The Oxford and Cambridge tradition of forcing students (and their teachers) to rigorously defend everything they do and say is a matter that is central to the cause of freedom.

Of course, the British government for the past two generations has done everything it can to interfere and dampen the traditions of Oxford and Cambridge because continuing the traditions of freedom is the last thing the government and the academics want.

People today do not realize that the whole system was different before WWII. There weren’t any “required courses” and “distribution requirements” in the liberal arts colleges.

Liberal Arts degrees were conferred on the basis of examinations, in the interests of real standards. In contrast, unlike today, anybody who could pay the tuition could gain admittance to a professional school.

Today, the entire rigor is in the professional schools because that is where your ticket gets punched for entry into the rackets. But the professional schools have slowly slid downward in standards precisely because of the rackets and their self-interested business agendas. A lot of important fundamentals have been lost to agendas related to how the professional schools are funded.

Robert Whitaker has done some great posts on interrogation, fascinating stuff. But today, in general, few are aware how interested tyranny is in burying the culture where your opinions and actions are expected to be able to withstand genuine interrogation.

For several generations all mainstream political debate has been carried out on a phony basis. Debates where the candidates’ positions are subject to true interrogatories are not allowed. Proof of the tyranny we suffer.

There is one rule governing everything in our universities, our courts, our legislatures, and in our executive administrations, NO REAL ACCOUNTIBILTY is permitted for any of the participants in the game. Accordingly, no one is expected to have to defend him or herself against a genuine interrogation.

This is a major reason why people become mentally sloppy in a tyranny. Everything is based upon your status and organizational rank and the medals that have been pinned on you.

In our universities, most “graduates” don’t even realize that mutual and skilled interrogations should be the pillar of what real education is. Mommy Professor hates the notion that she should be subject to interrogation from her students, and conversely, her students hate the notion that their fat-assed opinions should be subject real inquiry.

In our current system, both parties have an excuse for avoiding the issue.

All of that is off the table in our system. In fact, it is mostly off the table in the Ox-Bridge system too.

in reply to Dave:

I lucked out in college, having – for my courses in my majors – professors who ran it by the Oxbridge model.

Between uneducated worker drones, ill-educated worker drones, and damn time servers, the ticket-punching nature of the college system, matched with Affirmative Action, is simply a continuation of an inferior public school system.

The Race That Will RULE will simply not tolerate such a system, and it will be washed away in the economy of twenty years hence.

Hopefully, it will be replaced by the University of Phoenix model, linked to professional Standards of Learning.

Another stranded leviathan
— AFKAN

I remembered AFKAN’s earlier comments about Phoenix University when I saw a cartoon where the establishment was beginning its counter-attack on similar independent avenues of education that are springing up. It was aimed, of course, at the white working guys.

One construction worker said to another, “My son just got into DeVry!”

The other workers said, “You mean he walked in the door?”

Fun-NY! The worker’s son was going after the education he could get and Papa was proud, so he had to be reminded of his inferiority to those under Mommy Professor’s expensive tutelage.

Somebody’s READING us, AFKAN!