Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 79. Sunrise is 6:14 and sunset is 7:37 for 13 hours 23 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 99.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1832, Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk, surrenders to U.S. authorities, ending the Black Hawk War.
What is the value of an education? It’s a question that, considered carefully, should bring no simple answer. Not one value, but many values; not one benefit, but many benefits. Perhaps it is enough to suggest that one studies to cultivate oneself and, in doing so, contribute more fully to one’s family, friends, and community.
This libertarian blogger is not an alumnus of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, although I have learned to read and write, and have been to school now and again. Of UW-Whitewater particularly, that beautiful campus sits not far from my home, and it offers an education in many subjects, among them humanities, social sciences, and the natural sciences. Not one field, not one path, but many fields and many paths.
How disappointing to read that someone from far away, a consultant who describes himself as ‘Head of Growth’ (honest to goodness!) at Leland, a ‘marketplace for ambitious people’ (a tagline suitable only as parody) writes that the benefit of a UW-Whitewater education is that, from among thousands, perhaps a few might one day become chief executive officers.
Worse, this shallow gentleman even dismisses UW-Whitewater as a place of which he “would guess most people outside of Wisconsin don’t know [that school] exists.” No and no again. Everyone who attends — and is thereby enlightened and ennobled — knows. Is that not enough for a lifetime, for any lifetime?
How disappointing that the publication of a local community foundation thought this observation was anything other than an ignorant dismissal of education’s fundamental value. Worse, can those promoting this supposed praise not see that, in truth, it denigrates and diminishes education on our campus and other campuses? To that community foundation, one may pass along this message: no one builds a community’s solid foundation on shallow observations like this.
That’s not the value of a UW-Whitewater education or of an education at any other school. Education on our campus and on others is more than a dicey lottery to become a chief executive officer, chief financial officer, chief marketing officer, chief branding officer, whatever. In many ways, education is a lifelong pursuit in which ‘the journey is the destination.’ It is from the pursuit of higher and deeper things that a practical outcome is both possible and, truly, worthy of possibility.
I’ll end with a scene from a film, a scene that, in the idiom of our time, ‘hits hard.’ The scene, however, nicely expresses my rejection of education as merely an improbable executive opportunity.
In the 2021 film Pig, Nicolas Cage portrays a formerly renowned chef who uses a truffle pig to find truffles that he then sells to restaurants in San Francisco. (The truffles bring a high price.) When the pig disappears, he goes looking for the animal, and during his search he encounters a high-concept chef who once worked for him in a subordinate role. Cage’s character confronts and questions the other chef about that other man’s superficial choices.
A compelling scene with a principled message from a fine film:
Care well and deeply — study well and comprehensively.
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Forthcoming topics (in no particular order): Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), A New Ethics Ordinance, Polling Places in the City (Further Considerations), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.