The Meaning of Life (Really!)
David Barash,
Brainstorm,
Jan 12, 2011
The Chronicle's 'Brainstorm' blog continues to spew material seemingly intended to discredit either the act of blogging, academia, or maybe the Chronicle itself. In one post, for example, David Barash delivers a facile treatment of 'the meaning of life', reducing our choices to either being deluded that there is a God, or concluding life has no meaning at all. But there are many other choices; as I suggest, for example, the meaning of life is our reason for living, which may be based in any number of factors. In another post, longtime snark Kevin Carey suggests that "the higher-education lobby would like you to believe that students and parents don't make rational information-driven choices," an allegation refuted, he writes, by evidence showing some people use information to select colleges. Of course, nobody argues that college selection (or anything else, for that matter) is completely non-rational, and certainly not Hartle, whome Carey purports to refute. But where the real world diverges with Carey's thinking is that such decisions are not based on rationality alone. Of course, that's a completely different proposition from the straw man Carey props up, and is not in any way refuted by the fact that some people are somewhat rational some of the time. One wonders why the Chronicle continues to publish this stuff. Does it really believe its readers are idiots? Can we not ask for educated, critical and reflective opinion, even in blogs, from the publication that touts itself as the voice of higher education?
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