Fred Has a Novel Idea

Abolish the universities:

I think it is time to close the universities, and perhaps prosecute the professoriat under the RICO act as a corrupt and racketeering-influenced organization. Universities these days have the moral character of electronic churches, and as little educational value. They are an embarrassment to civilization.

Fred doesn't mince words. Goodness but it's refreshing to read something in which an opinion bursts almost violently forth.

The truth is that universities positively discourage learning. Think about it. Suppose you wanted to learn Twain. A fruitful approach might be to read Twain. The man wrote to be read, not analyzed tediously and inaccurately by begowned twits. It might help to read a life of Twain. All of this the student could do, happily, even joyously, sitting under a tree of an afternoon. This, I promise, is what Twain had in mind.

I'm glad to see that someone intelligent supports my strategy. I go to an engineering school. Thus far, I have had to read one book for class. I suppose one could count calculus books and electrical engineering books and, worst of all, books discussing computer programming techniques, but to my knowledge, no such books have ever been read. Nine times out of ten, telling someone to do something will make him dislike it. This has nothing to do with the task itself, and everything to do with the human revulsion towards outward control, at least insofar as it concerns the curious and relatively free-thinking individual and his mind.

A lot of my friends tell me I read too much, to which I insist that I do not read enough. Engineers are fascinating people, but some of them are a bit narrow, and, at least in my experience, few cleave towards philosophy, theology and history in the way I inexplicably do. I can thus understand an indifference to Plato and Augustine, but I cannot pretend to comprehend an indifference in all the literature which has been compiled throughout human history. No man has time to even whet his appetite about everything, but to say that there is no longer anything more which one wishes to learn is inexplicable.

Ironically, as Fred notes, the universities contribute to this by forcing students to read that which they do not care to read. Forcing an engineer to read Paradise Lost is a surefire way to prevent him from developing a love of poetry, in the same way that the monotonous questioning of whatever a particular author was "trying to say" will render that author a tiresome bore. Of course, this is the goal of the universities. Cogs must be produced for the faceless corporate machine. Students that are bored into submission do not threaten the status quo. It's absurd to expect the schools to be reformed when they are already doing that which they have been created to do.

The truth is that anyone who wants to learn anything can do it better on his own. If you want to learn to write, for example, lock yourself in a room with copies of Strunk and White, and Fowler, and a supply of Padre Kino, and a loaded shotgun. The books will provide technique, the good Padre the inspiration, and you can use the shotgun on any tenured intrusion who offers advice. They tend to be spindly. A twenty-gauge should be sufficient.

I do not know where Fred learned to write so well, but I do know that I have followed his advice. Granted that there are no guns involved, and seldom booze--though perhaps my writings could use some "inspiration"--but I have kept the general theme. I last took an English class in seventh grade. My art--if one would deign to call it such--is the fruit of a twofold operation: massive amounts of reading, and an equally impressive amount of writing. These exercises have been incredibly enjoyable for me, in a way that taking classes have not been. Incidently, I would add that they have been more educational, though I leave the reader to judge the efficacy of the Fredwinian system, at least insofar as it pertains to me, the ironically dubbed: A Wiser Man Than I.