From Home Economics: The Loss of the University: If standards are to be upheld, they cannot be specialized, professionalized, or departmented. Only common standards can be upheld–standards that are held and upheld in common by the whole community. When, in a university, for instance, English composition is made the responsibility exclusively of the English department, […]
Wendell Berry on Teaching Writing with Standards Read More »
{Or, How We’ve Redefined What Those Words Mean and Caused a Cultural Catastrophe} RHETORIC is a liberal art, but all three of those words (‘rhetoric’, ‘liberal’, and ‘art’) have come to mean something different than they meant in the Christian classical era. Therefore, let me suggest that we explore the meaning of each word and
The Art of Rhetoric Read More »
Like everybody, I’ve been trying to figure out how to interpret they weekend shooting of a congresswoman and to understand what it says about us as a people. I can’t do it. So far, I’ve figured out that we have violent people among us and that the internal barriers of civilized society don’t restrain them
An Attempt at an Intelligent Response Read More »
Image by John and Keturah via Flickr From Alex Haley’s Roots, end of chapter 85: [Kizzy] lay thinking of how she had never understood why her pappy had always felt so bitter against the world of white people–“toubob” was his word for them. She thought of Bell’s saying to her, “You’s so lucky it scare
