During a rambling conversation on higher education, we hit upon something that was fun: We have liberal arts educations and liberal arts colleges. How come we don't have conservative arts educations and conservative arts colleges?

Well, that led into speculations of what the conservative arts class titles might be. We already know that the liberal arts titles can be pretty funny.

That evolved into what class titles might be for a moderate arts education.

So here's the deal:

What class titles come to mind when thinking about liberal, conservative, and/or moderate arts educations? Do any of them make you laugh?

One actual class that was offered while I was in college was Death and Sex. Necrophilia? Nope, it was about the two subjects separately, and the only connection was that in society, both had about the same lack of discussion. Half the class time was spent on death, the other on sex. This was back in the early 1970s, so I imagine that death trumps sex these days for lack of attention.

What would a similar attempt be for a conservative arts class? Greed and Ignorance? I mean, those are two taboo subjects that are only connected in that we don't talk about them much in polite society.

Fake titles might be fun too, like Underwater Basket Weaving for liberal arts, Creative Sucking Up for conservative arts, and Assertive Indecision for moderate arts. If you have ideas about what should be the class description, have at it!

Looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with, have fun

Lesbian Cabinet Makers of the Middle Age

Don't you already teach that in your history classes, Eeyore?

The central character in Don DeLillo's White Noise gained renown in academia by being the first professor to institute a Department of Hitler Studies. One of his liberal arts colleagues specialized in Fast Food, others in Urban Legends, Product Labels, Elvis Studies. Since the book was published (in 1985), I wouldn't be surprised to find all of these courses on college curricula. Like conservatism, academia is getting really difficult to satirize - they have almost eliminated the concept.

More Persuasive Whining (for graduate level studies), Effective Methods for Pretending You're a Canadian (mandatory coursework for international traveling professions), Art of the Mime (complete with instruction in mime mimicry to annoy mimes...just because), The Art of Hunting Dangerously.

Popular Modern Dance: Why Feet Are No Longer Necessary (liberal)

Investigation of how popular modern dance has evolved from the expansive ballroom to the crowded club, resulting in the atrophication of foot movement in favor of torso vibrations.

Project: Visit modern club, engage in dance, inventory sore spots the next morning.

Popular Modern Dance: What Is Up With These Kids? (conservative)

Survey club videos with class discussions on how stupid these kids look.

Project: Attempt to teach teenagers how to booga-loo (can substitue monkey or swim), report on resulting facial expressions.

Popular Modern Dance: The Fine Line Between Foolish And Cool (moderate)

Compare and contrast current dance styles to determine what's foolish and what's cool.

Project: Attend wedding, engage in popular modern dance, record performance, critique video.

Well, there have of course, been several collge level classes that use Star Trek as a basis for studying things like physics and group ethics.

I suppose we could apply some of those same TV episodes to the conservative/liberal bent on politics in general. For instance:

For conservatives: "Klingons - Full Speed Ahead" A study of ruthless business practises, acension by asassination, and warmongering in the 24th century.

For liberals: "Vulcanism, a Study of the Wimps of the Universe" Class discussions will revolve around how such a peace loving civilization could ever have come up with warp-drive technology, allowing other planets to make war on one another. Also, how their liberal, socialistic meddling in the affairs of other worlds screwed up the legal, social and environmental systems of those planets.

For moderates? How about "The Federation: America of the Galaxy" Classes will focus on balancing the peaceful wants of the Vulcans (France) with the Warlike tendencies of the Klingons (China), while maintaining an uneasy co-existance with each, and still promoting freedom to star systems thoughout the known universe, acting in "enlightened self-interest".

Of course, for art lovers out there, there is already a course that covers both the liberal bent and the conservative bent. The Rhode Island School of Design has a course called "The Art of Sin and the Sin of Art," which contemplates the relationship between sin and the art world. The course catalog invites you to "lust with the saints and burn with the sinners." Sounds like the perfect class, no matter which side of the fence you are on.

Conservative

Another One Bites The Dust
A Hands on Approach to Bombing Foreign Lands

Tiddlywinks 101
A Step by Step guide to rebuilding infrastructures

Liberal

You Bombed A bus, But That's Okay
Skills in understanding the psyche of a suicide bomber

Make the Problem A Disease
How to create diseases out of everyday problems, and get federal
funding for research.

You know that "liberal arts" doesn't actually mean "left-wing," right?

That said,
Liberal: "The Strangelove Principle: Sexual Repression's Damage to Society."
Moderate: "Societal Effects of Human Libido"
Conservative: "Important Horny People Who Did Stupid Things"

Yep, BSR -- but did you know that some conservatives around here think that liberal arts = left wing agenda? Crazy but true.

Studies in classical music:

Liberal - Wagner and how short people do TOO have reasons to live, and maybe we ought to support obnoxious geniuses through estate taxes on fifedoms.

Conservative - Wagner and the rise of the Third Reich's superior musical taste over all others, despite the little obnoxious genius who should have starved, the mooch.

Moderate - Wagner? Can take it or leave it. Hey, how about that Manilow guy? Can we study Lola or Mandy instead? Wagner is just too creepy.

Conservative: Plan, What Plan? How to rebulid and win the peace

Liberal: You Can't Say That! An Idiot's Guide to Political Correctness

CP

Links

Weird classes

University courses help keep Austin weird

And for more fun a fake college catalog including



University of Psychogenic Fugue

Conservative:

Family Values I
How to Live Life the "Right" Way

Family Values II
Damage Control (after skeletons have emerged from the closet)

Liberal:

Responsibilty and the Individual
Techniques in Avoiding Personal Culpability

Searching For the Minority Within
Skills in Researching Family Lineage to Find Possible Minority Ties

Conservative:

Level I: The Bible and You: An Introduction to Right-Wing Ideals
Level II: The Bible and Gay Marriage
Level III: The Bible and Anti-War Protesters
Level IIII: The Bible and How To Avoid Impeachment
Level V: The Bible and You: Final Submission

All course's prime focus: Why the Bible has answers to everything and common reasoning is inferior to the will of a higher being.


Liberal:

Level I: The United Nations and You: Liberal Ethics
Level II: The United Nations and Giving to the Poor
Level III: The United Nations and Insisting Domestic Affairs of America Need UN Approval
Level IIII: The United Nations and Sounding Smart
Level V: The United Nations and You: Submitting to A "Higher" Power

All course's prime focus: Discovering how to help yourself by helping the United Nations, but mostly: helping the United Nations.


Moderate:

Level I: Common Sense and You
Level II: Common Sense: Applications in Every Day Situations
Level III: Common Sense and Avoiding Conversation with Non-Moderates
Level IIII: Common Sense and Blending in With a Partisan Crowd
Level V: Common Sense and You: Learning to Run From Radical Republicans and Democrats

All course's prime focus: Management of keeping one's mind well into old age by avoiding extreme preachers and scary politicians


Electives for all (political) parties:

Why Cowboys Do Not Wear Eleven Gallon Hats 101, Dr. Yur Hedys Bigg

How to Succeed in Talking Street: the basics, Dr. Shorty Ice-Frizzel

A Hundred Days In Egypt: Cataloging Sand, Professor Ivanna Choca Latughbahr

Beauty in Nature: Turning that Old Tree House Into Something Special, Martha Stewart

All Numbers Greater Than One: Delving into Extreme-Economics, Dr. Shoh Mei Duhmunei

Irrational Numbers and how to reason with them (A beginning mathematics course for America's Debate Members) come readily to mind.

And this also caused me to recall a decades ago conversation...

I was married to my first wife. Her sister was getting married to the son of a Syrian Orthodox Priest. That is why a Unitarian-Universalist was sitting in an Eastern Orthodox church watching a painting of a thirty foot tall Jesus Christ split in half suddenly to create a door which the Bishop walked through to begin the ceremony. I was seated next to an old friend, a Quaker University Professor. He knew several of the guests that were there, not because they knew the bride or the groom, but because they were studying the ceremony for school assignments, We ended up in a discussion of ethics, and how churches other than the Catholic Church handle changes in society, and determine what their religion can tolerate. That led him to tell me about a Rabbi Friend of his, who claimed to have taken a course (Pre WWII Germany) in Rabbinical College titled, If the Pope Okays it, it's Kosher.