ABSTRACT
In all earlier societies, the educated person was an ornament. He or she embodied Kultur—the German term that with its mixture of awe and derision is untranslatable into English (even “highbrow” does not come close). But in the knowledge society, the educated person is society’s emblem; society’s symbol; society’s standard-bearer. The knowledge society must have at its core the concept of the educated person. It will have to be a universal concept, precisely because the knowledge society is a society of knowledges and because it is global— in its money, its economics, its careers, its technology, its central issues, and above all, in its information. Yet the knowledge society needs a kind of educated person different from the ideal for which the humanists are fighting. They rightly stress the folly of their opponents’ demand to repudiate the Great Tradition and the wisdom, beauty, and knowledge that are the heritage of mankind.
