My liberal arts education served me as the spear of Ithuriel from Milton’s Paradise Lost. Once I held that spear in my hand and learned how to wield it, I could touch all the reading material I was assigned, and separate the precious from the vile, the good, true, and beautiful from the spurious, the gold, silver, and precious stones from the wood, hay, and stubble.
How smart you were to have read those classics and learned their truth before you entered university. I applaud you and the spear of Truth you hold. Reading All Quiet on the Western Front changed me forever. I know the poem as well. Excellent essay. Thank you!
I have not in my 67 years read all of the great works you cite. However I grew up watching Walter Cronkite every-night provide enemy killed and kill ratios on TV. I watched live and viewed the aftermath of the George Floyd riots, Ukraine and October 7th atrocities with the same emotions and responses from my adolescent years watching Walter. It shaped a generation. My generation has lived and viewed these atrocities for decades and stand by our country as the shining light of freedom. IMO you are one of the few that embraced their eduction in a way that allows you to see through the false rhetoric and theologies that are spewed forth today. You may stand alone as, IMO, the educational system has failed in teaching history in full (the good and bad), has embraced at some level an esoteric view of socialism that truly does not exist and ultimately bent the educational process into creating altruistic graduates that cannot cope with reality.
I agree if someone actually has a REAL liberal arts education, there are no universities doing that presently and they haven’t since the late 1980’s. The universities today indoctrinate students with “woke brainwashing”. Both of my daughters went to a local State University in a conservative part of a conservative state and they were indoctrinated.
How smart you were to have read those classics and learned their truth before you entered university. I applaud you and the spear of Truth you hold. Reading All Quiet on the Western Front changed me forever. I know the poem as well. Excellent essay. Thank you!
I have not in my 67 years read all of the great works you cite. However I grew up watching Walter Cronkite every-night provide enemy killed and kill ratios on TV. I watched live and viewed the aftermath of the George Floyd riots, Ukraine and October 7th atrocities with the same emotions and responses from my adolescent years watching Walter. It shaped a generation. My generation has lived and viewed these atrocities for decades and stand by our country as the shining light of freedom. IMO you are one of the few that embraced their eduction in a way that allows you to see through the false rhetoric and theologies that are spewed forth today. You may stand alone as, IMO, the educational system has failed in teaching history in full (the good and bad), has embraced at some level an esoteric view of socialism that truly does not exist and ultimately bent the educational process into creating altruistic graduates that cannot cope with reality.
I agree if someone actually has a REAL liberal arts education, there are no universities doing that presently and they haven’t since the late 1980’s. The universities today indoctrinate students with “woke brainwashing”. Both of my daughters went to a local State University in a conservative part of a conservative state and they were indoctrinated.