So why have an education built around sports and fitness than actual learning ? There needs to be a BALANCE between such things because for a voter in a republic or democracy , knowledge of the wider world and such "impractical" things like history ,geography and civics is needed for a fully-realized citizen.
Apparently you misread the entirety of my last post. I am in no way a proponent of college sports programs. If I had my way, no colleges would ever be allowed to boast over-financed sports teams again. But that's not the point and really had nothing to do with my rebuttal. I can also point out three of four things wrong with your assumption that college education makes people more informed and responsible democratic citizens, but that's a debate for another time.
You can believe me or not when I say this ,but even farming and maintaining better care of the crops and those other "undesirable " jobs need to and should require a combination of a formal and hands-on education. We as a society cannot let people's gifts go to waste nor should we tell them that all their work is nothing and that they should be ambition-less drones in the colony.
It's unclear what you're getting at here. Firstly, most manual labor professions are so specialized that there's almost no demand for formal secondary education, nor should there be. I don't see the professional benefit of a day laborer who has completed thirty hours of history or literature over one who hasn't, except perhaps his cultural tastes which are totally extraneous. Education should be something that is undertaken in an effort to produce enriched, knowledgeable individuals, not a more productive or viable workforce. Your reasoning is actually one of the causes for these "ambition-less drones" you mentioned; there are just as many of those drones with no motivation for advancement or contribution to the progress of society working high-profile business jobs as there are scrubbing floors and picking fruit. This is a symptom not of the job itself but the commercial environment into which we're all coerced after completing compulsory education, and it's mindsets like yours, fixated on the "power and status" distinctions between job tiers, that perpetuate the association of certain careers with positive lifestyle choices and others with shame and failure. How do you think it feels for someone who supports their children as a carpenter to be told that they're a societal failure?
You think "no education = bad job," when really, no education just means "different job." Labelling a job as undesirable is a tactic started by universities and corporate/government employers as a way to compel more people to seek degrees and higher wage positions, because those workers make more money for the higher ups who benefit from having proficient, credentialed employees. You think "bad job = mindless drone" when there's really no difference in slaving away at a manual labor job and slaving away in a field that's generally regarded as more "respectable" aside from things like benefits and social perception. A person with a "good job" is not a better or even necessarily more successful person than one with a "bad job," except merely economically. I know a lot of people who slave away at important, high-earning positions and feel no satisfaction or sense of purpose in what they do, just like I know people who wash dishes and drive delivery trucks and style hair for a living who couldn't be more content. We just don't want people like that to feel satisfied with what they're doing because those jobs don't draw wealth for the people who want more of it.
There is a class system , but it has always existed. You can never get rid of it or make it equal for all. Its in our human nature to want more , and we shouldn't impede our humanity. Some work to the top while others choose to be on the bottom , why punish the former for the latter's lack to get a better life? This is just to put it in simplest terms and no where describes the complexity of it because no one chooses where they are born in. It boils down to a flexible society where people can seek a better life and not be punished for it. This is the core problem of our society.
Sure, but the problem is a vertical class system, where certain types of people are deemed to be better than others because of what they do to provide for themselves and their families. There are many different "classes" of people; different personal traits, different preoccupations, different trades, but we're talking about the denigration of the "lower class" and the presumption applied to them that they're too lazy or apathetic to work hard enough to be successful, and that just isn't fair. For many people it isn't as easy as absorbing propaganda and repeating the mantra: "I will be successful." Millions labor their whole lives and just manage to break even. That's life. Not the "sky's the limit" deceptions posed by those who stand to gain from the ambition of others.
Success is punished and shat upon while the assholes and failures profit on the success of the better men and women via the lack of regulation of these social services.
This is so repugnant and demeaning that I almost gagged. Again, you and your kind are quick to put forth the fallacy that everybody with a minimum wage job and no health insurance are doing so intentionally so that other people will foot the cost. Simply not true, and it's both ignorant and insulting to insinuate that it is. I don't know what kind of life you lead, Bigdog, and I'm not going to attempt to talk at you like I do. I just hope someday you're able to get a glimpse of the really real world where some people can't afford double-breasted Brooks Brothers suits and have internships handed out to them after completing their college requirements in exactly four years. Life is hard, and you're brazenly and unapologetically downplaying the struggle of so many people that it's really hard for me not to think of you as a complete elitist asshole now.
Besides, how the hell is success "punished"? "Success," the way it's defined in modern terms (meaning simply "prosperous" or "affluent" or "having more money than the next guy you're competing with"), means a bigger share of the wealth, more benefits, higher regard by the highly skewed standard of society (and, as a result, more self-importance), a bigger house, a wife with bigger breast implants, and a yard that's closer to an acre. Doesn't sound like punishment to me. And please don't belittle me and anyone else here with a job by proposing the injustices of a progressive taxation system or welfare.
I'll never understand why it's alright to throw billions of dollars away on devastating military armaments that we'll never use but it's a total outrage to lend a helping hand to somebody unacquainted with your serendipitious circumstances. Aren't you people supposed to be obsessed with justice or something...?
What's really punished are the honest "failures," the people who put in seventy hour work weeks to feed the children that they're just as entitled to have and put gas in the car for the sole purpose of transporting them to work again the next week. The same people who are accused by people with your convictions of being lazy, uncaring, worthless parasites who would just as soon let the tax money of other hard-working citizens pay their way. And no doubt people like that exist, but don't feed the folly beast--they're a minority. What's really punished are the lower classes, higher hours, lower pay, no benefits, no recognition, no gratitude, no respect, no mention, no representation, nothing but attacks, lies and slander to line the pockets of the truly "successful." Stick that in your imported hand-polished cut-ivory pipe and smoke it.
Let the people choose , and let THEM individually , not everybody else, pay for it with their own losses. Maybe our society will get some integrity back.
Nobody's integrity meter is going up a single notch until we can break ourselves of the mindset that "more is better." Not until we stop degrading our fellow citizens because of the lives they have no choice but to lead. Not until we discontinue our associations of money ---> power, ambition ---> success, qualification ---> fulfillment. Not until we realize that getting by isn't about competing but learning to coexist. These are people's
lives we're talking about here, not some half-assed game of Monopoly. Show a little compassion, man.
atriotic:
:laugh:
