The emerging global village makes it necessary to think of the liberal arts within a correspondingly global context.

The liberal arts education and learning remains important at any age. However, it is important to realize that what it signifies to be learned in the liberal arts changes over time.

To be sure, there are some unchanging classics. The canonical philosophical and literary works should be read and appreciated. Trainings in some fundamental scientific and mathematical methods and systems of thoughts would be essential. The ability to think logically, and to test one's ideas against empirical evidences should be acquired.

In the contemporary era, on top of that, one would need to get acquainted with many additional things which were not existent when the term "liberal arts" were invented and implemented in the higher education. Most noticeable is the advent of the internet. A certain set of basic skills, knowledge, modes of conduct, and ethics is needed to make most of the opportunities offered by the internet. There is a new "common sense" in its use, and failure to capture it would result in the user being trapped in the "local minimum".

Most importantly, as the societies on the earth become more and more interconnected, one needs to nurture a set of sensitivities and modes of conduct which were not necessarily when one was quite comfortably well within a nation state. The emerging global village makes it necessary to think of the liberal arts within a correspondingly global context.