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Guest Post: Has America Been Crippled By Intellectual Idiots?
Submitted by Brandon Smith from Alt-Market
Has America Been Crippled By Intellectual Idiots?
As far back as I can remember, the overarching message of the American social atmosphere has been one of idolization. Oh to one day join the ranks of the “professional class”; that 5% to 10% of our culture which enjoys unparalleled respect and an assumed position of knowledge, so much so that they are rarely even required to qualify themselves to anyone besides their own compatriots. The goal of every person I knew during my formative years with a desire to succeed was to one day hold in their hands an official looking embossed document announcing their ascension to the ranks of the intellectually anointed. I was never so keen on the idea…
The dangers of academic deification are numerous. Those who dominate the educational language of the times determine the moral compass (or lack of compass) of the curriculum. They control who is accepted and who is rejected, not by measure of intelligence or skill, but by their willingness to conform to the establishment ideal. They construct a kind of automaton class, which has been taught not to learn independently, but to parrot propaganda without question. Simultaneously, those of us who do not “make the grade” are relegated to the role of obliged worshippers; accepting the claims of the professional class as gospel regardless of how incorrect they happen to be. To put it simply; the whole thing is disgustingly inbred.
Elitism has always lent itself to morbid forms of educational molestation. This is nothing new, especially within their own limited circles. However, to have such perversions of logic and reason gutting the minds of entire generations across endless stretches of our country without any counterbalance is a far more heinous state of affairs in the long run. Ultimately, this highway can only lead to a deterioration of our future, and the death of reason itself.
Recently, I attended a discussion panel on Constitutionalism at a university in Helena, the capital of Montana, and admittedly, was not expecting much insight. (At the moment of arrival I noticed the buildings had been plastered with Kony 2012 posters. The campus seemed to be completely unaware that the YouTube film is a George Soros funded ‘Wag the Dog’ farce.) Even in a fiercely independent region such as the Northern Rockies, the collectivist hardline reigns supreme on most college campuses. Sadly, very few actual students attended the discussion, and the audience was predominantly made up of local political players, retired legislators, and faculty. Surprisingly, Stewart Rhodes of Oath Keepers was invited to participate in the discussion, obviously to add at least some semblance of balance or “debate” to an otherwise one-sided affair. The mix was like oil and water.
The overall tone was weighted with legal drudgery. Many of the speakers were focused intently on secondary details and banal explorations into individual Constitutional cases without any regard for the bigger picture. When confronted with questions on the indefinite detainment provisions of the NDAA, government surveillance, or executive ordered assassinations of U.S. citizens, the panelists responded with lukewarm apathy. The solutions we discuss regularly within the Liberty Movement, such as state nullification based on the 10th Amendment, assertions of local political control through Constitutional Sheriffs, and even civil disobedience, were treated with indignant responses and general confusion.
A consistent theme arose from the academics present, trying to run damage control on Rhodes’ points on federal encroachment and ultimate tyranny. Their position? Defiance is unacceptable (or at least, not politically correct…). Americans have NO recourse against a centralized government. Not through their state and local representatives, and not through concerted confrontation. In fact, to even suggest that states act on their own accord without permission is an outlandish idea. In the end, the only outlet for the public is….to vote.
No one seemed to be able to address the fact that both major parties supported the exact same unconstitutional policies, thus making national level elections an act of pure futility. The point was brushed aside…
Sickly shades of socialism hung heavy in the room. One speaker even suggested that the states could not possibly survive financially without centralized aid. He was apparently too ignorant to understand that the federal government itself is bankrupt, incapable of producing true savings, and printing fiat Ad Nauseum just to stay afloat. Every 30 seconds I heard a statement that made me cringe.
Universities are today’s centers of connection. They are one of the last vestiges of American tribalism and community in an age of self isolation and artificial technological cultism. Adults do not meet face to face much anymore to share knowledge, or discuss the troubles of the day. The academic world provides such opportunity, but at a terrible price. To connect with the world, students must comply. To be taken seriously, they must adopt, consciously or unconsciously, the robes of the state. They must abandon the passions of rebellion and become indifferent to the truth. All actions and ideas must be embraced by the group, or cast aside. They must live a life of dependency, breeding a culture of fear, for that which others to keep for us, they can easily take away.
How could anyone possibly sustain themselves on a diet of congealing fantasy, and personal inadequacy? The intellectual life bears other fruits as well. Where it lacks in substance, it makes up for in ego, proving that being educated is not necessarily the same as being intelligent. The following is a list of common character traits visible in the average intellectual idiot, a breed that poisons the American well, and is quickly eroding away any chance of Constitutional revival…
1) An Obsession With The Appearance Of Objectivity
I say “appearance” of objectivity because the intellectual idiot does indeed take sides on a regular basis, and the side he takes invariably benefits the establishment. He would never admit to this, though, because he believes it gives him more credibility to at least be thought of as standing outside an issue looking in. It is not uncommon to find Intellectual Idiots being contrary regardless of your view, even if they would normally agree. They often try to approach debate with the façade of detachment, as if they do not care one way or the other. The costume soon wears away, however, when they are faced with an opponent that is not impressed with their educational status. I have seen lawyers, doctors, engineers, and even politicians devolve into sniveling toddlers when they are derailed by an argument beyond their ability to tap-dance around. Their middle of the road persona evaporates, and the real person erupts like an ugly pustule…
2) Clings To Labels And Status
Like anyone else, Intellectual Idiots cradle a philosophy they believe in, or are told to believe in. But unlike most of us, they see themselves above the scrutiny of those who do not pursue a similar academic path (i.e. only a lawyer should be allowed to debate another lawyer). The reality is, anyone is privy to the information a proponent of the professional class knows. With the advent of the internet, it is easier than ever to educate one’s self on multiple subjects without aid if that person has the determination to do so. Reputation is not earned by shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for university approval. A Masters Degree or Ph.D is not a get out of logic free card. In fact, because the Intellectual Idiot often uses his position to avoid true opposition, he tends to become lazy and even more incapable of defending his methodologies when the time comes.
3) Predominantly Collectivist
The curriculum of the average college is partly to blame for this, and because the Intellectual Idiot is so desperate for acceptance and accolades, they can’t help but fall into the trap. Collectivism is marked by a distinct attachment to the state as the source of life. All social and all individual crises thus become a matter of government purview. Individual self reliance is a terrifying notion to them. In fact, many Intellectual Idiots have lived on the dole since they were born, moving from their family’s money, to state money through grants and loans. It is not unheard of for these people to become career students, avoiding work for years, and then moving on to a bureaucratic job when the free money runs out. They cannot fathom why anyone would rebel against the system, because they are a part of a select group which has always benefited from it. How could the federal government be bad when it has paid their way for half of their existence?
4) Disconnection From Reality
The Intellectual Idiot is not necessarily afraid to acknowledge that the system is troubled. For them, the federal government is not infallible, even if their favorite party is in office, but, it IS unapproachable. Academics revel in the disastrous nature of government. They see political and social catastrophe as a sort of mental gameplay. An exercise in theoretical structures. For them, America is not a country built on an enduring set of principles, but a petri dish; an ongoing anthropological experiment that they can watch through a microscope at their leisure. The idea that the disasters they view from the safety of their sub-cultural bubble might one day come to haunt them is a distant one.
5) Abhors Those Who Step Out Of Bounds
Have you ever entertained a view that went against the grain of the mainstream only to be met with accusations of extremism and sneers befitting a leper? You were probably talking to an intellectual idiot. The rules, no matter how distasteful or meaningless, hold special power for these people. They make the system what it is, and when the system is your great provider, you might lean towards defending it, even in the wake of oligarchy and abuse. This penchant for overt structure for the sake of centralization is especially damaging to our Constitutional rights, because alternative solutions are never treated as viable. During the panel discussion in Helena, pro-collectivists consistently tried to redirect the conversation away from the 10th Amendment as a method to counter federal overreach. They did this by bringing up abuses of the states, including slavery and segregation, as if that somehow negated the nightmare of the NDAA.
Ironically, they saw the use of violence by the federal government to push states to recognize civil liberties as perfectly practical. But, the use of force by states to protect the same civil liberties from Washington D.C.? That would be lunacy…
6) Believes Academia To Be Free From Bias
The Intellectual Idiot assimilates every bit of information he is given at the university level without a second look. He simply assumes it is all true, and if something appears mismatched, it is only because he does not yet fully grasp it. Very rarely will he go beyond designated source materials to get a different opinion. This habit is the root of his idiocy. Being that most universities draw from the same exact materials, and peer reviewed papers are usually tested by those with the exact same underlying educational backgrounds, I can’t see how it is possible for much variety of thought to form. Whether intentional or not, severe bias cannot be avoided in this kind of environment without considerable strength of heart.
The shock that these people express when faced with Liberty Movement philosophies is quite real. They have spent the very focus of their future life within the confines of a miniscule spectrum of truth; like seeing technicolor for the first time after a long limited existence in black and white.
It’s hard to say when it all really began, but for decades, Americans have been progressively tuned like pliable radio antenna to the song of the elitist intellectual. Many of us want to be him. Others want to follow him, straight to oblivion if need be, as long as they don’t have to blaze their own trail. This is not to say all professionals are a danger to the Republic. Some are fantastic proponents of freedom. But, without a drastic reversal in current educational trends, I see little hope of Constitutional guardians becoming a mainstay of U.S. campuses in the near term.
With mashed potato minds fresh from the psychological Cuisinart of public schools, the next generation in line to inherit the most fantastically schizophrenic nation in history will be like candy for social engineers; utterly unequipped for the mission. Strangely, the drastic financial slide the elites have also triggered might hold the key to our salvation. The next batch of would be statist citizens may find themselves so poor that higher educational brainwashing will be impossible to afford, giving them precious time to think for themselves, and come to their own conclusions. As they say, in all things, there is a silver lining…
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He could've made the whole thing up. It's all completely vague and abstract.
Would you consider it relevant whether any of this actually happened or not?
I suppose I'd be interested to hear your point, if you can communicate it.
Things like this happen every day in my experience. The piece is really about how individual social ambitions subvert or betray stated or named purposes. People team up, gang up, to secure their positions. This is up there with food and sex as a drive because social position is the most common way to secure food and sex. Thought their titles and positions imply otherwise, they are not motivated by reason or truth and do their best to insulate themselves from non-supportive feedback.
I think what he says is much less relevant to science, math and engineering where there are objective standards. Though, as someone else pointed out, the hunt for federal and corporate grant money perverts science as well. There are however orthodoxies in science, too and people heavily invested in them. As someone once said: science advances one funeral at a time.
That's it for now. I've got work to do.
Things like this happen every day in my experience. The piece is really about how individual social ambitions subvert or betray stated or named purposes.
I'll buy that. But his assertion is that the university is causing these problems.
That's just bullshit, and that's why I said so.
Brandon Smith is clearly a propagandist, and while I certainly have no issue with that, I think it's sad when you see a piece like this (meaning: so badly off-target) get such a positive response.
How many of the times in history did people benefit when the libraries and universities were sacked? Is it more than zero?
I attended a university with a fairly "left wing" reputation. Even there, there were profs with plenty of common sense, freedom-loving instincts, an open mind, and enthusiasm for what they did. Most of them, actually. The student body was indifferent or hostile to the P.C. crapola, as were many of the profs (!). College was a breath of fresh air for me. The real culprit in the U.S. is High School. That's where the indoctrination, conditioning, and groupthink takes place. Fascist/communist ethos, the Hive Mind. Reguritation of Approved Memes and crushing of independent perspectives. And rememember, everybody goes to High School.
I'll agree with that.
Totally agree with respect to high school - the real damage starts earlier though.
The problem isn't left or right -- many small independent "leftish" schools are intellectually dynamic and open. It gets worse the closer you get to the Ivy League. It's about what's required to access positions of power.
I was "sorta" close to the Ivy League-- but close is no cigar-- and as you must know, H/Y/P is where the real grooming takes place. I was a maverick, but respected because I did the work and tried to engage with the faculty. But access to power? I have worked in the belly of The Beast, and even there, only 1 or 2 people have Power, if that. Ben Bernanke is just a hired hand.... the men who run things live quietly in Manhattan, Hong Kong and London, perhaps Riyadh.... H/Y/P are finishing schools for the top butlers and maids of The System. Downton Abbey awaits.
H/Y/P are finishing schools for the top butlers and maids of The System.
Well said. My use of the word "power" was imprecise but gatekeepers (butlers) have power too--which is why they are carefully vetted.
Public High School most certainly is a culprit (public school in general is). My time in private school was different though. More time to explore, and some different perspectives.
Pointless discussion and the author did not get the idea of education. Education is only 4 things: Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Then there are several their drivatives like Engineeging from Physics, Medical from Biology, etc.
All other degrees are not education but a lifestyle or self-expression. Those Bernankies have the "lifestyle" degrees - so the economy is no longer mathematical but gambling.
That is wrong. The Classics are an education, learning a foreign language is an education. I'm all for Hard Science, but have you seen the first draft of a written work product from an engineer? They'd truly rule the world if they could all write a coherent English paragraph. There are many categories of knowledge. Some are mathematical, some are linguistic, some are about Man and his history, his understanding.
Learning of foreign language is not a degree but a method of communication. I use 2 languages and uni has nothing to do with that.
Writing skills are important but is a method of self-expression. It is important but not a science itself - it is an art.
History is good reading - lifestyle, not science.
I know classmates that learned ("majored") in Chinese, Japanese, Spanish in college, never had the opportunity to learn the language before then-- it opened a new world to them. They work abroad, or in the U.S. as personal bridges between cultures. Communication is pretty damn important to humans, and corporate executives like to hear a greeting in their own language from a business partner-- it, you know, makes them feel good. We are more than chimps wielding the hydrogen bomb.
but but. . . if you're an engineer or a scientist then you can invent great technologies to KILL those people you don't want to engage with - you know the ones who don't THINK like you do, the stupids who studied how to "communicate" with others - why communicate when you can kill, poison, eradicate - and take all their stuffs?? *genius*
I regret I can only upvote you once.
Pointless comment and you did not get the idea of the essay.
Essay is a method to express yourself, to explain your ideas. It is a "pen", tool, not science. My daughter (in uni now) can write an essay on any topic she does not know. But she cannot answer simple questions on understanding.
?
My point was that your comment did not address the central ideas of the piece above. Good luck to you daughter (and mine too).
I'm sorry but, unfortunately, you're dead wrong. I work with several engineers that are brilliant but have no critical thinking skills outside of numbers and therefore cannot be trusted to work in public- in fact I've lost clients over the lack of social skills some of the engineers have. By far the best technical people I've worked with were the ones who had a breadth of knowledge (beyond the math), ironically they are also the same engineers who could spell and form a coherent sentence in a report!
This crap got rolling back in the 60s when colleges were filled up with students who never had any reason to be there other than avoiding the draft for another 4-5 years. Unfortunately, most of those lowest common denominator bozos gravitated to government or academic administaration for employment. And what do we get? These mental slobs run things as incompently as could be expected. Closed minded, never had to meet a payroll or be worried about getting laid off, all the while accumulating better benefits and, now, a higher salary than someone who lays it on the line in the private sector every day.
Along that line, I saw in Denninger's Market Ticker that Drexel U charges $63K/year...huh? WTF is that? Any parent willing to pay that for a 2nd-3rd tier private U is flat out stupid. And any student who wants to be saddled with almost $300K of debt upon graduation is a bigger dumbass.
IIIC (Intellectual Idiot in Chief). I like the way that sounds. :0)
I have a McDegree an order of fries to go please!
Oh yea, through in the McMBA on the side in case I need to get that Head Waiter job.
Full disclosure: I am a university professor, but here is my 2 cents worth.
I would say two very strong forces are destroying universities: 1) Need to raise funds from the private sector and conservative alumni where there is absolutely no interest in free thought. Conformity is pushed by the top brass to maximize fund raising. I know at MIT they regularly try to muzzle Noam Chomsky for his tendency to piss in the fund raising well. 2) The industrialization of education is turning the place into factories of boring students looking for job training not into centres of thought trying to brew radical ideas. It seems obvious to me that when you change the percent of university educated people in your society from 1% to 10% this will happen. Of course, society can't have 10% of its population just brewing up radical thoughts; somebody has to make the iPads and other bullshit consumer goods.
The inference that universities are too intellectual and ivory tower-like in the article is a crock IMHO. They are not elite enough quite frankly. Take the best scholars and put them in research and put the rest in job training polytechnical schools to teach the craft of iPad manufacturing. Too many middle of the road schools should just be teaching, with their professors salaries supported only by tuition. Supply and demand would fix the balooning prices and professors with protected salaries from government support wouldn't exist anymore as long as the loansharking to students is no longer facilitated by government programs to "help students" (get them in debt and support inflated tuition).
The only problem with my theory is in the way you determine who are the top 1%. I admit that would make for some unhappy professors out there, perhaps including me.
I know I will get flamed for this post, so fire away folks.
exibit A for proving the author's points. Holy smokes you couldn't have done a better job.
This is just laughable...
"1) Need to raise funds from the private sector and conservative alumni where there is absolutely no interest in free thought. Conformity is pushed by the top brass to maximize fund raising. I know at MIT they regularly try to muzzle Noam Chomsky for his tendency to piss in the fund raising well. "
You would much prefer to get the money from where? The governments gun pointed at people's heads who are forced to fund you?
All wealth comes from industry whether it is the industry of the small farmer, fisherman, the shoe maker or nike or a Apple or the boutique maker of dresses. You have no choice but to be funded by industry moron. The choice is whether you get your funding through extortion by the state or through the voluntary choice of productive people.
I must say I am more than willing to fund academic research that helps me unlock potential wealth. Shame that profit and wealth have become such dirty topics in too many corners of academia except where the enlargement of the academics' own salary, tenure, and research budget were at issue.
In the old days you had patrons either because you were useful or because you were entertaining.
In the old days, before tenure, professors had to walk and talk the party (read government) line or cease to exist. Nowadays they have to walk/talk the party line (read corporations) to get hired and secure 'funding'.
The bigger the corporate shill the more popular and valuable a prof is.
I appreciate your perspective -- I'm at MIT getting my PhD and i can't agree more with some of your points. I don't understand why people complain about the levels of NIH funding, when the NIH is already funding a lot of very bad research, for example. To keep the industrial/innovation machine going is actually not *that* expensive -- I'm guessing the amount of tangible scientific value that's created is created by a disproportionate amount of few people, and that most (90%+) just do work for the sake of work and publish to stay alive (aka digging a ditch for the sake of a ditch).
The system's broken -- I'd like it to be fixed, but there's no incentive to because so many people are entrenched.
It will be tough to fix but it comes from a misplaced one-size-fits-all wrong think. They want a more educated populace for all the obvious reasons but overall it looks like they tried to convert the monastic system of universities into a factory. You can't just stretch that template. If the point is to increase the level of education and job training I think they would be better off pushing trades and technologists. The problem is all those technical schools aspire to climb the postsecondary education ladder by morphing from good trade schools to bad universities.
We need the institutions that work on industrial problems to simply work on industrial problems - that's where most of the money is anyway, and then you don't need to be concerned with academic freedom. They become industrial researchers/consultants looking for short term solutions and training for young people - because this work is always biased it has less universal value for society but it makes up for that by serving short term needs of the funder. A lot of incremental discoveries come from industry work so it's not all bad. The bigger existential problems about politics, society, the environment, grand challenges and the meaning of life should be handled by a much smaller number of top organizations to give us things like the Manhattan, Apollo, Bletchley Park, Haber-Bosch and things industry can't pursue due to risk or cost.
The bloat in costs has been driven by the transfer of government money destined for education toward useless mediocre research, and the increasing fraction of university staff not involved in teaching. The competition for funds puts the universities into a huge game of spin and publicity, not to mention the educrat mandarins interacting with government. Professors are amazingly disinterested in money compared to most people, so it is easy to engage them with modest salaries if the intellectual challenge and respect is there.
Wrong-think?
So much for diversity of thought.
That's mild hyperbole there.
What kind of diversity exists in a one-size-fits-all solution?
None. Problem is: all the middle grade places have leaders who only get huge bonuses if they claim to be putting Smallville U on track to compete with Stanford in the next quarter. There is a heirarchy in Universities that teaching is for the poor researchers. That is poison to the system.
All institutions/organizations have a certain amount of "stupidity" built into them because of the rules that are created to manage how the participants can interact. Organization into structured groups causes "functional stupidity" because rules can't think.
Schools tend to have it worse than businesses because there are so many conflicting inputs. Parent organizations, government, and faculty unions all have their own rule-sets which are completely independent, and that doesn't even get into the different individual interests.
The process of "standardization" presents a problem when you apply it in any situation.
Bob Paulson-there is nothing humble about your opinion sir. the fact that you say that its the conservatives that stiffle free thought and you praise noam chomsky just proves the point of the article. I live in a college town and wait on these ignorant and arrogant elitists who think they know the answer to everything. it is nothing but an echo chamber of group think. I've sacrificed my tips to challenge them on global warming or the economy or the debt/defict or the fact that the dollar is on the verge of collapse and all i get is "that's just right wing fear mongering who are a bunch of failed supply-siders". These people think that keynesianism is the best way to run the economy and they ALL THINK that capitalism is evil and fidel castro is a misunderstood guy. Try to debate with a teacher about contrary information and in a civilized way and you are attacked instead of given credit for your argument and expand on the discussion. but there is no discussion in school. it's you listen i teach. and what do they say about that those that can't do....they teach. go talk to any one of your friends who owns a business, especially here in Kalifornia, and ask them about these progressive, socialist, collectivist policies, social and economic justice ideas and you will be stunned. Or are you going to label them as greedy. You are going to get flamed because you know you are a closed minded elitist who only cares about your truth and not THE TRUTH. Lastly answer me this. Why do tuitions keep rising while the economy continues to decline? What are you, GREEDY?
Perhaps the reason they ignore you is that you resort to ad hominim attacks and assume they are all alike and that you have them completely figured out.
no sir it is they who resort to ad hominim attacks by calling me a right-winger. when i refer to them as believing in keynesianism that is a economic theory that describes a certain philosophy about how to run an economy via a central bank/ gov't that intervenes. capitalism/free market is an economic theory that describes a certain philosophy on how to run an economy that lets free individuals work together to mutually benefit them and their families to rely on themselves and not the gov't. the federal gov't in a free market set the rules and enforces them, not looking the other way because they gave you a campaign contribution or you used to be a senator and governor of one of the most corrupt states next to illinois. I'm the one who is called a racist and a homophobe because I admit I'm a conservative. They do not care to debate. They want to silence. these are the professors that i encounter on a daily basis, not just label them all. Only the few dozen who are regular customers who drink for hours, don't order any food, and leave you the shittiest tip. they have no clue because all they do is listen to people who say the same thing. they are afraid of confrontaiton. Normalcy bias is a bitch. I should know it took me a long time to get past it.
BTW, my anicdotal evidence comes from my own father who asked me why i stopped going to school. I said i wasn't learning anything and was paying for horrible "education". My fathers answer was, "you don't go to college to learn. You go to prove that you can complete something." Need i say more. My father graduated in 1967 and even then he knew it wasn't about education, but he didn't see a problem with this. Well just what in the hell are people learning in schools other than anti-capitalism, anti-american anti- free market, anti-individual freedom, and a belief that government knows best. When you ask them what their solution would be it almost always begins with, " well the government should......". It is almost instinctive.
"I learned that you don't go blowing things up. If i want to bring down capitalism and america i realized that i had to destroy it from the inside." Bill Ayers
Just some guy in the neighborhood who Obama started his political career in his living room. Who recently at an OWS rally said that everyday he is working to tear down capitalism. He is also a progessor at Northwestern if i remember correctly.
Hey Tyler,
I have really appreciated ZH and steer people here all the time. The glossary is invaluable for alot of people. I would like to recommend having another section called "The Big Picture" or "Get up to Speed" just for newbies and the general financially uniformed where you would link to some of the masterpiece articles (rehypothecation, etc) and others written at the layman's level. For example, there's an article from Ellen Brown last week that is easy to understand for the commoner.
http://webofdebt.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/the-european-stabilization-mechanism-or-how-the-goldman-vampire-squid-just-captured-europe/
I think your website is an invaluable weapon in the fight against the financial tyranny taking place today.
Just a thought.
I've run into the attitude that - If I wasn't taught it in school it's not worth knowing.
Professors who can't fix their own faucets are a good source of income.
The flipside's just as bad, unfortunately. IE: if you went to college to learn something, it isn't worth knowing.
Specialization is what built the economy, though. Capitalism itself couldn't really exist if everyone did everything for themselves.
I'm a good cook, but there does appear to be some kind of compelling reason to go to a quality culinary school.
Exactly. It was Mao who came up with insane ideas like individual workers could construct steel foundries in their backyards and smelt used bicycles into ingots, and the Khmer Rouge that pushed the nonsense of sending professors in the fields while the shoemaker could be in charge of teaching tensor calculus. This is the kind of communist mentality where a somebody with the brains of Shrub could be perceived as a suitable leader.
No society that has open hostility to intellectualism has been great. I believe elitism has its place if it doesn't turn into a plutocracy.
"Qualification" is called "elitism" sometimes. Some folks don't want to accept that there are certain things they aren't qualified to fix, so they fall back on the "elitist" claim when someone wants to exclude them.
I haven't heard of many folks walking into an operating room and offering suggestions to the surgeon or anaesthesiologist, but for whatever reason, EVERYONE feels 100% completely qualified to comment on the most difficult philosophical questions which have ever been formulated.
Along with the "I'm as right as anyone else" notion is the idea that university can't help teach people to be better THINKERS, but what I find interesting is that holding the first belief effectively *prevents* that person from becoming a better thinker. Dismissing ideas or arguments because you "disagree" means that you'll never even attempt to understand them.
And it's our relative ability to understand different ideas that MAKES US INTELLIGENT.
In other words: if you want to teach people to be smarter, you need to expose them to lots of different ideas and ways of thinking, EVEN IF YOU KNOW that some are "wrong" by some criteria. Sheltering people from conflicting/competing ideas is the path to stupidity.
Everyone has had experiences of a teacher/professor dismissing a conflicting or competing idea, and some folks have generalized this to claim that ALL educators dismiss ALL conflicting/competing ideas. Not only is that not true, but it's putting the burden of blame on exactly the wrong group of people--if you think a college professor isn't open to a competing opinion, go ahead and game out offering competing opinions to the clergy, or the politicians, or the parents, and see how receptive to it they are.
An important distinction or observation you make is that just because some professors don't welcome differing opinions doesn't mean they all do, and that the problem of being closed to differing opinions is certainly not restricted to professors.
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ahhh, but sheltering people from other people (and the very notion of conflicting/competing ideas) is a fabulous way to get them to hate each other! and we all know hate is an easy path to war & killing the "other" - win win for those who pull the strings!
I know the maths 'n' science guys will roll their eyes - but some study of cultural differences, with a stern eye to how each "culture" breeds a point of view that defends itself as truth, even in the face of obvious dysfunction - now that would be a great perspective to add to the mix in any professional occupation. . .
I had never thought that this story will become true one day in our morden life and the story i have in mind is
Ray Bradbury's
Fahrenheit 451This article is old news. Allan Bloom wrote about this 25 years ago in his bestseller "The closing of the American mind".
Sad to see that nothing much has changed.
bingo.......
Socrates taught all who would listen, eventually he acquired political enemies ( see : the string pullers and money men) he was brought up on a charges of mind fucking the youth.
He fashioned a parable to answer the charge….. Chaerephon, as he told it, one of Socrates’ friends, went to put a question to the Great Oracle at Delphi;
“Is anyone wiser than Socrates?”
The reply straight away was, no- there is none. Upon hearing this related to him Socrates was taken aback….he knew you see there were things he didn’t know, he knew that there were things he didn’t know- he didn’t know.. Ipso, how could he be the wisest man alive? He figured oput in short order, that it was this very understanding of his own ignorance and limitations which indeed, set him apart.
Quote-
“In my investigation in the service of the god I found that those who had the highest reputation were nearly the most deficient,”while those who were thought to be inferior were more knowledgeable.” The truly wise knows just how shallow and worthless his wisdom is.
Plato's Cave would also be a good analogue.
Don't need no stinkin' SOCRAYTEES, thats just librull brainwashin.
And them greeks is all lazy n' retire when their thurty, what do they know....hyuk.
Problem with the education system is there is no moral code or compass. To educate a criminal is to get an educated criminal......well, Hello Ben Bernanke!
To educate a pervert is to get an educated pervert. To educate a murderer is to get a serial killer who may never get caught. Educated thieves, educated liars, educated extortionist, educated pediphiles, etc.
Too much emphasis on eduction and not character. Honesty, respect, decency, morality, etc. Someone has to teach children right from wrong and not that evil is good and good is evil. Until we get back to this, we will raise another generation of intellectual animals.
....we've gone way beyond crippled; we're sinking!!!
good article. leads me to ask the age old question. Idiots or evil? Considering USSR, East/West Germany, China and every other failed central controlled economy that only lead to the death and destruction of millions and millions of people you have to wonder is it stupidity or shear corruption that leads these people to teach the that sacrifice to the greater good (the state) is the proper philosophy for man.
Separation of economics and state for the same reason as separation of church and state.
Because this time is different.
ooooh, 'twould be sooo nice to have the "separation of church and state" - if only!
I have a BA in economics and political science and my authoritative and very serious answer that can never be disputed is NO. I'd offer some evidence to support my position but you wouldn't understand it anyway..
Students have been conditioned to accept material being taught as being fact instead of it being a "view" of something that may or may not be a fact. We are indeed in trouble as many parents believe the following: My kid knows how to use technology; computers, cell phones, etc., therefore my kid is a genius and our tech advances will continue. This is clearly wrong as the people that invent technology don't have the technology that they are inventing as it isn't invented yet. They have vision, curiousity, and the ability to critically think.
LEGOs are the root of the problem. In the old days, LEGOs consisted of basic shapes and one had to think and try things to make something. Now you pull the LEGOs out and the thing basically pops up for you. LEGO corporation is destroying America!
Funny! My wife and I came to the conclusion some time ago that we would never buy a LEGO 'themed' item that took the imagination away from our child.
The http://rebrickable.com/ site at least gives 'em some alternatives...
Take your hands off my imagination, you damn, dirty Danes.
This explains why historian David Barton is so despised. He is looking at the original source material of the Founding Fathers (and of other eras, such as Reconstruction), perhaps as selectively as the libs have bowdlerized it (I think not, but if he is doing that he's definitely doing it from the other side of the divide). And that scares the living crap out of them.
Repeat after me,
Bush's fault ! Shared Sacrifice! Investment in our future !
What is true, is up to you !
(Voluntary quiz taking will be at three.)
Good job !
It isn't about education but indoctrination. Merit gives way to elitism and "educational brand names". In the end, the belief in government as the be-all-end-all in our lives. At the heart of today's educational system is the destruction of the individual and the rise of group-think and world government.
May I be fortunate enough to be dead before the zenith of this scourge is repelled.
http://vegasxau.blogspot.com
Good post!
The drive of the intellectual elite for stability is actually one of the greatest causes of collapse.
Issues in Scaling Civilization: The Altruism Problem
Personal Democracy: Disruption as an Enlightenment Essential
Academia in the US is a dead weight loss. Hand them all shovels and get something useful out of them.
Shovel ready, Bitchez !
The same can be said of the financial sector and all "financial innovation", shovel ready bitchez!
"Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well. The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion – in the long run, these are the only people who count ... and they are the very ones who migrate when it is physically possible to do so." (Robert A. Heinlein, "Time Enough For Love")
Educational systems around the world produce exactly this: intellectual idiots. As designed, they can produce no other product. No-one can teach you how to think creatively, outside the box, relevantly because the system favors the opposite. Creativity is anathema to most learning systems, as they don't want original answers, they want the expected answer. What is "relevant" is the teacher's decision, the parents' decision, not the student's. Only the rarest student can decide or discover relevancy on his/her own.
"People are fucking dumb." (George Carlin)
And education isn't supposed to smarten them up. It's supposed to domesticate people, keep them in line, corral them like cattle and give them something to do. Because as Carlin also pointed out,
"They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard thirty fucking years ago. You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers. They want people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you try to collect it."
The educational system isn't broken once you realize that education isn't one of the goals. And this is not a US-specific problem.
Modern Times is all about applying Blue Collar Supervision to White Collar Jobs. All about imposing Industrial Mass Production technique to Service Sector businesses and stamping out cheap standardised products at low average cost
"Has America Been Crippled By Intellectual Idiots?"
We could ask Paul Krugman or Ben Bernanke that... their answer should confirm your worst fears.
But in truth the answer is 'no' ...America, like Europe and Japan, has been crippled by monopolists... both the (private) monopoly on money and the monopoly on society that is 'democratic Government'
We should ask these elite men (parasites) hiding behind these monopolies for account of their destructive and deranged power games
Stop Paying Your Taxes ...don't feed these suckers
I've been convinced for sometime that finding a use for the abandon big box and grocery store buildings would make me millions. Of course I'm not that bright. Past few months in my area they are opening up schools and colleges in them left and right. So I'm thinking when the student loan bubble pops (very soon) then all those buildings will be abandoned again.
Lately we have more colleges and tech institutes than gas stations and churches. Bubble? No, it's the future of America hahahahahahaaha.
Education in the U.S. is manipulated by the Federal Government, which in turn is manipulated by its Puppet Masters. Appointment to Presidency of Elite Universities is a selection process by the puppet masters. The CIA has been actively involved in propagandizing and controlling the faculty for over 50 years. You simply install "your people" in key positions and the lower level lemmings will follow.
George Carlin nailed it years ago. America's educational system is not producing free thinkers. Instead the system teaches conformity and obedience to a "Club" that took over the U.S a hundred years ago.
Don’t know where Brandon got his “smarts”, but any decent college includes liberal arts and the critical reasoning skills which are inherent in just about every course, philosophy-analytical, history-research, math -logic, anthropology -comparative.
Contrary to Brandon’s alleged points and often mode of argumentation, proper formal college education teaches one to recognize illogical and unreasonable arguments:
Appeals to authority, over-generalizing from a specific, ad hominem argumentation, disputation by source instead of content, ethnocentric bias, etc.
Those who rail against “liberal arts” as irrelevant are foolishly mistaken.
Those who believe the primary purpose of a college education should be to train one for employment are also mistaken.
Yes, “colleges” have become businesses. Yes many of the community colleges and business colleges emphasize job training over critical thinking skills.
Yes, the military and large corporations are greatly bending research and corrupting scholarship to suit their purposes - and have been doing so for some time.
Blaming formal education as being the cause of faulty education is misleading,
It fails to argue for and defend proper formal education where it too rarely occurs,
and fails to recognize the nature and sources behind the current system-wide mis-education.
The solution this educational mess is NOT “informal education”.
Hey blah blah blah. You learned good.
Here's what I used to tell these professors: "Shut the fuck up."
. . . aren't you just precious. . .
Great expository. As someone who has spent thirty years split between Academics and the high-tech business community I can pretty much sum up modern academics: all about money and power. Your credentials as an academic are entirely based upon the amount of money you have raised for your labs. I have watched many Nobel prizes go to the the people who raised the money to build a lab that made the discovery. The prizes went to the salesmen, not the Academic. The Chancellor of a respected university that I am associated with published over 500 papers, spoke at over three hundred conferences, wrote five books and ... you know the rest. This person received hundreds of honors and awards. How the heck can you publish a paper a week and do any research? Newton published what ... two books?
I think you mean money and ego. Power is an illusion.
"Has America Been Crippled By Intellectual Idiots?"
Yeah, they are called liberals.
education has become indoctrination. Don't believe me? If you can be honest, is journalism liberal or conservative? How about law? How about college professors themselves? I spent several years in college, and with rare exception, it was nothing but a cesspool of idealism. Kids in college have yet to experience the real world (except for those shitty MTV shows). Once reality meets idealism....we adults know what wins out. I believe it was Churchill that said "if you are young and conservative, you are heartless....if you are old and liberal, you are a fool".
The Universities have been politicized over the years while they have had all meaningful scientific research stripped away. Previous to Reagan University research was, what we would call today Open Source, it was called public domain back then. Reagan changed all that, privatizing research, he privatized most of the open scientific inquiry from the Universities which were up until then the scientific leaders of the world; places like U.C. Berkeley, MIT, and CalTec created the technical revolution that we still enjoy today but American scientific leadership has been all down hill thanks to the Reagan administration. Then we get the political appointments, economics "chairs" that are funded by "private" organizations and law professors who are little more than political hacks. Sad.
I did not look at the thread, but the classic quote on this topic in my mind is:
There are some things that are so absurd only an intellectual could believe.
sschu
Educational news from Florida, this week, has been depressing. The U. of Miami is getting rid of its medical program. The U. of Florida is ending its computer science curriclulum. Eric Holder is having the Federal Justice Department sue the Jacksonville fire department for administering tests in its promotion process claiming that test results are discriminatory. Education is in descent the federal government is aiding and abetting that descent.
That blonde in the front probably will have to work in the porn industry to work off all that college loan debt since it is really difficult to find jobs.
She's a White House Aide preparing for her own Weather Channel show.....
The educational system has been purposely designed to stifle character, morality, critical thinking and creativity while learning subservience to the system so that the "best and brightest" soldiers can be employed by the elites "armies" in order to execute their "battle plans" for ruling the masses: intellectual idiots-no, amoral psychopaths-yes!
It's a good thing I'm smelf smart........... :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAlBvxjApf4
brandon - you have distinguished yourself today as the cream of the cream of the crop. you and george washington (the blogger) should be president and vice president with mike kreiger and charles hughes smith as prominent cabinet secretaries.
your article coruscated with wisdom.
as the stanford educator of the early 20th century said (forgot the name), the purpose of higher education is to create nails suitable for use in the commercial constructions of the plutocrats.
the educated fucktard has destroyed america. i am not anti-knowledge or even necessarily anti-education, but education has limits and should be looked upon with skepticism and at times derision. economic implosion has not occurred on the watch of high school drop outs.
That photo makes me wish I had a bottle and a steamroller. take care zh bitchez
No where is collectiveism more prevalent than on our glorious television screens. Every morning my son likes to watch Scooby Doo on boomerang, a cartoon network (and probably MTV run) channel. Every morning, and throughout the day, there is this damn commercial to stop bullying. Shit man, I was bullyed in school. I bullyed in school. What did Ido when faced with adversity? I fought against it. Every damn day kids are shown these useles commercials that teach them to not fight back, don't stand up for yourself, let the "teachers" handle your issues. It is coming from the ground up these days. I grew up with action cartons like Transformers, G.I. Joe, Batman, and X-Men. Fighting, action, none of this submissive garbage.
I am beginning to fear that the Millenials are going to rebuild this country under the guise of collective fascism. A technology fueled society that is always controlled and monitored by the state. One with no true liberty or individual voice or accountability. Come on 4th turning, lets get it rolling so I can be closer to death when it is over as I fear we will see the death of liberty.
"I am beginning to fear that the Millenials are going to rebuild this country under the guise of collective fascism."
Ya think?
Yeah man I think its gonna happen. Nothing new under the sun here.
What did Ido when faced with adversity? I fought against it.
Yes but you were trained to Survive and Succeed. They want to feminize so they get a docile population who will weep not fight.
Life is about overcoming obstacles, surviving pain, never giving up. It is about setting out to win. Nature is there to kill us unless we resist.
After reading the first few paragraphs of this article and skipping the rest and skipping all of the comments, I am so happy I dropped out of college after my sophomore year.
College is a great place to party and fuck young coeds and do drugs but it sucks for eduction. Ask Bill Gates. Or the ghost of Steve Jobs.
Now, can I have another drink and a bong hit? I know it's happy hour somewhere.
Very perceptive. Two things in particular stood out:
"The Intellectual Idiot assimilates every bit of information he is given at the university level without a second look. He simply assumes it is all true, and if something appears mismatched, it is only because he does not yet fully grasp it."
The other:
"I have seen lawyers, doctors, engineers, and even politicians devolve into sniveling toddlers when they are derailed by an argument beyond their ability to tap-dance around. Their middle of the road persona evaporates, and the real person erupts like an ugly pustule"
Yes, it can be quite a sight. The amusing thing is that, at some point, depending on how far gone they are, they wake up and realize that they have been incoherent ranting fools - i.e., the very thing they accuse us of being. Then they really hate you.
When the student loan bubble bursts, the money to pay for all these academics will evaporate.
are there idiots in college? sure in this country does conformity allow for an easier career track? sure, that being said, its not like college doesnt have its share of bright independent thinking combative people however. The problem I mention above is, that being an independent critical thinker can often be career suicide. So those that rise to the top in this country are very likley the narrow thinking ass sniffing conformist you speak of.
I am getting my PhD right now in anthropology. If I wrote in my thesis what I actually thought, I doubt I would finish my program. My tendency to fight the establishment almost had me dismissed twice during the coursework phase. Will I rise to the top? Probably not, considering that I don't believe everyone else unthinkingly, or even myself at times. Blind pride is very important in appearing as though one knows it all. Anthropology has a history of occassionally thinking outside the box, however its sad that my so-called liberal intellectual advisors can't seem to come close to that ideal. I still hope for an academic job however--I think that the mis-education needs to be de-fused from the inside out. What better than disemminating ZH ideas on the inside of the Ivory Tower? I hope that the educational bubble doesn't pop as I am job hunting, but I have a sinking feeling. . .
It is not what you actually think, it is what the data actually tells you....
Do you have the data to back up your assertions? Is the work original enough for a Ph.D.?
If it is only what you think, you should be in Philosophy....
PS I have a Ph.D.....
I am doing the "data-collection" now, but for anthropologists the data are interviews, people's attitudes, and observations accumulated by living a year among your research participants (could be a remote tribe, an inner city gang etc.). My job is to search for patterns and interpret what is there. I often think of it as empirically grounded philosophy or theoretical journalism. The patterns are certainly there objectively, but how I interpret them is where the personal thoughts come in (and so do the arguments with advisors). I study substance use and abuse, so the explanations are quite existential/philsophical. What it comes down to is that my assertions must be backed up by what is recorded verbatim in my interview transcipts. I don't know in which field your Ph.D. is, but the process for anthropology is odd. . .it is much more field oriented than history or philosophy, but the data are much "softer" than engineering, physics etc.. . for what its worth.
Statistics and control samples in the field of human study are difficult... And there are some questions which are very difficult if not impossible to anwser/address in an empirical way...
Hey, there is alot of bullshit in academia (but not nearly as much as in the business world, from experience) and getting a Ph.D. is not for everyone, nor should it be... It all depends on your intepretation of the value system....
As a guide, soft data implies soft conclusions...You have defend your conclusions with your data, otherwise it is merely rhetoric....
PS Mine is in physics, but I know a number of psychology, sociolgy and geography Phuds....
The CIA makes up half the audience in those meetings. You have to go to a junior college. In Santa Monica our stupid teacher tried to bring up Tryvon/Zimm and none of the 35 students wanted to hear the bull. He quickly dropped it as if he got caught acting like an idiot. You're out there in the sticks preaching to the decendents of 10 generations of cousins.
Come to Santa Monica or Venice and make that speech bro.
You Do realize that when you say "Santa Monica," one immediately thinks you work either for Bill Gross or for Michael Milken (who went to Penn with me)?
Is it even possible for hair to grow on brain tissue?
If it's cancerous, sure.
No, not "George Soros" funded, but "The Family" funded (about Kony)...
Very silly post, Tyler.
And very "generational warfare" promoting.
Attending a top-ranked educational institution, particularly one with a large percentage of students from abroad, encourages one to think freely and independently and not "follow the herd."
One certainly can educate oneself and become an independent thinker. But with most mass media in the hands of the Intentional Dumber Downers, I believe it is harder than it once was.
And note that most of the Rogue traders who made billion dollar mistakes for their firms were non-top University graduates, self-educated and arrogant little boys whose anti-social tendencies had been permitted to fester.
"Attending a top-ranked educational institution, particularly one with a large percentage of students from abroad, encourages one to think freely and independently and not "follow the herd.""
Perhaps more freely and indepently than if you just kicked around in your own neighborhood for life, but not more than if you set with a serious plan to educate yourself.
"One certainly can educate oneself and become an independent thinker. But with most mass media in the hands of the Intentional Dumber Downers, I believe it is harder than it once was."
That's ridiculous. No one ever became self-educated paying attention to the mass media. Any person can find far greater opportunities for self-education via the internet, so if anything, it's far easier than it once was. It's a simple matter to find great texts, audio and visual material, articles and other material of all sorts from countless sources, on any variety of subjects.
"And note that most of the Rogue traders who made billion dollar mistakes for their firms were non-top University graduates, self-educated and arrogant little boys whose anti-social tendencies had been permitted to fester."
So you're cherry-picking "rogue traders" for this uber-silly anecdote? Most all of the fools and miscreants making the decisions on major financial and economic and related political matters in the U.S. today are products of "top-ranked educations institutions."
And how is this "generational warfare-promoting"? Oh, you see education as something "done to you" at a "top ranked university" from age 18 to 22, as opposed to something you undertake for life.
Frankly, you sound EXACTLY like the "type" of person Tyler was describing. You even included the obligatory idiot intellectual ad hominem "progressives" and their ilk always do, i.e., "that's racist", "that's chauvinist", "that's generational-ist", blah blah blah.
I think most people here are well aware of who I am and that I was one of the few Voices in the Wilderness defending Political Centrism when it was very unfashionable to do so.
I believe I am both Conservative and Progressive.
And your comment that an all-Internet education is likely to be more valuable than any other kind is quite simply disingenuous.
"quite simply disengenous" huh? Okay Madam Pampadour! LOL!
The ol' straw man fallacy now huh? Who said anything about an ALL internet education? You said becoming self-educated is tougher, merely because the MSM has become more lacking. I said that's an absurd statement because in that same time we saw the advent of the internet which more than made up for the decline in the MSM and because the reliance on the MSM for your education is insane. That's all. Either the internet or MSM, or even both, are of neglible value by themselves. YOU'RE the one who suggested otherwise (go back and read what you said regardign the MSM and education.)
I've studied at a number of colleges for almost thirty years, here and there, and have two bachelor's degrees and a master's from "top ranked universities." I've learned far more outside of them, and had I bought into all the crap much of my education since then would have entailed unlearning much of what I learned at college (at times, it has.)
Aside from the classes I've taken in mathematics and the physical sciences, which were excellent, most of the rest would have been worse than worthless had I simply accepted the absurd dogma being spewed from the instructor and in the texts - but I rejected most of it, unlike almost all of my fellow students who bought the dogma wholesale. I was able to do so because I'd educated myself enough to see it as tripe and dogma and had practiced critical thinking from a young, rebelious age. Few young people today have the education or critical thinking skills to withstand the onslaught and simply accept all the garbage unquestioningly. Why do they lack these skills? Crappy schools that teach anything BUT critical thinking.
College and the internet are simply TOOLS to in the life-long process of educating oneself, and their are many tools. By far the best is your own brain, and the willingness to think critically and question things.
Everyone knows who you are? That's an argument? An eppeal to your alleged popularity with the herd? LOL!
You consider having defended "policitical centrism" as something to brag about? Since when was it "unfashionable", Madam Pomp, to defend political centrism? Do you mean just here. on this blog? Because that would still be "unfashionable" and you're doing a really poor job of it.
Defending, and wallowing in, the murky middle is essentially what this article was decrying. Rightfully so.
Like I said, you sound EXACTLY like the type Tyler penned the article about, and reveal that more with each statement you make.
BOO!
LOL! You up arrowed your own post!
BTW, that stilted, affected language you use doesn't make you sound smart, silly, it makes you sound like a pompous ass trying to make up for a lack of any substance.
nutgnimpriuhhtispnc
when's the last time we've seen a campus on a university demonstrate/ fight the status-quo as in the 60's? precisely! some fifty years ago,... and that my friend is the genesis of a ubiquitous big-brother's perverse thought control gone wild!
they've [who are they?] taken away abstract thought and substituted critical thinking with a dogmatic homily of pseudonym's,...
Well thats it... I am outta here for 10 days.... Aer Lingus flight 108 JFK to Dublin...
Maybe I'll send a postcard from Dromoland castle....
Ta Ta....
Not staying for the World Congress on Water, Climate & Energy 2012? Mary-Rose Rushe is going to be so disapointed.
All I need to know is if someone is in denial of global warming, or in support of government bonds, to know if that person has gone full retard.
Bonds are in a bubble. Fact.
CO2 deflects infrared. Fact.
Human-industry CO2 dwarfs natural CO2 release. Fact.
Gold money has no counter-party risk. Fact.
Sheeple can't handle this. Their brains implode at the mere SUGGESTION of anything like what I wrote. despite the opposite being an attempt at suicide.
...if you ask them ''is the Truth a choice'' will they say ''no''?
...if you ask them the meaning of life will they say ''love''?
In th case of the meaning of life the dipshits will say 42, and they will argue that there is no Truth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iCX96zS5zU