The soul-destroying effect of an elite education

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/views/story.html?id=21065ebc-a2d2-4145-ae15-b5ce54245c82

by cadalac • 18 years ago

14 19 18 years ago

Am I to understand that this article's point is that Barack Obama is dumber than Sarah Palin because she's self taught and he went to an Ivy League school?

This is still HN right?

hugh2• 18 years ago

The article says nothing about Palin or Obama, why bring that up? In any case, Sarah Palin graduated from the University of Idaho (after transferring around a few different schools).

All of which proves... well, nothing.

foulmouthboy2• 18 years ago

From the article's conclusion:

The preceding rant is to be taken merely as a preface to something shorter and more aphoristic I wanted to say about commentary on the U.S. election. It has to do with the comparison that is made, usually by insinuation but often overtly -- throughout the mass media, and especially in the elitist mass media -- between the educational backgrounds of Barack Obama and Sarah Palin.

noonespecial• 18 years ago

"There are students who can't be stopped, and there are students who can't be started. The latter have always been more numerous."

Best thing I've read so far this week.

maximilian• 18 years ago

I agree wholeheartedly with this and it is a problem I face 3 times a week in the class I teach. At a fancy elite university most students tend to do very well and study a lot. Here, not so much. I'm grading exams, and 1 student out of forty got the "harder" problem correct.

I study a lot for grad classes and its been one of most satisfying experiences I've had. Studying what you really love lights such a fire inside, i hardly believe it.

ors233• 18 years ago

Why is this rubbish being linked by hacker news? This is a barely-comprehensible, illogical rant. There's nothing wrong with being self-taught, but I'm getting sick of this anti-intellectualism. There's nothing wrong with learning how to teach yourself more efficiently, either, which is precisely what modern liberal education proscribes. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_education)

TrevorJ2• 18 years ago

Practice and principle are often to very different things.

ors233• 18 years ago

And..? Please state what you're trying to insinuate, so the rest of us can learn from your knowledge.

phony_identity• 18 years ago

Tip: http://thesaurus.reference.com//browse/proscribe

omouse• 18 years ago

Could also be titled, "Why I stopped reading newspapers".

sdurkin• 18 years ago

...What is this? It's illogical, offers no evidence to support its thesis, and is more pretentious than anything I've read in a long time.

time_management• 18 years ago

This finish ruined an otherwise B-minus curmudgeon-y article:

It has to do with the comparison that is made, usually by insinuation but often overtly -- throughout the mass media, and especially in the elitist mass media -- between the educational backgrounds of Barack Obama and Sarah Palin.

Few people really care that Obama went to better schools than Sarah Palin. I certainly don't. We care about the fact that Obama is significantly smarter than Palin, and accomplished a lot more with the opportunities he had, rather than washing out of four undergraduate colleges.

In what is Sarah Palin self-taught, anyway? Shooting wolves from helicopters? She's obviously uncomfortable with ideas that challenge her narrow worldview, as her anti-library crusade illustrates.

The soul-destroying effect of an elite education

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