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THE DEFINITION OF A LIBERAL EDUCATION Why Darden Tends to Create Free Thinkers
In a recent post fellow Darden blogger Mandy talks about politics and apparently breaks an unwritten rule that she had for herself. In general, she apparently likes to keep politics and other things of a "heavy nature" off of her blog.
Judging by her past posts this seems to be about right, but it's definitely not the way things work at Darden. What?! Does that mean that Darden brings up controversial and difficult subjects in the course of studying accounting or entrepreneurship? Yes it does.
Through refusing to shy away from areas where people may disagree, Darden plays the increasingly important role of helping people talk to each other when they don't agree. To illustrate the point, think about the Huffington Post article that Mandy referenced in her recent blog entry. In this (admitedly over the top piece) Eve Ensler argues that if McCain/Palin win in November the destruction may be so vast that "America may never recover".
Now, I do not agree with Ms. Ensler, and Mandy certainly is not excited about McCain, but we are still friends - and this is something that Darden has forced us both to deal with. In the America of today people live in buckets - political, economic, geographic, etc. These buckets, by their very nature, cause us to lose sight of what it's like to talk to someone from another bucket. And this is where a place like Darden is at it's very best.
As a conservative, it might come as a shock to some people that I would be such a strong supporter of a "liberal education". But the job of a liberal education, after all, is simply to "set free" (from the Latin) or liberate from established ways of thinking, so this shouldn't seem quite as shocking on second thought.
Places like Darden that force students to integrate people from different "buckets" into their everyday life, hold us accountable for our bad ideas, and teach us to value the process towards "justified true belief" (as Plato had it) are RARE in America.
If more folks went to Darden, perhaps they would spend less time shouting at each on T.V. and get down to real conversations -liberating their ways of thinking from the prescribed paths of all the other people in their "bucket".
And now I am late for Accounting...
Shoot. Posted September 22, 2008
Posted by: Beth Drechsel Well, people coming from different "buckets,"or seeing life from different buckets, isn't exclusive to the "America of today." It happened in the America of yesterday, too. It's not even an American phenomenon. It is, however, exclusive to the human race and has been around for ages. We humans huddle at the bottom of our individual bucket unable to even see over the lip into the bucket right next to us. And, yes, our disagreements often land along the fault lines of religion, politics, or our economic situation, but we argue even about the "little" things. At our very core it seems to be natural to have differences of opinion, to want others to see MY opinion as the only right one. Even when kids come out of the same womb, and grow up in the same environment, they turn out so different. And from the time they're born they strive to be seen, to be heard, to be accepted, to be respected. I am just so convinced that one of the most important skills for a successful life is to learn to listen to each other, and accept that we're different, and that's okay. It sounds like Darden works hard at that and that's a good thing. Posted 2008-09-22 15:22:21 Good Post! Posted by: Anand I like your post. Its articulate, succint and takes a great example to prove a point. I do agree with the overall message of how darden encourages debate on controversial topics. To back that up I will add my fuel to the fire. I would say that 'as a outsider' I perceive that nothing much would change whether its Mccain or Obama in power. What Americans view as deep divisions along policies or issues is in my opinion a division on cultural-social lines. On other aspects they differ in subtelities. And when it comes to the issues with deep divisions, neither can drive a change as it would be hard to reach a concensus. US policies over last few years have been significantly different from most other countries. From what I have seen or heard neither Obama or Mcain seems to think its important to consider/reflect/learn from world events. In my last post I sugeest it may be time to do that (I dont make any claims to stay away from politics on my blog :))This is just my opinion from my limited knowledge of US politics. Posted 2008-09-22 22:06:18 holla back, yo! Posted by: mandy c.m.,
thanks so much for talking about this! also, thanks for continually reading my bloggityblog. i am so happy that this educational experience allows everybody to (if they choose) open their minds to other viewpoints. i'm not sure anymore that there is a concrete "wrong/right", so will settle for healthy discussion and consensus-building. i think that both sides of the aisles (silly we only have two sides here in the u.s.a.) generally want similar things and instead let party lines previously-drawn trip them up in trying to make true progress. here's hoping that we b-skool kids are learning how to push through that mentality and forge ahead toward a bright future for all.
thanks again for your insightful musings. i love it!
mLo Posted 2008-09-29 09:50:31 Thanks Mandy and Anand Posted by: Christof Meyer I really feel like the time for breaking down the perspective - "debates are a zero sum game" is now. So many people think that you can only have a winner and a loser in any conversation but this doesn't address the real possibility that both sides can learn something in a "debate".
Also, I just don't feel the kind of animosity towards people with another political opinion that many of the talking heads seem to exhibit on T.V. This gives me hope...
Maybe I'm just a closet optimist, but so be it. It's what's gotten me to where I am today. Posted 2008-09-29 14:20:40
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