E.g., he complains about college debt, but doesn't want to be forced to think about what sort of political principles support such a system, nor possible alternatives. Too abstract, outside of his dumbed-down-libertarianism idea hugbox.

Speaking of college, mind giving us the cheat sheet/cliffs notes version? I'll give you some weed..

seriously though I couldn't make it past 2 minutes :(

Penn offers a program called PPE. It's a triple major, thus an honors program. It's meant as the pre-law, pre-politics major. It stands for Philosophy, Poli Sci, and Economics. I think that course of study (ideally swapping out Poli Sci for Military History) with a minor, or an associate's in Civil Engineering, would go a long way towards making for a good leader.

The problem with liberal arts educations, one of which I received for some reason, is that students go into them because they think it can win them more money in the workplace.

This is the irrational paradox of the BA. There was a time when all you needed was a BA and you were more or less guaranteed to make over a million dollars more than a person who lacked one. Too many people go to college and stumble through the hoops of a liberal arts education because that's what they think they should do. Add to that a culture of self-proclaimed egoistic identity warriors and you've got a bunch of people who are graduating without any of the skills you're talking about but adulterating the liberal arts in general.

It's very easy to piss on the BA from a place of financial security. I've had to work with people who have been solely motivated by their own careers and have absolutely no idea how to handle criticism or criticize other people effectively. I've worked with computer programmers who were essentially babies. They make more money though, so that's the important thing in this society.

Well, I'd say that this King of the World child needs to go. Kings are bad enough, but centralizing kingly power on a global scale, in the form of a single man whose education shall for some strange reason be provided *by me*?! This is a variant on one of those "Should we kill baby Hitler?" thought experiments, yes, Master Ashtar? I suppose the first thing I would teach him is that he should not be a King, and then, that even if he assumes his royal title rather than abdicating to the Republic as Sulla once did, my royal charge will never have perfect knowledge of every subject under the sun, and cannot expect to. This is why liberalism is the most rational political philosophy, and why power must be shared across the board, amongst free artisans who posses their own sets of expertise, rather than placed entirely in the hands of a tiny cadre of professional bureaucrats, whose immense regularity power means that entire civilizations will thrive or fail, based solely upon the content of their character. No Gods, no Kings, young prince Ho-Ju. Only Man.


Anyways, more to your point: first, I disagree that "every individual citizen is responsible for making the decisions that the King would need to make". This would only be true in the most extreme forms of direct democracy - the ever-elusive "dictatorship of the proletariat", for example. Nobody lives in such a society, certainly not anyone watching this video on Youtube - most of us live in a representative republic, and as our individual votes count for precisely nothing, our education (or lack thereof) is ultimately irrelevant. Furthermore, even if we WERE to live in a society which values direct democracy and self-sovereignty, problems would only really start to arise IF the state were given sweeping powers by which it could interfere with the lives of its citizenry. All such a democracy would need is a system of checks and balances (a constitution that limits the powers which the state could claim, for instance), and then the dangers of "not living a society composed entirely of Platonic Philosopher-Kings" would largely evaporate. Yes, in a pure democracy, in which the majority holds absolute power over all aspects of society simply by virtue of being the majority, then nearly every person in society would need to be as wise and well-educated as the Boy King whom I've evidently got chained to a desk in my basement - otherwise, the majority would simply set about oppressing everyone, and we'd have hellish mob-rule as envisioned by meth heads and watchers of Adult Swim! But again, that is not a reasonable scenario; such a democracy does not exist in the West, and if it did, there will be far easier solutions to the problems that would arise from such a system, than mandating "Everyone must learn everything".


Second, I have not finished this video, but so far I do not see your characterization of his argument as being accurate. Yes, *of course* it is good to have a "liberal arts" education, if you have the opportunity to get one (you know universities, those exclusive bastions of predatory libertarianism). It is nice to study a wide range of subjects - not just for *political reasons*, so one can justify seeking coercive power over those working-class jocks we all hated back in middle school, but for reasons of character! Ethics! And for fun!

However, it is a very large leap to go from "study a wide range of topics", to "Major in Welsh-American Studies".

This seems to be his main complaint, and it is a perfectly valid one. We both know that sociology is a pretty stupid field, and while taking a few "soft science" classes here and there is certainly a good thing (or at least it couldn't hurt), majoring in such a discipline is NOT the best of ideas, whatever way you chose to look at it (be that simple economic pragmatism, a megalomaniacal desire to be King, or any reason in between). Again, just because a few of these "useless majors" are, in fact, useless, that does not mean you can't dabble in them, and it CERTAINLY doesn't mean that you're suddenly barred from having a well-rounded liberal arts education by, say, opting to skip Queer Studies 215 in favour of another pre-med requirement. You can still study ethics and philosophy and economics and chemistry. Our friend here is just suggesting that, you know, maybe you shouldn't choose to devote most of your time to a joke major?


FOR EXAMPLE, let us say, just for the sake of argument, that the University at which you work decides to offer a brand new major: the Exercise Science major, classes for which consist entirely of getting students to go outside and play kickball. *Would it be unfair of me* to suggest that, perhaps this major is a waste of your valuable time and money? While I CERTAINLY encourage everyone to exercise from time to time (it is the Rainbow Dash Way; hell, you may be teaching at a school which has athletic requirements already in place!), I am also not ashamed to admit that, barring a million-dollar contract offer from the National Sportsball League, I'd rather you focused your energies on studying law or particle physics, than on studying kickball.

King of the world? Philosophy, history and political science.

Idiot in front of a webcam on Youtube? Social sciences.

@Dr Robot that's a great idea. At UW Madison we had "breath" courses we had to take, which would eventually be dumbed down to the point of learning ROYGBIV for disinterested comp lit and philosophy majors such as myself simply trying to get out of their "Q" requirement. And DUH Physics are important, they rule everything around me, but why would I waste my time taking shit that I wasn't interested in, and that others can do and grasp better? The real definition of a "well rounded education" is something more like it sounds like Penn State has.

On a side note, I nearly flunked that "Physics for the Philosophers" class anyway :)

..but I did take a very high level Phil course for graduate students when I was undergrad, because of the "Q" requirements involving the Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics, and that I got, even though I thought about Karl Popper the entire time as the lead singer of Blues Traveler which was really distracting.

Not to be snotty but Penn is and always has been short for University of Pennsylvania, founded by Ben Franklin, a private, Ivy League school, which despite having such a great curriculum for leaders, has yet to produce a POTUS. It's also the home of Wharton School of Business, the alma mater of a certain notorious candidate for POTUS.

Thanks, EH. That was one of the most evilhomerest things you’ve ever posted.

The point of the thought experiment is just to reflect on the sort of education that one would need if one were to be in charge of stuff, and to point out that all citizens in a democracy are, in some sense, in charge of stuff, and thus need such an education. It’s not an endorsement of monarchy, though I appreciate your brave stand against the divine right of kings. Nor does the point require direct democracy or involvement of everyone in government. For example; in a representative system people need to choose between a candidate that thinks climate change is real and one that doesn’t, or one that thinks we need to do something about it and one that doesn’t. One ought to have a general knowledge of climatology (or at least how science works) in order to make the first choice, and a background in ethics in order to make the second. The fact that a vast number of people don’t have this background is one of the main reasons that so many people are taken in by climate change denialist bullshit who subsequently elect representatives that block action on climate change; this leads to

>>problems would only really start to arise IF the state were given sweeping powers by which it could interfere with the lives of its citizenry. All such a democracy would need is a system of checks and balances (a constitution that limits the powers which the state could claim, for instance)

We live in such a state. People not knowing a) what those checks and balances are, or b) why they are a good idea/the reasons behind them, puts our system in jeopardy. Think of conservatives trying to legislate their religion, or protesters at Missouri not understanding freedom of the press. Having checks and balances and limitations on mob rule is great, but doesn’t protect a democratic system from the dangers of having a demos that doesn’t understand or endorse the system they live in. The fact that large numbers of people on both the left and the right are willing to abridge or totally negate civil liberties is due, in part, to having never learned what these liberties are, nor why they are important.

One might make a distinction between getting a liberal arts education and majoring in a liberal arts major. This is a valid point. I don’t think everyone needs to focus on philosophy or whatever, just that some general education and ethics/politics requirements are a good thing. I don’t think Mr. Libertarianmullet makes such a distinction, however; I think it’s a more accurate characterization of the gist of his rant (the fact that he’s not clear or concise is symptomatic of a lack of critical thinking skills) to say that one of his central premises is that one goes to college to learn skills to make money, and anything else is a waste of time. I’m arguing that this is wrong, or at least harmful to a democracy.

I agree that there are reasons other than political reasons to study the humanities. My argument was not intended to be exhaustive or exclusive.

There are certainly majors that are useless. (Kickball is pretty fun, though. And, interestingly, there are several quality Philosophy of Sport journals. A paper on coaching comparing Heidegger/Dreyfus and Searle versus a computational theory of mind was one of the best papers I’ve read recently.) They are useless for reasons other than a low cost to future earnings ratio or because the subjects discussed are “too abstract” or they sound dumb (it’s not clear that he understands anything about leisure studies other than the name), though, which are the reasons Mr. Libertarianmullet gives.

* this leads to not taking action on one of the most serious problems that we currently face, and actively making it worse.

As well he should. Are you implying that it doesn't make the world a worse place?

ok, I'll bite. How are Women's studies impacting your life, Mr. Lepine?

DAMMIT, WHO TAUGHT THE WOMEN WHAT "CONSENT" IS? YOU'VE RUINED THE WORLD!

The primary (really, sole) purpose of a women's studies degree is to put an academic gloss on a victim complex.

Before women's studies, everyone was a rapist.

I didn't watch the video but boy did I call that one!

You guys know that you're supposed to move past that "girls are gross and scary" phase by, like, fourth grade, right?

You realize your comment is basically saying women were too stupid to know when they were being raped until women's studies classes came along?

I have a Hogwarts diploma I got at a theme park. You can have that as long as you don't mind being a Hufflepuff.

That's cause the MBA is the liberal arts major's chance at redemption. They may have squandered their undergraduate years on a shit degree, but bah gawd, they can show their parents that they're not worthless, that they can be practical and get that MBA!