This isn’t the first time I’ve gotten a post saying that sort of thing.
Somehow I doubt my film theory and production teachers used their cirriculum to turn me into a pinko. I mean, that article we read on radio sound technology and the creation of audiovisual space in Citizen Kane was pretty provoking. And I know they were getting all ideological on me when they taught us how to clean a lens. But I just don’t think thats where my beliefs come from.
I guess a girl can read five newspapers daily, have a library of around a thousand serious books by age 22, and spend hours a day debating and researching on the Internet (ahh unemployment) and yet a college education makes her an ignoramus.
I’m sick of this condescension. Yes, I’m young. Yes, I went to college, which somehow in this illogical place adds extra points to your ignorance meter. But no, I’m not some well kept co-ed who is bursting with fresh and unfeasable ideas that she was brainwashed into my her professors. When I was five years old I invented communism by asking my mom why there couldn’t be stores where hungry people could get bread for free. I may be a leftist, but damned if I’m not a well read, informed leftist who knows her mind and has known it since childhood.
And well I’m at it, I’m not a sweet girl. I’ve been told that I don’t have any life experience. I’ve been told all about how different life will be once I get out on my own (don’t know what i’ve been dong for the past four years…) and that one day I’ll grow up and have real experiences and real opinions on things.
I grew up in the ghetto. I’ve seen people get stabbed. I’ve lost friends to drugs. I saw my freaking dad become a drug addict. I’ve gone hungry. I’ve helped sixteen year olds get through post-abortion cramps. I’ve lived without electricity until the next paycheck. I’ve traveled on my own to at least ten different countries. I have plenty of sex with various people, places and things that I’ll never tell anyone. I’ve battled any number of pretty serious mental disorders. I’ve gone to $500.00 a plate luncheons. I’ve done bad bad things. I’ve spent the night on top of a Mayan pyramid. I’ve had movies in film festivals. I’ve published magazines. I’ve come close to killing myself. I’ve tasted just about everything there is too eat. I know the metro systems of most of American and Europe’s great (and not-so-great) cities intimately.
I’ve done lots of things and I am lots of things. But I’m not some sweet naive young thing. I may be a little girl, but I’m a pretty worldly little girl.
Even, the only reason why you’re getting the condesension is because you don’t support capitalism(the status quo).
You don’t have to pay attention to it.
But, if you ARE an idealist, then that could be why too. On any side, there’s idealists and they tend to be treated pretty much the same way.
Course, while also leftist(but not quite as left as you), I’m no idealist, so if there is/was any condesencion towards me, I either don’t notice it or ignore it. Most likely the former.
I certainly don’t think a pit thread was necessary, but you seem to have taken my comments rather more personally than they were intended. I’ll repeat what I said in response to you in that other thread:
Apparently extremely intelligent, self-educated conservatives don’t have to worry about spelling. They’re too bright for that!
And I’m getting my PhD! I must be terribly stupid and ignorant if my pinko ass is still in school, speaking four languages!
In regards to your life experiences, they sound oddly familiar! I haven’t slept on a Mayan pyramid or helped anyone with post-abortion cramps, but I have had a few experiences. I’ve been lost in Beijing (my Mandarin wasn’t that great at the time either) and I’ve met Presidents and Prime Ministers.
I always think that when people give you the “once you have experiences” or “you’ve gone to school, that makes you ignorant” lines, they’re using a simple cop-out to avoid what you’re actually arguing. Seems that way in the post you cited, anyway.
Okay, to get both sides of this out of the way now:
Poster1: You idiot! You’re claiming that you’re not ignorant, and yet you misspell “ignorant” in the tilte of your OP! How can you whine about being labelled “ignorant” if you’re not gonna at least proofread?
Poster2: Shut up, you imbecile. She’s ranting. So she misspelled a word. Why do you grammar and spelling Nazis always have to point out the flaws in others’ posts?
Poster3: Hey, Poster1, you misspelled the word “title” in your post. You ignoramus.
Poster4: Okay, let’s end this hijack and get back to the thread, you guys.
Dude, I thought that that comment was terribly condescending when I read it. You have a poster that idealistically is exploring ways to fight ignorance (you do remember what we are here to do, right?) and in you stomp implying that she is naive, a liberal (quick FYI and aside, as much as some folks would like to believe it, being a Liberal is not necessarily a bad thing) and has somehow been brainwashed by the Vast Liberal Lefttwing Commie Pinko Fag Ivory Tower ™. Way to go.
…and the best way to do that is to study, learn and reach your own conclusions, not regurgitate what you’ve been told is true. If telling someone to think for themselves is condescending, well then label me condescending.
Having spent an alarming percentage of my life in college classrooms, I’m amused by the charges of academic “indoctrination” that occasionally get thrown about by more conservative posters. It has been my experience that the more left-leaning the professor is, the more student-driven the class tends to be. Mind you, I’m not sure exactly how one goes about indoctrinating students (I only wish I could indoctrinate mine to do citations and bibliographies properly), but I can’t imagine that the most efficient way is to make them do 90% of the talking.
Weirddave, OK, I have re read the thread in question because you seem to be making some sort of leap of logic that I am just not following. Help me out here:
[ul]
[li]The OP cites a survey in which 25% of folks believe something that is factually wrong, and is astonished by this.[/li][li]The OP then raises some possible soulutions to this problem.[/li][li]You tell the OP that she is regurgitating facts that have been brainwashed in to her by her Liberal college, and that she should learn to think for herself.[/li][/ul]
How does A lead to B?
I’ve found this not to be the case. In fact, I’ve found that the more left-leaning the professor is, the less tolerance they have for discussions in which a viewpoint that is the opposite of their own is expressed. The same thing for right-leaning professors - the further, the worse the class.
I have been blessed to have a lot of my political instruction done by professors who the conservatives all thought was a Democrat and the liberals all thought was a conservative. Those are the professors that allow the class to be the most student-driven, the class where the best discussions and debates take place and the class where your thinking gets developed the most.
Hmmm. I see what you’re saying. I was basically agreeing with Marc, nothing can be done to make people read and think. The suggestion that Sven broaden her horizions was not linked to the recognition that most people won’t. Sorry, I guess that wasn’t totally clear.
even sven, I feel your pain. Unlike you, I didn’t even get a degree in a practical/technical field – I doubled in the notoriously Pinko Fru-Fru fields of Communication and Philosophy. So, clearly, I am doing well if I can manage to wipe the drool away before it runs down my slack jaw. I couldn’t possibly know anything about the real world, and my ability to reason and engage in logical thought must be nonexistant (nevermind that I have formal training in reason and logic). I’m just lucky that my rich daddy sent me away for finishing (nevermind that my father died when I was a child, a full-tuition merit scholarship was the only way I was able to afford a good school, and I followed an academically rigorous program of study).
Perhaps I am wrong, but I really don’t think that college educated men are treated this way. But of course they don’t have their uteruses draining the blood supply from their brains the way we do.
