re: #225 recusancy

Some here blame it on “intellectuals lecturing from their ivory towers”.

The ivory tower is where society keeps people like me. It is better for society and it is better for me.

Though to be fair we are at a point now where America is so devolved and there is such a revolution of lowered educational expectations, that we are thrilled when the average American can program a microwave oven.

Turning seriously, the ivory tower, is where people know stuff like advanced mathematics, physics, engineering, biology, history and the great works of literature are assumed to have been read and cherished. The ivory tower used to be a metaphor that was said with some contempt, but the people showing the contempt at least knew enough to know what an actual education is.

These days, please. We have something like 40% who think that evolution didn’t happen. We have something like 50% who think the GOP cares about the little guy. We have something like 30% who couldn’t find Peru on a map.

The ivory tower - real education? I have no idea what the actual numbers are, but I would guess that 95% could not manage calculus, let alone actually advanced mathematics. 95% probably could not tell you anything meaningful about the Ming emperors or how they were different from the Han emperors. Maybe 80% could not manage a language other than English - unless they came here from another country. Hell, 50% can barely manage English. What percentage has even heard of a great English writer other than Shakespeare? How about some great French novelists - let alone read and enjoyed them?

Nah we are a nation that had so very much post war prosperity and has been insulated for so very long that we were able to safely shed the need for real education to survive (or so it seems) for a time. Soon, nations that value it, like China and India will eat our lunch.

Washington is the only capital in the civilized world today where there is a debate about whether or not we should take climate change seriously. We are the only nation that so despises its scientific class that it sells most of its best inventions to others to produce them. We are the only nation in the civilized world where there is a debate about evolution. We are the only nation in the civilized world with so much information so available for so many and used by so few.

If you think about it for half a second, the net is the greatest tool for data collection ever created. I wonder how much of it is used for porn. Is it 50%? 60%? I don’t know. But I do know it is rather like being able to go to the Library at Alexandria and seeking out the Egyptian smut section.

No sir. We are so far removed from as a nation, from an actual Ivory Tower that even being able to manage a balanced checkbook is a mark of erudition.