Another reason why educators should emphasize personal enrichment over job preparation
is that specific knowledge and skills needed for jobs are changing more and more quickly.
Thus it would be a waste of our education system to focus on specific knowledge and skills
that will soon become obsolete--at the expense of providing a lasting and personally satisfying
educational experience. It seems more appropriate today for employers to provide the training
our work force needs to perform their jobs, freeing up our educators to help enrich students’
lives in ways that will serve them in any walk of life.
A third reason why educators should emphasize personally enriching course
work--particularly anthropology, sociology, history, and political philosophy--is that these
courses help students understand, appreciate, and respect other people and their viewpoints.
As these students grow into working adults they will be better able to cooperate, compromise,
understand various viewpoints, and appreciate the rights and duties of coworkers, supervisors,
and subordinates. Rote technical knowledge and skill do little to help us get along with other
people.
Admittedly, certain aspects of personal enrichment, especially spirituality and religion,
should be left for parents and churches to provide; after all, by advocating teachings of any
particular religion, public educators undermine our basic freedom of religion. Yet it is perfectly
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appropriate, and useful, to inform students about various religious beliefs, customs and
institutions. Learning about different religions instills respect, tolerance, and understanding.
Moreover, students grow to appreciate certain fundamental virtues, such as compassion,
virtue, and humility, which all major religions share. Through this appreciation students grow
into adults who can work well together toward mutually agreed-upon goals.
In sum, it is chiefly through the more personally enriching Liberal studies that educators help
students fully blossom into well-rounded adults and successful workers. There will always be a
need to tram people for specific jobs, of course. However, since knowledge is advancing so
rapidly, employers and job-training programs are better equipped to provide this function,
leaving formal educators free to provide a broader, more personally enriching education that
will serve students throughout their lives and in any job or career.
Issue 100
"Technology creates more problems than it solves, and may threaten or damage the quality of
life."
Whether technology enhances or diminishes our overall quality of life depends largely on the
type of technology one is considering. While mechanical automation may have diminished our
quality of life on balance, digital automation is doing more to improve life than to undermine its
quality.
First consider mechanical automation, particularly assembly-line manufacturing. With
automation came a loss of pride in and alienation from one’s work. In this sense, automation
both diminished our quality of life and rendered us slaves to machines in our inability to
reverse "progress." Admittedly, mechanical automation spawned entire industries, creating
jobs, stimulating economic growth, and supplying a plethora of innovative conveniences.
Nevertheless, the sociological and environmental price of progress may have outweighed its
benefits.Next consider digital technology. Admittedly, this newer form of technology has brought its
own brand of alienation, and has adversely affected our quality of life in other ways as well. For
example, computer automation, and especially the Internet, breeds information overload and
steals our time and attention away from family, community, and coworkers. In these respects,
digital technology tends to diminish our quality of life and create its own legion of human
slaves.
On the other hand, by relegating repetitive tasks to computers, digital technology has
spawned great advances in medicine and physics, helping us to better understand the world,
to enhance our health, and to prolong our lives. Digital automation has also emancipated
architects, artists, designers, and musicians, by expanding creative possibilities and by saving
time. Perhaps most important, however, information technology makes possible universal
access to information, thereby providing a democratizing influence on our cultul:e.
In sum, while mechanical automation may have created a society of slaves to modern
conveniences and unfulfRling work, digital automation holds more promise for improving our
lives without enslaving us to the technology.
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Issue 101
"The material progress and well-being of one country are necessarily connected to the
material progress and well-being of all other countries."
I strongly agree that each nation’s progress and well-being are now tied to the progress and
well-being of other nations. In the pursuit of its citizens’ economic and social welfare, as well
as their safety, security, and health, each nation today creates a ripple effect-- sometimes
beneficial and sometimes detrimentS---felt around the globe. And, although I disagree that our
global interconnectedness is necessary, in all likelihood it is with us to stay.
Turning first to economic progress and well-being, the economic pursuits of any nation today
are not merely connected to but actually interwoven with those of other nations. In some cases
one nation’s progress is another’s problem. For instance, strong economic growth in the U.S.
attracts investment in U.S. equities from foreign investors, to the detriment of foreign business
investments, which become less attractive by comparison. Or consider the global
repercussions of developed nations’ over-consumption of natural resources mined from
emerging nations. Having been exploited once for the sake of fueling the high standard of
living in the developed world, emerging nations are now being pressured to comply with the
same energy conservation policies as their exploiters--even though they did not contribute to
the problems giving rise to these policies, and cannot afford to make the sacrifices involved.Finally, although international drug trafficking provides an economic boon for the rogue nations
supplying the drugs, it carries deleterious economic, social, and public-health consequences
for user nations.
In other cases the economic connection between nations is synergistic--either mutually
beneficial or detrimental. A financial crisis--or a political crisis or natural disaster in one country
can spell trouble for foreign companies, many of which are now multinational in that they rely
on the labor forces, equipment, and raw materials of other nations. And, as trade barriers and
the virtual distance between nations collapse, the result is economic synergies among all
trading nations. For instance, the economic well-being of Middle East nations relies almost
entirely on demand from oil-consuming nations such as the U.S., which depend on a steady
supply from the Middle East.
Nations have also become interconnected in the pursuit of scientific and technological
progress. And while it might be tempting to hasten that the ripples generally benefit other
nations, often one nation’s pursuit of progress spells trouble for other nations. For example,
the development of nudear weapons and biological and chemical agents affords the nation
possessing them political and military leverage over other nations. And, global computer
connectivity has served to heighten national-security concerns of all connected nations who
can easily fall prey to Internet espionage.
Finally, the world’s nations have become especially interconnected in terms of their public
health. Prior to the modern industrial age, no nation had the capacity to inflict lasting
environmental damage on other nations. But, as that age draws to a close it is evident that
so-called industrial "progress" has carried deleterious environmental consequences worldwide.
Consider, for instance, the depletion of atmospheric ozone, which has warmed the Earth to the
point that it threatens the very survival of the human species. And, we are now learning that
dear-cutting the world’s rainforests can set into motion a chain of animal extinction that
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threatens the delicate balance upon which all animals--including humans--depend.
In closing, I take exception to the statement only insofar as a nation can still pursue progress
and the well-being of its own citizens in relative isolation from other nations. And I concede that
in the future the world’s nations might respond to the health and security risks of the ripple
effect that I’ve described by adopting isolationist trade, communications, and military policies.