If my memory serves me correctly, during the first prime-time Republican debate, in Cleveland, Ohio, it transpired that Marco Rubio, a nice enough, charismatic “regimist,” had spent a total of two years of his working life outside of government (or in “public service,” to use a euphemism). Why wasn’t he asked what it was that he did during that time?
Category Archives: Human Accomplishment
Trump Mentions The G Factor
“Do we believe in the gene thing?” Donald Trump asked the crowd that assembled to hear him speak in Mobile, Alabama, Friday. He was touting his genetic lineage; says he comes from a family of high-achievers.
Wow. Hasn’t the guy received any briefings on the prevailing Cultural Marxism (also known as political correctness), in the country he seeks to lead? The nature-nurture debate has been settled politically. Many co-opted scientists have even seconded the politicians. Trump ought to know that according to this orthodoxy, were it not for largely exogenous circumstances, all human beings would be capable of the same accomplishments. (NOT) No such thing as general intelligence.
One things is clear. Low-energy Trump is not. (The way Trump keeps referring to poor Jeb Bush as a low-energy candidate is hilarious.)
Degrees Do Not An Educated Person Make (#RenaissanceMan, RIP)
Think you’re educated? Think Again. I have.
For a long time, the “Aristotelian ideal of the educated person” was the aim of a Liberal Education. The ideal and idea of the Renaissance Man, however, has been completely lost:
… The Aristotelian ideal of the educated person, “critical” in all or almost all branches of knowledge, survived for centuries as the aim of liberal education. Originally, the student would be taught seven arts or skills, consisting of the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music). The names are antique, but the seven “subjects” were comparable to a modern liberal curriculum of languages, philosophy, mathematics, history, and science. The arts or skills were “liberal” because they were liberating. That is, they freed their possessor from the ignorance that bound the uneducated. … The original belief that an educated person should be “critical” in more fields than his own no longer exists …
(Excerpted from Charles Van Doren’s A history of Knowledge: Past, present, and future, 1991, New York: Ballantine Books, on Dr. Alexander A. Petrov’s blog).
In his discussion of a “humanistic education” (as Sean Gabb terms the liberal arts education of yesteryear), Dr. Gabb mentions our mutual, late, dear friend, Dennis O’Keeffe, who was “famous for his denunciations of what he calls socialist education—this being a denial that there is any value in the traditional curriculum. Such an education means”:
a training in habits of thought and the exercise of general intellectual ability. It may require the acquisition of specific skills—for example, learning at least one of the classical languages and few modern languages, and learning some of the technical aspects of music and the visual arts. It may also require an understanding of mathematics and of the natural sciences. It certainly requires a long study of literature and history and philosophy and law and political economy. But none of this may be useful in any direct financial sense. …
Dr. Gabb does, however, underestimate the mental prowess (albeit maybe not intellect) that goes into completion of advanced degrees of what he calls “technical or professional training.” Most of us are unable to manipulate the laws of nature (physics/mathematics) to create the workable technology that makes life so good.
I often watch “Food Factory.” I’m in awe of the mechanical engineers who design these magnificent robotic assembly lines, even though they may not be witty and entertaining dinner guests (which Sean Gabb most certainly is, as I learned when I attended a Liberty Fund colloquium in the UK).
Designing an assembly line that makes my chocolate slabs materialize is a pretty noble calling.
UPDATED: Lee Kuan Yew Knew A Thing Or Two (Like When To Cane An American)
Ah, intelligence: When last was I moved by the intelligence of an American public persona—the teletarts, the presstitutes, the egos in the anchor’s chair, the politicians? If you mean moved to vomit, then all the time. Conversely, I could not listen to Lee Kuan Yew without being impressed by his enormous intelligence. Singapore’s “prime minister for 31 years, widely respected as the architect of Singapore’s prosperity,” died at 91.
More than anything, Lee Kuan Yew, who retired in 1990, understood that human capital, not natural resources, makes a society thrive.
The Cambridge-educated lawyer led Singapore through merger with, and then separation from, Malaysia.
Speaking after the split in 1965, he pledged to build a meritocratic, multi-racial nation. But tiny Singapore – with no natural resources – needed a new economic model.
“We knew that if we were just like our neighbours, we would die,” Mr Lee told the New York Times in 2007.
“We had to produce something which is different and better than what they have.”
And:
Lee’s role as the founding father of Singapore [is what] he will be most remembered for and which gave him that global status in the first place. His success in turning Singapore from a tiny third-world country – at the time of its independence separated from Malaysia and under threat from neighboring Indonesia – into a first-world city state is a feat to behold. While few expected Singapore to survive, it has thrived far beyond the wildest dreams of many, including Lee himself who once reportedly dismissed small island states as a political joke.
Alas, there “was a darker side to the Singapore story” (said in Keith Morrison’s most ominous, Dateline voice).
But we won’t speak ill of a man who loved his people and was genuinely loved by them, who didn’t spread democracy by force to nobody, kept his military mitts to himself, and did Americans a great favor by inspiring the public paddling of a visiting truant teenager, Michael Fay, when he spray-painted cars in Singapore of 1994.
UPDATE (3/23): Facebook thread:
Kerry Crowel: I’ve used a quote of his (“In multicultural societies, you don’t vote in accordance with your economic interests and social interests, you vote in accordance with race and religion.”) many times when arguing with open-border, amnesty advocates .
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Myron Robert Pauli: While perhaps too authoritarian for my standards (but how much better are Bloomberg and Guiliani??), Lee improved a lot of things to make a modern Singapore. Another interesting comparison would be to compare Abe Lincoln (from when he took office to when he died) with Deng Xiaoping (from when he took power to when he died) and ask who freed more people or lifted them from poverty and who butchered more people (how does Tienanmien Square casualties compare with Antietam?).
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Hastings Ragnarsson: “A leader is best when people barely know he exists; not so good when people obey and acclaim him; worst when they despise him.” ~ Laotzi /// Wo jing ni yi bei, Lingdao.