A
Little Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing
Moral of the story: the internet makes dumb people dumber and smart people smarter. If you don't know how to use it, or don't have the background to ask the right questions, you'll end up with a head full of nonsense. But if you do know how to use it, it's an endless wealth of information. Just as globalization and de-unionization have been major drivers of the growth of income inequality over the past few decades, the internet is now a major driver of the growth of cognitive inequality. Caveat emptor.
In similar
vein, John Stewart notes that "Newt Gingrich is a stupid person's idea of
a smart person."
While most
of the nation worries that a college education may not increase one's earning
power, I am increasingly that the essence of education - and it occurs
mostly at university - to teaching people how to think.
Like all
human endeavor, "Higher Education" is not without shortcoming.
Even so,
intellectual rigor is a developed skill, not a birthright, and without enough
of it, American democracy will not survive.
Cannot
survive.
May already
have crossed the point of no return.
Consider...
During his
recent campaign Rick Santorum observed that "62 percent of kids who enter college with some sort
of faith commitment leave without it."
Wow!
College is a dangerous, detrimental place.
What Rooster didn't point out -- either because he was not smart enough to "do
his homework" or because he was sufficiently devious to manipulate his
followers while deliberately obscuring the whole contextualized truth -- is that an even greater percentage of people who do not go to
college lose their faith.
"Data from the
National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, the authors wrote, showed
that “64 percent of those currently enrolled in a traditional four-year
institution have curbed their attendance habits.” But the figure was higher for
those not in college. “Yet, 76 percent of those who never enrolled in college
report a decline in religious service attendance.”" http://www.factcheck.org/2012/02/college-kills-faith/
Political
discourse must transcend ideological diversionism.
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