Contrary to recent “defamations” to my name (although I forgive Virgilio as he is a hopeless hippie pinko), I do not subscribe entirely to the action side of the Action-Theory spectrum, but to moderation: a combination of action and theory—finding the golden mean.
As anyone who is unfortunate enough to begin a conversation with me even slightly tangentially related to Columbia, education, the problem with kids these days, bad Armageddon knock-offs, and most other subjects will find out, I completely drink the Kool-Aid of the Core.
In its defense I always employ the same argument Godinich uses in his column—unlike a technical or vocational education, those of us in the humanities are not being given a specific base of knowledge, but the skills to think, discuss, doubt, question, and evolve our own beliefs. Or, as Jake Goldwasser brilliantly phrased it in the Canon this week, we are building our inner dialectic.
