Word: presentation
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...real problem with Harvard's curriculum, though, is not that the Core is too foreign; rather, it is entirely too familiar. So many Core courses deal with the present or recent past--"The Warren Court" in Historical Studies B and "Industrial East Asia" in Foreign Cultures, for instance--that students are tempted to explore the cozy space within their current horizons rather than take a broadening course. Also, it seems that every ethnicity is recognized with at least one course, allowing students, in effect, to study the subject with which they are already (and quite inevitably) most familiar: themselves...
...most promising courses seem determined to make attractively difficult material into familiar, almost banal, fare. Professor Michael Sandel's well-known and well-respected Core course concluded recently to a much deserved, if customary, standing ovation. "Justice," undoubtedly one of the best taught Cores, examines great philosophers and practical present-day applications of their theories, bringing daunting philosophies to bear on familiar contemporary debates...
Last week, I spent an evening chewing on one of these practical present-day applications with a friend enrolled in the course. What did Kant think about racial profiling, we wondered aimlessly, until it occurred to us that he didn't--there were and are, thank God, more important things to worry about. Things more fitting for a great philosopher's philosophy, more fitting even for a Harvard student's studies...
...should be an end in himself. One should not, and does not, have to locate his thinking on our political spectrum to make him interesting. But students in Justice are required to pluck Kant from the clouds, fumble with him in their untutored hands and mold him to a present-day problem--like smashing a butterfly between one's fingers in order to admire its wings. Such familiarity breeds, if not contempt, at least a false and dangerous sense of intimacy...
...there's hope, a fresh alternative to the tawdry holiday present: gifts marketed by nonprofit organizations, with proceeds from these purchases going toward either the organization's general cause or a charitable service performed on the donor's behalf. Savvy holiday shoppers with a socially conscious heart often turn to nonprofits to help complete their holiday shopping. In fact, more than 60% of Americans this year plan to buy at least one gift associated with a good cause, according to the strategic marketing firm Cone Inc. By purchasing items from a nonprofit's gift catalog, consumers can support a good...