Sam Jandwich
"Fundamentally, Arts is concerned with analysing the ways that culture, language, society, the physical environment etc shape people's thinking"

That is true, but this analysing is only used as a vehicle to push through an already held moral prejudice. Most doctors and professors already have a moral position even before utilizing an Arts methodology. They already despise capitalism, Western culture in general, the powerful, men (mostly white men), and by default support anything that supposedly suffers, or has no power. Critical thinking (if you could call it that) is only applied after a moral position has been taken; this includes sifting through information to try and support one's already held point of view. The general orthodoxy in the Arts at the moment is to analyse society through race, gender, and class to try and find signs of oppression wherever possible along these lines. This methodology commits them to a hypocrisy of making massive stereotypes while telling others that they shouldn't stereotype.

While I don't dislike the Arts, I actually believe they are necessary in the sense of needing to understand history and the history of ideas, but they need to clean up their act of automatically making out people to be oppressed or victims of some kind of system.

Actually, Aristocrat, one of my degrees is in Social Science.

As the granddaughter of a Yorkshire coal miner and his wife who was "in service" before her marriage, and who brought me up until I was seven in a council house on a council estate, I have no difficulty with "street sweepers" and knowing the contribution everybody can make no matter what their field and social status. Gaining a PhD did not take this appreciation away from me.
Jennifer.

Yes, Aristocrat I do agree that there are unfortunately a lot of professional academics who abuse systems and intellectual techniques to push their own agendas - and this seems to happen more in the more applied "humanities" disciplines rather than the core Arts disciplines like philosophy or political science. Part of being a responsible intellectual is to challenge the people who engage in these sorts of antics, both by countering their arguments, and by putting accountability mechanisms in place.

But then, a good stoush is all part of the fun! So I hope it never disappears completely.

Sandwich,

You make sneering suggestions about people with the title Rector yet you unabashedly use the word rectifed.

What does that say about you?

Could it be you may have just exposed your values as dwelling in nether regions.

Hi Mollydukes,

Yes you are right, I shouldn't have lumped all graduates in the same class. I should have said it is my experience with most graduates.

My son who has engineering and science degrees would disagree with you about the importance of the scientific method when it comes to navigating a way in this world. He has an appreciation of alternative ways of constructing reality.

We have many robust discussions our latest was on the relevance of the Peloponnesian War. We both enjoy Herodotus. I'm proud he's following my trail through the reading of the development of the Liberal Democratic West and Western thought.

Aristocrat you say that in the Arts the "analysing is only used as a vehicle to push through an already held moral prejudice". Perhaps you reveal your prejudices when you accuse others? We all come to a decision about what is moral and you haven't really explained why you think it is wrong for people have a moral view that differs from yours.

Imajulianutter,As you say, the scientific method is no way to get on in this world! I think it is a very 'unnatural' way for humans to think. To do well in the world, depending on how one defines success, it seems to me, requires the ability to get along with people or understand them. But of course I am biased toward seeing my own problems as universally applicable, and they are not.

Well done, it is a wonderful thing to have grown children and be able to have deep and meaningful discussions with them; and also some really silly ones. I have my youngest son at home. He's a youth worker and with my backgroud in psychology, we so often solve all the problems of society in a single night!