On the Intermediate microeconomics class this week, David Daokui Lee raised a question about social welfare function. When we talked about the best axioms for aggregated social utilities, there came the Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem that the only way to satisfy all three plausible axioms is admitting dictatorship, and the slices read, “It’s obviously not acceptable.”
“Then, why a dictatorship is bad, giving the condition that it is pareto efficient? Why it’s obvious?” Asked David Daokui Lee.
Various opinions were talked about but nobody put up with convincing reasons aginst dictatorship. Some thought maybe actually it was acceptable, a dictatorship is pareto efficient after all.
David Daokui Lee seemed very disappointed. “You are poisoned by western economics, ” he said, “it is efficient in economics, but the world is more complex and broader. You can’t solve the problem only by technical things without sociology and philosophy.”
This reminds me of other similar situations. On CTMR class, professor Yang said knowledge and skill was only a base, it was attitude and attribute that made up the core. President Qian argued that students went to universities like THU not for learning technical knowledge, otherwise THU would be euqal to technical school. General education helping form a student a independent thinker and a real human being was something universities like THU should focus on.
I can’t agree more. Even if we are usually judged by our ability in scores of technical tests rather than in critical thinking (difficult to judge and quantify though), there is no excuse for ignoring world inside me and outside the small circle I live in. We can’t live with only the moon above our heads and don’t give a shit about the six pennies on the floor, but we can’t also just refuse to look up and believe six pennies are all we need. In the interview for exchange program last week I just expressed similar ideas that I expected to be a real human being, not a combination of numbers and tags or a machine proficient in technical knowledge. I want more opportunities for experience, observing, feeling, and thinking. These things rather than technical things contribute to a better me. Sometimes I need show excellent performance in technical things for these opportunities, but they are always means and should never be ends.
I hope to explore a broader world, thereby I see a whole life for me waiting ahead.
咦为什么我要用渣哭的英语装逼呢囧。