glue中等

It is a kind of social glue.

它是一种社会黏合剂。

His concern is mainly with the humanities: literature, languages, philosophy and so on. These are disciplines that are going out of style: 22% of American college graduates now major in business compared with only 2% in history and 4% in English. However, many leading American universities want their undergraduates to have a grounding in the basic canon of ideas that every educated person should possess. But most find it difficult to agree on what a “general education” should look like. At Harvard, Mr. Menand notes, “the great books are read because they have been read” — they form a sort of social glue.

他关注的主要是人文学科：文学、语言、哲学等。这些学科正在变得不受欢迎：如今22%的美国大学毕业生主修商科，而主修历史的只有2%，主修英语的只有4%。然而，许多美国一流大学希望本科生打好基础，掌握每一个受过教育的人都应具备的基本思想经典。但大多数大学难以就“通识教育”应该是什么样子达成一致。梅南先生指出，在哈佛，“名著之所以被阅读，是因为它们一直被人阅读”——它们形成了一种社会黏合剂。