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dgd1788
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27 Dec 2006, 10:27 pm

I just recently came upon this question: Is college-life a liberalism? I find the answer to this question a yes, because college represesents a freedom. And like Diogenes' philosophy that nothing in life is more important than the building of the self, we can conclude that college-life is a cynic society, because it represents Diogenes' philosophy. This freedom is such that the student is able to build their own morals and philosophies, while taking parental teachings to be not of their own. They make their own believes based on what they study, because college allows the student to infer what is in the material based on how they understand it. Didn't Vladimir Lenin study at a school to gain his philosophy? Although this was in the comfort of his home, we must refer to the etymology of 'college'.

Online Etymology Dictionary wrote:
c.1378, from O.Fr. collége, from L. collegium "community, society, guild," lit. "association of collegae" (see colleague). First meaning any corporate group, the sense of "academic institution" became principal in 19c. through Oxford and Cambridge, where it had been used since 1379. Collegiate is 1514, from M.L. collegiatus "of or having to do with a college."


Can we infer that a college can be anywhere, even if the college or guild is in your own home? The thought process is important in explaining if the etymology of the word 'college' is relevant to a demological approach to 'college'.


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jimservo
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27 Dec 2006, 11:23 pm

Fascinating post! But I must digress...

If this is to mean that college (as in the tradition of the university) represents a place of great freedom, where great debates take place between students and professors and those students reach their own conclusions then I would have to say that no, this is a falsehood. The modern university, as in the modern liberal arts, appears more inclined generally (and naturally there are exceptions), to tell a single version that is assumed to be correct. Critical thinking is less dominant, and is only emphasized when used by the orthodoxy to attack the non-orthodoxy.

It is no accident that more then thirty years after the "free speech movements," students who wish to engage in political demonstrations at universities led by those who believe in the same ideals of that are required to do so in "free speech zones."

EDIT: The American community college is by all accounts, however, a wonderful institution.



Last edited by jimservo on 27 Dec 2006, 11:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Awesomelyglorious
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27 Dec 2006, 11:33 pm

Liberalism being defined as (1.) The state or quality of being liberal and liberal being defined as relative freedom? Yes, I suppose we say that college tends to be a state of relative freedom for most people, not all of course. I would advise against using the term "liberalism" though, as in the most common usage this denotes a political ideology, as well, for some reason "a liberalism" sounds funny to me, but grammar is one of my weaknesses.

I would disagree with the idea that college is a cynic society. The reason is that cynics reject most or all traditional ideas and view self-control and virtue as the important aspects of existence. Colleges do not reflect this, as they do not cause most students to reject tradition at all, only modify pre-existing biases, as well, college does not imbue students with the moral philosophy of the cynics.

A college can be anywhere, but like most words college has multiple definitions. The definition that most assume that you refer to is an academic institute, which must only be viewed as an academic institute with attributes defining it as a college. A home can only be a college though if it doubles as an institute.



jimservo
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27 Dec 2006, 11:37 pm

Let me response after thinking about my own response.

I believe I did not address you precisely. You spoke about a word not an institution.

I wish to state that clearly.



jimservo
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27 Dec 2006, 11:52 pm

After proper digestion...

I believe you are correct, dgd1788, with qualifications in the first case and correct in the absolute in the second.

dgd1788 wrote:
I just recently came upon this question: Is college-life a liberalism?


As the word liberalism is related to the word liberal as that word is related to the words liberal arts is related to the word college and thus it is inherent that college is, in a very real sense, is a liberalism. However, it must be stated, that since the word liberal also is defined by other meanings such as "not narrow in opinion or views." This, if applied to a college situation, would become contradictory to liberalism. Examples include how the Nazis demanded colleges be run after they took power.

dgd1788 wrote:
Can we infer that a college can be anywhere, even if the college or guild is in your own home?


That seems to me entirely reasonable.



Johnnie
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28 Dec 2006, 5:51 am

"Is college-life a liberalism? "
===================

yes, people living off other peoples production and produce nothing themselves

liberals= non-productive members of society



McJeff
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30 Dec 2006, 12:03 am

C'mon now dude, even I wouldn't go that far. There have been liberals I've respected, and if anything, this most recent election has given me hope that the Democratic party has gotten its s**t straight and may actually bring something new to the table - which we were in sore need of under a stagnant, neo-conservative government.



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30 Dec 2006, 12:15 am

[quote="Johnnie
yes, people living off other peoples production and produce nothing themselves

liberals= non-productive members of society[/quote]

You could say the same thing about the majority of thr "ruling class". Many people in our society produce nothing. Students, at least, only do this temporarily.


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Johnnie
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05 Jan 2007, 8:33 pm

McJeff wrote:
C'mon now dude, even I wouldn't go that far. There have been liberals I've respected, and if anything, this most recent election has given me hope that the Democratic party has gotten its s**t straight and may actually bring something new to the table - which we were in sore need of under a stagnant, neo-conservative government.


They will spend the next 2 years playing political hand granades trying to make the republicans look bad so they might win the white house in 2008. Fox News, Rush and the rest of them will be in their glory as they are handed endless ammo to laugh about.

First up they will sell out America to the illegal immigrants hoping to secure the hispanic vote in 2008



Johnnie
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05 Jan 2007, 8:36 pm

Scrapheap wrote:
[quote="Johnnie
yes, people living off other peoples production and produce nothing themselves

liberals= non-productive members of society


You could say the same thing about the majority of thr "ruling class". Many people in our society produce nothing. Students, at least, only do this temporarily.[/quote]

===========================================

many of them will join the ruling class and become professional swindlers, investments bankers, politicians, lawyers and other various scam artists. They won't produce food,clothing or shelter, they will sure take a cut out of the production though and force the prices higher.



Flagg
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05 Jan 2007, 9:51 pm

Johnnie wrote:
Scrapheap wrote:
[quote="Johnnie
yes, people living off other peoples production and produce nothing themselves

liberals= non-productive members of society


You could say the same thing about the majority of thr "ruling class". Many people in our society produce nothing. Students, at least, only do this temporarily.


===========================================

many of them will join the ruling class and become professional swindlers, investments bankers, politicians, lawyers and other various scam artists. They won't produce food,clothing or shelter, they will sure take a cut out of the production though and force the prices higher.[/quote]

Well, the ones who have Oil Barons for fathers will. Everybody else will become as artist, engineer or some other position requiring training for that long.

Don't go thinking the blue collar is important. We have the technology to render them unnessesary. The only reason we don't is the mass unemployment that would ensue.



Johnnie
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05 Jan 2007, 11:26 pm

A machine can do the engineering also and be told to build other machines to effectively put everyone out of work. 8O The human will become obsolete and the machines will wipe them all out. 8O

" WE "

are you part of some elite group of eggheads or what :?:



Awesomelyglorious
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06 Jan 2007, 12:46 am

Johnnie wrote:
A machine can do the engineering also and be told to build other machines to effectively put everyone out of work. 8O The human will become obsolete and the machines will wipe them all out. 8O

" WE "

are you part of some elite group of eggheads or what :?:

What machine? I have not heard of a machine that can automatically invent a better lightbulb simply by telling it to do so. That is unless you simply refer to some science fiction book. Machines will likely never replace humans due to the complexity and cost of such advanced technology. We do not have the technology to eliminate all manual labor but we can eliminate a LOT of it and the reason we don't isn't unemployment, the average businessman does not really pursue such a good but rather seeks his own profit, but rather it is because people are cheaper than the machines. The fact that we are capable of doing more and more unskilled jobs using technology rather than humans though is part of what is reducing wages on the lower end of the scale though.

Yes, some of the people here are members of a secret egghead society which aims at controlling the world through advanced mathematical equations.



Flagg
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06 Jan 2007, 2:57 am

I said Blue Collar.

Engineers, Artists, Thinkers and Philosophers can never be replaced. For the measure of a civilization is not the technology it leaves behind, for that will be become ancient and primitive to the next generation but art communicates on a universal level that never goes out of style.



Awesomelyglorious
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06 Jan 2007, 12:13 pm

Flagg wrote:
I know what you said. I said unskilled jobs in order to focus upon something more specific as blue collar is a very broad area that includes just about any job involving manual labor without regard to whether or not their jobs could be done by robots. Of course, even my choice of words has its flaws.

Flagg wrote:
Engineers, Artists, Thinkers and Philosophers can never be replaced. For the measure of a civilization is not the technology it leaves behind, for that will be become ancient and primitive to the next generation but art communicates on a universal level that never goes out of style.

That is highly subjective as there is no objective way to measure the many-fold characteristics of a civilization. One can easily be inspired by the Spartans despite the fact that they ignored both art and technology to focus solely upon war. Given the nature of technology and society one cannot ignore those who pioneered new technology as they can often times change the very shape of the world more so than any artist, we will always remember the Chinese for the invention of gunpowder and Europeans for the use of the gun. Finally, what about great military powers as well, the Mongols were not known for being artists but the vision of these warriors still captures our minds today as they took over most of Asia through the use of horsemen and psychological warfare and they created the largest empire to date as well, the conquests of Europeans will shape our world for centuries to come. Also, engineers work with technology and not art so I am not sure if they should be in the group that you placed them with, perhaps you were thinking of architects.



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06 Jan 2007, 4:07 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
Flagg wrote:
I know what you said. I said unskilled jobs in order to focus upon something more specific as blue collar is a very broad area that includes just about any job involving manual labor without regard to whether or not their jobs could be done by robots. Of course, even my choice of words has its flaws.

Flagg wrote:
Engineers, Artists, Thinkers and Philosophers can never be replaced. For the measure of a civilization is not the technology it leaves behind, for that will be become ancient and primitive to the next generation but art communicates on a universal level that never goes out of style.

That is highly subjective as there is no objective way to measure the many-fold characteristics of a civilization. One can easily be inspired by the Spartans despite the fact that they ignored both art and technology to focus solely upon war. Given the nature of technology and society one cannot ignore those who pioneered new technology as they can often times change the very shape of the world more so than any artist, we will always remember the Chinese for the invention of gunpowder and Europeans for the use of the gun. Finally, what about great military powers as well, the Mongols were not known for being artists but the vision of these warriors still captures our minds today as they took over most of Asia through the use of horsemen and psychological warfare and they created the largest empire to date as well, the conquests of Europeans will shape our world for centuries to come. Also, engineers work with technology and not art so I am not sure if they should be in the group that you placed them with, perhaps you were thinking of architects.


Art is created both consciously and unconsciously.