• Specialization vs Meaning — What is Education Really About?

    “Meaninglessness inhibits fullness of life and is therefore equivalent to illness. Meaning makes a great many things endurable – perhaps everything.” Carl Jung There has been much written on the impact of specialization in academia. Certainly, it is well documented that modern culture requires specialization. We see this in all disciplines and we recognize the difficulty of connecting all of the abstracted dots. My own field, sociology, with its emphasis on the social construction of reality and deconstruction of thought has certainly led the pack when it comes to denying a unified perspective capable of offering meaning to the masses. And, of course, when education becomes an instrument for individual careerism, it no longer inspires students in broad sweeping terms. In my mind, education should be about ideas and connection.…