summercomfort | (no subject)

Yay, just heard this year's Aims of Education speech. Very good, I must say. A very cool blend of the practical and the theoretical. Or rather, the theoretical placed into the practical. As opposed to last year's which basically said that the aim of education is to see more, especially for us upper middle class people attending UChicago. Where last year's speaker concluded that since the education will not affect our future success and social standing, it is mostly self-betterment, to be able to see more fully and richly, this year's speaker said that education affects how we choose to succeed in the future. She talked about everyone being mired in our own puddle of assumptions, just as a fish cannot tell you about water, and education, especially reading the core, reading how other people saw the world, will help elevate us above the puddle, or at least perceive the water. She gave very helpful advice, as well. For example:
1. Avoid the abstract and pay attention to detail. It is by observing and understanding others that you understand yourself.
2. Question pretension. There is a practical, very fundamental drive to every lofty treatise.
3. Learn to write, learn to write well.
4. Laugh. Learn to accept life's unfairness with grace.

And now the library is closing, so off of fast internet.