knowledge, wisdom, and elitism

[kdawg860]

what would happen if you were extremely well educated, and almost everyone else wasn't?  if you realized everyone else was not thinking right, did not have a clue about what they're talking about, and were just plain ignorant due to their poor education, what would you do?  how would you view them?

back in ancient greece, socrates taught his

Comments

[arebelwaltz]

Speaking from multiple avenues of personal experience, I don't think you need to feel frustrated at a lack of dialogue. The biggest reason people don't want to talk about economics isn't because they're stuck in a certain way of thought; it's because they haven't been prepared for the discussion culturally, academically, or personally. In the same way, I wouldn't want to spend any time talking about basketball or the inner workings of jet engines (though a more proper parallel is politics, or general philosophy). Most people just don't have an opinion on the greater questions of economics and don't see a reason to bother having one

[kdawg860]

i would agree completely that i seem to be equating disagreeing with the "scholarship of liberty" with ignorance as intolerant, except everyone i've talked actually have not studied free market economics. i've studied both government-intervention economics and laissez-faire economics, and i am 99% convinced after critically looking at both that freedom is the only path to prosperity. and no this is not at all the style i would write if i were to try to start a dialogue. i actually don't expect a single person to read this. except maybe you and one or two others, which is why i write the way i do here. when i do talk to people it's in a much more inquisitive approach and i get a great discussion going until after much logical and deductive reasoning leads to what disproves the other person's beliefs, they might respond with, 'i dunno' or 'hmm i simply disagree'. they dont want to change their beliefs for various reasons. i wasn't intending to start a discussion with what i just wrote, but if you'd like to i would love to have

[kdawg860]

oh and the people ive talked to are: regarding education, public school teachers; regarding economics, friends who've majored in economics at ucla and berkeley, regarding the health industry, friends who are in med school or pharmacy school. they seem very willing to discuss them, theyre just not ready to change their long-held beliefs. if they're not ready for those discussions regarding those topics then i don't know who is. it's hard to find people who are truly open-minded.

[arebelwaltz]

I understand. I honestly don't have the wherewithal to have a debate over LJ (partly because I'll get way too into it and partly because I'm probably not that qualified to represent a policy position in a debate), but I do feel like I need to comment that your questions and terminology seem loaded. I wouldn't even consider the American Revolution of 1776 a success in most ways, for starters

[kdawg860]

i guess we need to first agree upon what a successful revolution means.

i'm not really sure what you mean by understanding greater significance in society and civilization. i'm talking about discussing public school education with public school teacher, medicine with medical doctors, etc. you said theyre not culturally academically personally ready to discuss. from my experience theyre all quite ready to discuss and they can discuss quite thorougly since theyre well studied in those topics that they supposedly specialize in, they just have a very very difficult time changing their long held beliefs.

skeptic of any ideology? so youre just not gonna agree with any of my views no matter what? uh oh, sounds familiar. haha. i'm not sure what you mean by that either. try studying free market economics. true laissez-faire economics at www.mises.org. you just might have a new ideology to at least get an understanding of and perhaps believe in.

[arebelwaltz]

What I mean is, if you specialize in medicine, you are a professional medic. Your job isn't really to make policy decisions on the access and distribution of medical services in a greater context, and you don't have a real incentive to consider the medical field in a way that doesn't directly affect your livelihood (treating patients, and to an extent dealing with paperwork). To me that seems to have a big potential influence on the extent to which you're willing to discuss the deeper significance of what you do and how it should be done differently on a larger scale. I phrased it as a question to you because I didn't know if that's the feeling you got from the people you mentioned. Apparently it wasn't

[kdawg860]

i consider myself a huge skeptic, but that doesn't mean i refuse to believe that an ideology could very well be truthful. i think a skeptic believes in many possibilities, including the possibility that everything he or she believes in could be completely wrong, and what others believe in could be right. a skeptic has a hard time readily believing anything unless there is an abundant amount of proof. you have a belief that no set of ideological principles can solve the world's problems, a belief that you are adhering to at the moment. i recommend studying austrian economics (mises.org), something public schools would never teach, and you'll see why once you get a good understanding of it. it's like expecting lausd to teach creationism. would never happen

[kdawg860]

btw can you define pragmatism? as opposed to idealism i guess.

[kdawg860]

may 3. i dont know at this point and it doesnt seem likely although i wwould LOVE to see them. i am currently living probably the busiest year of my life working and writing my master's thesis. that ends in early june so until then i wont be able to do much. thanks though.

[arebelwaltz]

Good luck with the thesis! I'll still be around DB when you finish up and we can finally go on the DB Blvd world tour of drunkenness. I'm still bummed that I'm missing your party this weekend :/

[kdawg860]

you didn't get the message? the party's been canceled!