The Liberal Arts, Digitized

My alma mater, like other liberal arts schools, is facing falling applications and enrollment this year, due to the recession. More troubling is the apparent difficulty that students, and liberal arts colleges in general, are having in convincing the skeptical that a liberal education is worth pursuing. It's always been tough, but this year especially so: Given the anxiety of both students and parents, it's no surprise gaining "in-demand" training is at the forefront of their minds.

For some reason, I find myself juxtaposing this story with the recent spate of articles contending that the rise of online education will prove as devastating to the university system as the rise of online media has to the journalism business. At the most risk are big public schools that rely on freshmen taking required introductory courses to subsidize the rest of the institution, as well as private colleges that don't have built-in prestige, like the Ivies, or offer some sui generis experience, like St. John's.

Assuming such a state of affairs comes to pass (the accreditation process is a barrier to entry in education unlikely to be brought down anytime soon), is it plausible that there will still be demand for small liberal arts colleges? Or, put differently, what would an all-online liberal education program look like? I have in my mind the image of a really erudite message board, not unlike Ask Metafilter or the xkcd forum. That may just be my nostalgia talking, though: Discussion-based classes are hard to any situation, harder still when working through often difficult material, and especially hard when a group of 18-to-22-year-olds are doing most of the talking.

Still, the process of replicating online the St. John's experience would be rather interesting. Most of the books are available for free online already -- although for the better translations, you'd still need to buy a hard copy or e-book. It'd be pretty easy to do the language tutorials, at least; maybe for the Freshman and Sophomore math tutorials you could post instructions on how to build your own Ptolemy Stone. Students could cut MP3s of their compositions in the Aeolian or Mixolydian modes, or listen to clips of the St. Matthew Passion and offer their commentaries on them.

But while you could probably replicate the course content online, the connective tissue of a liberal education, what makes it unique, would be missing: i.e., the process of discussion and self-examination, what I've heard called the "one long conversation." There's a reason why St. John's and other liberal arts schools are deliberately small: A liberal education isn't merely about reading books or solving equations, but about being part of a community of learners. I want to believe that an online community could do the same thing (see above), but I'm not yet convinced.

One other thing: At St. John's, professors are called tutors and are meant to guide discussions, while letting the students do most of the talking. Would this mean that, in an online version of St. John's, tutors would essentially be glorified forum moderators?

Everything's Better with Zombies

Via John Holbo, a, uh, interesting reinterpretation of the classics:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen's beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Complete with 20 illustrations in the style of C. E. Brock (the original illustrator of Pride and Prejudice), this insanely funny expanded edition will introduce Jane Austen's classic novel to new legions of fans.

This reminds me that there was a glaring deficiency in my undergraduate education; namely, not enough about zombies. Not just in English literature, but throughout the whole Western canon. For example:

• The Republic and Zombies: Holed up in a safehouse during a zombie infestation of Athens, Socrates discusses with Glaucon and Adeimantus the nature of justice, the well-ordered soul, and the best-ruled society -- preferably one without the undead. Things get off to a rocky start, however, when Thrasymachus attacks old Cephalus and starts eating his brains.
• On the Nature of Things and Zombies: Lucretius' epic work on the atomistic philosophy of the Epicureans sweetens the bitter pill of living in a world without gods -- but with zombies -- with the honey of poetry. By breaking the bonds of religion, and by building up adequate fortifications against the zombie hordes, one can live a life of pleasure and understanding. Fun fact: the "swerve" of the atoms that enables us to have free will? It also reanimates the dead. Reality's a bitch.
• Aristotle's On Zombies: This newly-discovered treatise shows the Philosopher trying to pin down the precise nature of this undead creature. How can something be dead and still have a source within itself of motion and rest? There must be a separate quality, a being-at-work-staying-itself-hungering-for-brains, that enables the zombie to operate. Sadly, the part where Aristotle discusses the best way to defend against zombies remains lost.
  
• The Iliad and Zombies: Basically, every place where Homer kills off a soldier, replace "darkness covered his eyes" with "darkness covered his eyes -- and then he sprang up, bared his teeth, and pounced on an unsuspecting Achaean." It scans better in the original Greek.
  

And that's just the classical era!

The Unchained Goddess

Scientists have been aware of global warming for decades, it turns out (via Matt Stoller):



It is a bit eerie to see that the problem was known about so clearly way back then. It's also a reminder of the production values of educational movies in the 1950s, which really was the golden age of the genre. St. John's alumni reading this, for example, will recall the infamous frog video set to Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring." Sadly, I can't find it on YouTube.

The Ways of Naysaying

A brief lesson, via Kevin Drum:

Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, told reporters, "What they're saying to us is" that "Saudi Arabia does not have customers that are making requests for oil that they are not able to satisfy," The Associated Press reported.

Which is another way of saying, Saudi Arabia is selling all the oil it cares to sell. No doubt if and when oil clears at $200 a barrel, the Saudis will sell as much as its customers demand, and nothing more. This isn't to say they're deliberately trying to jack up oil prices (the rise of the last few years is likely more due to fundamentals in supply rather than political or financial machinations), but it's clear Saudi Arabia isn't going to change its ways to suit the current desires of the US.

(Post title from a book by SJC grande dame Eva Brann, with whom I had the misfortune of never having a class.)

UPDATE: Hadley's comment should also considered in the light of King Abdullah's recent declaration that certain Saudi oil fields will go untapped for the sake of future generations -- a clear recognition that oil is on the way to becoming permanently scarce.

Best. Rom-Com. Ever.

I must steal this idea.

The Truth About Cats and Dogs

My former classmate Katherine Nehring, currently living in Benin, offers an intriguing theory:

Maybe that’s why cats are generally considered feminine, as opposed to masculine dogs – because it’s the females of one species and the males of the other that are prone to obtrusive and embarrassing displays of sexuality. While male cats may spray, for instance, I have yet to see them become enamored of anyone’s leg, and that’s a classic dog behavior. I won’t even get into the anatomical and existential questions posed by our female dachshund’s repeated attempts to impregnate our male cat, but the point stands.

There's definitely something to that -- although I would say that the differing standards of cleanliness for dogs and cats, combined with stereotypes of "dainty" women and "grungy" men, have something to do with it as well.

I'm a Terrible, Terrible Person

Because I want to subject you to the finest musical offering in the history of St. John's College. Start with "Basic Cable," and descend into uncontrollable fits of laughter from there.

Johnnie Blogging

A friend of mine from college, Aaron MacLean, has an article in the American, a kind of Yankee version of the Economist, about the Islamic finance movement, which tries to provide investment opportunities to the Muslim world without charging interest, something forbidden in the Qur'an. As it turns out, sharia-compliant lending can do just as well as Western-style lending -- so long as the former functions just like the latter.