Spoken like an illustration of what this article is all about.
When you are older you will begin to grasp the classic definition of the liberal arts: The skills needed by a free man to discern for himself what is the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.
Note it says "discern," not "decide."
“Spoken like an illustration of what this article is all about.”
I understand what you mean, and I too wish there were such a thing as a true liberal education offered in our universities. But as pragmatic and instrumental as the universities are made out to be by the defenders of dead white males, in my opnion we aren’t teaching simple disciplines like economics, either. Many professors, when entering upon value-theory, embrace silly, abstract notions of “social justice” and the like. If they were to take their disciplines seriously, and closely study their own litertary tradition, they’d be less likely to make such unfounded claims.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that the modern professor’s instincts are the worst of both worlds. They’d be likely to embrace Wilde’s sentiments, but not because they rely on the wisdom of the ages, rather because of some (fallacious) higher notions materialism. Simultaneously, their love of transcendent truths falls apart when it comes to disciplines like philosophy, since they drag all the beautiful systems of the past through the mud of their historicism and their post-structuralism.
I consider myself fluent in the big ideas of Western culture, and as such am liable to laugh along with Wilde at cynics who bury their head in the sand and complain of a lack of sunlight. However, people who understand economic theory are not cynics. It is perfectly easy to keep discplines seperate from one another. There is more than one type of value, and Wilde’s “value” should not be used to dimish the “value” of economic man, in my opinion.