This isn't about the gap between ignorant people and geniuses, I am in fact proud to say that we have, over the centuries, systemically defeated ignorance of all kinds. No, I'm speaking about a more specific, more contemporary, and potentially dangerous gap--the gap between the professors, who pander to each other, and the pundits, who pander to the masses.

Now, it's always been true that most people in the intelligencia really only write for each other, and that pseudoscience has generally been more widespread than actual educated opinion (see-shape of your head indicates intelligence, ergo Jews are less smart). However, during the explosion of college education during the post-war era, for the first time you had people who weren't just really well to do, really educated white guys writing for other rich educated white guys. This created a great deal of potential--we would be able to harness the amazingly huge American education system to increase scientific, historical, economic and political literacy, just like we increased normal literacy during the 19th century.

However, something bad happened. We swiftly got into a culture war which pitted 'normal, hardworking Americans' against 'acid doing college loving hippies'. This led to a lower opinion of colleges in general, leading the more intellectual branches of the liberal arts (History, Literature, Philosophy) to turn inward and write increasingly complicated papers meant to be read by peers instead of by the masses.

What's wrong with that? Can't your average American wake up one day, decide to write a text about his opinions of politics, and make a fortune off of it?

Yeah, he can. There's no problem with that. The problem is that most of the texts we have (outside of a college campus bookstore) are like this. They're lowbrow, meant for the average America, who doesn't care much for philosophy, literature, history or politics. Most of the other books are highbrow--labyrinthine, only understandable to (at the very least) students in the field, and needlessly complicated. This is true for both sides of the aisle--the left's 'lowbrow literature' is just instead put into punk lyrics and t-shirts. And yet again, there isn't any problem with being lowbrow. And with out better political and history texts to read, people assume that reading Ann Coulter, Glen Beck or listening to Crack Rock Steady immediately makes you informed.

However, a society that only has a lowbrow culture and a highbrow culture will very quickly get into all sorts of destabilizing culture wars (remind you of anything?). The same was true, to a far larger extent, in inter-war Britain and in Wiemar Germany. What we need is a reestablishing of a mass culture, which will require both that intellectuals become less pretentious and more straightforward in their work, and that the common man shed his dislike of intellectuals.

edit-in retrospect, culture gap would have been a better name.

Einstein once said,
to speak so only a few can understand you is not intelligence.
but to speak so as to everybody can understand you is true intelligence.

in other words,

keep it simple Stup**

So that I can practice what I preach.

So you got !@#$.

There's dumb !@#$ (which is !@#$%^&*), smart !@#$ (which is !@#$%^&* only it's harder to tell that it's !@#$%^&*), and normal !@#$ (which is ok).
We have too much dumb !@#$, and too much smart !@#$, and not enough normal !@#$. This !@#$'s the same as the !@#$ in Germany, and then Hilter happened, and that was !@#$ty. So we want to avoid that !@#$, and hit up the good !@#$.

Hitler? Seriously? Come on man.

That post is about 40% symbols.

Well !@#$.

This entire thread is I don't even.

Let me know if this summary is wrong:

Intelligent people write for other intelligent people. Average people don't understand what they say. The people who write for the average people do not translate the "intelligent people writing" properly, which leads to problems. Intelligent people need to write so that average people can understand.

What's the college attendance rate in the US? Isn't it higher than it (theoretically) should be?

40% in the US at the moment.




I tend to agree with the OP. People that are well-informed have a couple problems:
1. They express too much certainty in topics that they really shouldn't be. For me, example would be my foreign policy stances when my expertise is more economics and business.

2. Like the OP says, they describe things in ways that are REALLY difficult to understand. Of course, some of these concepts ARE difficult, but...yeah...

3. The well-informed tend to be a bit dickish at people who have errors in knowledge. This is rather off-putting to people who have errors, and discourages them from becoming members of the community. They also tend to be...well...partisan.

4. The well-informed tend to be boring.

5. People that are ill-informed are highly skeptical and view people as elitists and thus don't believe anything even when they are clearly in the wrong.

6. People have WAY too much faith in "common sense" and when something challenges their "common sense" they are rather...uhhh...skeptical again.

Although I find your post generally agreeable, though somewhat elitist, this passage appears to imply that the liberal-conservative divide today is between the educated (liberal) and uneducated (conservative) factions. Frankly, I don't see how you could have come to this conclusion. Sure, the modern college student is usually liberal, as is the average college student, but, from what I've seen, the modern entrepreneurs and successful businessmen are much more libertarian in their economic views. In addition, more Americans voted for Obama in the presidential election, which doesn't support the image of a handful of educated liberals fighting off the rogue and uneducated conservatives. Of course, I cannot provide no theory in which one deciding factor divides the liberals and conservatives, and honestly I'm not sure if there is one. However, it's safe to say that, in either party, "straight talk" will get one elected over a "highfalutin' politician," so it's only logical that the "intelligencia" trying to persuade one another no longer matters, but rather the political leaders today only attend Congressional sessions to fight tooth and nail with one another before returning to the campaign trail, the real "battlefront," and where modern policy is decided. Of course the only solution to this is to institute voting requirements, my recommendation being that in order to vote, one must either 1) pay taxes or 2) have a high school education. These requirements aren't too strict, since a high school education is provided free of charge by the government.

Well, that became a ramble. I only stumbled into reading this topic; I got lost searching for a Civil War one

That was not the implication. The prevalence of fundamentalism and of the idea of science being biased are parts of this, and the idea that there is a fight between those arrogant professors and ignorant idiots. It's a false dichotomy, that's the point of what I was writing.

My apologies, then, as you can see I agree with that sentiment.

In theory people should be poorly educated?

The more people receiving higher education, the better.

Have you been to college? There are plenty of people who would be better served learning a trade than going to parties and blowing off schoolwork (myself maybe included). When I or GV say that there are too many people going to college, we don't mean they should necessarily stop at high school, just that they may be a better fit with a more focused degree from a not-quite-college.

And that issue is inextricably linked to how our society generally views bachelors degrees as a requirement for most forms of employment (or at least most that start above a certain pay rate).

That's not to say that when those people who "shouldn't go to college" can't mature and come back for a degree in whatever they want later, either. And you should never let school get in the way of your education, anyway.

What this person said. I am not really convinced that college is a good investment for everyone and their brother

It's not worth it for... who? The middle quintile who gets their beginning credits from community college, then goes to a slightly better college for a degree? One who gets their degree from a middle-tier university (cheap), an expensive private school? One who gets it from a top-tier public university (like me) or top-tier private school (you?).

What exactly do you recommend for these peeps if they are capable?

Anyone that doesn't want to put in the effort and get marketable skills in a lecture format. It's not so much the type of school, it's more-so that many people do not have the cash or the willpower/attention/whatever to do a traditional 4 year program.


Also, I hope this doesn't affect your opinion of me, but I didn't go here. I went here D:

It is rather difficult to measure personal growth and the value of knowledge with your silly "economics" equations, yes.

I understand this. I am not convinced that these benefits are not things that are attached to the person naturally. Pre-selection, etc

Well if you're talking about people who go to college out of peer/parental pressure and don't finish, making it a complete waste of money, then yeah I'd agree. But a huge portion of people who go to college don't even know what the hell they want to study, and afterwards they don't even know what they would want to do. How could you expect someone to know this information when they're 18-year old high school graduates and pick the correct vocational school, or the correct employment path?

and, pfft, not even Urbana-Champagne? Slacker . In any event, in two months, I hope to be carrying a nice diploma from what (a probably completely unreliable) institution rated as the 17th best University in the world, completing it in 3 1/2 years.

I should've just become a drug dealer instead

It used to be going to college was an indicator of higher intelligence and status. Then the whole "that's not fair to the <insert group here>" and colleges began focusing less on the education they are providing and more on the numbers they get enrolled and the income they are generating. This is a bad thing I think from the perspective of the student as this really has reduced the quality of their education in my opinion as the lecture sizes grew and the professors became less interested in knowledge sharing and more interested in gaining research funds.

College is definitely not for everyone as it relies on the person attending to have enough self reliance to make the most out of their education. If you are personality that is less focused and prone to losing attention, you need a more direct education (vocational etc) where you can see immediate results and satisfy your desire to expedite your skill increase. College takes time, dedication, and focus which most people really don't have the stomach for and by no means makes those who can stomach it any better than those who can't.

As well, going to college is no longer the necessary step to procure high paying jobs it once was as it no longer symbolizes someone who has a higher level of intelligence etc. I used to teach a lot of undergrad students who often left me in amazement they even graduated high school.

In closing, I think that as our education system has grown into a numbers game rather than a measure of quality, the overall "dumb-smart" gap has expanded. I would also contest that ignorance is no where nearly defeated as many think they are very well informed on a subject when in fact they are quite ignorant to the facts.

I disagree with that analysis for the most part, or at least from my University experience. Nearly all of my professors i've taken have an interest to actually educate and inform the students, and when classes are too big (like the intro courses), you have easily accessible TAs and still-well accessible professors, and a lot of discussion sections. Again, this could be my own personal experience going to one particular university when plenty of others do exactly what you describe (and I have heard this from some friends of mine who went to other places..). And again, this always varies professor-by-professor and institution-by-institution.

I also think that high class sizes in primarily state universities are the outgrowth of the public system that seeks to make their flagship university accessible to the denizens of their state. This is also coupled with the trend of affluence, the erosion of good-paying low-skill jobs forcing more people to have a higher education degree to get a good paying job, the HUGE number of universities and colleges in America, and the fact that we have some of the best universities and colleges in the world (yay, US is #1 in something!).

And maybe other states should adopt the German-Wisconsin-North Carolinan model of having numerous high-quality state-wide technical institutions, and in general other good innovations for state-wide public education.