@isaacgreene I always spent fifteen minutes of class getting my public speaking students to think about Jean-Luc Nancy’s maxim, “Sonority is time and meaning.”
I think everything you’re saying is part of a broader pedagogical divorce between “rote memorization” and “critical thinking”: the two are wholly unrelated; the former is bad, the latter is good. Memorization is viewed as useless given our quick information access. But knowledge of the real world is essential to critical thinking, and that must be retained in memory. Sitting in four years of Cambridge academic seminars showed over and again how the two are of a piece. After hearing someone’s argument, no one ever pointed out some logical fallacy. It was almost always that someone would bring up another piece of historical evidence that might throw a wrench into the works. For example, I remember three senior scholars having something like the following exchange:
James: How does your view fit with the Soreg Inscription that speaks of a dedication by “those who were formerly Jews”?
Mark (the presenter): Yes, I’m familiar with the inscription—I don’t think I have very formed thoughts on it.
Simon: Isn’t the Greek hoi pote Ioudaioi?
(and off they go)
It is the sort of conversation that cannot happen unless people know the text of some (to me, rather obscure) historical material. You can’t evaluate arguments through a half-dozen “critical thinking” principles. And you cannot simply Google for the sort of information that throws a wrench in the works without knowing that information. I think Neil Postman argues that every subject should be taught as history—which kind of gets at this as well (most subjects anyway).