My Disadvantages of Being Educated
Last night I read Albert Jay Nock's essay The Disadvantages of Being Educated. If you haven't read it, please do before you read my reaction below. Without the context, the ramblings below will come off as arrogance and self-absorbed. I know this is hard Internet, but I've asked nicely. You can read the essay for yourself here. Or pick it up on Amazon. Any non-Statist leaning person would enjoy his work.
The disadvantages of being educated was a milestone read for me. Not since reading Ron Paul's Revolution have I had that calming, and at the same time nervous feeling of belonging to an idea. The words didn't speak to me, they spoke for me. They were meant for me to read. Nock's tounge-in-cheek attitude towards being educated described the voice in my head.
The view of schooling and "educational institutions" today is backwards from what I've always felt. It never felt like I was being allowed to question or think. I was there to train. To learn a skill and jump on the highway of "normal life". The "uneducated" as Nock calls them have the advantage of ignorance. An ignorance so pure they do not even feel ignorant. They have nothing to compare their outlooks to. Everyone and everything around them is on that the same highway, having the same outlook.
The thirst for real morality, to learn the past, to understand what is to come is lost on the "trained". They may know history. But they do not see value in learning from it and applying it to their present. Ideas like this are not provided to them on the training track. It is not cultivated. Having these ideas could affect their ability to "fit in" and be social. There is nothing wrong with the ability to be social in that sense. Being mainstream. But the underlining reason for the need for acceptance in society are rooted in the ability to "get ahead". The training schools teach that. The focus is on a career, money-making.
I have never felt these needs. Before these small checkpoints in my life where I have run into ideals and views that expressed my own feeling what life is about, it felt like a burden. Like not fitting in was my fault. But it is not. It's not the fault of anyone. It is simply a different outlook on life. My thirst to understand and objectively analyze each event of culture, social order, politics and the world in general is that of the educated. To educate is a verb. It is an unending journey. It is a calling.
I believe the burden is worth the sacrifice of the more blissful happiness of the highway of the trained. What the educated give to society is a perspective most of it doesn't have the time or inclination to look through.
I will finish with a simple quote from the first person I introduced myself to that helped me find my place, Ron Paul always pointed to changing "hearts and minds" as the true goal. His was an "educational campaign". For the sake of society I hope the educated are always there to help balance the ship.
This is being reprinted with my own authority from my WordPress blog.
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No, schools are not about questioning the status quo. They are about compliance. Critical thinking is definitely dangerous when you have a monetary system that makes no sense.
The way he lays out what the reader is thinking is such a skill.
One of my favorite essays from one my favorite writers, thanks for doing a write up on it! I wrote something on his "The Value of Useless Knowledge" which is similar.
Education makes us see things for they are, which in turn makes us unfit for the world. This is a good thing in my opinion considering how much of the world is corrupted or brainwashed. For most people being educated is too much work and takes them out of their ignorance is bliss bubble. Those people who choose to go the route Nock took will have to be aware of certain consequences which he talks about.
I have his book of essays and "Jefferson", which I'm halfway through.
He put on paper the feeling of angst someone like me had in school and in other social situations.
I managed to find the essay and I must say I would never have thought of this distinction between education and training. Now that I've read it I can understand and relate to your post. This whole idea of education has been on my mind all day as I wrote a post about my daughter who proudly calls herself an unschooler. Yes, educated people are at a disadvantage as their path in life is a solitary one, not walking in step with the trained crowd. But it is the right path. So, be proud of being educated!
I know some "unschoolers". And I'm mostly likely partly one myself. I have learned most of what I know about history, politics and economics from being self-taught after finishing college.
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Im not sure if its even 'intellegence' but rather a willingness to 'honestly allow' self-examination of one's beliefs. Common sense imo is a form of intellegence. There are all kinds of tenured professors who have intellegence but that intellect is diluted by ideology. Leftist ideology & rigid belief in Socialism trumps common sense and then they use their intellegence..not to question their belifs..but to 'validate' their beliefs. Anyway..great post...:)
Thank you. That is a good point, self-examination is absolutely needed.
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yes i think it is very right
and talking about how is can be useful*in "diary life, or practical life...or personal goal of life.." , the "education" or the system just make us view "one" perspecive about what must be succeful in life or what must be called as not....but yet depends of what is look really each person vs the "system of education" want......really nice post!
Thank you.
I've recently read an essay by David Labaree, Public Goods, Private Goods: The American Struggle Over Educational Goals (1997), which has shed some light on this phenomenon.
The rise of credentialism (where status is valued over learning; evidenced by questions like "will this be on the test?"), also known as surrogate learning, has been hypothesized to come from the dominance of a focus on social mobility over democratic equality and social efficiency. While those who believe education's goal is democratic equality see it as a public good to nurture citizens, and those who believe it to be social efficiency believe it is to create human capital to fill market roles, the dominance of the social mobility narrative aligned with capitalism and meritocracy stresses individual opportunity and treats education as a private good used to put oneself in a higher social position.
You can find more notes on his essay in my recent publication here: https://steemit.com/education/@jerald/competing-politics-behind-the-education-problem
I will check it out. I do disagree that that credentialism is always a function of capitalism. Market roles being filled also include professors, authors and artists.
I don't even believe it has to do with status. Just that the education system was build off the foundation of a factory and industrial based economy. The more skills you learned in a physical field, the more money you made, the higher the rank you had in that industry.
We now have industries based off rejecting this model entirely. I love Nock's views being so far ahead of his peers.