Philistines calling for axing of arts subjects know the price of everything, but the value of nothing
I WRITE in response to the letter from Nikita Eistee concerning university education (Write Back, March 8).
Apart from the fact that the author does not seem to understand the difference between further education and higher education, her letter contains many contentious remarks that cannot go unchallenged.
1. The contemptuous dismissal of the university lecturers’ strike does not align with my experience when talking to those on the picket line outside QUB. Standing in freezing conditions, they cogently explained their grievances to me. This was not “whining”, but legitimate and persuasive protest.
2. Yet again, Nikita’s letter gives us the tired reference to the “real world”. As someone who worked for 33 years at UU, I never felt part of an “elite” or in a “bubble”. Most academics are not wellpaid, but their devotion to their subject is what motivates them every day. They are very much part of the real world.
3. Nikita gives the game away when she says “all non-business and non-science related departments” should be abolished. This cross between abject utilitarianism and downright philistinism completely misses the raison d’etre of universities. Historically, it was arts subjects which were at the core of universities at their inception.
4. No doubt, in destroying subjects such as English and history, Nikita would remove foreign languages, too — a move, in fact, made by UU just a couple of years ago. Reducing everything at HE level to science and business subjects would negate the essentials of a university degree experience — learning how to think independently, how to assess material objectively, how to learn from competing views, how to arrive at judgments and decisions, and how to originate new lines of thought.
Heaven help us if Nikita, with her disdain for reading books, were ever put in charge of our university system: she seems to know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.
But, then, I’m sure she’s never read Oscar Wilde.
JE PENSE, DONC JE SUIS Address with Editor