"They have created a perpetual motion machine."
Education
Affirmative Action — When Helping Ends Up Hurting
"Once the standards are lowered for some, they are indirectly lowered for all." — Abraham H. Miller
The Cultural Value of Reading
“The ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.” - Malcolm X
The Increasing Irrelevancy of Degrees in English — Or, An Object Lesson in Shooting Yourself in the Foot
When someone keeps insisting that what they're doing isn't important, they shouldn't be surprised when their livelihoods start to disappear.
What’s Wrong with Higher Education?
You'd think throwing money at a problem would somehow solve it. When the government throws money at the problem of ignorance, however, it perversely results in more ignorance. And it doesn't help that the ones administering the money are more concerned about politics than education.
Ethos Is a Choice
Reglazing the broken windows of our popular culture — the argument from character. by Warren Moore I was discussing argumentation with my frosh this morning, and while most of the class was devoted to Stephen Toulmin’s elements of argument, we spent a little time talking about the Aristotelian idea that ethos — the appeal based on the character of the speaker — is typically formed during the rhetorical act itself. In simpler terms, this is why one should avoid spelling/grammar errors on one’s resume, for example — it diminishes the applicant’s ethos. Likewise, decisions regarding tone and diction impact a speaker’s ethical standing, and thus his rhetorical effectiveness. (Indeed, even my use of his in the preceding sentence marks me to some audiences as an old frump, and possibly sexist in the bargain, even if it’s happening under the radar.) For an example of this, consider the career of Charles Rocket, or more recently, Michael Richards. But of course, this sort of diminution of ethos can only operate when there are standards or taboos (depending on one’s perspective). This brings us to a recent article by Myron Magnet at City Journal. Magnet reviews the recent kerfuffle between the mayor of
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