32 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2020
    1. Generally speaking, history taught them two lessons. Ancient history taught that nations rose and fell. When they fell, it was not from external conquest but from internal corruption. The process of corruption and decay was clearly understood: it took place when a people lost its virtue—virtue, in the original Latin sense, meaning manliness and being closely related to virility. The opposite of virtue was effeminacy, a term that was used interchangeably with vice, corruption, softness, and love of luxury. Once a nation started down the road to a love of luxury, it was doomed; only sumptuary legislation might save it, but sumptuary legislation usually came too late. A related danger was the resort to standing armies—partly because a standing army was inherently inimical to liberty, partly because it required a large and continuous public expenditure, which increased debts and taxes and thereby contributed to luxury—but mainly because it entailed a most unmanly shifting of responsibility for one’s own defense to the hands of others.

      What an important viewpoint. We don't learn this in school.

    2. in the Convention, while references to philosophers were relatively infrequent, the delegates made nearly 400 references to history to justify their positions.

      key to founders sense of purpose and irection

    3. “Experience must be our only guide. Reason may mislead us.”

      This expression has import to entrepreneurship practice.

  2. Nov 2019
    1. Sassoon’s lament for the dehumanizing and destructive effects of technolatry represents “a true prophetic cry”:

      Does not Taylor in Secular Age speak to the same issue with the Christian's abandonment of the supernatural?

      Smith, J. K. A. (2014). How (not) to be secular: Reading Charles Taylor. Retrieved from https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=7AYaAwAAQBAJ

      Taylor, C. (2018). A secular age. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.

    2. Slaves to the alchemy which calls itself technological progress, we seek the elixir of life which will defeat death and the philosopher’s stone of limitless wealth. We seek to live unendingly, chained to the wheel of progress uncontrolled, and we seek to turn base metal, and plastic, and silicon, into gold, turning ourselves into creatures of base metal in the process, unregenerate still in head and heart.

      Powerful statement to chasing the pagan?

    3. Chained to the wheel of progress uncontrolled, and possessed by our possessions, we had succumbed to a globalism beyond reach of any constraining power.

      What does this mean in regards to the embrace of "global" by SAU? Involvement in "contemporary" world? Is this goal in contrast to this highlight?

    4. Man was no longer seen as good or evil because he was merely matter, like everything else in the cosmos. And if man was merely matter, he didn’t really matter.

      Becoming hedonic.

    5. Chained to the wheel of progress uncontrolled;

      Does a deeper understanding of the incarnation in Christ provide for a boundary that provides control?

    6. In slavedom of mankind to the machine;

      How do we not become slaves to the machine, while at the same time incorporate the flourishing that comes from the resulting reduction in transaction costs?

  3. Sep 2019
    1. What would the archbishop tell those who, in the wake of modernity, cannot accept the idea that the meaning of life is something we receive, rather than being able to generate it autonomously?

      This is one of the questions.

    1. Lloyd Blankfein, until recently the CEO of Goldman Sachs, counseled, “Study the humanities. Know how people think, know how the cycles work, know the lessons of history.” Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn, insists that the most important skills gap in America is not coding; the gap is in “soft skills” like writing, persuasion, and leadership.

      The skills that matter

    2. Once everyone is using it, deviating from the default settings becomes a rebellious act. Company-trained proctors will be the secret weapons of gubernatorial austerity; look for these regrettable, hard choices to be made for poorer districts during the next recession.

      I can see this coming to SAU faculty. Standardization of outcomes and metrics will force those who deviate in technique to be disciplined. How will that occur?

    3. An Oxford University study on the vulnerability of different jobs to automation, the largest on the topic, concluded that students who want to prosper in the future must travel against the prevailing ideological winds—that is, they will have to “acquire creative and social skills.”25

      Critical thinking, innovative thinking, creative thinking

    4. Replacing handwriting with typing is academic malpractice, given the overwhelming evidence on the value of handwriting for brain development, deeper learning, and memory.18 Reading on paper results in better understanding than reading on screens.19 Today’s “distraction machines” weaken our ability to concentrate and even make us worse at multitasking.20 STEM initiatives only exacerbate the broader social ills of addiction to technology and tech-related mental health problems.21 American and English public health officials warn about the strong links between screen use and childhood anxiety, depression, obesity, and low self-esteem.2

      Damning indictments indeed.

    5. The most obvious change, substituting for teachers, has proven counterproductive: “using educational technology to replace teachers or to scale ineffective practices guarantees poorer learning outcomes.”16

      Does this impact MBA and other grad as we respond to demands for greater use of tech and less instructional time?

    6. Distraction, in this case, had the greatest effects on long-term retention. One surprising result was that of memory impairment even for students who didn’t use devices, if they were placed in classes where many other students did—a kind of technological contact high (or low, in this case). The study authors explain the latter effect in terms of device-riddled classes having been changed “from an occasion for joint attention to more like a group of individuals in a waiting room occasionally looking up.”

      This in the typical SAU classroom?

    7. The largest international education survey, the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), most recently tested over 540,000 students in seventy-two countries with exams on reading, science, and mathematics. The latest results showed that classroom usage of all of the most advanced equipment was associated with worse student performance

      The results are in.

    8. he sciences and mathematics have a historic place in the curriculum, and technology does not, for the simple reason that the latter is not inherently “about” anything. Absent human contributions on specific topics, cut off from the subject matter of academic work, technology is nothing

      Important consideration here. technology is not about anything.

    9. he theory of relativity, calculus, even the physics of a bridge—these are deemed valuable not for helping us reach the good, the true, and the beautiful, but only insofar as they give us GPS satellites, efficient insurance pricing, and interstate highways—and even then, only if the latter public goods are mediated by private profits.

      I don't totally agree with this, but the statement "the good, the true, and the beautiful" is an important part of flourishing.

    10. he purpose of education in the sciences is to cultivate children as knowers in and of the world. The purpose of STEM programs is just to create more of a certain kind of worker.

      Look at the contrast in purpose. I would say that cultivating knowers is much more important than creating a worker.

    11. the push was never really about science on its own terms or for its own sake. These efforts are all about technology, especially technology as a substitute for a well-ordered political economy.

      Both Obama and Trump missed the objective of a well-ordered political economy. Of course, it is about ignorant voters following the leaders who promise, not about free humans flourishing.

    12. Liberal arts education, which has always given a central position to mathematics and the sciences,2 will only be harmed by the recent push to “get more STEM in schools,”3 because today’s STEM has only a cosmetic relationship with the sciences.

      This is an important recognition. Let's not grab onto the popular phrase STEM. liberal arts are involved in mathematics and sciences

    13. in many public school districts we have already traded our collective birthright, the promise of human flourishing, for a mess of utilitarian pottage called “job skills.”

      This is a most important statement. Education as a promise or pathway to human flourishing. (Use in talk for COLL

    14. Education is the cultivation of a person, not the manufacture of a worker.

      This is a very remarkable statement. How often do we miss the point of the purpose of education.

    15. the technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development and an unredeemable waste. In the first place, technology exacerbates the greatest problem of all in schools: confusion about their purpose.

      what is the purpose of a school? does this apply to higher ed?

  4. Aug 2019
    1. God is dead because we have made existence revolve around our banality and so collapsed the theocentric into the anthropocentric.

      What a great quote.

    2. Each atheism entails extreme love that makes the self the measure of the good

      We are not the measure of the good.

    3. to be virtuous requires that the person “be loyal to his superior instead.”

      What does this mean for leadership and ethics? We are not the superior.

  5. Jul 2019
    1. common ground.

      What is the common ground? Mission, aesthetic, how do they complement?

    2. When done right, brand partnerships can have the power to elevate both brands. But, you can't force a connection. There's gotta be a spark. You want to have common ground with the other brand, but not so much common ground that you're competing with each other.

      What is the common ground? What questions need to be asked to find the common ground?

    1. This discussion was part of an introduction to an essay assignment about whether Americans should pay more for ethically produced food.

      Question shows a lack of understanding with law of supply and demand. Those who are interested in 'ethically' produced food (whatever that means) will pay more.