Negative reactions to academic concepts relating to society and culture

[homecoming]

3 hours ago, schlumpy said:

Keep that learning at the university and schmooze with your fellow academics until you have a successful real world model that people can replicate and enhance their lives with.

Revolution and change never turns out well for the common people of which I am one.

Who are the 'common people'? Always found that phrase odd. As someone else in the thread wrote, reverse snobbery. There's nothing wrong with being an academic. I think it's this sort of tone that my initial post is about. Personally, I grew up in dire poverty and often didn't eat for days. Can't get more 'common' than that.

[homecoming]

5 hours ago, Realitysux said:

I want to comment on Beyonce who is one of my favorite people. She is the most beautiful singer and she is very talented but because she is black, she doesn't get as much recognition as someone like Taylor Swift or Mariah Carey. She is way more talented and better looking then both! 

No way - she is very talented, I agree! Very hard-working also, which is really admirable/inspirational

[lana-banana]

Ah yes, everyone knows the only kind of acceptable change is the totally subdued, meek and mild type, the kind you can conveniently ignore. Let's get real: people lost their minds at a man kneeling in silence. Even now the vice president of the United States literally can't bring himself to say the words "black lives matter". If anything it's extraordinary this has been so peaceful.

Change is inevitable. It's also messy and scary and imperfect, but it has to happen when people are pushed to their breaking points. This is why academics studying these things are so vital; their theories and ideas help us understand the world we live in, and provide guidance for conceptualizing where we are and what comes next.

[Weezy1973]

Again I think some people have very fragile egos and have a really hard time accepting that other people know more than them on certain topics. They try to invalidate their knowledge by claiming ivory tower knowledge doesn’t translate to “real life”. 
 

But of course that’s not true. Pretty much every advance in society starts from academia. From economics, to medicine, to psychology and technology. Pretty much the bulk of modern life we can thank academia for.

Now does that mean plumbers, and electricians, and servers and cashiers are less valuable? Of course not! But that’s where the disdain for academy comes from. The thought that if somebody with a university degree is valuable, then somebody without it must be less valuable. Which is just wrong.

 

[NuevoYorko]

In the USA there is a robust movement against not only academic inquiries into social / cultural topics (which have seen by some as frivolous in "traditional" (snobby) academia, and dismissible ) but also against intellectual activities of any kind, except military or tech related.  Art included.

"We" are anti-science, generally turning away from public education,  devoted to revisionist history and leaving history behind,  governmentally supportive of extremist religious concepts (no evolution, "rapture," creationism, Noah's ark, etc).  

Academic pursuits (unless theological / military) are dismissed as "elitist."

There is also a huge embrace of "discourse" that is not based on any kind of discovery or exchange of ideas, but on who can shut the other down the best.  It's very easy now that we are anti-science, post-fact, anti-art, and even culturally embracing a negative attitude regarding intellectual curiosity of any kind.  It's super evident on discussion boards such as this one.  We are a microcosm of what's going on all over.  Probably throughout the world though I am coming from a US perspective.

Not boding well.

[Ellener]

1 hour ago, Weezy1973 said:

The thought that if somebody with a university degree is valuable, then somebody without it must be less valuable. Which is just wrong.

One of my favourite books was Michael Fairless, The Roadmender and thinking of it touches so many issues of this thread- a woman writing as a man just to publish her work, the melancholy aura of the book written in 1920 when people felt their world was changing too fast for their liking...

Anyway it's about the road-mender doing good honest work and observing the world around him and preparing himself spiritually for his impending death! It's available free online on Gutenberg.

I have attained my ideal: I am a roadmender, some say stonebreaker.  Both titles are correct, but the one is more pregnant than the other.  All day I sit by the roadside on a stretch of grass under a high hedge of saplings and a tangle of traveller’s joy, woodbine, sweetbrier, and late roses.  Opposite me is a white gate, seldom used, if one may judge from the trail of honeysuckle growing tranquilly along it: I know now that whenever and wherever I die my soul will pass out through this white gate; and then, thank God, I shall not have need to undo that trail.

In our youth we discussed our ideals freely: I wonder how many beside myself have attained, or would understand my attaining.  After all, what do we ask of life, here or indeed hereafter, but leave to serve, to live, to commune with our fellowmen and with ourselves; and from the lap of earth to look up into the face of God?  All these gifts are mine as I sit by the winding white road and serve the footsteps of my fellows.  There is no room in my life for avarice or anxiety; I who serve at the altar live of the altar: I lack nothing but have nothing over; and when the winter of life comes I shall join the company of weary old men who sit on the sunny side of the workhouse wall and wait for the tender mercies of God.

We found with the pandemic it was the grocery store workers who kept everyone calm in the first few days of uncertainty, and I myself quite like retail work and helping people; but I'm not working two jobs back to back so I can live on $10 an hour! If we value people, we pay them properly.

[Ellener]

There has been a lot of the nonsense you mention down here in Texas @NuevoYorko but I think it's fair to say Houston is as cultured a place as any now. America is getting a bit fed up with extremism and corruption. That's what we're seeing in all the movements for equality, people are realising that there are benefits to helping and accepting each other. For a few years people were foaming at the mouth to think that anyone but the 1 % could have anything given to them...but death's a great leveller.

Omnia mors aequat as Claudian would write it; he never finished that book...but the Romans put a statue up for him in their Forum. All ruins now with a city built around them. The statue's in the British Museum I want to say, but I've seen so many museums I could be wrong.

[Emilie Jolie]

1 hour ago, homecoming said:

Who are the 'common people'? 

Most of us...

It's a transparent populist ploy, nothing more. Yet another way to neatly divide -  the 'elite' with their heads in the cloud, and the 'salt of the earth' people with the street smarts.

I wish people wouldn't fall for these obvious traps.

Most academics don't spend all their time denigrating 'the working class' or brainwashing malleable young minds.🤷‍♀️

 

 

[Ellener]

10 hours ago, Emilie Jolie said:

Most academics don't spend all their time denigrating 'the working class' or brainwashing malleable young minds.

Well some do, to be fair. But they shouldn't!

[Emilie Jolie]

1 hour ago, Ellener said:

Well some do, to be fair. But they shouldn't!

Well, I guess you need to become one so you can research that theory you've just posited. 

You can find 'some' bad apples in every single profession - do you judge them all by their weakest element?  

[schlumpy]

18 hours ago, Ellener said:

The world isn't burning any more or less than it does any day, it's just whether or not it looks like touching on our own bit of it...

Then why are we at this moment, pretending it is?

[Libby1]

On 6/19/2020 at 8:32 PM, homecoming said:

One example is, I was engaged in a conversation with someone about the singer Beyoncé Knowles, and her visual album 'Lemonade'. I have studied this album extensively as part of my thesis. It contains many interwoven references to feminism, motherhood, racial tensions, police brutality, etc. It uses distinct visual imagery such as plantation houses or traditional antebellum clothing, women standing in groups, use of color symbolism, etc. This album (and this surprised me) has countless academic papers, journals, books, even - devoted to its content...

 

I guess my question/discussion point is, why are so many people against academia, or people that have knowledge of social or cultural concepts and education?

I think it's just difficult to work that level of knowledge into a social conversation.  It (your depth of knowledge on this) would probably lend itself better to an article.  Unless you're able to work bits and pieces of our knowledge into the conversation without the conversation losing its social flavour.

I certainly think it's ignorant for anybody to say "it's just an album".  People can discuss their favourite art for hours on end precisely because there's so much to analyse...and often people read intent and meaning into art that wasn't even intended, but which nonetheless can make sense - which is part of the fun of it (not that this sounds applicable in Beyonce's case as she clearly had messages she wanted to send).  It's possible I suppose that when people say "it's just an album" what they actually mean is "I don't have the depth of knowledge to analyse this in depth nor the mental energy right now to listen to somebody else do so"....but since you're talking about a discussion about Beyonce that was going on, it sounds like it was totally relevant for you to share your knowledge.  And how disappointing, when you've studied it in that level of depth, to be snubbed.

I'm not sure lack of interest always points, as some other posters have suggested, to lack of intellectual curiosity.  Some people are interested in everything, which is great from the perspective of making good conversation...but the specialists who become super informed in particular areas devote so much time to it that there's not always much room for anything else.  A guy I was at university with was a notable exception to that rule.  He was one of the first people I got talking to, and his energy levels knocked me sideways.  Not only was he studying one of the more demanding disciplines, but he always seemed to be getting involved in other areas of study not related to our one...and he went out drinking regularly. 

He ended up doing really well, not surprisingly, but most people don't have that level of extreme energy and will tend to devote themselves more to one or two areas of specialisation.  Which can sometimes result in them being disinterested in other intellectual areas (which they might regard as a time consuming distraction from the areas they need to focus on) which disappoints others who expect more from them.

 

[thefooloftheyear]

"If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;"

When I attended university the one thing that stuck was the absolute hubris and omnipotence of the professors and other admin staff...Most of them lacked the capacity for simple things in life like proper grooming or dress...They acted as though they had some type of higher calling in life...I grew up around adults who spent their time toiling in manual labor professions in order to feed their families and take care of business...They were no worse or better...that's the life they chose and was just as honorable..

Over the years I have ran into those types often...Now the shoe was on the other foot, I didn't need them, they needed me....You see how fast they humble themselves when no longer in that position...😂

So...while it can't be said for all, you can expect to be poked in the eye at times when you spend your life thinking that because you obtained some esoteric knowledge that gives you some kind of right to look down on someone...Knowledge and intellect come in many ways and in many packages...

TFY

[Prudence V]

20 hours ago, Emilie Jolie said:

Most academics don't spend all their time denigrating 'the working class' or brainwashing malleable young minds.🤷‍♀️

Ah, if only “malleable young minds” were easy to brainwash, imagine how much easier marking would be! students would actually use the constructs you taught them in class, to analyse the problem you set them in the exams, rather than googling some rubbish off Wikipedia. No one would fail. No one would need resits, and we’d get our summers free for research, rather than marking resits, moderating more assignments,  sitting through more exam boards, and the like. I guess we can but dream. 
 

(Incidentally, I don’t know any academics who denigrate “the working class”. We reify them, and venerate them, and long for them to lead us into revolution to overthrow the capitalist pigs. Isn’t that what the brainwashing is all about? 🤣🤣🤣🤣)

[Emilie Jolie]

It's just weird to me how you can label a whole profession because you personally had a bad anecdotal experience with a handful out of millions.

My first mechanic was an ignorant, sexist, racist, slob bs-merchant with a potty mouth who would overcharge me when I went on my own but completely change his tune when I had a guy with me. So I guess that means mechanics are crooks. 🤷‍♀️

Except my current mechanic is a gem of a man, we're on a first name, text basis and I'd not take my car anywhere else. He takes the time to explain to me in detail what he's doing to my car and why, in a way that makes sense to layperson me. We have interesting chats about all sorts of things, and he's a really pleasant man all round.

Curious people are curious about anything, and passionate, knowledgeable people are super interesting (to me). Sure you can be bored at times, but that's a personal thing - it doesn't mean the people you are talking to, or the topic, are boring.

Those who have a chip on their shoulder are exhausting, 'blue' and 'white' collars alike.

[carhill]

On 6/21/2020 at 5:10 AM, thefooloftheyear said:

Knowledge and intellect come in many ways and in many packages...

One day that didn't get much play here, yesterday, Father's Day, reminded me of a simple saying my dad, a pretty smart guy, used to say...

"Son, the more you know the more you know how little you know"

Was he ever right.👍

[Emilie Jolie]

2 minutes ago, carhill said:

"Son, the more you know the more you know how little you know"

Great quote.

I'll swap you with this one, that I've heard all my life and live by:

'Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning'. Albert Einstein.

[Haydn]

Well, i know how to brick lay, do plumbing, and `mantle with aplomb` and make spellbinding things with Lego.

I also have an `Arts degree ` That came in very handy.

I`m always learning.

[homecoming]

Funnily enough, I'm qualified in plumbing and electrics, but didn't fancy being the 'female plumber/electrician' after all, so went to uni and did psychosocial studies 😁

[Emilie Jolie]

4 minutes ago, Haydn said:

 and make spellbinding things with Lego.

Swoon.

[Haydn]

1 minute ago, homecoming said:

Funnily enough, I'm qualified in plumbing and electrics, but didn't fancy being the 'female plumber/electrician' after all, so went to uni and did psychosocial studies 😁

Corrosion, build up of dust on sockets... Advice, i am no `Sparky`

[homecoming]

2 minutes ago, Haydn said:

Corrosion, build up of dust on sockets... Advice, i am no `Sparky`

Don't use them! Run the risk of excessive heat and possible electric shocks. Can either clean them yourself with electric contact cleaner & sandpaper (can find detailed instructions for this online) or get them removed and replaced by a professional, depending on how badly they are corroded

[Haydn]

3 minutes ago, homecoming said:

Don't use them! Run the risk of excessive heat and possible electric shocks. Can either clean them yourself with electric contact cleaner & sandpaper (can find detailed instructions for this online) or get them removed and replaced by a professional, depending on how badly they are corroded

Thank you. So so many educated people in all areas. (Now all my hair is standing up, you said wet towels?` )

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by Haydn

[schlumpy]

13 hours ago, Emilie Jolie said:

Great quote.

I'll swap you with this one, that I've heard all my life and live by:

'Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning'. Albert Einstein.

I would have no remorse replacing some of these statues with one of Albert Einstein.

How many minutes does it take light to reach the earth from the sun Emilie?

[Emilie Jolie]

1 hour ago, schlumpy said:

How many minutes does it take light to reach the earth from the sun Emilie?

That has set me way back in my secondary school years!

I'm not a keen astronomer but what I've always found fascinating is that we are essentially always looking at the past when we look at the sky. I remember reading somewhere that if aliens from another galaxy were looking at the Earth with a (pretty strong!) telescope, they may well be looking at dinosaurs. Mind-boggling.