I have taken a more circuitous educational path than most folks. My career road has perhaps been even more tortured. Now factor in that I have lived in ten states and one foreign country. One of the advantages of such meanderings is that I have studied in several different fields, seen many types of jobs and industries, and I have been exposed to a wide range of people.
I do not see myself as atypical, but sometimes I wonder. I work in a technical field, computer programming. Most of the folks I work with are college educated, and many are very smart. What does surprise me is the narrowness of their knowledge and world view. The folks discussed below are smart and successful in their fields, but the following anecdotes do illustrate my point.
I have an Indian co-worker that related to me a story about his birthday which is on the same day as Mohandas Gandhi. He told me the story then I forgot about it. One day on Google up popped their banner and it was celebrating Gandhi Day, October 2nd. Gandhi Day is a national holiday in India. I alerted my coworkers via email to wish my Indian compadre a Happy Birthday and a Peaceful Gandhi Day.
An hour or so later one my coworkers came in my cubicle and asked me what Gandhi Day was. I explained to them that it was a national holiday in India celebrating the birth of Mohandas Gandhi. I was looked at blankly.
I said, “Gandhi, who some consider to be the father of modern India.”
Again, I received a blank look. I tried a different tact, and said, “Gandhi, one of the major proponents of non-violence and peaceful resistance. He used such tactics to help free India from British rule.”
I could see I was not getting anywhere fast. Finally since this person was Afro-American I thought I could relate Gandhi to something in their experience. I explained to them that the Rev. Martin Luther King had been strongly influenced by the writings of Gandhi about using peaceful means to bring about social change.
The reply was, “Oh I think I may have heard of him.”
I was a little flabbergasted. Gandhi and his significance for some reason seem to be something I have always known about.
Another time I was riding with another co-worker and we were talking about our fathers. I mentioned that mine had been in the Navy. I was asked if he had been in a war, and I replied, “Yes the Korean.”
My co-worker wanted to know when the Korean War was and I said the early fifties.
“Before the Vietnam War?” they asked.
“Yes”, I replied.
“After WW II?” was the next question.
“Yes, after WW II.”. I then asked if they had ever watched M*A*S*H. The reply was an affirmative. I said, “That show was set during the Korean War.”
I then heard, ‘Oh I thought that it was during Vietnam.”
Again the major conflicts of the twentieth century and their order seem to me as basic as the ABCs.
I had been ruminating on these two incidences when I read an op-ed piece in the New York Times by Paul Krugman.
Op-Ed Columnist – The Uneducated American – NYTimes.com
His basic argument is that we are losing our competitive edge because we are not devoting public resources (money) to public and higher education. At one point we were the leader in public education for the masses, then other countries mimicked out example. The USA has for a long time been the leader in higher education, but that is fast diminishing.
Other countries are spending the necessary resources to educate their populations, and they make higher education accessible to more folks regardless of financial / social circumstances.
When I finally got around to going to college for real, I was married and there were two rug rats involved. If it had not been for Pell grants funding a large portion of my education, and a very understanding (?) wife, I probably would not have received a college degree.
In this country, at this time, a higher education has become a luxury item. Folks that do choose to go are often saddled with massive debt that takes years to pay back.
An argument can be made that the individual is the one who is going to benefit from more education. This is hopefully certainly true.
I think a good argument can also be made that society and this country benefits from educating a larger segment of population, and making that education the best possible and making it accessible. If we are about making money, I would think an educated, motivated workforce should be sought after. As a country priding itself on its democratic institutions, I would think we would want an educated electorate involved in the process. I tend to believe folks with a broad education are better able to adapt to life and contribute to society. I would like to believe the more rounded are somehow happier. I am sure there are many other good arguments for this but these are a few that popped into my cranium quickly.
My thoughts started out with worrying about the narrowness of many folk’s education and world experience. Now I am worried the lack of any education at all. Somehow we have to come to the realization in this country, that a small segment cannot hoard most of the resources. That fair taxation and public programs benefits us all. Society should be about the benefiting the most people, and not about preserving the wealth of a few.
Unfortunately, that has not been the direction of this country in the last two or three decades.
Congress, Obama, Bush, and the Federal Reserve had a chance to improve our economy, our education, our attitude, by not throwing political money at business problems. Let the Wall Street/Auto/Insurance(AIG) companies suffer the consequences of their decisions instead of throwing the financial burden of future generations to them. I feel very strongly we will not reverse our fat/lazy attitude until we go thru another great depression. And the sooner the better.
I read, the current bailouts have a price tag of $100,000 per every household in the US. And if you throw in the unfunded Social Security obligations and other unfunded programs and proposed programs, the price sky-rockets to around $1M per household.
We have the best military in the world (most technology, largest, best trained, etc) and at the same time they couldn’t find a fucking rat (bin Laden).
We have the best medicine/medical treatment in the world and yet 40M uninsured citizens while at the same time provide free medical treatment to illegal’s and criminals. Everything is just way ‘out of whack’.
A depression would wipe out a lot of good people but also wipe out even more not so good people to the point of extinction. But the survivors would have a renewed appreciation of the basics rather than taking everything for granted. And the things that are ‘out of whack’ would be back ‘in whack’ or a lot less ‘out of whack’.
But I know that is not the politically correct solution. Instead, when the ‘roman empire’ finally does fall, it will fall hard and fast.
That is amazing. I have found that, at least with the folks that I know, they don’t read. I can make a classical reference or use words and I get the RCA dog stare. Case in point, coworker 25 years old married, very very smart has not read more than 5 books in his life. But he plays some video games clear thru!