Surrounded by people “educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought” | Scholars and Rogues

To paraphrase:

It takes a village of idiots to raise idiots.

p.s. -I can put up a spirited defense for "Media Studies" as being "non fluff".

HAH ! -
[ - - -b) the people who clearly don’t know what they’re talking about, but like to barge in anyway, is striking. And then the internet adopts its own version of Gresham’s law (“Bad money drives out the good’), where the ignorant overwhelm everything. It’s depressing, that’s what it is.]

is uinny- - -( but I AM a fatalist. )

p.s. - I really AM a big fan of "scholarsandrogues",.....put me on the official roster of supporters.

REALLY, should be titled - "of villages, . . .and idiots".

The self mesmerizing enchantment of rhetoric. Go figure.

Cloverfoot and Dagum both raise relevant questions re: this article. There's a followup scheduled to post at 9am EST tomorrow that will address some of these issues. It may not satisfy everyone, but given the issues being raised it should be worth a read.

Part of the problem is the standardization of our education process. By teaching to test scores, we glorify "learned" facts, and undervalue critical thinking. Send them off to college with this preparation, and they use that learning style in college. Eventually, a person is filled up with a reservoir of facts (that, as wolfess points out, are usually chosen to fit their world view), without the ability to analyse complex or competing ideas. I am glad to see discussion starting on this, as it is at the heart of some of the political problems in our times.

The REAL concern lies in people who are educated far beyond their capacity being paid to evangelize ideas on certain networks(to be fair, most are guilty of this, some just worse than others). Then those ideas get repeated by people that are NEITHER educated or have the capacity to undertake analytical thought - just read the comments section for posts on most mainstream sites.

http://Hmm.th

Hmm, the article has somewhat of a callous tone? Anyway, along with many other things, it somewhat touches on the issue of the role of educational institutions. What is it? And what should it be?

I don't believe people are educated beyond their ability to engage analytical thought. Why? Because the two aren't mutual inclusive. Today, educational institutions (for the general public) focus on putting information in students heads. The general public isn't taught on how to apply that new information to new situations and draw a conclusion. They are not taught on how to think analytically. That's not by accident either. How dangerous would it be to certain interests if the common man could apply the information stored in their head to make sense of the events currently unfolding around him.

Ho ho ho... interesting article.

People will assume that sharp and articulate mannerisms are an indication of giftedness, and without being able to evaluate or analyze arguments they are easy to trap. Often it is easy to repeat the often repeated ideas than to actually describe an original thought. Meanwhile one who is struggling to draw an analysis while speaking is not being sharp and articulate. So who does one believe if they didn't already know?

There used to credibility in journalism, science, and social studies. Today, the media rarely ever reviews stories. Credibility is not earned as much as it is bought. Again, if one doesn't already know, then a blithering idiot might be more convincing than the most knowledgeable.

That's why politics loves people to repeat the mantra over and over without giving it thought. They can block out the efforts of the educated without even taking the class. It's an idiots paradise.

An interesting but ultimately worthless article.

It's true that there are a lot of people who know how to write/speak far better than they know how to think and analyze, but those same people will read this article and think that about their ideological opponents, not themselves.

So, in a sense, this article is really just a lamentation about the state of American discourse in the media. Obviously, if you're not one of the morons he's talking about, you can appreciate it. But beyond simply pointing out that we're surrounded by morons, this doesn't actually give us any insight about what we're supposed to do about it.

I see highly educated people in one arena,that are completely incapable of critical thought.Smart good people,just naive,and ignorant of life,how it works technically.They can't change a light bulb,or perform the most basic thought for themselves to improve their lives.Simple common sense escapes them.

Over education is the stupid of the new century.

I think there are many people out there that have the education but don't have the innate ability to understand what they read. I have noticed a number of times that there are as many different opinions of what someone has read as the number of people who read it. Some people are capable of reading between the lines and come out with a 'global picture' of what they read; whereas others, as you pointed out, think in a linear fashion and miss much of what they read. They pick out something that agrees with their world view and ignore everything else, choosing to see competing ideas as attacking their beliefs.