The History and Decline of the University

For most of world history, we didn’t have universities. Where did they come from? Which ones are good? Do you need to go to college or not? How have educational standards gone down and how can we fix it? In this episode we take a look at the history of the institution that trains all the other institutions - the university. 

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I don't know if you've ever argued with somebody, but
leaving, not only do you understand their view better,
you understand your view better and you were like fired up to
try to disprove them. At Harvard and Yale, 80% of all
grades are a minus or above. I don't like the idea of let's
just send everybody to college, period, because then people are
just there because they have to like high school and it stops

(00:20):
meanings something. Hello, and welcome to another
edition of everyone's favorite podcast, Ideological.
I am your host, Zach Lee. Where did universities come
from? Why do they wear those robes in

(00:42):
those floppy hats? Why are there fraternities that
make people get alcohol poisoning and drink upside down?
What about sports teams where a college coach might make 50
times what a professor makes? The modern university is
different than it used to be. And today we're going to be
talking about the history of theuniversity.
So thanks for joining us on ideological, what Tom Cruise has

(01:06):
called more fun than Scientology.
All right, one of the greatest podcast of all time.
Speaking of guys that didn't go to college, Tom Cruise, let me
let me give you some disclaimersand explain why we're talking
about this. Cause you might look at the
title and think, wait, you have a lecture on the history of sex?
That seems way more fun than college.
Sometimes they go together. But yeah, let me explain why

(01:28):
we're doing this. A few things.
First of all, I'm a big proponent of higher education
like this. I went to college also a few
graduate schools and so I'm a big fan of higher education.
I'm going to save the question of should you go to college till
the very end right there? There might be people that
should and people that shouldn't, depending on the way

(01:49):
the world's changed and what youwant to study and all those kind
of things. So when I I'm going to describe
the history of the university and then I'm going to talk about
how education in America kind ofsucks now.
And I'm going to talk about and explain why that is.
That's not me being anti education.
That is me actually be being very pro university, pro
education. Why should you care about
universities? What is more boring than

(02:12):
universities? In light of that?
This episode is sponsored by water.
This is fizzy water, you know, to make it a little sexy, but
basically drinking a university.That's it.
That's what it is. There's ice there.
It froze in the freezer, as freezers tend to do.
Let me tell you why you should care about universities.

(02:34):
They are the institutions that train everyone else, the lawyers
in. The way that law goes comes out
of the universities, the doctors, the way that medicine
goes comes out of the universities.
Philosophy, theology, churches, politics, whatever it is all
come out of the universities. It's one of the longest standing
institutions we have. You understand that at a school

(02:57):
like Oxford that's like 1000 years old is way older than
America by like 4 times, OK, So these are some of our most
foundational institutions in theWest and they determine
everything. If you can control the schools,
you can control the entire culture, OK?
It's a big freaking deal, OK? I'm not going to go into

(03:18):
everything about education that would take forever.
We're going to mainly be talkingabout the history of the
university and we're going to spend most of our time in the
Middle Ages because that's when the university was invented.
What, Zach, you mean that nobodylearned until then?
No, there was learning, there was education, but what we think
of as an actual university did not actually begin till the
Middle Ages. We will talk about that.

(03:39):
I always use a bunch of different resources when I
research to, to prepare these lessons.
But if I use one to an inordinate degree, I like to
mention it as a as a little footnote.
The most helpful short book or on this topic is this bad boy
right here, A Brief History of Universities by John Moore.

(04:01):
This tiny little book, look how thin it is.
It's 100 pages, that's it. But this book's like 50 bucks.
So it's like $0.50 a page. So, you know, figure it out.
I'm not sure if the math on thatis right, but I think that it
is. But I'm a letters guy.
Let's jump in. Are you ready?
We're going to have fun. We're going to be cool.
Stay in school. All right, so let's let's talk
about this. Let's talk about education.

(04:22):
First of all, before the Middle Ages, it might surprise you to
realize that the Greco Roman world, we think of all these
great thinkers like Plato and Aristotle and the Stoics and the
Romans and all these kind of distinguished cultures and
figures. We think of them as very
educated, and they were, but they didn't have a university.

(04:44):
They would have private tutors. Typically, if you were wealthy
and could afford education for your kids or whatever, or
yourself, you would have a private tutor.
A lot of these private tutors were slaves.
So don't, again, don't think of American, you know, 19th century
slavery and read that into everyother type of slavery in the
history of the world. A lot of times if you had an
educated slave, they would be the tutor, what's called a

(05:05):
pedagogos to your to your child.They did have schools.
They did have gymnasiums, the gimnos, the word gymnasium,
gimnos in Greek means naked, by the way, 'cause they used to
work out naked. Now I'm paying attention in
school, but they would also learn, OK, They would learn.
So most teaching, though, in theGreco Roman world was done under
personal masters or tutors. Or you could enroll in a school

(05:29):
and they would teach you. But it's very different than it
is today. So, So think of somebody like
Augustine of Hippo, Saint Augustine, who's a very popular
theologian and philosopher. He was a rhetoric tutor.
He was a rhetoric teacher. And he would actually complain
that how the students in Rome wouldn't pay their, you know,
fees on time and all this kind of stuff.

(05:49):
But that's the kind of educationyou had before the Middle Ages.
The other thing that you had that was springing up is
something called the Cathedral school.
OK, so imagine a school before this, again, back to the Greco
Roman world, like Plato's Academy.
It had no credential professors,no set curricula or curriculum.

(06:12):
It had no degrees that were offered.
You would walk around. That's why they're called
peripatetics. Peripete, Oh, means to walk
around. You would walk around and you
would debate the nature of beingwith someone like a Plato or a
Socrates or an Aristotle at the Lyceum or whatever it might be.
OK, whoever the teachers are. So it was very one-on-one.
It was much more of mentoring orif you want to think of even

(06:35):
discipleship. That was kind of the idea going
on before the Middle Ages. Now you did have a specifically
in Europe, 2 centers of learningprimarily before the
universities, 1 was monasteries.What do you do when you are a
monk that is horny and has to becelibate?
Well, what you do is you pour all your energy into copying

(06:57):
texts, writing texts, learning languages, reading these kind of
things. So you would have certain monks
that became very, very educated because that's all they could
do, right? Like a nun can't get none.
So like, that's all they're going to do.
They're going to spend all theirtime studying in a kind of a
Freudian way, channel all their energy and time and power into
education to suppress. And so you have monasteries that

(07:21):
would have very excellent teachers and have very high
education. For those that were not monks,
though, you had something calledthe cathedral school.
What is that? It is a school attached and
overseen by the church or churchleaders.
And this became a very popular way to educate those who were

(07:41):
wealthy, those who were going into ministry, those who wanted
to go into maybe governmental roles.
Any, any place where you would need a good like liberal arts
education, you would use a cathedral school.
OK, Charlemagne. Charlemagne promoted learning
after becoming crowned Holy Roman Emperor.
I think that was in the year 800.

(08:01):
He got Alquin from England. And then later you had, and I
don't know if you know these names, but you should because
they're kind of a big deal at Lawn Frank.
And then St. Anselm, St.
Anselm of Canterbury, the ontological argument guy, which
we go over in the proofs for andagainst God's existence.
So tutors, step one, next step, cathedral schools, church

(08:23):
school, like Sunday school on steroids.
And you would learn a bunch of different kinds of things by
somebody who was well educated, but you didn't have a university
yet. You didn't have colleges yet.
You didn't have all the regalia and pomp and all the stuff that
we think of when it comes to higher education today.
You got that in the Middle Ages.Again, one of my pet peeves is

(08:45):
when people call the Middle Agesthe Dark Ages.
Do you know why? Because it was not dark.
Their science was not great. But as far as the arts and the
humanities and philosophy and logic and theology and all those
kind of things, they are flourishing.
So it is listen to the, the, thelecture on what life was like in

(09:07):
the Middle Ages. It is the opposite of the Dark
Ages. But when it comes to things like
science and technology, it was dark.
So they, they, they called the Dark Ages because it's in
between the glory and brightnessof, you know, Greece and Rome
and then the Enlightenment. See it, it lights it up when it
was the dark ages. So that's why it's why they call
it that. You got in the Middle Ages the

(09:29):
creation of a university. What does the word university
mean? Well, Zach, I think a university
means that education should be for everyone.
It should be universal. No, that's not what the word
meant. It comes from the Latin
universitas, which is a word that refers to the totality.
That's why you have that universal kind of language, the

(09:50):
totality of a group. Here's what a university is
originally. It is a Guild of masters and
scholars. So in the medieval world, you
would typically team up with other people in your profession.
You might have a Guild of blacksmiths, you might have a
Guild of farmers, you might havea Guild of woodcutters.
Whatever your profession was, you would team up with other

(10:12):
people to help each other, to have rights to kind of kind of
like a lobby group. Well, that Guild of scholars,
thinkers, teachers and their students, that is originally
what a university was, and it was literally a collection of
scholars and students. And they would teach the
students. They don't have buildings yet,

(10:34):
OK, Originally they don't give out degrees right away yet
either. It is like just a Guild and a
club and a membership where education is happening in the
ancient. I'm sorry, not the ancient in
the medieval world. OK, How old are universities?
Well, the earliest 1 is probablythe University of Bologna.
OK, little Bologna going on there.

(10:56):
University of Bologna, it becamea predominant law school.
In Salerno, you got a predominant medical school, but
the most powerful and prestigious universities.
A lot of the names we think of today come out of the Middle
Ages. The top 2 for sure though are
the University of Paris and Oxford, OK, University of Oxford
and the University of Paris. And then you get other ones that

(11:18):
are also really excellent. So Cambridge and Edinburgh and
Louvain and all like all these, all these ones you you hear
about today, those are going to come out of the Middle Ages.
Now think of your college experience today.
You're hanging with your boys. You got a dorm, you're playing
some Xbox, you know, probably getting drunk a bunch, you know,
chasing girls. And you go to the student

(11:40):
activity center and play some ping pong.
But none of that stuff existed. The medieval experience was very
different for college than what we think of today.
By the way, college is not the same thing as university.
I'll explain that in a second. But first, water.
Don't die in the plague water. They did not have dorms.

(12:05):
They did not have air conditioning.
They did not have sports teams. They did not have school colors
and many times even a building. There were no fraternities, no
sororities. You were required to go to
church and to sing in the choir,and you and the professors had
to be celibate. Now, did everyone follow that
rule? No, they didn't.

(12:25):
Well, you know why? Because humans be humaning.
But that was the rule, OK. The university system in the
education was as follows. There are 4 faculty.
So what you would do is as a young student, you would go in
and you would start your bachelor's degree.
That's what we call it today, right?
And a bachelor's, this unmarriedguy, all these kids coming in

(12:46):
were young and unmarried. And you would come in to do your
bachelor's degree. So you would start in the
faculty of arts. Now, let me be clear, cause a
lot of this, this is something people seem to not understand.
We, when we think of the word art today, we think of Fine
Arts, we think of like painting or sculpture or something like
that. The Latin word arts means like a
skill. So that's why you have a

(13:07):
Bachelor of Arts or a Master of Arts.
It's why it's the faculty of arts.
It's why it's called the liberalarts, letters, humanities.
These are all things that are, they're very, very similar.
The idea was that you would learn this skill.
So you start in the faculty of arts to do your bachelor's
degree, and then if you graduated, you could then go to
one of the higher faculties, thegraduate schools, and there was

(13:29):
only three of them. There was theology, there was
medicine, and there was law. Actually, somewhat similar to
today. You can graduate and then you
can go to a seminary or divinityschool.
You can go to medical school, oryou can go to law school.
Now, the law law school was bifurcated into two different
sections. There was civil law and Canon
law. What's Canon law?

(13:49):
It's like the history of church law and what the church has
decided for churchy cases. OK.
And so that's what you would do.So you would.
You would. It's similar to what you think
of today, a bachelor's degree first.
Then if you want to go to a higher faculty to do your
graduate work, you can. The difference is everyone had
to do arts first. You had to learn how to think
and do logic and all these kind of things, and then you could go

(14:09):
study other topics in the Graduate School here.
Here's how it would work in the Faculty of Arts.
What would you study, Zach? Well, you would do the Trivium
and the quadrivium. The Trivium is grammar, logic,
and rhetoric. If you do a type of classical
education today or you go to a university that promotes a
classical type of education, which I would highly highly

(14:30):
recommend. This is the idea behind the
trivia. By grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
They don't just mean some words and some math and some public
speaking. Grammar was more of the learn
the basics stage, memorize, learn how to write, learn the
languages, learn the building blocks of education that you

(14:50):
will need. The next step, logic, is
learning to put those ideas and those building blocks together.
And then the final step, rhetoric, is being able to teach
and convince others of those elements.
OK, it was a much better way of doing education.
Most of our education today, by the way, just stays at the
grammar level. Students just memorize things,
periodic table, times tables, whatever.

(15:14):
Never learn how to think critically, never learn how to
persuade, never learn how to do philosophy or logic or any of
that. But anyway, you would do the
Trivium and then you would also do the quadrivium, which
included arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.
OK. After that, you would then go to
one of the graduate faculties ifyou wanted the most read book in

(15:37):
the Middle Ages. What do you think it is?
Do you think it's Dan Brown's DaVinci Code?
Do you think it's the Giving Tree?
Remember that book as a kid? I love the Giving Tree, but is
it? I'll love you forever, I'll like
you for always. Is it Dante's Divine Comedy?
Is it what? What is it?

(15:58):
The most read book in the European Middle Ages outside of
the Bible was The Consolation ofPhilosophy by Boethius, Inicius
Manlius Severinus Boethius, by the way, quite the name, and it
is a fantastic work. It's probably in my top five

(16:19):
favorite books of all time. It's really great.
So Boethius is in prison for something he didn't do.
Lady Philosophy shows up and basically Boethius just starts
bitching at him or bitching at her, and she just destroys him
with logic and philosophy about how he doesn't see the world
rightly and how happiness is notfound in your circumstances and
all these kind of things. It's really, really great if you

(16:40):
were to go to one of these higher levels, one of these
higher faculties, after doing your bachelor's degree, if you
were to study theology, the primary things you would study
are the Bible and then Peter Lombard's Four Books of
Sentences. The most popular textbook in the
Middle Ages for theology was Lombard's Four Books of
Sentences. What does that mean?
It's it's theology and pronouncements of the church

(17:02):
with individual lines from church fathers, maybe from
someone like an Augustine or an Ambrose or whatever it might be,
and then also some commentary. So it is a systematic, getting
some Bible, but also getting theinterpretation from church
fathers about what that text means.
And that is something that everybody would have to study if
you want to do theology, right. So, you know, someone like

(17:23):
Thomas Aquinas had to do this. Martin Luther had to do this.
Everybody had to read Lombard. If you went into medicine, you
would study Galen, Hippocrates. You ever heard of the
Hippocratic Oath? It's named after Hippocrates and
Avicenna in law. You would primarily study
Justinian, his body of civil law.
If you were doing civil law or if you were studying Canon law,
you would study at gration's decreitum.

(17:45):
The the decreitum. All right, now let's take a
break 'cause all that's super boring, right?
We're just talking about a bunchof virgins sitting around
talking about the Trivium. Lame.
Listen to what I'm about to say.The education back then was so
much better than it is today. It's not even freaking close.

(18:06):
It's not even close. What do you do today?
You, you can go online, do a degree and something stupid
that's not a real subject and hardly do any work, learn no
languages, not have to defend ordispute or, you know, write a
dissertation or whatever. And the, and you, you, you could
say you have a degree. It's wild.

(18:27):
Here's what the education was like back then.
Listen to this. First of all, you did everything
in Latin. You would have to actually know
some Latin to even get into the university originally, because
you needed to be able to read things like the Latin Bulgate,
which was the Bible in Latin. But you did everything in Latin,
not just your school work. You would be whipped or you
would be disciplined if you eventalked in something other than

(18:48):
Latin to your classmates, even when you're playing, even when
you're hanging out in your dorm,right?
They wanted you to know Latin very, very well because it
created this universal language.All scholars and all students
could talk to each other at any university because they all knew
Latin. We should have kept doing that.
We had the reversal of Babel andwe stopped, which is wild.
So you first of all, did everything in Latin.

(19:08):
So that's already going to put them ahead of most American
students. You learned through the
disputatio. So here's what it would look
like. You'd be sitting in a chair, and
you didn't have very many books.They were expensive, and you had
to copy them by hand. And so you'd have to memorize a
lot of books, which is wild. The professor would be sitting
in front of you at a higher desk.
And what they would do is they would read some sort of primary

(19:30):
work. Let's say it's, you know,
Cicero, Kikiro or something likethis, or they would read
something from like Augustine orwhatever it might be.
And they would give you their their take on it and they give
you some commentary. And then you would have to
argue. You would have to have a debate
with either another student or the professor and they would go
something like this. Student AI want you to argue

(19:53):
that God doesn't exist. Student BI want you to argue
that God does exist. And student A would be like,
here are the reasons why God doesn't exist.
Boom boom, boom boom. Student B would be like, here's
the reason why God does exist, Boom, boom, boom, boom.
And they'd go back and forth andthen eventually the professor
would step in at the end and kind of explain and harmonize
and reconcile the different views.
And you did this all the time. It is the best way to learn.

(20:15):
I don't know if you've ever argued with somebody, but
leaving, not only do you understand their view better,
you understand your view better and you were like fired up to
try to disprove them. It is the best way to learn.
I don't know why we stopped doing it.
It would be fantastic. Classes would start at 6:00 AM.
You lived on campus, you were single, celibate, and you
enrolled around the age of 14 or15.
OK, so they started earlier. It could take you for You might

(20:40):
study for four years, lecture for another two years, study for
another four years. It could take forever to
actually end up getting your degree.
The most prestigious Graduate School was theology.
Here is how long it would take to get your doctorate in
theology if you wanted to go allthe way in theology.
After you got your Bachelors of arts which would take about four
to six years, you could then go get your Bachelor of theology

(21:03):
which might take take an additional 6 to 8 years as you
lectured on the Bible and again Lombards 4 books of sentences.
You would then have to study another two years to be
considered a master and to receive your license to teach in
any university in Europe. So you have to originally the
term doctor and master actually go together.
They're the same kind of thing. It's a license to teach.

(21:25):
OK, so you had to get to a certain level, master or doctor,
those words actually mean very similar things so that you could
teach. And once you had that license,
which is the idea behind a degree, it's it's just a license
that says you are qualified to teach others.
You could then go teach in any University of Europe.
They had this like universal wayof just one scholar would come
from this university and go to another university and these

(21:46):
students study some here and travel here.
It was you were able to to to spread around because you also
knew Latin and could speak to the students.
If you then wanted to teach at the graduate level, though, you
would need to get your doctorate.
So you would lecture and study afew more years.
It took an average listen to this of 18 to 20 years to become
a doctor of theology. It took between 7:00 to 10:00 to

(22:09):
become a doctor in other subjects, but between 18 and 20
years to become a doctor of theology with an average
lifespan at this time of around 60.
That's a third of your life. So again, better educational
standards than we have today. Listen to this.
This comes from a cardinal. His name is Robert, of course,

(22:30):
son. And 12:15 says this, No one
shall lecture in the arts at Paris before he is 21 years of
age. And he shall have heard lectures
for at least six years before hebegins to lecture.
And he shall promise to lecture for at least two years.
As to the status of the theologians, which were a higher
standard, we decree that no one shall lecture at Paris.
By that he means the University of Paris before his 35th year.

(22:53):
And unless he has studied for eight years at least and has
heard the books faithfully and in classrooms and has attended
lectures in theology for five years before he gives lectures
himself publicly. OK, so again, dark ages.
Yeah. But like, can run circles around
you in Latin as they have these poems about logic.
Like, it's another level. Aristotle's works became popular

(23:21):
in the arts originally his like logical works and such.
His metaphysical works were originally banned and then they
were fully accepted and became part of like the Canon of what
you would study. So it's interesting, Aristotle's
stuff is like rejected, and thenit's like overly accepted.
And it would become a standard by 12:54.
Aristotle's metaphysical works were part of the curriculum.

(23:43):
Thomas Aquinas became one of themost prominent philosophers
during this time. Who is Thomas Aquinas?
I'm going to have a whole lessonon Aquinas.
He's one of the most influentialthinkers during the Middle Ages.
He is a scholar, a theologian and philosopher.
Basically what he does is he takes the philosophy of
Aristotle and combines it with Catholic theology.
So if those two people had a little scholar baby, that little

(24:05):
scholar baby, we just love that little scholar baby, Little
TomTom, you know, little little Tommy, little Tommy Aquinas,
that's who that that would be. By the 13th century, you started
to have things like dorms and dining facilities and things
that you think of today as a university.
So super student college and university.
Usually university is a collection of colleges

(24:26):
originally. University, again, is a Guild of
scholars and students, but they might not have buildings and
such colleges were typically thethe places where you would sleep
and had dining facilities and where you would live and there
would be courtyards and things like that.
So universities eventually became a collection of colleges

(24:47):
and you still see this with older universities today.
Like if you go to the Universityof Oxford, there's not a
university. There's a bunch of different
colleges throughout Oxford and they make up the University of
Oxford. OK.
There's not just like 1 campus like we think of most colleges
in the US or, or most universities in the US.
So the college was like the small study building where you
live, and the university would be the one to actually grant the

(25:09):
degrees and to do exams and to do, you know, thesis supervision
and that kind of stuff. And then today the terms are
pretty much used interchangeably.
But technically, a university isa collection of scholars and
that involved colleges eventually.
Listen to this. If you're a student in a
medieval university, you are considered clergy.

(25:30):
What fantastic you get to be AI think the gross phrase is man of
the cloth. Don't know what that means.
You weren't actually a priest, but you fell under the laws of
clergy, which means this while you were a student, you are not
under civil law like the averagetown person townsperson you, you
are under church law, you are under a type of Canon law and

(25:51):
university law. So even if you committed murder,
you'd probably be tried by a church court instead of a civil
court, which means your chance of living and not being executed
was much higher. And so universities were almost
like their own little cities. Just think of a bunch of little
Vatican's around. They're almost your their own
little cities, and their jurisdiction is over the
students, even when it comes to matters that today we would

(26:12):
consider to be criminal. So there were a lot of clashes
sometimes between drunk students, rowdy students and
townsfolk. That's actually how Cambridge
got started. There was this like brawl and
this just bitterness between some townspeople in Oxford and
the students. And so the students and some
professors left and went, went and started Cambridge

(26:33):
University. OK, what do we think about the
Middle Ages in education so far?Pretty interesting if you ask
me. You might be like, dude, this is
the worst. This is a lesson which is school
on school. Why don't I just go buy a gun
with one bullet and just not have this lesson?
I hear you, I hear you, but keeppaying attention because it's
important. Also, don't actually harm

(26:57):
yourself. Disclaimer, early modern period.
Let's talk about what happens then.
Now after the Middle Ages, the faculty of arts eventually
became more the faculty of philosophy again.
Notice liberal arts, humanities,philosophy.
Those are those are Venn diagrams with many overlapping
circles. So you had natural philosophy,

(27:18):
what today we think of as science, moral philosophy,
things like ethics, and then metaphysical philosophy.
What we think of is maybe some traditional philosophy, reality,
that kind of stuff. These are all branches of
philosophy though, and they're thinking This is why APHD is a
doctor of philosophy. Even if you didn't study
philosophy proper philosophy perSE.

(27:40):
This is why you can get a doctorof philosophy in science.
I hate that they do that, but that's where it comes from.
I as a guy who actually likes and does philosophy, I think
that should be reserved. But that is why is it called?
That's why it's called a doctor of philosophy.
You had chairs like endowed chairs and professorships at

(28:01):
these universities in departments that originally were
for subjects outside of the fourwe've mentioned.
Again, you'd have arts 1st and then theology, law or medicine,
and then law again, split between Canon and civil law.
But what about new subjects thatthey wanted to make available to
students? Well, what you would do is you
would have a chair today. You'll, you'll read that

(28:22):
somebody's like the Lady Margaret chair of this or the,
you know, Bob Barker chair of Veterinary Studies, keep your
pets spayed and neutered kind ofstuff.
So it was originally a way to fund professors that were in
other topics or fields, things such as Greek or history, for
example. the Reformation changedthe university as you now have

(28:44):
Protestant universities detachedfrom Aristotle.
Remember, Aristotle is the man. Aquinas just calls him the
philosopher like he's the man inthe Middle Ages.
But now you have the Protestantswho have a tendency, some to
still be Aristotelian, but many of them to be more Platonic and
not like the Catholic view of philosophy.
She had Protestant University starting to pop up in places

(29:06):
like Wittenberg or Yena or Leiden, for example, in the New
world, meaning America in the New world, Harvard College
started in 1636. Notice that it is older than the
United States. Other early universities
included William and Mary, Yale,Princeton, Columbia, originally
called King's College. You can't call it that after

(29:27):
America's, you know. Soon it's Columbia, PA, Brown,
Rutgers, Dartmouth and more. Georgetown was founded from
abolished Jesuits. Fascinating.
By the way, the Jesuits and eventhe universities under the
Jesuit control today are some ofthe top like the Jesuits are.
Love them or hate them, love or hate their theology doesn't
matter. They are well educated and they

(29:48):
are serious about you learning your stuff.
Something unique happened thoughin 1810.
In 1810, Wilhelm von Humboldt began the University of Berlin.
And let me tell you why this is is unique.
It it's something that we see inuniversities today.
In the Middle Ages, universitieswere about teaching.

(30:10):
You would dispute, professors would lecture on certain topics,
you would learn, etcetera. What you got with the University
of Berlin, and a lot of universities were influenced by
this later, is the emphasis on independent research and freedom
of thought. So instead of just being taught
what the church, you know had held in the Middle Ages, now you
could do research on whatever your interest might be.

(30:33):
This is why you see people todaythat have crazy sounding
dissertations because they're doing scholarly work, but it
might be on something weird because that's just the thing
they're interested in. So it became more of a focus on
independent research. It became more of a focus on
freedom of thought and freedom to pursue the thing in which you
were interested. OK, now notice if I ask most

(30:56):
people listening to this, if youwent to college, what did you
major in? I bet that 9 out of 10, I bet
90% will say something like business, right, or you know,
business administration or marketing or something that we
haven't mentioned up to this point.
Do you know why we haven't mentioned it?
Because it did not exist for most of the history of a

(31:18):
university for almost 1000 years.
You did not have business schools, you did not have
engineering schools, you did nothave these kind of things
because those were trades. Those are things you don't need
to go to school for. Those are things that you can
learn on your own. I mean, some of the wealthiest
people I know didn't go to college.
I saw a guy I was walking out ofa steakhouse recently, humble

(31:40):
brag. I eat steak.
And there was a Lamborghini in the parking lot.
And the license plate said this.I has GEDI has GED.
Isn't that great? You don't need to go to college
if the goal is to make money. When did all this change though?
Because today, I mean, the most popular majors are these like,

(32:00):
practical things that can help you get a job and pad your
resume. Well, the answer is that came
after Napoleon. The 19th century saw things like
the Industrial Revolution, and it needed people to be trained
for government, for engineering,for jobs, for business, for
these kind of things. And so you started to see these
more practical subjects. Although I would argue that

(32:21):
learning the arts and learning philosophy is the most practical
because how you think effects everything.
I can't think of something more practical than that.
Also, thinking that things are only valuable because they're
practical is a form of philosophy.
It's called pragmatism. It's basically invented in
America. Anyway, rant over.
That's what happened. 19th century.
Things started to become more pragmatic.
And the question is, how do we turn universities into training

(32:43):
Centers for jobs, which also then causes the education to go
down, because the purpose of an education wasn't just to train
you for a job. You can learn how to sell by
being good with people. You can learn how to blacksmith
by apprenticing with a blacksmith.
It was to teach you how to think, especially in subjects
where it'd be very hard to teachyourself.
OK. It wasn't until the mid 1800s

(33:05):
that science was even studied atOxford or Cambridge, what they
sometimes will call Oxbridge. If somebody went to Oxford and
they're being really fancy, they, they won't put Oxford on
their resume or their CV, they'll put Oxon, Oxon.
Or if they went to Cambridge, they'll put Kentab, CANTAB
because these are the Latinized phrases originally of the
degree. It's all very fancy.
Oxbridge is like the place the Wharton School of Finance, which

(33:28):
you've probably heard of big finance school and Business
School didn't start until 1881 and the Harvard Business School
did not start until 19 O 8. So think about it.
Universities start around the year 1000 with roots even in the
the Middle East, some before that and some in, you know,
Oxford's like 1096 or somewhere around there.

(33:48):
Don't quote me on that number, but somewhere.
So for almost 1000 years they'reteaching liberal arts and then
finally you get the introductionof things like business schools,
etcetera. Now, most universities had to be
funded by a church or private donation or tuition from the
students. What about state colleges?
In the US we have a lot of statecolleges and universities.
Well, in 1862, Republican President Abraham Lincoln during

(34:12):
the Civil War signed into law what is called the Moral Act.
That's not MORAL. That's MORRILL, the Moral Act
which gave land to states to have for state universities.
This is why you have things likeOhio State or you know, Texas
A&M agricultural and mechanical college that now is a university
that does a bunch of other things right.

(34:33):
It wasn't until listen to this 1870 that Parliament required
Oxford and Cambridge to admit non Anglicans and women.
So up until 1870, you had to be a man and you had to be an
Anglican specifically for these most prestigious British
universities. It's in the 1800s that student
activism began, which is a huge thing today.
Today you don't have students who want to learn Latin and are

(34:56):
living in these freezing cold cells and maybe even have to
share a bed because they just want the education so bad.
Today it's become a lot of like political indoctrination and
activism. It's like, hey, you have more
time than the average person go yell at stuff from your, you
know, $100,000 a year plus university because you're
actually privileged. That's kind of the thing that's
going on in the 1800s and that is a big part of the university

(35:20):
experience today. John Henry Newman's work, the
idea of a university, highly recommend.
He's kind of a big deal and thatis kind of an important work.
Argued that the purpose, listen to this, of a university was to
train people in the liberal artsto be well educated humans.
The goal was flourishing in all areas of life by having a
cultivated mind. It was not meant to be to get a

(35:41):
job or to push some sort of religious views, OK.
In 19 O 6, Marie Curie, this scientist, this famous
scientific person became the first female professor at Paris,
19 O six OK, So not that long ago.
So that is the university after the Middle Ages.

(36:03):
OK, boring. Zach, who cares?
I want to. Why aren't you drinking Red Bull
this time? Or alcohol?
Well, because we're studying theuniversity.
Brought to you by water. The university of your body, 75%
of you's made of it. Drink.
Drink some. Let's talk about an overview of
the degree system. A lot of people don't realize

(36:24):
this. They go into a university and
they're like, I want to study whatever.
And they're like, all right, you're a Bachelor of Arts.
And they're like, wait, I don't want to do art or a Bachelor of
Science. And you're like, wait, I, I
didn't study science. I studied.
Where do we get these names? Let's talk about an overview of
the degree system. How it typically works is out of
high school, you go to university and you are

(36:47):
considered a bachelor's student baccalaureate.
If you want to use the the older, more formal cool phrase
and you're working typically fora four year degree, you can get
an associate's degree, which is 2 years.
But most employers and stuff don't care about that.
But maybe you're not doing it for employment.
Maybe you just want to learn. So that's two years.
The standard though, college degree is a bachelor's degree,
it's four years. Why are they called things like

(37:09):
Bachelor of Arts? Because we just talked about
that was liberal arts. So if your subject, your major
is in something like history or philosophy or something like
this, you're going to have a Bachelor of Arts.
If your major is in something like physics, you'll probably
have a Bachelor of Science because you're focusing on this
other category that is not the liberal arts.
After those four years, usually it's around 120 to 140 hours.

(37:34):
Each class is about 3 hours and last one semester.
Then what you do is you end up getting your bachelor's degree.
You can then go on to Graduate School, which are typically
different types of smaller, you know, colleges at a university
to study different things and you can get a master's degree.
And then beyond that, you can get some type of doctoral degree
where you actually get a title change and you get to be called

(37:56):
doctor or master even though your other degree is called
master, but nobody calls you master.
Anyway, let's talk though about something where I, I feel like
there's a lot, there's a lot of like fake pretension when it
comes to education. I've seen people put like
they're certain kinds of degreesin their signature line which
are not actually very impressive.
You know, those kind of things. You have PhD, that's one thing,

(38:18):
but I've seen people that kind of promote other things.
Let me explain kind of how this works.
Anytime somebody says that they have a master's degree or a
doctorate, you need to ask thesetwo questions.
Pay attention. This is very important.
What type and in what subject? They're very different.
What type of degree and in what subject?
For example, if somebody has a master's degree, the top, the

(38:43):
best master's degree is what's called an infill.
It's typically awarded in British universities, and it is
almost a doctoral degree. It's not.
It's an infill. After that, you might have
something like an inlet Master of letters.
Then you might have a Master of Arts.
Or for example, in the United States, there are certain
institutions that offer what's called a THMA, Master of

(39:04):
Theology. That is 120 postgraduate hours.
It's almost like another bachelor's degree at the
graduate level that is a lot longer than an MA, which might
only be 36 hours and a thesis. They're both called master.
OK. There are master's degrees that
are one year. There are master's degrees that
are four years. So it all depends on what type
of master's degree. Also, you have to ask something

(39:27):
like, what is it in? What is it in, right?
Like if you do an MA in philosophy, that's a difficult
degree. If you do an MA in classics,
that's a difficult degree. If you do an MBA, that's a
professional degree to train youfor business.
It's there, it's work intensive,but it's not considered like a
research or academic degree. So it all depends on what you're

(39:49):
doing. Same way with the doctoral
system. Oh gosh this one also drives me
nuts. You need to ask when someone has
it says they have a doctorate. You need to ask what type and in
what subject. If something right?
Like if a subject is something like phenomenological ethics.
That's going to be way freaking harder than somebody doing, no

(40:10):
offense but like pre elementary education or something like
that. Important but different topics
but there's also different degrees.
So the top the top research degree that makes you typically
qualified to teach at graduate institutions is a PhD or at
places like Oxford, they still call it AD fill same thing.
So a PHDA doctor of philosophy is typically very rigorous and

(40:32):
you're contributing to new research and you're writing a
300 page dissertation and you'redoing language work and you're
doing all these kind of things that is very different and more
difficult than something like anEd D Doctor of Education or
aside a doctor of psychology. OK, perhaps one of the ones that
I hate the most is it it's in like sometimes you'll meet

(40:54):
somebody that is religious or works in like a clerical
profession, like a pastor, a priest or whatever.
And they have what is called AD men, not a demon, like a bad
Angel, a demon, a doctor of ministry, D dot MIN.
And they're like doctor whoever that is a trash degree.
OK, It is. It is a way for people to pad

(41:15):
their resume and be called doctor, but it is not an
academic. You actually have a buddy that
was thinking about doing 1, so his friend who had a PhD sent
him a box of crayons and basically said, hey, if you're
considering doing AD men, you might need this.
It's half the length of the PhD.It doesn't have language
requirements. It's in practical subject like
church growth and not real subjects like, you know,

(41:38):
philosophy or church history or whatever.
Even for the the the pastoral side, there is something beyond
APHD and it's called a habilitation.
So this was popular especially in German universities, but in
Europe they still do this a lot where after your PhD, if you
want to be like a super stud, you want to be on the track for
a quicker tenure, you go get what's called a habilitation

(41:59):
degree where you prepare an exceptional piece of extra
postdoctoral work. When it comes to professional
doctorates, for sure the highestis an MD, maybe ADO, but an MD
for sure. That is a medical doctorate.
That's what we think of as doctor that that's why we
actually call physicians doctors.
So I remember having a philosophy professor and he's

(42:21):
like, I'm a doctor, but not the kind that can help anyone 'cause
it was a PhD instead of an MD. An MD typically requires not
only medical school, so it not only requires college or
undergraduate work, then medicalschool, but a fellowship and a
residency. It can take 11 to 15 years
sometimes to go from being a high school grad to being a
physician. So again, an MD notice again is

(42:41):
very different than ADC, someonewho's a chiropractor, no
offense. I've I've had chiropractors help
me. I appreciate them.
That is a different type of doctor, though.
The MD is certainly more difficult or a lawyer is ajd we
don't even call them doctors, but it's a doctor of
jurisprudence technically. And again, hard work.
Law school is not easy, but it'sit's not as strenuous as doing

(43:03):
in MD. So a lot of these degrees are
structured between knowledge andresearch and practicality.
Again, it used to be that the faculty of arts and theology was
doing more research. The practicality might be some
people in ministry, although most people were not training in
ministry till after the Reformation on in, in Catholic
universities through the university system and and then

(43:25):
the medical and law was more practical.
Last part, we're almost done. Look at this education you're
getting. How much did it cost you to it
cost you to, to log on to this? It didn't cost you anything.
You're getting a free education with me.
I mean, I mean, I, I don't know,I don't, I don't know if you
know this or not, but like, I'vegot probably over 20 followers

(43:49):
on social media. Big deal.
Let's talk about universities today in the US.
So I say all that to say, that'swhat a university was meant to
be. That's how it started, that's
the history. The educational standards were
very high and I'm pro university.
OK, big fan. I'm about to mention some things
because the education, especially in the US has gone

(44:09):
down recently, probably over thelast 70 ish years, last 40 ish
years in particular, last 10 years for sure it's gone way
down. So this is not to dog on all
modern universities. I think British universities
have a much better model. I think European universities
have a much better model. You're seeing universities now
come to prominence in Asian countries, African countries,

(44:31):
South American countries. And so I think the university
and and who has the best education is just shifting.
But I want to explain where we started, you know, with the
Harvards and the Yales of the world in the US versus where we
are now. So let, let me just contrast
this, by the way, let let me tell you what even Oxford does
today. Oxford's incredible thing.
I got to do a study term there. Let me be clear, I did not take

(44:53):
one of my degrees at Oxford, butI did get to do a study term
with an Oxford professor there. And here's how they do the
process at Oxford, if you're as,if you're an incoming student,
you study for three to four years.
You meet with the professor one-on-one for every class.
So think of sitting in their office as you're talking about

(45:13):
Chaucer and they're smoking their pipe like CS Lewis style.
It's very cool. So you don't get credits, you
don't get grades like that. You meet with the professor
one-on-one for every class for three to four years, where they
will say, go read this work, write this paper, come back,
read it to me. You read it to them, and they'll
tear it to shreds. And then you go and you do it
again. It's the best education you can
get. And then at the end of that, you

(45:34):
take these really long exams andyou either get a degree from
Oxford or you get nothing and you never get to come back.
They post all the students grades on High Street right
there where everyone can see them.
And the highest rate of suicide in England among young people is
at Oxford University because students who fail commit suicide
because this has been their whole life.
They had their their chance to be at the best school in the

(45:55):
world and to and then failed at it.
So a lot of them jump off a building and impale themselves
on Edmund Haley's fence, the Haley's comic guy.
Fascinating. So the first paper that I wrote
for this professor, I tried to do the best I can.
I'm like, this is like, I'm going to, I'm going to go over
this with a fine tooth comb. I'm going to make sure the

(46:16):
argument's tight. I'm going to make sure that I
don't have grammatical errors. And so I submit my first paper
to him and it comes back with 30errors.
And he's like, read me your paper.
And so I read him the paper and he's like in the title.
And I'm like, what? We can't even get past the title
before you destroy me. What is happening?
So again, consider that with somebody that now goes and gets

(46:37):
a degree from the University of Phoenix online, the educational
standards are not the same. OK, no offense.
You know, this episode is brought to you both by Princeton
University and also the University of Phoenix.
You know, University of Phoenix.Find your inner fire eagle and
get your degree in pop studies. OK, Listen to these facts about

(46:59):
how American education now is not what it used to be. the US
has fallen to number 18 as far as nations with the most
bachelor's degree, you know, with the highest bachelor degree
attainment. OK, so there's 17 nations where
more people are getting bachelor's degrees than in the
United States. Majors now include the

(47:19):
following. These are majors, not just
classes, majors, pop culture studies, puppet arts, witchcraft
studies, and bowling industry management.
You can take courses titled things.
These are all real courses from accredited colleges in the US.
You can take courses titled things like The Sociology of
Miley Cyrus, French Feminist Theory, How to Watch Television,

(47:42):
The Art of Walking, where you walk, and you just kind of write
down your thoughts. Wasting time on the Internet
where you surf the Internet for three hours a week, and then you
write down what you learned in your thoughts.
Taco literacy, where you can have tacos and comment on
culinary things and Madonna studies.

(48:04):
Compare that with writing a fullcommentary on Peter Lombard's
Four Books of Sentences in Latintoday.
Listen to this. The average college student
spends less than two hours a dayon school work.
It's supposed to be like a full time job.
Listen to this. But not at the prestigious
universities AG, not at the Ivy League schools.
At Harvard and Yale, 80% of all grades are a minus or above.

(48:29):
At both Harvard and Yale, 80%. They're just handing out AS
because it's just become like the a cool club.
It's just become like, oh, you got in here because your dad
wants to be a senator and you agree with us on all of our
agenda and identity politics stuff.
So you get to go to Harvard. Harvard used to require that,
you know, Hebrew, Greek and Latin to even get in.

(48:51):
But now they just give away as so that you can have a piece of
paper which doesn't mean what itused to mean.
Harvard has also struggled recently due to racist admission
practices and anti-Semitism on campus.
Students used to have to know Latin and logic before even
applying. And I mentioned how at some
schools you also had to know Hebrew and Greek in addition to

(49:12):
those. Those are no longer required
online education. AI and Internet research instead
of journals and books means the quality of education continues
to go down. Students use AI to write their
papers. They quote Wikipedia like that
is some type of credentialed resource.
Anytime somebody says I've researched this the first thing
I say is what peer reviewed journals did you read physically

(49:35):
in a library? Most people means they.
Most people mean they they googled something a lot and read
a bunch online and the good sources get mixed in with the
bad. Again, it doesn't matter if all
the information in the world is on the Internet, if you don't
know how to do research methodology, you are going to
misinterpret the data which we see.
I mean, you see people making strong cases for the Earth being
flat despite the fact that it's a sphere.

(49:58):
This episode's brought to you byEarth.
Earth. It's a ball, you dummy.
Students used to have to read primary sources and they read
them in the original language. Now today, mostly just read
secondary sources and instead oflearning languages, they just
put it in Google and act like that's a real translation.
Listen to this in the most recent QS World University
rankings. So they rank all the

(50:19):
universities for the top ones inthe world in 2026.
So for this coming year, Harvardfell to #5 OK in the world and
Yale to number 21. So there are other universities
just crushing them. Students used to have to debate
each other, and the professor would guide them in grueling
debate. Now we have safe, safe spaces

(50:41):
and trigger warnings. Highly recommend that you read
the book Coddling of the American Mind, where we are
teaching people to be less resilient and less intelligent.
We're not doing what's best for them.
Doing what's best for somebody, I think is the definition of
love. It is not loving to coddle
somebody and not teach them mental resilience.
Whenever you see a student freakout and cry and say they're
triggered and yell, that is someone typically who is

(51:05):
extremely mentally weak. OK, they're extremely mentally
fragile. That needs to be strengthened.
It does not need to be encouraged as early as the
1960s. Listen to this.
The amount of time you would spend on classes and homework if
you were a full time student wasabout 40 hours.
That's why we think of it as a full time student.
It was like a job. Today it's about 13 hours, so

(51:27):
1/4 a third of what it used to be.
Listen to this. We've also moved away from a
real academic subjects to whatever our pet like hot button
issue culturally is at the you know at at the time.
Listen to this there was recently APHD graduate from
Cambridge whose thesis was titled as follows olfactory.

(51:49):
That's smell olfactory ethics the politics of smell in modern
and contemporary prose. Her dissertation or in in the
UK, it's called a thesis. We switch in America it's a
master's a thesis and a doctorate is a dissertation and
the UK it's the other way around.
Your dissertation is your master's and your thesis is your
like PhD. Her dissertation, though, is

(52:09):
literally about how smells in contemporary literature
reinforce discriminatory stereotypes for cultures that
have different hygiene standards.
Basically, there she she's writing a dissertation at
Cambridge, which is an amazing school to say if you think
certain people stink because they don't wear deodorant and

(52:31):
such and it's in literature, it's because you're actually
being a racist and you're biased.
And that is the topic of a doctoral dissertation.
Now compare this with the title from the same school, Cambridge
in 1937. Listen to this title and tell me
if this seems a bit more academic.
An inquiry into the metaphysicalfoundations of natural theology,
with special reference to the doctrine of divine simplicity as

(52:53):
expounded by Saint Thomas Aquinas and its relation to the
rationalist system of systems ofLeibniz and Spinoza.
That sounds like a dissertation title, not racist smells.
Listen to this at many Ivy League schools.
These are the best schools in America, or at least not with
education, but they're they havethe most prestige at many Ivy

(53:13):
League schools in the US. They moved to a simple pass or
fail system during COVID. So no longer giving grades and
grade point average stuff. Just pass or fail and have not
moved back. So, you know, it's it's like,
have you ever seen Arrested Development, which is one of the
greatest shows of all time? Maybe is her name.
She has to she goes to this progressive school and she gets
a report card and it says thingslike math makes maybe feel and

(53:36):
then there's like a happy face or like a puppy or whatever.
You're you're kind of getting that with Ivy League schools.
All right, Zach, that seems kindof a downer.
How can we fix it? I'm going to tell you, you want
to fix education and have. If you really care about
politics and pushing your agenda, you don't want to change
it right or left. You just want your institutions

(53:57):
fighting their institutions. If you really care about
education though, here's how youfix it.
If you do all these things, you'll fix it.
Ready #1 Make universities a pure meritocracy.
No hiring based on agendas, identity politics, race,
whatever. The best students, the smartest
students with the highest grades, best writing, best
social skills, best research skills, whatever they get to go

(54:18):
teach Classical works in critical thinking.
Make students disagree with professors.
If you left college agreeing with your professors and
parenting them, you did not get educated, you got indoctrinated.
Make students disagree with their professors.
Bring back the disputatio. Bring back the disputation.
Argue in class respectfully withteachers and students and let

(54:39):
everyone watch it and talk aboutit after in the coffee shop.
Have higher admission requirements for students and
educational requirements for professors.
Higher faculty listen to this. This is very important.
I mean this for all institutions.
Conservative, liberal, religious, non religious, higher
faculty from varying political, religious and philosophical
positions. Universities do not do that.

(55:00):
They just take teeple teeple. They take people on their team.
Take and team and people equals Teeple.
Listen to this. Drop majors and things you can
learn outside of university and make all students learn the
humanities and liberal arts first.
De emphasize needing a degree for a job.
That was never the purpose of a degree.

(55:21):
Eliminate the pragmatic reasons to get a degree and make it more
about mentoring to to those who really want to learn.
Mox Weber, the intellectual and sociologist, said that the
university in a German educationis much higher than an American
education. Do you know why?
Because in a German education, you're mentored by the
professor. You're giving up things to be

(55:41):
there. You really want to be in, you
know, kind of introduced and inducted into the Guild of
Scholars. Like, it's your identity.
These are your people. They want to protect the name of
scholar. And so it's this mentoring type
of relationship where you becomea thinker for thinking's sake.
He says in America, the student says something like, give me

(56:04):
your knowledge for my father's money, the same way my mother at
the store would buy a cabbage. That's what Americans do.
They're like, all right, I need these letters of reference and
whatever so I can get into the prestigious university, so I can
cheat my way through, so I can get a degree here and have a
cool life. When it comes to business and
these kind of things, I don't really care about being a
scholar. I care about getting the credits

(56:25):
so I can get the piece of paper so I can move on.
You don't need that piece of paper if your goal is just to be
successful practically OK, when it comes to things like making
money or business or whatever, focus on all the great works of
the past. OK, Have a, have a curriculum
that is around the great books, the great thinkers of antiquity,

(56:46):
not in promoting whatever is cool at the moment.
And then listen to this. Do everything that you can to
avoid trying to get everyone into a university education.
I, I like how everyone or not everyone, but most everyone is
literate There. There needs to be some level of
education provided for everyone.I'm I'm good with that.
When it comes to higher education, though, I don't think
that it's good to try to make itfor everybody because then your

(57:08):
standards go way down. OK, now remember, in the US,
everyone has the same right to go to a university.
Legally. You can't deny somebody based
upon their age or sex or race orany of those kind of things.
And there are loans, there are GI bills if you join the
military. There are ways to go to college
if you want to, even if you don't have the money.
I don't like the idea of let's just send everybody to college

(57:29):
period, because then people are just there because they have to,
like high school and it stops meanings something.
OK, final question, the Spicy 1,you ready?
Some of you have been like Zach,say that college is a scam and
you shouldn't go there. And others that are like, yeah,
you got to go to college period.Even if you want to own your own

(57:49):
lawn care business or whatever it might be.
Should you study at a university?
Here's my answer. It depends on what you want to
do. It depends on the vision that
you have for your life. If you want to make money, you
don't need to go to college. If you want to be good at
business, you don't need to go to college.
If you want to be good at sales,you don't need to.

(58:10):
If you want to be good at finance, you don't need to be go
to college. Especially now with the Internet
and YouTube like you can learn how to fix a car.
If you want to do a practical trade, AC repair, automobile,
whatever, you go to a trade school.
You don't need to go to college for that.
So I think most people probably do not get need to go to a
university if their goal is to just live a normal Life, OK.

(58:32):
However, if you are going into certain fields, I think you
absolutely need a university education.
You can teach yourself how to dobusiness, Very hard to teach
yourself Latin, very hard to teach yourself how to remove
somebody's appendix as a surgeon, very hard to teach
yourself these kind of things. So it all depends on what the

(58:52):
goal is. I think that if you are doing
philosophy, theology, language work, I think if you're doing
medicine, I think if you're doing higher levels of science
like nuclear engineering and that kind of stuff, I, I, I
think if you're, I think all those require higher education,
like formally you will be short sighted if you don't do it.

(59:12):
However, if the goal is not to just get education in those
fields, but to do something practical, I think you can learn
it on your own. A lot of universities now put
lectures online for free. I mean, you, you can do the
Great Books and Great Courses series online you like there's
so many venues you have now withthe Internet that used to not
have that. I'm not sure that everybody
needs it if they're doing a morepractical subject.

(59:33):
So you have to ask yourself, am I doing something like the
humanities or am I doing STEM, right?
Science, technology, engineeringand mathematics.
That's STEM. Most of our culture is moving
towards a STEM education. OK, so science, technology,
engineering and math, right? It's practical, it's technology,
it's computers, it's IT, it's all, it's AI, it's all these

(59:55):
kind of things. That's where we're going.
You might need a university education for some of that.
Some of that you can learn on your own.
I know a bunch of friends that have taught themselves things
like computer coding, which are now going to become outdated
because of AI. But notice that's a different
type of education. When when I said earlier that
there's the Trivium grammar. Learning the facts, logic,
putting them all together, reasoning logically, philosophy

(01:00:17):
and rhetoric, convincing and persuading other people.
Notice that a STEM education usually stays at the grammar
level. That doesn't mean it's not
important. Doesn't mean those people are
not smart. They're very smart, but it means
that their education is just memorizing facts.
It's not like I've met several medical doctors that are
extremely talented physicians, and most of them that I've met

(01:00:39):
are also very smart in other areas.
They're just generally smart people.
You got to be pretty smart typically to be a physician, to
be a medical doctor. There are some that I've met
though, that know everything there is to know, let's say
about the foot, you know, and they're a foot surgeon or
whatever, but you talk to them about politics, you talk to them
about economics, you talk to them about philosophy, you talk
to them about history, you talk to them about theology, and they
cannot keep up. Why?

(01:00:59):
Because that that their the purpose of their education was
to keep people alive and to helpthem live a better life than
whatever it was, not to just do pure academics.
So that doesn't mean it's right or wrong.
Right? Like maybe getting an MD is
better than getting a PhD because you're actually able to
help people. Maybe part of the purpose of
education is pragmatic. I'm not giving my view one way

(01:01:20):
or the other. I just want you to think about
education from several differentangles because it's not the same
for everyone, OK? I'm thankful for the professors
I've had with pH DS for helping me think a certain way.
I'm super thankful, maybe more thankful depending on the day
for the doctors that I've had that have like kept me alive and
that have done surgeries and stuff on me.
I need both. They're just different types of

(01:01:42):
education. One's not better than the other,
They're just different. So what do you think?
History of the university? Impress your friends, right?
Like subscribe, read, post, put me on.
You know, if you don't do it, you'll have 10 years of bad luck
if you don't send this to somebody.
I'm just trying to think of all the gimmicks people do to make
their stuff more popular. Thanks for joining us,

(01:02:04):
ideological Zach Lee here. So good to see you and we will
see you next time.