I’m very pleased to have made famed author Stephen L. Carter‘s list of best non-fiction books, and even more pleased with the write-up:
I’m not sure he’s right, especially about education being almost entirely for the purpose of signaling, but goodness does he make a strong case. Agree with him or not, you’ll never look at the schools and colleges in quite the same way.
It’s not too late to buy the book, of course.
P.S. My next book (a non-fiction graphic novel co-authored with Zach Weinersmith), now titled Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration, will be published by First Second in Fall of 2019, hopefully before the election drowns out serious intellectual discussion for a year.
READER COMMENTS
Iskander
Dec 31 2018 at 2:02pm
I think most reviewers have implied that the book argues its case well, but that they will continue to hold their previous beliefs about education. Preferences over beliefs!
Thaomas
Jan 2 2019 at 6:35am
People are not used to (and I think for good reason) diagnoses of a problem coupled with, even if by implication, a proposal of radical reform.
Thomas Sewell
Jan 3 2019 at 11:56pm
Currently, in order to be properly accepted in polite society, you must signal that education, meaning what is doled out by teachers in accredited schools and universities, not something you might do on your own, is a vital good which everyone is entitled to in order to “reach their potential”.
So I can see why there are a lot more people ready to accept that a good case was made (because otherwise they’d have to point to an actual flaw in the case which was made in their review), but are still not willing to publicly say they agree with the resulting implications.
“Hey, maybe you should think about this” is likely the best we can get from at least one subset of public intellectual.
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