This is an intelligent and in-depth conversation about the cultural left’s control of campus. Part two, part three, part four, part five
Author: Jon Siemko
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Bigger isn’t Better
The study decline in value of the university degree is a quiet Failure of the Liberal government at Queens Park. However government mismanagement is not the only cause of a decline in esteem of the average university education. The rise of private for profit online universities like the University of Phoenix compound an already bad situation and turn it into a downward spiral.
Yet this may just be the beginning. The next phase of the Reaching Higher plan has a target of providing 70 per cent of the Ontario population with a university degree.
Much of the population is employed in industry, retail or services; why is it an advantage for many of these people to have degrees? Why is the government continuing to emphasize quantity of education over quality?
In many ways, Ontario has been giving education the “Field of Dreams” approach: if you build an educated population, industry and commerce will come.
The problem is that we have been building bigger, not better. -
"Greed is Good " But Capitalism is Better
Here is my original defense of capitalism and critique of the themes in Wall Street money never sleeps. Capitalism has improved more lives and created more wealth than any other economic model that has been adopted in world history. And yes I will see the film eventually.
Hollywood wants its heroes to be virtuous, but it defines virtue in a way that excludes any action that is self-interested. If virtue means putting others ahead of self, then it’s clear that most people, let alone most capitalists, aren’t very virtuous. As a result, the one Hollywood defense of capitalism that everyone knows is Gordon Gekko’s speech from “Wall Street”: “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works.” But even if Gekko’s defense has an element of truth, it’s uninspiring, which is why Gekko remains the villain of “Wall Street,” and not the hero.
A better defense of capitalism is to focus on capitalist virtues. In “The Pursuit of Happyness,” for example, Chris Gardner, a struggling salesman played by Will Smith, confronts adversity with hard work, creativity, ambition and intelligence. “The Pursuit of Happyness” is syrupy at times, but the story of Gardner’s rise from homelessness to a successful job as a stockbroker is full of drama and uplift, which makes it all the more surprising that more films don’t use the business world as the setting for great cinema.
