There is an approach to learning that is corroding education, especially higher education, in the US: the "McDonalds-ification of Education."

“快餐”已经存在很长一段时间了。古罗马人就有。但麦当劳把它提升到了一种高级艺术。你进来，在排队的时候看了看墙上的菜单，点了餐，马上就能拿到食物。在很多方面，麦当劳已经成为我们消费社会运作的典范。互联网基本上就是提供信息和娱乐的麦当劳。选择你想要的，立即得到它，然后继续下一件事。原则上，这些都没有错。我喜欢互联网。我偶尔也喜欢吃一个巨无霸。但正如希腊人所说:“μηδὲνἄγαν”——不要做得太过分! The documentarySuper Size Me(2004) demonstrated that a consistent diet of McDonald's has the potential to kill you. And if you treat surfing the web as the paradigm for all information gathering, it can kill your mind.

What concerns me is that we increasingly find a tendency among students to think that education is about being given a menu of easily digestible ideas, picking out one that you like, and swallowing it in one gulp. But education is not about just picking out an opinion or theory that you find appealing at first glance. Deep ideas sometimes seem implausible at first, and shallow ones can have the specious appearance of being incisive. (I like to remind my students that it was not just dogmatism that led people to oppose the Copernican theory that the Earth goes around the Sun. After all, it doesn't feel like the Earth is spinning like a top while wheeling around the Sun, does it?)

我教的是哲学，学生们走进教室时经常会假设哲学就是关于夸张的怀疑。你怎么知道这个世界不是幻觉?你怎么知道2+2=4?你怎么知道疼痛是不好的?如果像笛卡尔那样，将怀疑作为一种治疗工具，它是有用的。“让我们怀疑这些和那些，看看我们是否能发现有什么理由相信它们。”但怀疑一切是死路一条。哲学最富有成效的技巧是对话。从别人不同意你的问题开始。问你的对话者(或阅读)为什么她持有这个职位。 If she gives a good reason, agree with her! If not, try to come up with a response that should convince her that she is mistaken. Find out what she says (or would say) in response, and.... This process seldom comes to an end quickly or decisively, and it is hard to do well. But it promotes a deeper understanding of others, and a skill for careful thinking that no other kind of education can produce. (And what if we lived in a world of people who tried hard to understand and convince, rather than kill, one another?)

然而，在我们麦当劳化的文明中长大的学生，往往会觉得这种知识学科是异类，甚至是冒犯。他们听到一个自己喜欢的想法——这个想法越油腔滑舌，就越有可能吸引那些没有经过深思熟虑的人——然后反驳就会像鹅卵石撞到钛一样从他们身上弹回来。一个即时满足的社会不是一个深思熟虑的社会。事实上，在某些知识界被当作“哲学”的教条主义怀疑论或随意的相对主义之所以有吸引力，正是因为它使人们远离思考。我已经数不清有多少次，一个学生试图在哲学讨论变得困难和个人挑战的关键时刻，用“谁来说真相是什么?”

The spirit of Pontius Pilate is alive and well, and he is enjoying his intellectual chicken McNuggets!