Yoshie Furuhashi:
> Have you taken a look at "On the Uses of a Liberal Education -- As a
> Weapon in the Hands of the Restless Poor" by Earl Shorris that Doug
> posted here in two parts? What do you think?
I found it odd that the story seemed to come out of an atmosphere of assumption that the poor are stupid and can't learn anything. My wanderings among the lower orders (for example, a tour of duty in the U.S. Army infantry, or my present residence in a slum) gave me just the opposite impression. But I have very seldom seen academic folks in these venues, so maybe it's all new to them.
At the end of the story, what has happened is that some of the students have been tracked into bourgeois institutions and careers, and their teachers have had a moving, enjoyable, and even heart-warming tour of duty. A similar effort is under way to bring a few Maya Indians into the fold. The overwhelming majority of the poor remain utterly unaffected; but it is implied that a wise state might see better educational opportunities in the humanities as an inexpensive alternative (or supplement) to prison. Whatever the poor were given, it was not autonomy.
Where's the revolution?