Month: September 2011
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The Economist: ‘New middle classes rise up’
In “The New Middle Classes Rise Up” (September 3, 2011, The Economist), the editors state that emerging giants such as India, Brazil, and China are beginning to show signs of middle class unrest. A growing middle class has become more vociferous about making anti-corruption claims and demanding greater comforts. One expert quoted says that “the middle class…
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Friday meditation: Rumi’s ‘What’s Not Here’
What’s Not Here Rumi (1207-73) I started out on this road, call it love or emptiness. I only know what’s not here: resentment seeds, back- scratching greed, worrying about out- outcome, fear of people. When a bird gets free, it doesn’t go back for remnant left on the bottom of the cage!…
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Wendell Berry on the proper education for young people
The following is an excerpt from Wendell Berry’s “Thoughts in the Presence of Fear,” Orion Magazine (Autumn 2001). The article was published shortly after September 11, 2001. As far as I can make it, we have made little progress on devising a “proper education [that] enables young people to put their lives in order.” My friends and…
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On book dedications and patronage models: A very brief modern history
“Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.” –Dr. Johnson, Dictionary (1755) — Elizabethan Age: My dearest Baroness, You’re exquisite, but you know this already. Here are some sonnets. Your lowly servant. Victorian Age: To my bourgie reader, A page-turner, the first volume, here in your…
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On the other side of radical education lies wisdom: An exhortation; or, on the question whether really free is really good
As I review the list of alternative higher education schools, I’m struck almost immediately by their shared ethos of anarchism. They begin with a rejection of the status quo and then level their critique at the corporatization of the modern research university. They say that the university is the institution of elitism, the perpetuation of privilege,…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 