Why do you believe higher education brainwashes people?
Thunder is arguing that liberal people seek higher education, while others of you are arguing that higher education produces liberal thinking.
Either way, doesn’t that tell you something about the correlation between education and liberal thinking?
As my education progressed, I noticeably moved beyond textbook answers and was taught to think for myself. Far from being spoon fed ideas of what is “right” and what is “wrong” (as most fundamentalist churches do), I was given a toolset for objectively determining the truth of a claim by applying the scientific method.
I don’t see how anyone with an understanding of higher education could associate it with brainwashing. I could only see someone holding that view if they believed that they had all the answers already, and were skeptical that people should even be taught to question. These people focus on faith rather than science as the pathway to truth.
Education is more about asking questions than about asserting absolute answers. It is about using a standard, objectively reliable set of criteria for determining truth rather than telling people to base their beliefs on subjective experiences and external authority.
Because not all “education” is the same - and too much of our higher education is based on dead end ideas, sloppy thinking, and ideological instruction. Higher education, nowadays, teaches a mushy relativism in nearly all subjects, and spends little effort teaching people how to think, but rather what to think. That, definitionally, is “brainwashing”.
It is both - you present a false choice, it is not an either/or. The people choosing higher education (at first) are typically young people. They are impressionable, so the indoctrination works quite well on them initially. It is later that they free themselves of the dogma and stop thinking individually so blinkered and as a group so monolithically. Many of those of a liberal bent tend to opt for even higher levels of education.
Only that young people (typically) have mushy, impressionable minds and are easily susceptible to demagoguery, and that the institutions of higher education are dominated by one school of thinking that wants to indoctrinate those young, soft minds (the “long march through the institutions”, as it is called - it is no secret).
Unfortunately, higher education is quite guilty of spoon feeding “right” ideas to its students - be it the multiculturalism, relativism, political correctness, and the like. These are some of the most dogmatic ideas we have - often as rabid as any “fundamentalist” church. Your concept of “fundamentalist” seems awfully narrow - you’d do well to realize that the errors of “fundamentalism” can be found in secularism, as well as religion.
Clearly, you have no concept as to the current state of higher education. What higher education should be is not what it is.
Perfect example - a few years ago, the President of Harvard has the audacity to suggest that women were naturally predisposed to being worse at math and science than were men, and he did so on the basis of recent research. The mandarins of the High Holy Church of Political Correctness ran him out of town, and out of a job, on the basis of his “heresy”. Even though the research suggested it, and academia is supposed to be the bastion of open inquiry, President Summers, a liberal, was run out on a rail for daring to attack the “truth” of “equality”.
That was at Harvard, what should be the gold standard for academic inquiry. And this type of event is not terribly unusual.
People do think they have the answers already - but setting aside your sloppy, telegraphed attacks on the folks you think “un-Enlightened”, the church-goin’ folk aren’t the worst purveyors of intolerance of liberal (old meaning) thinking.
Oh, and one more thing - “science” isn’t the only “pathway to truth”. What you suggest is the foolish pursuit of Scientism, and an adherence to Scientism is no part of what it means to be educated.
Education is about seeking those truths via a number of methodologies and bodies of knowledge, science included, but others not excluded. A broad-based liberal (old meaning) education was exactly that - and we don’t have that near as much as we should anymore.
I really don’t have anything to add to thunder’s posts. Just thought I would say that it is very important to emphasize his point that higher levels of education are extremely specialized. This does NOT lend itself to well rounded analysis.
As a case in point, many of my biochemistry professors, although completely brilliant in their field, are utterly hopeless outside of it. It’s because they are so focused on their field that it happens. I can’t begin to describe the amount of stupid crap I’ve heard come out of their mouths when they stray too far from their expertise. This is of course more notable in the hard sciences.
There are several notable exceptions to that rule, however, and not all of them agree with me on many issues. In the soft sciences, it’s a combination of the above mixed with an often pervasive shoddy method of reasoning, combined with the sense that they think they do know the answers.
I’m giving this up, I’m mostly tired and incoherent now.
What institutions of higher learning are people attending where this “brainwashing” occurs? I have degrees from two different universities and I never experienced this active “brainwashing” that seems to be so prevalent. Of course, paying my own way through school might have had a great deal to do with it. Unlike many of the overprivilleged assholes that I went to school with during that time.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Higher education, nowadays, teaches a mushy relativism in nearly all subjects, and spends little effort teaching people how to think, but rather what to think. That, definitionally, is “brainwashing”.[/quote]
Do you have any evidence to back this up? It wasn’t the case when I got my degree, nor is it reflected in the vast majority of curriculae that define higher education. A higher education is about how to think, not about what to think. I was drilled in the scientific method, and while I don’t remember a lot of the little facts from all the publications I read, I do remember how to objectively process information and draw reliable conclusions.
If you have a degree from a higher education institution, what was your personal experience? Did you not think the school taught you how to think rather than what to think?
I’m guessing this might be the real difference between our perspectives. I think when it comes to conclusions that are objectively defined (as in, does something exist in the physical world or doesn’t it), there is no method for evaluating facts superior to science. Science isn’t perfect, but it is the best system we have for understanding objective reality.
[quote]ALDurr wrote:
What institutions of higher learning are people attending where this “brainwashing” occurs? I have degrees from two different universities and I never experienced this active “brainwashing” that seems to be so prevalent. Of course, paying my own way through school might have had a great deal to do with it. Unlike many of the overprivilleged assholes that I went to school with during that time.[/quote]
If it occurs, then you wouldn’t notice it.
It is really a matter of influence on a highly influential group. If you go in a liberal, you will agree with everything, so no difference. If you go in conservative, then you will most likely come out conservative because you will instantly recognize the liberalism as a foreign concept.
But if you are a moderate, mildly liberal, or have no political opinions, what you will be exposed will have an effect, influencing you to be more likely to be liberal.
I doubt it really affects more then 10% of the people, but that is still significant.
I think by “brainwashing”, people mean presenting information based on science rather than religion. Given that these are educational institutions and not churches, I don’t agree with calling this “brainwashing”. If you want to go there, by the same logic presenting religion in churches and ignoring science would also be considered “brainwashing”.
Churches and colleges each have their role, and they should stay within that scope rather than crossing into one another’s territory.
I don’t care if you mind gays or not, what I do care about is being denied 1,000 federal benefits as well as the advantages marriage provides to gay couples, their children, and society.
If you want scientific proof for the above paragraph, see the Gay Agenda thread.
[quote]forlife wrote:
I think by “brainwashing”, people mean presenting information based on science rather than religion. Given that these are educational institutions and not churches, I don’t agree with calling this “brainwashing”. If you want to go there, by the same logic presenting religion in churches and ignoring science would also be considered “brainwashing”.
Churches and colleges each have their role, and they should stay within that scope rather than crossing into one another’s territory.[/quote]
Yes, that is exactly what I mean, learning that sciency stuff is brainwashing.
No, this is not what I meant. Treating any opinion other then yours for ridicule, as you just demonstrated is one step in this little form of brainwashing.
Maybe the term is over the top, but people are being manipulated exactly as I have said.
You attack the opposing viewpoint as some dumb religious yokel that doesn’t know better.
Ridicule is a great way to brainwash people. “If you don’t think like us, you are obviously an idiot, and we will make fun of you until you conform.”
Yes this stuff happens in religion too, but you would notice that now, wouldn’t you?
In all the time I have been an atheist, I have actually found most other atheists to be quite annoying and embarrassing to me, and have found more respect for religious people.
Many atheists don’t even realize they are proselytizing.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
Keep your gay agenda out of the universities as well - and maybe you could make that statement without being a hypocrite.
[/quote]
I don’t recall gays being discussed once during the course of getting my Ph.D. Maybe you went to a different school than me?
I do remember learning about the scientific method as a standard for determining objective truth. If that standard leads to conclusions about gay marriage that conflict with your preexisting stereotypes, there’s nothing I can do about that.
[quote]The Mage wrote:
Many atheists don’t even realize they are proselytizing. [/quote]
If I “proselyte”, it is only to support the value of science as the most reliable tool we have for determining objective truth.
I think people are free to believe in whatever they want, whether Muslim, Christian, Pagan, or Buddhist. What I don’t agree with is these people making claims about the objective nature of the universe, without having any reliable evidence to support their claims beyond an emotional conviction that it is true.
[quote]forlife wrote:
rainjack wrote:
Keep your gay agenda out of the universities as well - and maybe you could make that statement without being a hypocrite.
I don’t recall gays being discussed once during the course of getting my Ph.D. Maybe you went to a different school than me?[/quote]
You wouldn’t. And even if you did - you don’t have the honesty to admit it.
Since there is nothing objective about gay marriage, I have to wonder what you have been smoking.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
You wouldn’t. And even if you did - you don’t have the honesty to admit it. [/quote]
Ad hominem.
[quote]Since there is nothing objective about gay marriage, I have to wonder what you have been smoking.
[/quote]
There are quite a few objective facts that pertain to gay marriage, including:
Genetic/Environmental factors of sexual orientation
Whether sexual orientation is chosen
Whether sexual orientation can be changed through therapy
The effects of gay marriage on relationship stability, disease rates, etc.
The relationship between gay marriage and heterosexual divorce rates
The effects of gay parenting and marriage on the development and well being of children
And the list goes on. The medical and mental health organizations have conducted 20 years of scientific research on these questions, and have drawn reliable conclusions based on this research.
[quote]forlife wrote:
rainjack wrote:
You wouldn’t. And even if you did - you don’t have the honesty to admit it.
Ad hominem.
Since there is nothing objective about gay marriage, I have to wonder what you have been smoking.
There are quite a few objective facts that pertain to gay marriage, including:
Genetic/Environmental factors of sexual orientation
Whether sexual orientation is chosen
Whether sexual orientation can be changed through therapy
The effects of gay marriage on relationship stability, disease rates, etc.
The relationship between gay marriage and heterosexual divorce rates
The effects of gay parenting and marriage on the development and well being of children
And the list goes on. The medical and mental health organizations have conducted 20 years of scientific research on these questions, and have drawn reliable conclusions based on this research.
[/quote]
You’ve been schooled time and again about this. Those are not facts. You want them to be, but they are not. Sorry, but saying the same shit over and again does not make it fact, no matter how badly you want them to be.
You are just as brainwashed as those “religious fanatics” you hate so much.
I’m wondering if you are going to hijack every thread in this forum so that you can get your gay marriage propaganda crap thrown in to every debate?
Here’s the BBC’s analysis of the differences in how much money both camps raised.
What I found particularly fascinating, is that that only three professions/sectors have given more to McCain than his Democratic counterpart. And those are:
Retirees,
Oil and gas,
Insurances.
I have a few ideas why that is, but I’d love to hear your takes on it.
