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ig·no·rance
Pronunciation: \ˈig-n(ə-)rən(t)s\ Function: noun Date: 13th century : the state or fact of being ignorant: lack of knowledge, education, or awareness
If I had a nickle for every time some college student or graduate called me "ignorant" about something, I would have enough to actually finish college. I made it through a whole year and a half, then half failed, half quit. I'll go back eventually, when I'm good and ready...but, honestly, hearing what college graduates have to say, I know good and well that it will not make me smarter.
Once, I was talking about socialism with a proud recent graduate of Princeton. Well, she, of course, called me "ignorant" about it because I never studied it at a university... and the fact that I was a member of the Socialist Worker's Party for three years and have about two dozen books on the subject in boxes somewhere in the basement doesn't amount to a hill of beans as far as she's concerned. Nope! No $100 dollar a credit class on it, and I'm "ignorant"
(for the record, I am now a moderate-Liberatian and can tell you why socialism can never work and have "seen the light", but that's another story) This same girl who wasn't "ignorant" never heard of Marshall Tito or Leon Trosky. Yes, but I'm the one who's "ignorant"
Then, I got into an argument with a crazy feminist...when I say "crazy", I mean crew-cut, vegan, man-hating...the whole nine yards. Anyway, she proudly proclaimed that she had a Master's Degree in Women's Studies and that, from her extensive education, she knew that "all religion was bad for women". Well, like any High School graduate with a ounce of worldly knowledge, I said "what about Wicca? How is that bad for women?" And what did she say? The one thing I was not expecting..."what the heck is Wicca?"
She didn't even know what Wicca was!! I mean, any black-wearing Emo acting eighth grader who thinks they're being cool by shopping at Hot Topic knows what Wicca is, but this "expert" on Women in religion never even heard of it?!!??!! And, of course, she called me "ignorant"
I also brought up Andrea Dworkin to a girl who was a women's studies minor in her Junior year and of course, she never heard of her, and said "Well, she must not be important if she was never mentioned in any of my classes"
Ohh yes, the Professors know best what to and not to teach...
The icing on the cake was when I waited in a girl in the restuarant I work in, who had just graduated from the State University and was in her cap-and-gown with her parents fauning over her. Well, her sister was talking about a boy and said "he is weird, he's like, into mythology"...AND WHAT DOES THE COLLEGE GRADUATE SAY? "What's mythology?"
HOW THE HECK DO YOU GRADUATE COLLEGE WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT THE MEANING OF THE WORD "MYTHOLOGY" IS ? HOW DO YOU GRADUATE HIGHSCHOOL WITHOUT KNOWING THAT?
The point is, College is not going to make you smart and you're silly if you think it will. I know for a fact, as egotistical as it may sound, that I have read allot more then most college graduates will. As I said to one know-it-all college student, "how many times have you gone out partying in High School and College? Well, take that same time and replace it with reading everything on a wide number of subjects, and that's me."
In this day and age, with Amazon.com, Barnes and Nobles, the Internet, etc, WE NO LONGER NEED COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES TO BE INTELLECTUALS. A College graduate is someone who simply knows how to pass the tests, and that person could just know what professors are the easiest to get a pass with and how to cheat the best...A INTELLECTUAL, ON THE OTHER HAND, IS SOMEONE WHO LEARNS FOR THE SHEER JOY OF LEARNING AND HAS A HUNGER FOR KNOWLEDGE.
We no longer need college to be intellectuals and, in fact, I dare say college makes people less intellectual, because they think that all they need is to pass a class and presto! They're smart...nothing could be further from the truth!
I was so reminded of that the other day...a few weeks ago, I had to call AAA because my car had a broken fan belt and I had to get it towed. Well, the tow-truck driver, a man who looked every bit the "redneck" that the Ivy Leaguers would look their noses down on gave me a ride to the shop. What did he move out of the passenger seat so I could sit down? An annotated copy of "Dhammapada"! He was into Buddhism, he told me, after he got curious about what a Shoulin Monk really was after seeing them on Kung-Fu movies, so he went online, found that they were Zen Buddhist, and started reading up on it.
Keep in mind that this fellow was every-bit the High School educated "simpleton" who wore jeans and a flannel to work.
Then, a girl on my job, who CONSTANTLY reminds me and everyone else on my job about her great grades as a pre-med, mentioned that she had a little buddha statue and she "rubbed it's belly for good luck". I told her that that was disrespectful, and that only the Hotei, or a statue of a monk was rubbed for good-luck and that was only by commoners and not the actuall Buddha or a Bodhisattva...and she called me "ignorant" and told me to shut-up
So, the trucker would have known better but the pre-med had no clue.
In the age of free-information, the intellectuals are not necessarily the college grads and are more likely people like me: Folks who run home to read on a Saturday Night instead of getting drunk (like most college students do on a Saturday Night) read up on a variety of subjects from different and on different angles of the subjects (unlike college students who trust their professors to tell them what they need and don't need to read) and understand that learning is an endless process and that find learning to be fun (unlike the college students who just "cram" for a test, get their degree, and declare themselves "geniuses")
In the words of the immortal Mark Twain, himself not a college graduate, "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." Those are words so many college students should listen to.
Last edited by victorianpunk; 05-04-2009 at 01:05 AM..
Seems like you are rather hung up on not finishing college. Let it go. You pretend as if going to college is going to teach you about everything. Nobody knows about everything. A complete idiot will know things that say....Einstein would not. It means nothing to point out such examples.
Also, amazon changes nothing. Libraries have been around for a rather long time. The colleges and universities have tried to canonicalize education and its only some what successful. Before universities and things of that nature you'd work under someone. That was true of metal workers as much as more intellectual pursuits. The university gives you access to some rather intelligent people that you are unlikely to have access to otherwise, people that you can work under and research with.
It seems, like many do, you are focusing on course work. Just going to college and taking courses is not that different than reading books in your home. Most people do just this though, take courses. But it is doing research under the direction of others and working with your peers where you tend to learn the most, and this is not something you can learn from books. This is also why the top universities are so much better than your local state college. Your local state college is a machine, you take the course work and get the degree. There are very few research assistantships and things of that nature. On the other hand, at the top universities its relatively easy to get involved in a number of things.
Personally, when people tell me that have a degree from such and such average university and they got good grades I just ignore it. I think of them no differently than people without degrees. I notice no major difference. But, when someone has degree from say an ivy league, I tend to assume they are at least above average intelligence etc. Usually that is the case, but of course not always. Also, I'm not trying to suggest that people with so-so degrees are never intelligent. Just that the degree means little, just as the people without degrees you have to talk to them and interact with them to see whether they are knowledgeable or not.
Lastly, colleges do not "make you smart". They can't inject intelligence in someone. But they can educate you and open you up to new things.
It is really scary to watch Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" and see the utter stupidity of college students, and even school teachers, and know nothing about the real world, the country, history, etc.
The point is, College is not going to make you smart and you're silly if you think it will. I know for a fact, as egotistical as it may sound, that I have read allot more then most college graduates will. As I said to one know-it-all college student, "how many times have you gone out partying in High School and College? Well, take that same time and replace it with reading everything on a wide number of subjects, and that's me."
Great, so what are you doing with all this reading besides beating college kids over the head with it?
College is not going to make you smart. It can make you smarter. But it's easier to deny that than to actually go and finish your degree.
I would say that your post is a strong indication you'll be back in college in no time, though. Relieving bitterness by posting essay-length screeds on an internet forum just doesn't scratch the itch. I know from experience.
There are dumb people who graduate with college degrees. And, even more irritating, smart people who choose to be ignorant because they are lazy. But I think the OP is off-base with many of the points - handpicking a few examples of stupid college graduates doesn't prove anything about college. If a smart, or at least motivated, person goes to college then yes, that person will come out "smarter." Maybe he or she won't have more common sense or street smarts, but if you go to school, pay attention in class, and have at least some brains than you're going to be smarter than you were going in.
That doesn't mean that people who don't go to college aren't smart, or can't learn a great deal through reading and learning about things on their own.
I think it's rather ignorant of the OP to make sweeping statements about "most" college students and about an environment with which he or she admits having only limited experience.
Last edited by uptown_urbanist; 05-04-2009 at 10:34 AM..
No College will not necessarily make you anything.
However, it can open doors to a better $$$ life.
It can't even guarantee that, but it does make it a heck of a lot easier.
What's easier? Making six figures with a GED, or with a J.D. or MBA from Harvard?
On average I think you'll find more of the Harvard crowd earning six figures than the GED crowd. Of course we can all name some exceptions. But that's what they are, *exceptions*.
OK, maybe that's elitism. But guess what? We live in a world of elitism. Wish I'd have understood that when I was making decisions about my education.
Trust me, better to blow the 4-10 years of upper education at an Ivy League than a lifetime of second class living because you didn't.
Think about that.
Now let me say it again to make sure it sunk in.
Better to blow the 4-10 years of upper education at an Ivy League than a lifetime of second class living because you didn't.
Seems like you are rather hung up on not finishing college. Let it go. You pretend as if going to college is going to teach you about everything. Nobody knows about everything. A complete idiot will know things that say....Einstein would not. It means nothing to point out such examples.
At least Albert Einstein had was one person who probably would have admitted as such...unlike the Princeton grads, who look their noses down at us "mere mortals" and think they know more about everything then I do.
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Also, amazon changes nothing. Libraries have been around for a rather long time. The colleges and universities have tried to canonicalize education and its only some what successful. Before universities and things of that nature you'd work under someone. That was true of metal workers as much as more intellectual pursuits. The university gives you access to some rather intelligent people that you are unlikely to have access to otherwise, people that you can work under and research with.
In the modern age, all college does is structure everything and provides no real information that cannot be provided by books and the Internet. Fifty years ago, the library was a local establishment that might have been limited in it's selection, especially if you lived in a rural area. Now, with the Internet and Amazon.com, anyone, for a small price (buying the book used) can get access to any book they want to on any subject, and with blogs and webcasts, they can hear any lecturer and read any expert alive.
College provides technical training, yes, but nothing more that can't be found elsewhere...other then that $50,000 piece of paper saying you can get a "real job".
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It seems, like many do, you are focusing on course work. Just going to college and taking courses is not that different than reading books in your home. Most people do just this though, take courses. But it is doing research under the direction of others and working with your peers where you tend to learn the most, and this is not something you can learn from books.
Actually, listening to an "expert" is likely to inhibit learning. I mean, look at the "feminist scholar" with her master's degree who studied women and religion and NEVER EVEN HEARD OF WICCA. I mean, if she was not under the direction of someone who told her what books to read and what books not to read, and had just, I don't know, looked up all religions on her own time by her own direction, she might have known what Wicca was and, in fact, not have looked so stupid.
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This is also why the top universities are so much better than your local state college. Your local state college is a machine, you take the course work and get the degree. There are very few research assistantships and things of that nature. On the other hand, at the top universities its relatively easy to get involved in a number of things.
Allot of state colleges are top universities too...but that means nothing. I have met so many idiots who graduated from Princeton it's ridiculous. Rutgers is said to be a "good school", but I can tell you it too is a idiot factory.
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Personally, when people tell me that have a degree from such and such average university and they got good grades I just ignore it. I think of them no differently than people without degrees. I notice no major difference. But, when someone has degree from say an ivy league, I tend to assume they are at least above average intelligence etc. Usually that is the case, but of course not always. Also, I'm not trying to suggest that people with so-so degrees are never intelligent. Just that the degree means little, just as the people without degrees you have to talk to them and interact with them to see whether they are knowledgeable or not.
I tend to think people with a degree from an ivy league college are just people who have parents with the money to send them to a private highschool, get the "prestige", and have the "pedigree" to get in...I for one do not buy the whole "rich W.A.S.P. who got a degree from Harvard is of course an intellectual" crap. The smartest person I ever met was a Jordanian-American woman who taught history at a county college. She was a pink-haired lesbian and convert to Druidism (orthodox Celtic-reconstructionist, not Wicca) and got her Master's from Portland State University...a fourth tier school out or a three tier ranking system, with the third tier being the lowest...
Univerities are Universities and you get out of it what you put in it. A slacker at a Ivy League school is not going to get as much out of his education as a intellectual at a fourth tier college will.
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Lastly, colleges do not "make you smart". They can't inject intelligence in someone. But they can educate you and open you up to new things.
But, allot of people don't need college to "open them up" or "educatate them".
It is really scary to watch Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" and see the utter stupidity of college students, and even school teachers, and know nothing about the real world, the country, history, etc.
The best was a history major who thought the "Gettysburg Address" was a TV show..."you know, like 90210"
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and the fact that I was a member of the Socialist Worker's Party for three years and have about two dozen books on the subject in boxes somewhere in the basement doesn't amount to a hill of beans as far as she's concerned. Nope! No $100 dollar a credit class on it, and I'm "ignorant"
