Full Mental Jacket

Glenn Reynolds contrasts half a century in academia, from 1957’s Far Rockaway High School Rifle Team to this Zen moment of mental minimalism:

Meanwhile, in 2007 Yale is banning fake weapons on stage. And to think that universities hold themselves out as bastions of critical thinking where people can make fine distinctions . . . .

So the audiences at Yale will giggle at a production without realistic prop weapons. Then go home and watch The Sopranos, 24, reruns of Miami Vice, Gunsmoke, Full Metal Jacket, etc.

As one clinical psychologist noted last year:

The purpose of an elite university education is no longer to become educated — to acquire a well-furnished mind and familiarize oneself with the best things that have been thought and said — but to become stupid by elevating a means to an end. Thus, upon contact with his luckless students, Professor Taylor tells them