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In Reply to: RE: The dumbing down of the U.S. continues... posted by Palustris on July 15, 2016 at 08:29:12
It also helps to be where the well-educated elite have their summer and weekend homes, if not year-round homes. That tends to attract artists, musicians, theater groups, etc.
Tragically, "well-educated" is fast becoming an attribute only of the elite, at least in the US.
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Alas - truer words have never been posted, especially now that many college programs are nothing more than trade schools for corporations!
Do lawyers come out of school knowing how to practice? NO!
Education is something that is supposed to be part of a life long process.
My experience has been all too often that too many turn their brains off once they get their piece of paper. So they would be classified "educated" by you? Not by me? I need more proof. Like saying something that makes me think.
That's why, after his political career ended, Thomas Jefferson devoted his time, energy, and what money he had left to founding the University of Virginia. As for the relative importance that he attached to that in the context of his career as a whole, it is interesting to read the explicit instructions he left on the inscription that should be on his grave stone:
...on the faces of the Obelisk the following inscription, & not a word more:
Here was buried
Thomas Jefferson
Author of the Declaration of American Independence
of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom
& Father of the University of Virginia
It's not just training on how to be a lawyer, although of course there's education involved in the legal profession too. No, I meant a liberal (yes, liberal, with a small "l") education, and I'll go right to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (found right on Wikipedia no less!) for a definition: "Ideally, a liberal education produces persons who are open-minded and free from provincialism, dogma, preconception, and ideology; conscious of their opinions and judgments; reflective of their actions; and aware of their place in the social and natural worlds." Because of their broad exposure to the world of ideas, liberally educated people are skeptical of their own traditions; they are trained to think for themselves rather than conform to higher authorities. Liberal education emphasizes the development of intellectual abilities as opposed to the acquisition of skills (professional or otherwise).
I agree with you that education "is something that is supposed to be part of a life long process" and that some people do leave college without further interest in honing and developing whatever educational concepts they were exposed to.
I am very proud that one of my kids majored in philosophy - I believe that this major has laid a great foundation for his work in overseeing the legal and compliance areas of the financial services industry, even though he decided not to go to law school - and, believe me, financial services is an industry that needs oversight and compliance! ;-)
Whew! It's a good thing that they prefaced their definition of "liberalism" with an adverb like "ideally"...
Have you EVER met a person who does all of those things in an integrated fashion?
... very few of us want it.
.., so I'm sure that you will get over it. We all lose a little gas now and then.
You remind me of that clueless loser who had a perfectly good family business but neglected it for a career in politics!! And when he finished with that, he spent his time, energy and most of his remaining money to build a college!! And he wasted time as a classical music violinist!! And he donated his library to the government!! (As if a government needs books. What an idiot.)
And even though he owned a copy of the Qur'an and didn't like a lot of what he read in it, and claimed to be a Christian, he thought Muslims should be able to have full citizenship rights and observe their religion!!
Good thing we don't have losers like that in America today.
I was all set to guess Louis Farrakhan (I hear he plays a mean Mendelssohn E-minor Violin Concerto!), but he doesn't fulfill all the criteria that you list (at least not that I know of!), and besides, I guess he's now into scientology!
Thomas Jefferson. A real radical.
It's pretty obvious that some attend college in order to increase social status and/or score bigger salaries later on. So, it can be difficult to define words such as *smart* or *educated* but I suspect that those words do NOT allude to "the filling of a bucket".On the other hand, some of these *smart people* would seriously burn their fingers during the "lighting of a fire". So maybe it's just as well.
Edits: 07/15/16
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