Neoliberal Rules

Deresiewicz believes that “The purpose of education in a neoliberal age is to produce producers.”(1) In his introduction, Deresiewicz compares the ideologies of colleges from the 1920s to today’s thoughts. He concluded that “College is seldom about thinking or learning anymore.”(1) He also believes that there is only one value of education now and that is commercial. The other values are tolerated only when they pertain to commercial value. With the new beliefs in neoliberalism, Deresiewicz determines that “The world is not going to change, so we don’t need young people to imagine how it might.”(3) This leads to education just being about information rather than free thinking. He then goes into discussing how there are others who have come to the realization that not everyone can have high paying jobs as well. Deresiewicz concludes that students only care about the skills needed to start their career not obtaining general knowledge. Colleges teach their students to be leaders for their own benefit not the benefit of others. The neoliberal society, Deresiewicz believes, has begun to give students “a sense of helplessness”(5) so they have no

Edmundson, Mark. "On the Uses of a Liberal Education." From Inquiry to Academic Writing: A Text and a Reader. Ed. Stuart Greene and April Lidindsky. Bedford/ St. Martin’s: New York, 2008. 322-337. Print

In Fareed Zakaria’s book in Defense of a Liberal Education, he debates that liberal education is more underestimated than it should be in today’s society. Zakaria presents an argument explaining the liberal strategies used to benefit an individual not only in a classroom but developing skills to help deliver intelligence for the real world. Zakaria counters the argument that liberal education is a frivolous decision made by today’s youth with little concern, for futuristic opportunities. Zakaria defends liberal education through explanations to excel by gaining knowledge, learning to think, and building leadership.

The contemporary education should rather prepare students to what Brighouse defines as the self-governance that helps students to keep learning independently of educators. Today, people cannot stop progressing and learning anymore. Otherwise, they face the problem of the backwardness that deteriorates their competiveness in the labor market and just drop out of the mainstream culture. Therefore, the development of lifetime learning is the objective necessity and Brighouse gives implications to the importance of the lifetime education. This need derives from changes in human life and society driven by technological progress and other changes that take place in the contemporary world and will take place in the future. Today, the basic education students receive at school or college is not enough anymore since their knowledge and skills will simply become out of date in several years in the

The ideas and philosophies of a time period help to shape how a society acts and what people care about. The time period of my parents’ generation was no different. During the 1970s through the 1990s, intellectual elites were discussing and proposing philosophies to help them understand and explain the fracturing and confusion of the time. Some of the philosophies included liberalism, deconstructionism, individualism, and others. While the philosophies were present at the time, they were not widespread enough to be directly present in my parent’s upbringing. Nonetheless, even though the thoughts my parents had and the philosophies they followed were not officially one of the “-isms”, they still had intellectual stimulation. They still had observations about the world and formed their own theories about fracture, or identity, or politics, or any other pertinent issue of their era. The ideas of the time seeped into their lives in different ways as society reflected some of the thoughts of the academy. Still, their intellectual development, and the development of many Americans likely occurred outside of the sphere of the academy and their philosophies. Whether the refined ideas of the few, or the less specific ideas of the many, intellectual stimulation and development was an integral part of American life in these decades, and people all had different ways of achieving

To discuss the value of liberal education, there should be a mutual understanding that investing in college means to invest in oneself. Furthermore, while some consider this investment to be a critical stepping stone to success, others dismiss it, explaining that school simply cannot prepare someone for the “real world.” Sanford J. Ungar and Robert Reich explore both of these subjective values in their essays “The New Liberal Arts” and “College is a Ludicrous Waste of Money.” Ungar, the president of Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, discusses why a liberal education should be sought after; he does so by introducing common misconceptions about liberal arts and, using argumentative persuasion, proves their insignificance. On the other hand, Reich, the former secretary of labor, argues against the conventional belief of college being the only road to financial wellbeing; rather, he explains why a two-year education may better accommodate many college students, especially those in need of immediate work or those that simply cannot afford a four-year education. In all, although both Reich and Ungar generally discuss liberal education, their perspectives differ when it comes to its practicality in the current economy. Also, to express their different views about liberal arts, the authors use contrasting tones to present their ideas to different intended audiences.

While the term liberal education is heard from the most prestigious university to an inner city community college, the phrase itself has a hazy definition at best. While educators across America struggle with the definition of the phrase, William Cronon uses purpose, structure, and appeals in his essay "Only Connect: The Goals of Liberal education," to define a liberally educated being and the characteristics that such an education should impart. Cronon capitalizes on inductive structuring to lead the reader along, gently building each new statement upon a foundation of previous ideas. This effectively leads the reader to a strange

In most environments it is customary for the older generation to aspire to transmit values and accepted norms to the next generation. Adults take pride in the responsibility they feel to educate young people. This effort facilitates maturity and helps develop youth into successful members of the already established society. As young people mature, they become more independent thinkers and begin to evaluate the society in which they inhabit. This inspection can produce some angst in young people and concern from adults. It is in these formative moments and years that young people search for truth - not one that they inherit, but rather one they can call their own. As a consequence of this purposeful, natural, and necessary reflection, individuals

I reject bourgeois politics. Neoliberals tell us we should be happy that we can freely choose from a multitude of commodities in a free market. In a similar vein, those who cater to bourgeois politics like to claim that we should be happy choosing between what is tantamount to opposing commodities. This train of thought is also applied to how people think about voting. We should be content that we can vote democrat or republican. "Voting is important!" "There's no excuse not to vote!" "Voting is a part of democracy!" So they tell me. I'd like to quote Brendan Cooney here as his lecture series on capitalism is something of dazzling brilliance: "It is certainly is true that when we go to the grocery store to spend our meagre wages we get to choose

During LBJ’s presidency, liberalism was at its high point. LBJ called for collective action in hope to complete and perfect FDR’s New Deal to create the “Great Society.” LBJ emphasized that there is more to life than just jobs and economic gains, but the importance of realizing the meaning to life and society. In addition, he believed there should be a focus on cleaning up neighborhoods and appreciating the beauty of nature. As a result, the government focused on environmental protection and stressed that “man needs to renew contact with nature.” Also, he focused on ending poverty and racial injustice through governmental programs. He believed that government had an obligation to ensure opportunities for its citizens which ultimately resulted

Originally from Lindeman, E. (1926). The Meaning of Adult Education. New York: New Republic, 6.

‘Neo liberalism is responsible for most of the global economic problems we are experiencing today’

promoted a half way approach to liberal ideas while they incorporated parts of a social

Education is an important structure in society that shapes the most important years of your life, and therefore many theorists have ideas about what is wrong with education, what is right, and what needs to change or develop. Education is confined a lot by social control and social reproduction. Social control is a concept that refers to how social systems control the way we feel, think, behave, and even how we should present ourselves. These can appear openly, shown as rules and laws, or they could be not openly acknowledged and just appear as the “common” thing to do. Social reproduction is the reproduction of inequalities throughout generation-to-generation, one way education does this is how it supplies “wealthy” schools more and “poor” schools less. Michael Apple and Maxine Greene both define Social reproductions and Social Control. Throughout this text, I will explain the theories of Greene and Apple, as well as comparing and contrasting them against one another while applying some of my own experiences of education.

(B. Kamiński 225). However, the package was met with a flurry of criticism from prominent economists and journalists. Echoing the key principles of neoliberalism, the economist Tomasz Jeziorański argued that the principal weakness of the package consisted in granting the full responsibility for economic performance to the central administration. The free enterprise characterized by responsibility and autonomy, he insisted, was incompatible with economic coercion by the state (B. Kamiński 226). As a consequence of protests of similar nature, the government eventually withdrew the package in question from further consideration.