The educated gulf is widening.
No, not the education gulf between those with college degrees and those without. I mean the type of basic knowledge that was a mainstay of anyone professing to have an education.
I spend time, probably too much time, on Twitter. And, for now at least, it’s possible to bandy words with ideological opposites when they dare venture forth from their echo warrens. Granted, the audience is partially self-selecting, so by no means is this more than just personal experience. That said, I fear there’s a trend here.
By and large, people aren’t just undereducated, they are maleducated.
The West used to have men that knew her past and her roots, her stories, legends, and myths. It was a mark of an educated man that he could speak of Greek myths, Roman wars, Medieval Kings, Renaissance Art, and touch on Europe’s grand and glorious history. Vocabulary well exceeded the sixth-grade level we are currently inundated with and seeped in as part of modern common visual parlance. News, advertising, instruction manuals (when not written in undecipherable Engrish), signs, anything in the public sphere that is written is aimed at a reading level lower than high school.
It gets worse.
The Greeks aren’t taught. The Trojan Horse still remains part of the shared touchstone, but far too often people wonder if that’s a type of condom.
The Romans aren’t taught. Ask around about gladiators. For too many, their education starts and ends with the movie Gladiator.
Answer this truthfully and without doing a search: Do you know what it is meant by a Procrustean bed?
If you are reading this blog, I’m going to assume you do. Now, to continue with this scenario, if someone accused you of fitting yourself to a Procrustean bed of Politically Correct thought, how would you react?
Aside from being ignored, my most common response received has been my opponent basically saying “Ooooh, big words there, you have no argument so you’re just putting on airs!” But with more typos.
I cannot express sufficiently in words my utter disdain for them. Progressives are the most maleducated lot I’ve run across. Ignorance is one thing, but open hostility toward what once was part of the common knowledge of anyone educated? It’s perverse and obscene.
Worse, it means the common ground we once had is shrinking at an alarming rate. Those that concern themselves with chimeras of micro-aggressions and multiple genders while assigning guilt according to a constantly shifting landscape of imaginary sins retreat further from the past and sanity.
We have fewer means with which to communicate.
We don’t have a common history.
We don’t have shared myths and legends to facilitate communication.
We don’t even speak the same language.
It will come to war.
“Those that concern themselves with chimeras of micro-aggressions and multiple genders…”
I thought about this when I saw a series of tweets from some fake American congresscritter who had taken over the DNC Twitter for the day.
NOw, given the opportunity to reach millions, backed by the authority of one of our major political parties, what would *you* address?
She talked about one of the major crises and opportunities of our day: how the cost of feminine hygiene products denies women a fair shake in our society.
She could have addressed human trafficking or the responsibilities of parenthood or how our modern drug abuse epidemic is a too-human response to the hopeless despair of having everything and being needed for nothing.
Instead, she talked about tampons.
Our entire public discourse is a farce.
“Our entire public discourse is a farce.”
Yes, yes it is.
Tampons are part and parcel of any general goods store. People sell reusable cloth tampons if the exceptionally cheap products are too expensive for whatever reason.
Clown world sucks.
#FreeTampons is a perfect example of how if you make X* the most privileged class in evar, even by an order of magnitude, X will still find something to bitch about. Give them (us) everything, and they (we) will still bitch that everything is not enough.
It’s enough to root for the SMOD sometimes.
* in this case, modern Western women, who are by any objective measure the most privileged, the most pampered, the most nurtured class in human history. And yet have no concept of their good fortune.
Counting blessings used to be a way of life.
Now, people count their micro-triggerings
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Say something like the University Board of Regents, comprised mostly of former football stars, was niggardly in its budget for the fencing squad and most will think you are making a racial crudity.
I remember not long ago, people were freaking out about black holes being racist.
These are not serious people. You cannot build a civilization with such people.
I’ve heard the word procrustean, I think, but no idea what it means. Am pretty good at guessing the questions on Jeopardy though.