Wednesday, September 22, 2004

Dream university
The author Alain de Botton proposes a University of Life:

The University of Life will... divide up the curriculum in a new way. Rather than going to study "history" or "English literature", one will study areas such as love, work, relationships, family, the community and beauty. Light will be shone on these topics by most of the same material as is currently being studied at universities. The point is not to find new sources of knowledge, but rather to re-orient the existing ones in a more useful direction.

The University of Life would also encourage social activity and facilitate encounters and dialogues between people. It would recognise that loneliness is one of the great social ills of our time. Inside The Symposium, the university's large restaurant (open to everyone), it would be understood that anyone could approach anyone in order to initiate a philosophically-minded conversation. There would be no need for shyness. Sex and love would sometimes ensue. The university's mission to end loneliness among intellectuals, and to some extent, thereby to reintegrate them into "life" would be taken seriously.


Sigh, sigh...

2 comments:

Resty Odon said...

Ronnel, I wanna enroll!!!

Anonymous said...

Hmmph. A university up there in the clouds, never existed outside the confines of Socrates' Athens and never will. we should be contented with our more worldly degrees. ---Maxell