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Comment by objclxt | Hacker News Reader

I can offer you an alternative, rather more cynical, explanation as to why it's such a popular class: it's rated as one of the easiest.

Not only, as the article mentions, does it fulfill a core requirement, but it's also rated as one of the easiest courses going in the student evaluations. It scores a 1.58/5 for workload, and a 2.43/5 for difficulty, both below the benchmark for the Gen Ed department (which itself is pretty low).

I'm sure many people taking the class have a genuine interest, but from my experience a significant number of students spend a lot of time finding core/gen-ed classes that are light on work (this is especially true if you've left your requirement to the last minute to complete).

(I'd link to the evaluation data, but you need a harvard.edu login, so you'll have to take my word for it).

Edit: Turns out the student paper backs this theory up - http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/10/9/hey-atlantic-5-r...

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I took the class because it was supposed to be easy and satisfied (then-core) requirements. But I still regularly consider Confucian, Mohist, and, heck, even Han Feizi(an?) philosophy and their applications to daily life.

Chinese philosophy nails the importance of the quotidian (to quote the article) in shaping one's world view. It's akin to PG arguing that what you think about in the shower matters or that living with your cofounders is optimal. I found it enriching.

In the end, isn't the point of a good education—to get you to see the world differently, even if it's more superficial lures that draw you in?

Be honest. Are you actually going to use those diluted feel-good aphorisms to shape your life?

"One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself"

You can shape an awesome life for you and others using this "diluted feel-good aphorism".

That's not a feel-good aphorism. That's a principle that is at the core of religions and philosophies practiced by billions. It's not universally applied, but people are actively trying to teach it.

So what is an example of a feel-good aphorism in this context?

"When three men are walking together, there is one who can be my teacher."

“Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes.” -- Jack Handy.

thanks for the casual dismissal of an advanced culture's millennia of thought...sort of like someone from the East asking their kid why they're studying Socrates...are you really going to use those non-elder-respecting boy-loving selfish hedonistic dialogues to shape your life?

I'm not dismissing Eastern thought. On the contrary, I am dismissing a course which apparently makes a pleasant sounding mishmash of the entire output of an advanced civilization.

guess I missed that part of TFA.

"He requires his students to closely read original texts (in translation) such as Confucius’s Analects, the Mencius, and the Daodejing and then actively put the teachings into practice in their daily lives."

If those aphorisms are diluted and feel-good (implying shallow, superficial, and falsely enthusiastic), that has less to do with the course, and more to do with the person applying it into their life. No teacher, parent, or authority figure can make you more mindful of the little things. Filtered from the article, it may seem diluted, but the point is for the student to look beyond their immediate, tunnel vision.

Downvoted. This is exactly the anti-intellectualism that makes me sick.

Every university has terrible students, pre-bankers and pre-consultants who just want a cake walk, and I'm sure there are many who take the course just for the easy A. I also believe there are others who get a lot out of it. Education is, largely, what you make of it.

But this idea that Chinese philosophy is "feel-good aphorisms" is the sickening anti-intellectualism that I fucking hate about business and, increasingly, the tech industry. If the only thing you get out of your study is the superficial, that's on you, not the material.

Here's another theory (not saying yours isn't possibly right): the Chinese government has an agenda involving more and more people studying Chinese language, culture, and traditions. I'm not insinuating any malicious intent here; as any sensible country would they want to promote trade with other nations, and trade goes a lot smoothly if the other party speaks your language/knows your culture/has a connection.

One manifestation of this agenda is the Confucius Institutes that have spawned hundreds of branches around the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius_Institute). They're pretty nice organizations: they run programs, give funding for projects, give scholarships (heck, my web development job during college was paid partly through the local CI). All in all promote Chinese language/culture, though all pretty much funded by the PRC.

It makes sense. They have dominated the culinary world by making their food ubiquitous! Now they want to dominate the philosophical world. The fiends. I knew it! Palpatine's behind it all.

One advantage of this policy for foreigners is that it's remarkably easy to get into the best Chinese universities (even Tsinghua) compared to the effort the average chinese student has to expend to achieve the same goal.

Source: a visiting professor from China

There's no shortage of Chinese overseas students at Western universities, many of which have a strong financial incentive to accept more overseas students (they can usually charge higher fees) even if their ability to read and write English lags behind the average European student.

The resulting cultural cross-pollination is usually likely to be a good thing...

25 years ago you would have written the above, but with simply replacing Chinese with Japanese. Lets fast forward to now and see how that worked out.

Nope, still speaking English.

Huh? If he had said "everyone should learn Chinese because it is going to be the most important language," then your response would make sense; as it is, it just sounds like a canned reassurance. Where in his comment does he even say that people should learn Chinese, let alone that they should stop speaking English?

If these activities are funded by Chinese government, I would suggest you make good use of them. The ancient China (around 600BC-200BC) is the golden age of Chinese culture. If you can learn from Rome people, you will benefit from China history and philosophers.

Despite the cynical nature of that assertion, the basic argument holds true. The Chinese had several thousand years of practice at assimilating (as in Borg-assimilation) of foreign culture, and they did it by standardizing on language and culture.

Even today, if you go China or Taiwan and you start asking about how to say things in Chinese, people start treating you as a candidate for a civilized person, rather than a foreign barbarian.

Having said that, the cynicism obscures a deeper truth. The core teachings of all religions are essentially the same, and for the people who got deep enough to do that, they know that language and culture are "local flavor". They are genuinely trying to help people get in touch with themselves, regardless of age, race, sex, culture, religious affiliations, political philosophy, caste, likes and dislikes, and the wrongs you have done or have been done to you in the past. None of those things are who you are.

When I was in college, I noticed that I was allowed to use 3 credits of physical education towards my elective credits. However, none were offered at the school, so I took yoga at a community college and transferred the credits in.

Turns out I discovered I really like yoga. :)

I did the same thing. I could take Chicano studies, Asian American studies, African American Studies, or three Karate classes to fulfill a requirement. The first three options were known to be difficult but not particularly deep and students alleged that you would get a bad grade if your political views didn't match the professors' views. I took the latter most option and had way more fun.

Why would someone kill themselves in order to get into Harvard only to slack their way through it doing the easiest rated classes?

Have you ever been 18?

Quite a few people believe that general education requirements are a waste of time. Therefore, they pick easy classes for the things that have nothing to do with their major.

Because Harvard awards degrees based on a GPA cut-off that ensures only 50% of the graduating class get Latin honors.

So if you were a Harvard student who wanted to get Latin honors (...of which there are more than a few) it's in your best interests to take the easiest general-education (core) courses to ensure you have more breathing space for studies in your major.

I Head TA'd a core curriculum class at Harvard, and you would be amazed at the number of seniors who e-mailed me once grades came out begging to be bumped up as it meant their GPA would be pushed over the honors cut-off.

This was one reason why the Harvard cheating scandal last year was so widespread: the course fulfilled a core requirement, and it had a reputation for being very easy, hence hundreds of people took it.

also, answering the grandparent post and expanding on the parent answer... the fact that person is in Harvard already proves he/she understands how to play with grade averages to begin with.

gpa is not always directly proportional to hard work.

Not really, high school GPA means taking all the AP/advanced classes -- not the easiest ones, ALL the ones.

not saying it is the same rules as university, but it is the same game. ironically university is easier.

The cut off is actually closer to 75%. Source: I have one and I was not top 50% (which BTW is A- at Harvard!)

Correction: it is 50%. I didn't learn my actual rank, I learned my rank among law school applicants, who I now see are a higher GPA cohort.

http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k79903&pageid=i...

Cor:

Because then you graduate with Harvard University on your resume and can slack your way through management consulting or hedge fund jobs, racking up a nice nest egg in the process. There is a stark difference in workload between studying Ancient Chinese Philosophy vs. Quantum Mechanics.

Harvard students are not stupid, and quite rationally choose the path that gives them the greatest returns for the lowest effort.

No, Physics majors take the Philosophy class for gen ed distribution requirement.

Some are lazy. Some don't care. Some are taking them because they want to be able to focus more of their efforts on other, more challenging courses that are more related to their field of study/actual interest while also maintaining some sort of life.

They are in Harvard. Next step would be landing a job on Wall St., not taking the hard courses that might prevent them from graduating.

I don't go to Harvard but isn't that what a lot of people are hoping to get out of a university degree? The ability to land a good job.

Because in light of the recession, Goldman Sachs has become snootier about GPAs.

Didn't they just have a huge cheating scandal? I mean why kind of journo is on the prowl (of his own volition) poking around these kind of corners in a university?

If the body leads, the mind will follow.

The smallest actions have the most profound ramifications.

Decisions are made from the heart.

Seeing how they just launched another $6B fundraiser...perhaps they were getting pushback from the type of students that were making the press for all the wrong reasons.

How is that a cynical explanation? Gen-Ed requirements are stupid, particularly in the way they require you to take low-level survey courses marked explicitly as Gen-Eds rather than more in-depth courses. They create people with shallow educations excepting one (maybe two) topics of "in-major" depth rather than graduates with a broad polymathic education.

Excellent example of Occam's razor.

It definitely wasn't an application of Occam's razor. Sigh, what is everyone's obsessions with retrofitting a small amount of logical tools everywhere?

Confirmation bias?

I see what you did there.

> Sigh, what is everyone's obsessions with retrofitting a small amount of logical tools everywhere?

It makes them feel smart. I'm going to put my head through a wall next time I see someone type 'fallacy.'

Wow, what's up with the ad hominem, bro?

Not ad hominem, they didn't say they were wrong because they feel smart.

Sigh.

My understanding of Occam's razor is "use the simplest explanation that fits the facts."

The implied question is "Why do Harvard students take this class?"

Rather than resort to philosophical mumbo-jumbo (as the article does) about Harvard students feeling a yearning to improve their overprivileged existence, the simplest explanation is that students take the class because it offers an easy A.

QED

Isn't "this course will change your life" just as simple? They don't learn the 'mumbo-jumbo' until they attend the class.

>Sigh, what is everyone's obsessions with retrofitting a small amount of logical tools everywhere?

Most people don't like thinking. Even the people who do like thinking only have a finite capacity for it, and don't like spending their/our thought-power on things they/we don't really care about.

While that is more likely the correct answer to the question posed in the headline, the article itself is more about what the students learn and how it affects them. Putting The Analects into practice is pretty remarkable, but a more honest headline would not be as "clicky".

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