Saturday, June 25, 2011

The Disadvantages of an Elite Education: an article by William Deresiewicz about how universities should exist to make minds, not careers | The American Scholar

The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

One of the great errors of an elite education, then, is that it teaches you to think that measures of intelligence and academic achievement are measures of value in some moral or metaphysical sense. But they’re not. Graduates of elite schools are not more valuable than stupid people, or talentless people, or even lazy people. Their pain does not hurt more. Their souls do not weigh more. If I were religious, I would say, God does not love them more. The political implications should be clear. As John Ruskin told an older elite, grabbing what you can get isn’t any less wicked when you grab it with the power of your brains than with the power of your fists. “Work must always be,” Ruskin says, “and captains of work must always be….[But] there is a wide difference between being captains…of work, and taking the profits of it.”

Tired of being insulted

I've grown tired of being insulted by people who assume that I agree with them.

Tired of being demeaned by people who don't think contrary opinions are only held by "evil" people.

Tired of watching complicated issues being reduced to arguments that fit in a tweet or on a bumper sticker.

New York's recent passing of a Gay Marriage proposal has been causing me to grind my teeth as both sides fire snarky barbs across the internet on Twitter.

Between the Evil Homosexuals and the Evil Christians I don't know if there's anyone left to talk to.  Is there any room for a person who thinks that people should be allowed to be happy, to have comparable rights to comfort their loved ones, but who understands the pain of having a sacrament defiled?

Am I evil because I don't think that a 2700 page health care bill with more loopholes than a stitching class is the right way to reform health care?  Am I evil because I resent the constant encroachment of government into my choices?

Apparently, because I've been told that I'm evil and heartless for holding that opinion.  I'd be open to having my mind changed if every discussion didn't start with my intelligence being demeaned.

Am I a racist because objective facts tell me that there are dangerous places to go?  Detroit is considered a "black" city, and has one of the highest crime rates in the nation.  If I were black, I don't think I'd hitch my identity to the city until it became a place I could be proud of.  Pride should be something you have "because of," not "in spite of."

I'm not specifically religious, nor am I against religion.  Nonetheless, because of that I've been accused of hating God.  I've also been accused of being anti-atheist.  I suppose it's more proof that "with us or against us" is a sentiment held on both sides of the aisle.

And of course the running joke with the one person who understands that is that I'm a "fence sitting libertarian."  So at least there's one person I can talk to.

I am who I am, and if I'm a majority of one, so be it.  Just don't expect me to sit here and listen to your vile vilification, don't expect me to agree with your demonization of people I don't agree with, and don't assume that because I don't hold your viewpoint I hold the diametrically opposed view.

Screw you and your pigeonhole.  If you're not capable of seeing outside your little world of boxes that's not my problem.  I'm only atypical from your point of view, and until you can understand that you can not understand me.

It's more important for me to respect myself than to respect your opinion of me.