Misopinionated,

Three Arts degrees - wow, you must be triply useless :)

Joe

Dear Mr Opinion,

Traditionally,many people went to university to study
academic subjects that interested them, in order to
develop and broaden their minds. Do you really think
that's true today?

Today, the consensus seems to be that many people
go to university to study vocational subjects in the
hopes of enhancing their job prospects.

Twenty years ago, half the undergrads intended to major
in the liberal arts - the natural sciences, social sciences,
and humanities - but today it may surprise you as to how things
have changed.

Today one of the most popular fields is business; many
under grads now choose this single field for their major,
and graduate business schools have shown a large increase
in enrollments . Today a major reason for attending
university seems to be - "to be able to make more money."

As for what people get out of an Arts degree?
Well lets take you as a case in point.
Do you have great communication skills, problem solving
skills, and the ability to assimilate new knowledge?

No offense but your constant use of:

"wink, wink, nudge, nudge, you know who I mean" -
is not a very good indicator.

Dear Foxy,

The phrase 'nudge nudge wink wink know what I mean?' was made famous by Eric Idle in the Monty Python productions. Goodness gracious, you don't think I made it up by myself!

If you don't like it then I will stop using it and just say Loudmouth is pretending to be an Arts grad. Better?

I see you share the great misunderstanding about Arts degrees that most people have. It's only been in the last century that Arts has become restricted to the humanities. There was a time when universities only awarded either a BA or a BSc. A person could do his/her studies under either depending on which one they preferred to be awarded. This resulted in odd mixes like a BSc in accountancy, an MA in engineering, or a BA in architecture. In the medieval period there was just the BA and it's only been in the last century that universities have started to award specialist degrees eg BEng, BArch, BBus, LLM, etc due to the influence of modernity and rationalisation. So yes there was a time when everyone seemed to have an Arts degree but nowadays Arts is generally restricted to the scholarly pursuits of anthropology, history, sociology, archaeology, etc. I did a BE because I needed a job and then pursued my BA and two MAs because I wanted to study humankind and it's societies and cultures across the great expanse of human history.

Foxy,

Yes, I'm doing fine. Not out of the woods yet but I can see the edge of the forest from where I sit - or actually lay.

I agree with you about reading. Its becoming a lost art. Audio books for christ sake!. Videos on important issues!. I said earlier I read the transcript Graham linked rather than the podcast. I really don't like podcasts. I prefer to read which gives me a chance to stop and ponder when an important or interesting point is made.

Luckily my kids are also readers. My daughter got the bug from Harry Potter. I read her the first two and when and then she was old enough to read the rest. We were always among the first in line to buy the next volume as it was released.

But the problems society has now are, I feel, at least party due to people no longer seeing the need or allocating the time to view things from all angles. Podcast, videos, tweets etc push views without context. People get and accept opinion without the need for pesky facts or nuance.

Its a worry. On the other hand, I always take the long view. This is a new phenomena and these things take a generation or two to resolve or settle into society. If society gets through these growing pains, it'll come out the other side renewed and democracy invigorated. I just can't see the path ahead at the moment.

Mr O writes: "mhaze is right. After all he has degrees in history."

No, he's right because he has a reverence for the facts. Pontificating on those things on which you are utterly ignorant is rarely a good look.

"the reason you and I do not agree with anything is because you and I have absolutely nothing in common."

No the reason is that, if I agreed with you, I be wrong too!

" Shame on those people who pretend to be something they're not, as well as criticising subject areas they have no qualifications in just because they want to be something other than what they really are."

In all your 'studies' did you ever come across the notion of Psychological projection? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection

Hi Foxy and Mr O,

The quote of the day;

"Einstein plus an idiot is smarter than Einstein on his own."

Two things I have noticed on the Forum, one is the derision of those here that are formally educated, along with derision of the educators as well. Secondly there is a tendency to be super critical and dismissive of books and their authors. The guilty party to this are the Usual Suspects, the Grumpy Old Men from the hard right, we all know who they are.

Knowledge is the most dangerous weapon in the world, more powerful than an atomic bomb.

Foxy, both myself and "T" are very pleased with Brisbane City Library, they have a dozen or more well stocked outlets around the city and suburbs. Using the PC at home, or in the local branch we can access a big collection of books, DVD's etc from all branches, only 80c to get something transferred in 2 or 3 days, allowed up to 20 items at a time for a month. Better than my local back in Sydney, they could never find anything. Like to read one book a week, usually non-fiction, this coming week its non fiction 'The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee' - David Treuer. The following week I'll switch to a bit of fiction 'The Memory Weaver' - Jane Kirkpatrick.

I suggest our Grumpy Old Men, with so much time on their hands join their local library, never too late to broaden ones horizons, books tend to do that. Recently in a post one of the lads said "I never read books!" like as if it was an honour not to do so.