To test whether somebody really believes in their own ideology or are just picking and choosing from different ideologies to suit and excuse their lifestyle choices or outright hypocrisies, you simply have to look at whether or not they apply their presumed ideology and its tenets universally.
For example the environmentalist types who claim nature should be untouched. Don't pick up that raccoon, if it was meant to die, it will die. Don't prune the deer population, nature will take its course. Of course when it comes to humans, we're not part of nature. And instead of letting us progress and advance as we would unopposed we have to "cut back on our consumption." "Stop emitting greenhouse gases." "Save the planet." Or, on the other side, if famine or plague occurs in some part of the world now we ARE to intervene (which I'm not necessarily against - just pointing out the double standard). We're not left to evolve like our woodland creature friends naturally. Oh no, we're different, we're special, we have to artificially stop our progress, evolution and advancement to the point "Idiocracy" is no longer a mockumentary.
Another example is religion and global warming. IN GENERAL leftists are usually anti-religion. They mock and ridicule it. Oh you fool for believing in a big bearded fellow in the sky. But they'll sure swallow whole all the global warming, environmentalism and "Gaia" BS - failing to note it's nothing more than a religion itself, if not, even worse, just a fad.
And then there's the "social liberal" argument (which I'm for) where we want MAXIMUM social freedoms. Don't tell us what to do and how to do it...as long as it pertains to abortion, smoking pot, and gay marriage. But if it comes to letting people own guns, having a heater in a bar, or driving a 12 cylinder, gas-guzzling sports car, by god, those aren't RIGHTS! Those are tools of fascism and tyranny!!! You can't have THOSE rights! Again, the hypocrisy shines through.
However, while doing a little philosophisizing whilst hiking in the mountains I had another epiphany. An observation of yet another instance of hypocrisy where a group of people advocate one thing, but then completely disregard their advocation when it comes to an issue personal for them. - the DESPERATE need to be "well-rounded."
In general (though not always) people who tend to be for forcing kids to take college classes they don't need under the guise of "it will make you well-rounded" tend to be of the liberal stripe. Not always, but most of the time. These same people, however, are also more likely advocate single-parenthood (mother or father, it doesn't matter, but we'll focus on single moms because that's where the majority of the hubbub is focused). They not only advocate it, but celebrate it and champion it.
But my little economist brain is having a hard time trying to reconcile something.
If you want to force children to take prerequisite college classes so you can milk them for more money...errr.....um..."to make them well rounded" wouldn't you also then be a strong advocate in recommending children be brought up with fathers in order to make them also "well rounded?"
I mean, if the purpose of becoming "well-rounded" is so you can interact and more fully engage society, you would think having a male role model early on in life so that you may effectively interact with half the population would be VERY important. That having SOME experience or knowledge about how the other half of the population acts dishes up more well-roundedness than the Marxist drivel in Uber-Mandatory Freshman English Lit? Additionally, why wait till you're 19 to get "well-rounded?" With a father in the household, BAM! Your lessons in well-roundedness commence immediately. And you get a much more diverse, more well-rounded education than what the colleges serve up. You can learn to change oil, develop a work ethic, self-supportation, independence, self-reliance, charm girls (or conversely) know what those young naughty boys are thinking. College prereq classes are so homogenous with their commie-centric horse-blinder focus, they can't hold a candle to the diversity and well-roundedness a father can provide..
Naturally of course I'm partially joking, but the hypocrisy still exists. And my target is NOT to criticize people who bring children into this world without fathers (or mothers, for that matter). But rather to shine a light as to what's really going on. Understand the majority of people who are forcing you kids to take college prerequisite classes do not do so because they truly believe "it will make you well-rounded." If they believed that and put so much importance and emphasis on it, then they'd also advocate not bringing children into this world in single-parent conditions. Because you want to talk about NOT being well-rounded? You want to talk about being maladjusted? You want to talk about a genuine disadvantage due to a genuine lack of well-roundedness? It isn't because a kid can't cite Dworkin or didn't read enough Noam Chomsky. It's because that kid didn't have a father and is completely dysfunctional when it comes to interacting in the real world.
No, the reason you're being forced to attend classes that are of no benefit to you is because they want your money. You look at the people who benefit most from billions of dollars being spent every year on worthless prereq classes, 9 out of 10 times it's a liberal academian who is deathly afraid of the private sector or working in the real world and has found a little fiefdom by forcing you kids to take his/her worthless and mind-numbing class. You also get the joy of buying his $300 38th edition book (because the 37th edition just won't do) "Post Modernity Social Dynamics Under New Rubric and Paradigm Analysis of Sexist Misogyny." It has nothing to do with your education or making you "well-rounded."
Besides, the truth is, if you have friends, interests, a cool father and just a curiosity in life, you are already well-rounded and don't need any "adjustments" by your collegiate indoctrinators.
9 comments:
The greatest hypocrisy I've heard from the left is that they call nuclear power absolutely dangerous, yet have no problems threatening people to drive tiny death boxes for "energy efficiency". And forget about livable urban areas with no ghetto crime. Ironically, you have to drive to survive in leftist urban cities.
I'm not sure about fathers, though, at least not in the first generation. White knights "respectable conservatives" and empowered women come from conventional families. It's an economically ideal union, but the education isn't so great. Big Ed is funded by these types more than anything else, either directly or indirectly.
I very strongly suspect the lost factor in this equation is the GRANDFATHER. Someone who figured out how to win at women, employment, and life, early enough to survive to see grandchildren. Extended family life >>>>> nuclear families.
Ever notice that the "respectable dad" despises the "creepy" player uncle, his and his wife's old badass fathers, various levels of cousins and in-laws, and even his own brothers and sisters? He just wants to pack his bags and move to a liberal suburb whitopia 500 miles away. There's something to this.
Huh. Ordinary human ideals exploited by massive bureaucratic, parasitic and/or predatory institutions. You don't say.
In other words, the only reason to take "well rounding" classes is because the "well rounding" class professor can't get a job with a Female Medieval Literature Studies in Greek Orthodox Farming degree, except to "teach" others about female medieval literature in Greek Orthodox farming.
Look at what people do and not what they say.
People like to crow about how "so-and-so was a great man."
I say, "Yeah, but he was a sh*tty father."
The sad thing is those well rounded requirement once served a purpose before we gutted high school tech programs and turned universities into job factories. Back when you could get a job, a good job, with a high school education university education meant you were destined to be a leader.
As such your literature course wasn't about lesbian Marxist Latin American revolutionaries or gay cowboys eating pudding but Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Milton. Philosophy wasn't Marxism (again) but Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas. History wasn't the class struggle but actual events that lead to the world in which you lived.
In other words it was designed to teach you how things came to be, how people successfully shaped things, and the kinds of people who inhabited the world. It also taught the limits of power and the danger of hubris. It taught some ways of living were more successful (and thus objectively better) than others.
That eduation is still out there. Get the reading list St. Johns College in Annapolis and Santa Fe or a similar university. Read those books and write about them. If you're really lucky read them with others (yeah, like a book club but without the crap Oprah reads).
However, now days at a university, we can't be bothered with useful classes. Hey, we can't even be bothered with real math but just take "Math for Poets" (which even then won't help them get my change right when they say what most liberal arts majors wind up saying to STEM majors).
So they say, one can't truely be considered "educated" without a "well-rounded" college experience which includes literature & philosophy and women's studies classes. This is why science, math and tech students are required in university to take these fluff classes. I say, don't bother arguing. Just respond with "Yes, I agree completely. However, don't you think arts students also need to be well rounded?" Then suggest that all arts degrees should require a couple of years of math classes (real math, not the 'math-for-psychology-students'-type of crap). The responses one gets can be interesting, illuminating and entertaining.
I remember in college taking a bunch of upper level English courses my first two years, then getting a real job at a newspaper at the end of my sophomore year, which I thought was kind of the point.
Not quite, I learned. When I went back my junior year, my advisor was completely unimpressed because I didn't "follow the program." Telling him I took the courses I needed to get the job I wanted did not change his mind.
That's when I knew they were full of crap and it was just a money grab. After age 18, there is no need for anyone to take any course that does not directly benefit their career focus. I'll even argue that the LEAST well-rounded people are the most successful because they're able to work at 100 percent towards what they want.
-- Days of Broken Arrows
What young people really need to do is prepare themselves for a career and adult responsibilities. As for a "liberal" education; that can be done part-time over many years very cheaply or for free. Western society has libraries, museums, archives, galleries, zoos, public lectures, educational documentaries galore, not to mention all the information available through the internet. All that is required is a guide to navigate the wealth of information available nowadays. Consider that most university libraries in the Middle Ages had fewer books than your typical public library branch today.
What young people really need to do is prepare themselves for a career and adult responsibilities. As for a "liberal" education; that can be done part-time over many years very cheaply or for free. Western society has libraries, museums, archives, galleries, zoos, public lectures, educational documentaries galore, not to mention all the information available through the internet. All that is required is a guide to navigate the wealth of information available nowadays. Consider that most university libraries in the Middle Ages had fewer books than your typical public library branch today.
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