T.S. Talks Society, Art, Literature, Politics, and Education

[therealUT]

Fantastic stuff, thought I'd share with the group:

You cannot, in any scheme for the reformation of society, aim directly at a condition in which the arts will flourish: these activities are probably by-products for which we cannot deliberately arrange the conditions. ON the other hand, their decay may always be taken as a symptom of some social ailment to be investigated.
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But what is more insidious than any censorship, is the steady influence which operates silently in any mass society organized for profit, for the depression of standards of art and culture. The increasing organization of advertisement and propaganda - or the influencing of masses of men by any means except through their intelligence - is all against them.
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At a period in which each nation has less and less 'culture' for its own consumption, all are making furious efforts to export their culture, to impress upon each other their achievements in arts which they are ceasing to cultivate or understand.
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Accordingly the more serious authors have a limited, and even provincial audience, and the more popular write for an illiterate and uncritical mob.

You cannot expect continuity and coherence in politics, you cannot expect reliable behaviour on fixed principles persisting through changed situations, unless there is an underlying political philosophy: not of a party, but of the nation. You cannot expect continuity and coherence in literature and the arts, unless you have a certain uniformity of culture, expressed in education by a settled, though not rigid agreement as to what everyone should know to some degree, and a positive distinction - however undemocratic it may sound - between the educated and the uneducated. I observed in America, that with a very high level of intelligence among undergraduates, progress was impeded by the fact that one could never assume that any two, unless they had been at the same school under the influence of the same masters at the same moment, had studied the same subjects or read the same books, though the number of subjects in which they had been instructed was surprising. Even with a smaller amount of total information, it might have been better if they had read fewer, but the same books.
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A nation's system of education is much more important than its system of government; only a proper system of education can unify the active and the contemplative life, action and speculation, politics and the arts. But 'education' said Coleridge, 'is to be reformed, and defined as synonymous with instruction'. This revolution has been effected: to the populace education means instruction.

 

[milohimself]

Good take on education. On the other side of it, I see more and more students at various universities having higher levels of disregard for anything that's not in their view of point a to point b, I only need to know what is within the parameters of my chosen profession, etc. The result is more people who are less and less capable of critical thought. Every time I'm around business management undergrads, I feel like I'm surrounded by drones.

The school I'm at right now requires what essentially amounts to a liberal arts minor of the students choosing in order to get any degree (mechanical engineering and one other major, I forget which are the only exceptions). The bottom line is that they believe if you can't develop a thesis, research and apply logic at a collegiate level, you won't earn that paper. I'm absolutely in favor of this but not so sure it's all that common these days.

 

[therealUT]

Lack of critical thought and lack of critical reading. It's okay to read a serial novel every once in a while; however, the failure to read anything of depth and/or substance seems to be a pandemic.

 

[WA_Vol]

Art is not what it's about.
It's family that keeps societies together.
When you see the bring down of the family unit, that's when society unravels.

 

[therealUT]

Art is not what it's about.
It's family that keeps societies together.
When you see the bring down of the family unit, that's when society unravels.

Interesting that you bring that up. T.S. actually references families as he is establishing the base for his argument.