↪dimosthenis9 I feel your pain. The university system to me seems to be instilling a sense of class separation and control through just the same phenomena; the proposed oligarchy of the intelligentsia. As if we haven't seen that mentality utterly fail over and over again throughout history. — kudos
Yes - someone pays to to paint something, and that is what you do.And being paid to do painting means bought painting .... wut? — Tobias
That is a necessary condition but ability is no reason to do anything.No, you get paid for something because you have a certain skill or trait that people pay money for. — Tobias
People pay to hear an educated philosopher lecture because they think they learn more from him or her. And lo and behold, they are probably right, because the man or woman in question has been dedicating her or his time to the subject. That is what academic education provies you with: time, a structure in which you are educated and educators that have obtained distinctions making it creible to think they are fit for their jobs and know what they talk about. — Tobias
What is the alternative? No knowledge.
But it makes me personally feel dead inside when the educated elite talk about human beings like they are children who need to be guided around by the adults who know better. — kudos
That is because I see it as an abuse of authority.
I’m not suggesting by this we run around and grab the pitchforks for a good ol’ fashioned witch-hunt, but surely we should give the common person some respect for choosing his/her destiny even if it doesn’t fit in with the value system of professors and (private) educational institutions.
My reading of Kant’s ‘kingdom of ends,’ inspires me to say a valuable structure in power and politics can’t be found without the consent to some degree of all the people within it as moral equals.
I teach and so I see all kinds of people who do not know what I know, but who will know in the future. Why do you think I have mysteriously forgotten how it is to be a student? — Tobias
The academic is likely to encounter the traditional way of life with a critical eye perhaps because of what they believe they know; sure they know things, but do they know better so as to decide for someone else?
— kudos
Yes of course they do. Say you have a broken car. Then you take it to the mechanic. If you have a problem with your skin, you go to a dermatologist and when you have a legal question you go to a lawyer. Try taing your skin problem to the garage and your car to a lawyer and see whether your problems are solved or not. Academics are just specialised in some field or other and therefore they know more about that subject.
And well, acadmeics do not decide for you. Policy makers do. They decide what behaviour you may perform and what not. they could also use conviction or nudging. But all of that is perfectly straight forward no? I do think you agree that society needs laws and policy.
However, I did not know academics had more rights than other people. They are more well respected socially maybe. That is logical. They know more about the subject at hand. It is that simple.
You assume there is some 'ideology' which apparrently the acaemically trained share. This is not true. — Tobias
You also seem to unerestimate academics. Why would they just apply dogmatic strictness? you think that scholars of the field of linguistics are so dim that they do not understand language is a living instrument? Of course they do. Their vision is not somehow clouded by 'academic' reasoning and thinking as you seem to suggest, it is expanded by it.
The difference between non-academic and academic writing and argumentation is that academic writing and argument has standards of rigour
The academic may know a lot, but they don't know how to truly behave like a layman. They can never know how to not know what they know, and that is a weakness
— kudos
This sounds like an argument an anti-vaccine layman might make. Pity the poor virologist who toils in the lab. — jgill
The university system to me seems to be instilling a sense of class separation and control — kudos
And it will go on failing. — dimosthenis9
On the contrary — baker
The university system to me seems to be instilling a sense of class separation and control through just the same phenomena; the proposed oligarchy of the intelligentsia. As if we haven't seen that mentality utterly fail over and over again throughout history. — kudos
I think the majority of students forget, or perhaps simply ignore, their university education after graduation — Ciceronianus
but I doubt they consider themselves an elite or superior merely by virtue of the fact that they have a college education. — Ciceronianus
I’m not suggesting by this we run around and grab the pitchforks for a good ol’ fashioned witch-hunt, but surely we should give the common person some respect for choosing his/her destiny even if it doesn’t fit in with the value system of professors and (private) educational institutions. My reading of Kant’s ‘kingdom of ends,’ inspires me to say a valuable structure in power and politics can’t be found without the consent to some degree of all the people within it as moral equals. — kudos
Yes, there might be a bias, however the question is how severe it is. Education would be impossible if the educator and the educatee would inhabit different worlds.It's a cognitive bias: — baker
As a better-informed agent, you are unable to correctly anticipate the judgement of less-informed agents; in short, you cannot relate to them. Now, in a teacher-student setting, this can be irrelevant, because the only thing that matters are the teacher's expectations and standards. But outside of such a setting, it can be of vital importance. See, for example, the effectiveness of vaccination campaigns. Simply calling people stupid, irrational, and such doesn't help much. — baker
Do you think this applies to all spheres of human effort, including questions of the meaning of life?
Is it up to academics to decide what the meaning of life is, in general and in particular? — baker
In the Old World, having an advanced degree is mostly about status. For all practical intents and purposes, having an advanced degree (mostly regardless of the specialty) raises the person to the level of nobility, or at least aristocracy. If I would find myself in a situation where I would be expected to bow my head before someone with a Ph.D., I wouldn't be surprised. Even in informal settings these people expect to be treated with special reverence (others must greet them first, even if the person with the advanced degree is visibly younger; they get to sit down first, eat first, etc.). — baker
There might be snob-like academics, but I have encountered that sentiment more often in people who just made a fortune in business. And there are all kinds of peope just bshing academics and bluntly proclaiming that their knowledge is all bollocks. I do not think we feel better. I know it is sometimes tiring to discuss a complex subject of which you happen to know something with someone who does not, but still thinks he does. That does lead to me thinking "I am better", but does sometimes lead to a feeling of annoyance especially because some people think the subject is easy or 'common sense' whereas if it was I would not have spent years studying it. But no... better... that would be a very silly thing to feel. I cannot speak for all academics though.Do the academically trained not believe something like "We are better humans than the average Joe"? I believe they do. Also, society at large seems to believe this about them. — baker
Fachidiot. Do you know what this German term means? — baker
Rigour which is relevant only to academics. — baker
Should actual lay people, Tom, Jane, Mary, Henry, be convinced to get vaccinated by the arguments given by the virologists? Do they have such an obligation to the specialists? — baker
Yes, I agree. Where do you see the academic class blocking the life path of what you call 'common people'? I agree that our current ' diploma democracy' as we say in Dutch is flawed. Our policy makers should represent the people and currently the balance between academically educated and non-academically educated is off. I do not think though the academic education is the problem per se, but the academically educated seem to be privileged in other ways as well.
You have a large section of the population who have invested heavily in something: something that grants them certain powers and privileges. I'm not saying they're blocking anyone from happiness, or there's anything wrong with universities teaching kids to succeed in their field. But there is a system in place that poses a potential for a class divide and an ideological crisis. That's all, no blame or anything on anyone, just plain old crass cynicism. — kudos
In 1951 they didn't need to ask themselves, "Will x news headline cause anxiety and depression?" because maybe only thirty percent of people in the neighbourhood even read the newspaper on a daily basis. — kudos
That question is floating in the air for me. Why do you ask it? — Tom Storm
The university system to me seems to be instilling a sense of class separation and control through just the same phenomena; the proposed oligarchy of the intelligentsia. As if we haven't seen that mentality utterly fail over and over again throughout history. — kudos
Men without original thought memorize the complexity of dead minds, speak in maths, and hold human genius (an arbitrary popularity contest) up as a monolith. Lost in the details, we forget to believe that it's our time to shine, the living. — theRiddler
It's a toy. — theRiddler
Einstein wasn't concerned with being "great." That's folly. — theRiddler
Mad science, in other words, is the future. — theRiddler
What concerns me deeply is our attitude towards our knowledge base, and how we're limiting exploration and imagination. — theRiddler
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