Notwithstanding his many “dinner parties” (I’m a bad white person because I’m not sure what they entail), Stephen Joel Trachtenberg (now that’s a name) has made an interesting (and a less interesting) point about students in the contemporary university: they want more. In his first post on students-wanting-more he points to a contradiction between complaints about the high cost of education and demands for the best – or at least more – of everything. Of course, Trachtenberg is not talking about more professors, better professors, more graduate students, better graduate students, better learning and working conditions, better library holdings and research infrastructure, but rather he is talking about enormous athletic facilities, winning sports teams, five star residence accommodations and the like. The point Trachtenberg is apparently blind to is the complicity of senior university officials in such arrangements – as pointed out by Marc Bousquet here and here (still no response from Trachtenberg). What Trachtenberg describes is the neo-liberal university: one that he has overseen having “served for 30 years as a university president.” But, as important as these (marginally) economic matters are, I’m not in much of a position to discuss them – I am certainly not an expert.
But, lo and behold, Trachtenberg is. Having apparently attended undergraduate in the middle ages, he writes the following in a recent post:
My standard is my own freshman year, and the rigors of Columbia College’s core curriculum, the heart of which is Contemporary Civilization. We read continuously for 30 weeks, day and night, weekends included, in order to keep up with the syllabus. Devouring the classics (alas, in translation, though a few classmates, like Henry Ebel, taught themselves Greek for fun), reading our way through history, it was a tour de force for a first generation kid, something that opened my eyes to what college was all about, as well as to the foundation of Western intellectual thought.
His point, of course, is that when he was a student, he worked really hard, read really hard books, went to really hard classes, and so on – unlike, of course, the students of today who don’t work hard (at school, at least – he complains of them “meeting with friends” and “playing sports,” but no mention of having to work to pay for tuition increases caused by administrations such as his), don’t read anything (at least what he wants to assign) and go to the easiest courses (on occasion, of course).
Finally, he ends his post recounting a reverse-auction held in his course recently: how many books should I assign next year? He began with fourteen books – one for each week (I gather he’s on the quarter and not the semester system). Soon he is disappointed to discover that students think that between six and eight books is a reasonable amount to assign. The great Trachtenberg is, of course, dismayed.
Now, enough mocking Trachtenberg and let’s turn to the essential question: given (1) his complaint “too often hear criticism of the work load rather than excitement about the subject matter, a complaint about the hours taken from meeting with friends or playing sports rather than engaging in debate, deciphering philosophy, history or a good poem” and (2) his desire for a book a week, how is he able to balance “deciphering philosophy” at a rate of a book a week with any semblance of actual standards, understanding, comprehension, appreciation? I’d really like to see him read the following, cover-to-cover, in fourteen weeks (out of kindness, we’ll stick to books with modern editions that are readily available in translation):
- Hobbes Leviathan
- Locke Two Treatises of Government (note: the First Treatise on Filmer as well as the more familiar Second Treatise)
- Spinoza Ethics
- Hume A Treatise of Human Nature
- Adam Smith Theory of Moral Sentiments
- Adam Smith Wealth of Nations (both volumes)
- Montesquieu Spirit of the Laws (including the last part on the history and revolutions of the French monarchy)
- Kant Critique of Pure Reason
- Kant Critique of Practical Reason
- Kant Critique of Judgment
- Hegel Phenomenology of Spirit
- Hegel Science of Logic
- Nietzsche Genealogy of Morals
- Heidegger Being and Time
Clock is ticking, big boy!
(Note: “I had a dinner party and it was serving beef wellington” is not an acceptable excuse.)
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