If your kid a got a full ride scholarship to Harvard, would you be happy?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Jul 20 2007, 01:52 PM) [snapback]482325[/snapback]</div>

You need to look at the "root cause" of this disgust.

However, I could probably overcome my disgust with a free ride....

 

Would you mind elaborating a bit, about the disdain for the intellectual elite?

I may be totally clueless, but how is this manifesting itself? I'm in the Bay Area, which in some ways is a big college town; I may be somewhat insulated.

Maybe it's not such a bad thing? The reality of it is that, we need people at all levels of experience and skill.

Not everyone can be #1. Not everyone can be boss. Somehow we're being taught that everyone can, and that's a lie. Better off for individuals to find this out sooner than later, so their expectations and reality won't be in discord.

And there's nothing wrong with *not* being #1, either. The vast majority of us will not be, despite what we see on TV (the characters' occupations would, in real life, not normally support their lifestyles)

Why *should* everyone seek to be a member of the intellectual elite?

Besides, there's lots to be said for vocational education.

I mean, finding a quality contractor is about as difficult and important as finding a good dentist or good attorney. I don't think vocational skills should be cast as 'inferior' to business skills...that's what rubs me wrong about the whole blue vs. white collar thing.

 

agreed on the root cause statement...

In ever society you have several different class systems. One is based on this perceived intelligence. Another is monetarily based. Yet another could be politically based. Regardless of what those systems are, people generally don't despise the intelligent elite, as you put it, because they're intelligent. Rather, the intelligent elite, through their intelligence, manipulate the system to put them at the top of the other class systems, and that is what the people despise. I can't think of a single person who despises people because they're smart. I can, however, think of a ton of people who hate others for monetary or power reasons (think Bill Gates - everyone hates him ). The fact that these individuals are extremely smart may have helped them get where they are, but it's not the defining reason people despise them.

To prove my point, how many people would despise someone like Hawking? He's definitely in the "intellectual elite", and yet with his focus being almost entirely in academics he hasn't acquired an enormous fortune (although he i very well off) or much power (outside of a small circle of other intellectual elites focusing in physics). People don't perceive him as having greater privileges than themselves, or a better lifestyle, so they don't despise him.

So in short, brains are brains. You could be in Mensa, yet if you worked as a janitor at the local high school people wouldn't think twice about you. It's really what you do with your brains that earns you this position where others will despise you for just belonging to that elite group.

Ps. I would be thrilled. Education anywhere is incredibly expensive. I was lucky enough to have grandparents that bought me bonds every year for my b-day and christmas since i was born... That was wnough to pay for roughly half my education. the other half had to come from merit based scholarships and fellowships.

 

I went to Harvard for 2 years... as a cab driver. B) Used to ferry documents and professors around, in addition to the usual Harvard Square Intelligentsia. Does that count as a "full ride scholarship"?

 

There will always be the good kids, who sit at the front of the class and ask questions and do their homework.

There will always be the bad kids, who sit in back and avoid eye contact with the teacher...and hassle the good kids for being good.

Funny how the good kids don't hassle the bad kids for being bad.

Maybe they should!!!!

----

I think we should start hassling underachievers, and people who don't follow some basic rules of decency, and make them feel a bit ashamed of themselves for the decisions they've made. Especially when they're in school and often under their parents' care...we should hassle the parents too, for being so permissive.

In my neighborhood, I know of a few parents who are actually *afraid to be authority figures,* and instead want to be *friends* with their children.

Guess which kids throw the wild parties and play music really loud? Guess whose kids leave used condoms in my front yard? The kids of the parents who don't have the balls to tell their kids, (what else?) 'NO.'

It's time to take it back, people!!!

Not in the name of religion or morality, but decency and respect for each other as individuals and members of a greater whole. The latter is, I trust, something which we can all agree upon.

Saying 'no' can be cool, and it is definitely patriotic.

----

I don't watch the series regularly, but just once I'd like to see a normal person or family push back on Tony Soprano and his gang, leverage their power, and scare them off. Has this *ever* happened on that show, in all its years of production?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eagle33199 @ Jul 20 2007, 01:27 PM) [snapback]482358[/snapback]</div>

This is true, but I think it has less to do wtih brains and more to do with money.

People are judged by what they do because it equates to how much money they make. A janitor isn't looked down up so much as for his brains or lack thereof but for his salary. If janitors made $200,000 a year see what kind of respect they'd get.

 

Root cause has nothing to do with money or intelligence. It has to do with power and bias

Burritos knows this and this is why he started the thread, I would guess.

When I send my children to college I plan to pay for them to be educated. I define that as learning history, science, literature, etc. through the clear lens of truth. I expect them also to be taught critical thinking.

I will pay extra for them to be spared indoctrination through the lens of political correctness or liberal interpretations.

Here's one a many articles that has some helpful info. and useful links: http://www.danielpipes.org/article/2526

There is also a documentary out called "Indoctrinate U" that explores this issue. I have not seen it.

If you agree with what is being taught, no doubt you do not see bias.

 

If your kid is smart enough to get that full ride scholarship to such an elite school, your kid is probably also smart enough to stand on his/her own two feet and stand up to the liberal brainwashing that's going on at our elite universities these days.

 

I'd be tickled sh!tless. An education is an education, and free is free. If your kid can's sift through the other crap well enough to maintain his personal integrity, then it's you that have not done your job as a parent.

As for the 'intellectual elite', well, I don't think there is any such thing. I think there are just some people that like to think of themselves that way.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(formerVWdriver @ Jul 21 2007, 07:50 AM) [snapback]482749[/snapback]</div>

Whose version of the truth?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(IsrAmeriPrius @ Jul 21 2007, 11:44 AM) [snapback]482771[/snapback]</div>

My child.
My version of the truth. Which does not mean that other points of view should not be presented. I just don't want mine left out.

I want my child exposed to a wide range of thoughts, beliefs and interpretations. Not just one -- the liberal one that is currently the predominant view. That's not education.

My child is smart, can think and will come to his/her own conclusions. But it's a waste of time, money and is potentially dangerous to be subjected to propaganda disguised as the truth.

I want my child to even take classes where the professor says, "I don't know."

 

I've got a few friends that went to Harvard and earned academic degrees. (I just went for the propaganda.) They all seem pretty thoughtful to me.

Well, ok, that's a relative thing... they're more thoughtful than I am.

Then again, maybe that doesn't take much. I'm a conservative, I like being a conservative, and as my kids point out, I enjoy railing against the right-wing radical elite just a little bit more than the next guy.

 

The basic assumption of this thread is why I think the conservatives have it over the liberals. Instead of questioning the basic assumption that universities are liberal by nature, the liberals just REACT to the basic assumption. How about...Universities are pretty well balanced and it is conservative talking points which label univs liberal. Same with the basic conservative mantra that the media in general is liberal. HOGWASH! Most media is owned by conservatives, and the general tone is to bow to the rich conservative owners. By accepting the 'fact' that media is in general 'liberal' allows conservatives latitude to demand it get more conservative than it already is. It's a well known trick that conservatives have practiced for 30 years. Say it's so enough, and it becomes so in the minds of the masses. then you can take a non-issue and bend the tone to 'balance' toward your side even further than it inherently is thereby making the whole issue slant even further toward your side.

As long as liberals allow conservatives to define them and the discussion, liberals will always be running behind the curve.

TAKE YOUR POWER BACK. YOU define yourselves, don't react to what the opposing party defines you as.

For instance: being for abortion rights does not in any sense mean you actually approve of abortion, only that you believe in a woman's right to make decisions regarding her body. First conservatives labeled such people 'pro-abortion' leading the followers to make the link that therefore anyone 'pro-abortion' is 'for' abortion as a means of birth control. (untrue) Then they take it a step further and label themselves 'pro-life' meaning if you are for a womans right to choose makes you 'against life'. VERY WRONG ASSUMPTION, but no matter to conservatives. They have now directed the conversation and liberals are left to a defensive posture. In this example the conservatives were much smarter than the liberals. This goes to many of the talking points conservatives spew with such developed hate. THEY define the subject and their opposition by labeling and self-made definitions.

We as liberals have much catching up to do to be as smart as conservatives. They have been funding think tanks for 30 years, where such strategies sprout forth, and are very way ahead of the game. They dominate the airwaves where the 'working class' listens during work and become indoctrinated. Liberals must wake up to conservative tactics and respond with their own tactics instead of responding TO conservative tactics.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MarinJohn @ Jul 21 2007, 10:19 AM) [snapback]482804[/snapback]</div>

Bingo!

Let me add each of the five Justices who comprise the current conservative majority on the United States Supreme Court has at least one degree from so-called liberal Ivy League schools.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., received an A.B. from Harvard College and a J.D. from Harvard Law School; associate Justice Antonin Scalia, received his LL.B. from Harvard Law School; <span style="font-family:ICDDDECenturySchoolbookCentury">Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy received his LL.B. from Harvard Law School;<span style="font-family:ICDDDECenturySchoolbookCentury"><span style="font-family:ICDDDECenturySchoolbookCentury"> Associate Justice Clarence Thomas has <span style="font-family:ICDDDECenturySchoolbookCentury">a J.D. from Yale Law School; Associate Justice Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr., received his A.B. from Princeton and graduated Yale Law School with a J.D. degree.</span></span></span></span>

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Jul 21 2007, 12:57 PM) [snapback]482797[/snapback]</div>

I'd need to know more about Liberty University before I turned down a full ride, but 3,000 year old dinosaur bones are a problem for me.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(IsrAmeriPrius @ Jul 21 2007, 06:36 PM) [snapback]482914[/snapback]</div>

I also hold an advanced degree from a liberal Ivy League school and am not liberal, as most of you have guessed. Can't explain it. I guess it's because I was too busy having fun to learn anything serious or have my ability to think damaged.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Jul 21 2007, 05:52 AM) [snapback]482325[/snapback]</div>

Sure I'd be happy. But it would still be up to my "kid" whether or not they went.
As it happens, my eldest decided not to go to Uni. He is an apprentice tradesman instead.
My eldest daughter didn't go to Uni either, but is now re-starting her education in graphic design at the polytech. Its too early to say what our 3rd will do.

So, these kids turned their backs on higher education. Even though they are as smart as or smarter than their parents, who both have PhDs. In fact my wife gave up the academic world several years ago also. In my experience there has been nothing even remotely "elite" about being an intellectual or an academic. The pay sucks & people automatically assume you are smug, impractical, and uncoordinated. I went through uni just for the joy of learning, all the way up to finding out things in the lab that nobody else ever knew before. Then I found out that the degree that came with all the fun was a detriment in the working world. So I would typically keep the fact to myself and still got to do cool stuff. In the past decade I returned to academia, still doing cool stuff (a good example you would think), but my kids saw how poorly academics are treated and regarded by others, so why on earth would they want to go to uni when they can still learn and do cool stuff without the hassle?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(formerVWdriver @ Jul 21 2007, 09:50 AM) [snapback]482749[/snapback]</div>

The problem is that reality does have a liberal bias and the truth is just one. Its a problem specially if being conservative means raising your hand when asked if you do not believe in evolution, or this:



<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(formerVWdriver @ Jul 21 2007, 09:50 AM) [snapback]482749[/snapback]</div>

That's your problem right there. No one owns the truth. Truth is external and your college education gives you the tools to find it. You realize if you "pay extra" you are preventing them from being exposed to ideas, which is what you are complaining about in the first place.