Dumbing down - people getting dumber and dumber

[milod]

I think it unfortunate that today education no longer means being led out from ignorance, but rather capable of taking certain tests for various diplomas and degrees.

 

Meriwether Lewis was one of the more capable of his age at a wide range of subjects. He had no formal education.

 

m

[grampa]

I don't think a lack of formal education is an asset in today's world.

[Searcy]

I don't think a lack of formal education is an asset in today's world.

 

But does not having one make one "dumb"?

[jaxson50]

I think it unfortunate that today education no longer means being led out from ignorance, but rather capable of taking certain tests for various diplomas and degrees.

 

Meriwether Lewis was one of the more capable of his age at a wide range of subjects. He had no formal education.

 

m

Lincoln lacked formal education as did Washington, Gates and Jobs. The current political leadership on both sides of the isle does not support the theory of more education is better, perhaps we should reconsider our investment in liberal arts education.

It would appear that indoctrination is the goal.

[zigzag]

Lincoln lacked formal education as did Washington, Gates and Jobs. The current political leadership on both sides of the isle does not support the theory of more education is better, perhaps we should reconsider our investment in liberal arts education.

It would appear that indoctrination is the goal.

 

The current leadership proves that more education is not better. :P B)

[milod]

The advantage of formal education, diplomas and degrees, is that in today's world it gives a person hiring others the opportunity to discriminate while following legal restrictions.

 

That also has brought an increasing degree of "dumbing down" of many degrees as well. The uni degree has been described as proving that one can suffer through a course of study, not necessarily that the new grad has any functional work skills.

 

The fact that the nature of formal education today may contraindicate creativity is irrelevant, so those creative souls who are not comfortable with the current academic environment will go on into creating their own jobs or for personal reasons, "settling" for something less creative.

 

Apple, Dell, Federal Express, Wendy's burger franchise, Col. Harland Sanders and many other entrepreneurial successes were crafted by those who did not complete uni educations - and did quite well. But then, so have most likely some of the more successful drug dealers who learned their trade on the street.

 

A friend of mine some years younger was quite insulted when I made a similar comment as he was completing a very difficult 5-year engineering degree. But I think instead it was his willingness to learn resulted in a pretty successful career in engineering positions that may or may not have reflected what went into the "degree."

 

Then again, I get a bit cynical when I see "mass communications major" grads who haven't the slightest idea whether the Korean War was before or after World War II, or differences between city and county government, civil and criminal law.

 

m

[grampa]

I'm thinking more in terms of the more complex and technical things. Meriwether Lewis' world was much simpler.

We should learn how to think in high school. Today's non-educated self-made person is as likely to be a drug dealer as an innovator.

Nina Gerber, one of the best self-taught guitarists I've ever known got real good after some "formal education" in playing and got far better than if she just winged it.

[milod]

Grampa...

 

Yeah, the world was simpler in Lewis' day, but I ask myself how many of us could not only recognize a large percentage of American flora, but also recognize how to classify new species. Ditto animal life.

 

How many of us could handle the responsibility and duties of an Army captain on the frontier - and that was before the voyage of discovery. The paperwork and administrative responsibilities were not less than today.

 

He was a skilled naturalist and his work collecting plant, animal and mineral specimens were as professional as any in his era. His contributions to ethnography also were significant in an era when a "scientific" approach was not at all common.

 

His "education" on science did have a degree of formality - Jefferson let him use his own library to study zoology and botany - and arranged a "cram course" in various sciences through various quick tutoring opportunities. But formal? Nope. Academic perfection by standards of the era? No, but with sufficient quality that processing the huge volume of data kept the academics busy for years.

 

You're right about today's creative person as likely to be a drug dealer as founder of a legitimate corporation, but guys like Jobs and Gates ain't real slouches at some pretty complex material that's well beyond the ability of an individual to handcraft, whether hardware or software.

 

But did they learn how to think in school or from other sources? I dunno.

 

I'll never forget how after I left college my music theory "head teacher" to told me he enjoyed having me as a student and that I'd learned more than any student in the year. Thanks, I said, but the grade I received didn't reflect it; he responded, "You just didn't follow the curriculum." He was right, of course. I always was a bit inclined to find my own paths mostly to my own detriment.

 

m

[grampa]

You're right about today's creative person as likely to be a drug dealer as founder of a legitimate corporation, but guys like Jobs and Gates ain't real slouches at some pretty complex material that's well beyond the ability of an individual to handcraft, whether hardware or software.

 

But did they learn how to think in school or from other sources? I dunno.

 

I'll never forget how after I left college my music theory "head teacher" to told me he enjoyed having me as a student and that I'd learned more than any student in the year. Thanks, I said, but the grade I received didn't reflect it; he responded, "You just didn't follow the curriculum." He was right, of course. I always was a bit inclined to find my own paths mostly to my own detriment.

 

m

 

Your music teacher sounds like my senior year math teacher. Aside from my music teacher and the great theory classes he had for us, this math teacher did more for me than any other. He taught us logic and how to think. I had some great back and forth discussion with the Colonel and great mutual respect, but like you, my grade didn't reflect what he taught me.

[milod]

Grampa...

 

With all due respect, we somehow learned how to be alive, and it wasn't necessarily in the official curriculum.

 

Look at all the guys in our age group who may be walking around, but ain't really alive. But heck, they probably weren't at 30, either. Or 20. Lots of folks aren't.

 

The only thing I'm unhappy about in my "education" is that I lack the wherewithall to do nothing but - although I guess I'm lucky in that I have a daily routine that forces a bit of learning to one who has the inclination. I wonder sometimes, too, if I'll ever reach my potential as a guitarist since I'm always trying to learn and change stuff...

 

At least the brain ain't just sitting in neutral.

 

m

[jaxson50]

Is it possible to compare men from one era to those of another?

Does history make the man or does the man make the history?

If Jefferson, Adams, Washington or Franklin been born at any other time in history would they have had any impact on history?

Each would be diagnosed with some kind of hyperactivity and drugged senseless today.

[milod]

I dunno about your last sentence but...

 

Yeah, I think each individual is at a crossroads of time and place and individual genetics.

 

Although... I think a Jefferson or Washington genetic potential would be a pretty good vehicle in about any time period regardless whether they could survive the time and place... Sometimes it just ain't our choice.

 

m

[jaxson50]

Minds that fertile are few and far between, most teachers today would be incapable of keeping up with them (IMO).

One of my professors made the point that men like Voltaire, Franklin, Jefferson etc..were born when great men had little else to do....

How many Universities and colleges were there? How many medical centers, insurance companies, computer makers? There were no TV or radio broadcast systems. There were no machine shops to service automobiles, no great complex of infrastructure to manage or maintain, there were only a hand full of libraries.

The primary communication system was letters, carried by ship and horse...news traveled at the speed of the horse, even river travel relied on either currents or a draft animal to power it..

When ever the "what if" question came up he would turn it....What if Franklin was born at the dawn of the 20th century? What if Jefferson lived now?

Why wouldn't they become a aviation engineer or a astrophysicist, fields that were not available to them....They were masters of their world, but the world they were born into had little in common with the world today.

We can play this out at any time in any location.If Jefferson had been born in Africa in 1735 his life would have been much different, perhaps not.

[milod]

Yeah... I think the 18th Century and early 19th were especially open to a man carving his own place - if the place didn't carve him first.

 

Now... given population increases alone, the potential of such outstanding innovation is stifled by the inertia inherent in the numbers game; even good background and opportunity in such a scenario makes the outstanding into a rank and file contribution.

 

And Jax, you're right. Roughly similar genetics in terms of brain and body function, but with the upbringing of Africa in 1735... it's not likely one would see outstanding innovation with worldwide implications. But ditto one born in the western part of Virginia or in what's now Vermont, or... <grin>

 

m

[Duende]

We can play this out at any time in any location.If Jefferson had been born in Africa in 1735 his life would have been much different, perhaps not.

 

Your whole post was valid and fascinating, so apologies for just high lighting this one sentence, but I wanted to home in on something to illustrate my thoughts about randomness/chance and basically being there are the right time!

 

On the opposite end of the spectrum to the eras that have housed 'great' and subsequently famous people, are the time frames that have created evil actions and infamous people: many people for example still today, speak about the Germans as if there were/is something in their DNA that made so many of them subscribe to Nazism in the second world war; yet the Milgram experiments in the 1960's disproved the idea that the German's were inherently cold and evil - and that given the right circumstances etc, the findings were that the majority of people were capable of cruelty, giving credence to the often sneered at statement/protest of 'we were just following orders.

http://en.wikipedia....gram_experiment

 

To put it bluntly , 'people' are just 'people' - just playing roles that events and chance have dished out to them. So many people think of themselves (and the country they live) as the good guys and many subscribe to the delusion that in their DNA pool there is something different and unique, yet given the boot being on the other foot, my opinion is that 99.99999 percent of the time, given the circumstances, we are also capable of the heroism, evil, greatness and stupidity of the past.

 

Matt

[Duende]

p.s another though...

 

I often wonder if greatness is housed in individuality and the power of being steadfast (i.e holding onto your core beliefs) than intelligence. This would mean that the environment and the 'luck', of being at the right place at the right time would matter to a much lesser extent than the individuals will power and single mindedness...

 

I suppose there would still have to be a set of favourable conditions though, for that individual to thrive to an extent. I don't mean money and luxuries, but more an environment that encouraged their work. It could be a set of misfortunes that helped! Would blues have evolved the way it had if such misfortune hadn't been experienced? One of my favoruite quotes about this paradox...

 

"In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock"

 

Oh no, a can of worms...

 

Matt

[zigzag]

I'll never forget how after I left college my music theory "head teacher" to told me he enjoyed having me as a student and that I'd learned more than any student in the year. Thanks, I said, but the grade I received didn't reflect it; he responded, "You just didn't follow the curriculum." He was right, of course. I always was a bit inclined to find my own paths mostly to my own detriment.

 

Education is what you make of the opportunity.

If you get nothing else from a formal education, you should, at some point, learn how to approach problems and solving them. Most everyone has access to the same reference materials. I think what makes a school great is the quality of its teachers and the learning environment.

 

I realize that many on this board think that college is a waste of time, and school is just a place where minds are put through a process where the government is responsible for what you learn, and students are cranked out with like-minded learning. What some of us know is that education is an opportunity to learn, and no one was ever worse off for learning. You don't have to be an honor student if you take advantage of the opportunity you have been given to get what you want out of your education. I'll be the first to admit that I apply very little of what college taught me to what I do as a contributor to society and to business. But what I learned in college made me a better person, and I wouldn't trade the experience for anything except meeting my wife.

[milod]

Ziggy...

 

When I was at my first college <grin> it was at the same time when I was there with the now famous actor Peter Coyote and on the other side Ken Adelman who's on the opposite side of the aisle politically. Both took very different life pathways and both, believe me, still know what's going on around them even if viewed through very different lenses.

 

College is not inherently "bad," nor is K-12 education. My personal objection is that I've learned two things the past 46 years as a journalist: 1) People in general are far less educated in metaphor; 2) People are far less educated in the combination of civics and history to the point they don't get the processes of the government and world around them and therefore stick with what's comfortable - which is opinion and emotion.

 

Unfortunately also, from my perspective, they're not nowadays learning the classics regardless of their majors. Without reading Plato, how can one have even the basis of what I'd call the epistemology of daily life?

 

I'm convinced that the loss of the classics and the insertion of "relevant" history as opposed to learning what forces created the world in which we live today is like a flood washing away the foundations of the cultural structure in which we reside.

 

m

[jaxson50]

Your whole post was valid and fascinating, so apologies for just high lighting this one sentence, but I wanted to home in on something to illustrate my thoughts about randomness/chance and basically being there are the right time!

 

On the opposite end of the spectrum to the eras that have housed 'great' and subsequently famous people, are the time frames that have created evil actions and infamous people: many people for example still today, speak about the Germans as if there were/is something in their DNA that made so many of them subscribe to Nazism in the second world war; yet the Milgram experiments in the 1960's disproved the idea that the German's were inherently cold and evil - and that given the right circumstances etc, the findings were that the majority of people were capable of cruelty, giving credence to the often sneered at statement/protest of 'we were just following orders.

http://en.wikipedia....gram_experiment

 

To put it bluntly , 'people' are just 'people' - just playing roles that events and chance have dished out to them. So many people think of themselves (and the country they live) as the good guys and many subscribe to the delusion that in their DNA pool there is something different and unique, yet given the boot being on the other foot, my opinion is that 99.99999 percent of the time, given the circumstances, we are also capable of the heroism, evil, greatness and stupidity of the past.

 

Matt

The argument that evil is in the DNA is (imo) 100% BS...if having German DNA makes one prone to be a Nazi, how do we explain that 40% of Americans have some German DNA?

Consider the application of human intelligence to the environment...not how the environment effects human intelligence...aboriginal people may not have understood complex theory, but they didn't need to..when Europeans expanded their influence into the "New World" the natives learned European language, adapted to the technologies, and in a relatively short time mastered the "advances" of the Europeans who viewed the natives as inferior..but how many Europeans were capable of mastering the knowledge and philosophy's of the aboriginals?

Many of the herbs used by the natives in these "New World" lands are just now being recognized as legitimate medical treatments...

The western mindset was that the ways of the native must be erased from the native mind, "Indian Schools" were established, tribes were broken up taken from their traditional lands and placed on reservations, what I call "re-education centers"...it wasn't until 1922 that native Americans were officially recognized as "human beings" by our Congress....amazing...and we call ourselves civilized.

[Duende]

it wasn't until 1922 that native Americans were officially recognized as "human beings" by our Congress....amazing...and we call ourselves civilized.

 

I think all countries have 'murky' histories in one way or another; but yes it is still shocking some of the things that we have done to one another. I like to look forward and think that the person who is born and living in our present, is a person in their own right, with no responsibility for the good and bad deeds done before they existed.

 

Matt

[zigzag]

Unfortunately also, from my perspective, they're not nowadays learning the classics regardless of their majors. Without reading Plato, how can one have even the basis of what I'd call the epistemology of daily life?

 

I'm convinced that the loss of the classics and the insertion of "relevant" history as opposed to learning what forces created the world in which we live today is like a flood washing away the foundations of the cultural structure in which we reside.

 

m

 

It is interesting that most individuals never consider how their own inherent epistemology is western, classical, Judeo-Christian centric even without being familiar with the works of classical or biblical scholars. Maybe what we see as the dumbing down of western culture has something to do with an evolution away from that epistemology or foundation. Interesting...

[EVOL!]

It is interesting that most individuals never consider how their own inherent epistemology is western, classical, Judeo-Christian centric even without being familiar with the works of classical or biblical scholars. Maybe what we see as the dumbing down of western culture has something to do with an evolution away from that epistemology or foundation. Interesting...

 

Judeo-Christian? You mean things like slavery, genocide, and circumcision?

[zigzag]

Judeo-Christian? You mean things like slavery, genocide, and circumcision?

 

Yes...

[EVOL!]

Yes...

 

Funny this came up because my wife and I are expecting a son on Thanksgiving and the hot debate everywhere is whether to snip the foreskin or not. Not exactly a paper or plastic type of conversation, eh?

[zigzag]

Congratulations EVOL! Hope everything goes smoothly, esp. with the circumcision.