individual,

You say "People will always be ignorant about the future."

But the more we know about the Arts things like history, sociology, anthropology, archaeology, philosophy, etc., the better position we will be in to make a very good educated guess about where things are heading and what the probable outcomes might be.

If we ignore all of those Arts things and stop studying them then we will run the risk of preventing bad things from happening.

We can attempt to control our future using our knowledge of the Arts things or just do what Foxy, LOUDmouth and many others do by turning a blind eye to things, pretending nothing bad can happen, and keeping our head buried in the sand forever.

Which path do you want to follow? I know the one I want to take.

Mr O, you beat up the importance of the Arts,

Plenty of people know about the world without going to university.

Foxy,

We have had very different experiences of Catholic education.

i attended a Marist school and we were taught that although ours was the 'one, true religion' we studied others and noted their good points.
Never once in all the years that I have attended Mass have I ever heard a Priest condemn another religion or preach intolerance.

Eric Liddell, the Scottish, Pesbyterian Olympian (in more ways than one) was held up to us as an example of a committed Christian for his personal stance, under great pressure, in refusing to forego his beliefs on the sanctity of Sunday.

"At the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, Liddell refused to run in the heats for his favoured 100 metres because they were held on a Sunday. Instead he competed in the 400 metres held on a weekday, a race that he won. He returned to China in 1925 to serve as a missionary teacher. Aside from two furloughs in Scotland, he remained in China until his death in a Japanese civilian internment camp in 1945."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Liddell

The choice of Ian Charleson to play him in "Chariots of Fire" was brilliant.

Chris,

Everyone knows something about the world they live in. But not everyone knows a lot about the world they live in.

We do the Arts things like history, sociology, anthropology, archaeology, philosophy, etc., so that we can know a lot about the world we live in.

There are a lot of people who will tell you they know a lot (like many on The Forum) but when asked to prove it they cannot do it.

They say they read a lot of books but cannot show anyone that they read lots of books. Anyone can say they read lots of books. Proving it is another thing.

Anyone can say they have a lot of knowledge about the world. proving it is another thing.

That's the reason I place emphasis on having formal qualifications. There are a lot of charlatans out there who will try to fool us that they have a lot of knowledge about the world they live in but in fact can only tell you what they think they know and not what they know.

one of the great movies

put it this way, given thread is about multiculturalism, I did not learn much about this concept at university which was not related to left wing bias.

I did what was needed to get a HD, but really thought the lecturer had no idea about reality.

one day I told him off for brainwashing students with bs about the working class being responsible for multiculturalism.

He would later retract in class and buy me a lunch.

so Mr O, you are sadly mistaken in your glory praise of the Arts.

In my experience and my opinion, most have little idea beyond what they wish for in their world of make believe.