The purpose of a good education is to show you that there are three sides to a two-sided story.
Stanley FishRead
In general, higher education does not know how to speak for its interests. It offers a stance that is defensive, cowardly and likely to be ineffective.
Interpretation
Higher education is often unable to effectively advocate for its own interests, leading to defensiveness and ineffectiveness.
Stanley Fish critiques higher education for its inability to articulate its interests confidently. He suggests that rather than presenting a strong and proactive stance, the sector often adopts a defensive and timid approach that undermines its effectiveness in advocating for itself and addressing its challenges.
In practice
During a panel discussion on the future of higher education, this quote can highlight the need for universities to adopt a more assertive role in policy discussions.
The purpose of a good education is to show you that there are three sides to a two-sided story.
This is what language does: organize the world into manageable, and in some sense artificial, units that can then be inhabited and manipulated.
Language is not a handmaiden to perception; it is perception; it gives shape to what would otherwise be inert and dead.
It is of no help to us that there is an absolute truth of the matter of things because unfortunately, none of us are in a position to say definitively what that is - although we all think that we are.
Opinion-sharing sessions are like junk food: they fill you up with starch and leave you feeling both sated and hungry. A sustained inquiry into the truth of a matter is an almost athletic experience; it may exhaust you, but it also improves you.
You have to dream. We all have to dream. Dreaming is OK. Imagine me teaching from space, all over the world, touching so many peoples lives. Thats a teachers dream! I have a vision of the world as a global village, a world without boundaries. Imagine a history teacher making history!
It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor.
Only a fool would let his enemy teach his children.
How can we expect our children to know and experience the joy of giving unless we teach them that the greater pleasure in life lies in the art of giving rather than receiving.
My shorthand answer is that I try to write the kind of book that I would like to read. If I can make it clear and interesting and compelling to me, then I hope maybe it will be for the reader.
Syntax, my lad. It has been restored to the highest place in the republic.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.