A class changes your life. Ideas gained from reading, discussing and listening to lectures usually transforms, to some degree, how one sees and lives in the world. This fact is fast becoming the aim of education. Whereas modernity stressed the objective analysis of differing theories, new education systems will, perhaps, stress what has, up to now, only been implicit – that theory should shape life. An example of such an educator is Michael Puett, professor of Chinese history at Harvard University, who now teaches the third most popular course at the university. Puett’s course, “Classical Chinese Ethical and Political Theory,” is aimed explicitly at shaping students’ worldviews. The aim of…
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What We Swim In
The aim of this post is cultural awareness. Not merely an awareness of what is happening in culture, what culture produces and an awareness of one’s own reactions, but an awareness of assumptions, “underpinnings” as I will call them. To merely observe a culture and then say what you see is not enough and often leads to oversimplification. As a recent writer for the Huffington Post wrote: As a “Millennial,” perhaps one of the most annoyingly over used classifications in modern lexicon, we are Occupy Wall Streeters and aspiring investment bankers. We consume fast food with frightening regularity yet also create Pinterest-worthy organic meals. We dress in $300 jeans or…