12/22/2011 23:36:51
Jab! Whack! Stab!: undergrads should always shut up about everything
Do not impugn hard sciences. Hard sciences are models like any other, and they are only true up to a point. 1+1=2 is a model imposed on the universe by human beings, nothing more. Cf. Gödel’s incompleteness theorems. But neither take refuge in the cowardice of the popular solipsist, who believes that science is nothing more than a confidence scheme arrayed against the layperson, to steal their pride or money. The framework of scientific inquiry, the pursuit of an accurate description of the universe, and the application of this description towards an advancement of the human condition, both approach objective correctness in a way that no other ideological methodology does. Science, and for that matter, education, delivers on its promises, regardless of the sociological background of its practitioners. The mark of a civilized society is the degree to which it demands quality of its citizens, and to which it furnishes resources for that quality to be attained. It is sad for us as a community when the idea that school is nothing more than a long stint in job training, or a meaningless laurel one is unfairly forced to win in order than one’s (presumably unassailable and unimprovable) brilliance be recognized, is permitted as an article of serious discourse. What all citizens of an enlightened society must realize is that not only do there exist programmed methods for reaching objective truth, but that these methods are not immediately accessible to any but the rarest kind of person without detailed instruction in the traditions of their earliest discoverers, and that moreover it is the duty of all these citizens to rigorously practice these methods in order that the society continue to function to the best of its ability, whether or nor they are interested in become scientists or scholars. And indeed, it is these methods which are the true aim of an educational apparatus. In a perfect world, it is merely the methods of scholarship which are to be taught, after which the student should be trusted to embark upon the constant practice of self-expansion which those methods make possible. These methods, again, are thorough in their deliverance of promised results. It it worth noting that often even the most radical social theorist holds a chair at a university and delivers lectures to students using rhetorical modes which are, at this point, positively ancient. So then what is the nature of this “lived experience,” which it is claimed surpasses all the scholastic and scientific apparatus which precedes the individual that experiences it? It is nothing less than a delinquency in the duty of a responsible human: an attempt to shirk the duty that one has to regard one’s most immediate perceptions with a skeptical eye. To behave as if the imperfect conclusions the less gifted among us reach using the methods of education and science give you license to treat those institutions as trivial or unnecessary is no kind of integrity of all, but rather the sourest vintage of sloth and wretchedness.always
all the time
undergrads know shit
that’s why they’re in school. to be less fucking stupid.
and hey, guess what, even if you’ve got your bachelors?
i’ve met SEVERAL bachelor degree holders that STILL KNOW…
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airshipdreamer reblogged this from jabwhack and added:
Do not impugn hard sciences. Hard sciences are models...any other, and they are only true...
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ethiopienne said:
well fine then *runs away and cries*
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