Successful interventions begin by telling the truth. The intervenor must be a trusted source, a close friend, one of the tribe, and he must speak plainly and truthfully, even if the truth hurts to say and hurts to hear: You’re a mess, the good friend says, and you need to face reality and fix yourself or you’ll lose it all.
John Agresto’s fine intervention into the shrinking universe of liberal arts education, The Death of Learning, a new title from Encounter Books, wastes little time. Agresto mouths the preamble required in any intervention, of course—that is, you’re important to me, I want what’s best for you, I’m your friend—before delivering a sharp slap to the face of liberal arts educators who delude themselves into thinking other people see their discipline as agile, respected, and sober, when, in fact, they are sleeping in a wrinkled tweed jacket in the gutter, too drunk on the spirits of yesterday (and last century) to say much of anything to the curriculum officer telling them to move along other than to belch about the importance of liberating the soul and educating the citizen—have you never heard of de Tocqueville?!—and maybe recite a couplet or two from Hamlet for gravity before crashing out lengthwise at the next faculty meeting.
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