an authority which he has not meted out nor assumed for himself.”

p. 7, quote of Newton from Optics: “Substantial forms and occult qualities ... put a stop to the improvement of natural philosophy, and therefore of late years have been rejected. To tell us that every species of things is endowed with an occult specific quality by which it acts and produces manifest effects, is to tell us nothing.”