W.J. Astore The American people are being kept divided, distracted, and downtrodden. Divisions are usually based on race and class. Racial tensions and discrimination exist, of course, but they are also exploited to divide people. Just look at the current debate on the Confederate flag flying in Charleston, South Carolina, with Republican presidential candidates refusing…
W.J. Astore U.S. military academies are neither Spartan in being dedicated to war, nor are they Athenian in recognizing humanism (even the humanism of war). They are Archimedean. They focus on engineering and the machinery of war. But two millennia ago even Archimedes with his clever war machinery could not save Syracuse from defeat at…
W.J. Astore As a college professor, I’m in the education business, a word that repels me but which nowadays is undeniably true. One of the marketing slogans where I teach is “A degree is measured by its success in the workplace.” In other words, if a college degree leads to a decent salary in the…
Richard Sahn As a sociology professor who believes in the power of the spoken word, the critical analysis of an issue, the learning by questioning process, I am disheartened by the proliferation of online courses. Such courses may be a college administrator’s dream, but they are a serious educator’s nightmare. Since the beginning of my…
W.J. Astore Americans put a lot of faith in technology. Nowadays, we see computers, one-gun projectors, Smart boards, and similar technologies as essential to education. But are they really? In many cases, computers and PowerPoint and one-guns are simply fancier overhead projectors. And when you show a video, does it matter if it’s from YouTube…
By Don Rose. Introduction by b. traven. Don Rose is the quintessential Chicago political consultant and insider. His analysis of the rule of Obama’s former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel over Chicago as Mayor may tell us a lot about the real agenda of the current presidential administration. Next to Rahm Emanuel, Arne Duncan as…
W.J. Astore Hannah Arendt, the famous philosopher and author of The Origins of Totalitarianism, wrote that “thoughtlessness“–the inability of people to think deeply and critically and reflectively–was a defining characteristic of our times. Thoughtlessness is characterized by the repetition of certain “truths,” often defined by the state, that are not meant to be questioned. Contemporary examples…
A sequel to our recent article, Dueling Bumper Stickers I remember making collages in grade school; they were always good fun. I came across this collage of bumper stickers yesterday at the Gypsy Joint Cafe in Great Barrington, Mass. (They make scrumptious sandwiches and salads, by the way.) It’s a representative sample of sentiments that…
The staff of The Contrary Perspective would like to plant the following seeds for your consideration. Seed 1. A respected former Republican Senator from New Hampshire, Gordon Humphrey, recently came out publicly in full support of Edward Snowden’s actions. Snowden issued a thoughtful response that showed that his understanding of the political and technical implications…
W.J. Astore Education in my sense of liberating and strengthening (making articulate and uncompromising) the intellect is of course antithetical to much of what is going on in our schools and universities, which I would rather refer to by such terms as training, molding, socialization, mystification, memorizing of facts, obfuscation of meaning–all processes designed to…
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