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Phi Beta Cons

The Right take on higher education.


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Against ‘self-destructive futilities’

From Prof. Eric Cunningham of Gonzaga:

“The function of the university” wrote Thomas Merton, “is to help men and women save their souls, and in so doing, to save their society: from what? From the hell of meaninglessness, of obsession, of complex artifice, of systematic lying, of criminal evasions and neglects, of self-destructive futilities.”

For those seeking to avoid that “hell of meaninglessness”: James V. Schall’s “On the Unseriousness of Human Affairs.”

New on Phi Beta Cons. . .


COMMENTS   3

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   06/03/11 09:34

I always suspected that's what universities were for. Indeed, I almost majored in Self-Destructive Futility Avoidance, but went with Solipsistic Banality Evasion instead.

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   06/04/11 23:31

Just recently I had the opportunity to be in a bar in Dupont Circle, where the bartender unctuously informed me just how many colleges are in DC. I would be happy if universities would merely strive to be worthy of the pride with which their communities hold them.

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   06/07/11 10:34

"obsession, complex artifice, systematic lying, criminal evasions and neglects, self-destructive futilities." -- sounds exactly like the standard behavior of our expensively educated political elites. Weiner in a nutshell! Oh well, I guess college doesn't save people from those problems after all.

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