pseudo intellectual

I, on the other hand, am a total phony. There. I've said it. And I'm glad.

Glad here too. Mixed revues re credential-ocity here, as in not so bad but so what?
Which brings us back to the whole so what - it's who you are and not the paper... but not only that, often people are burnished without paper at all.
Which brings us back to Dys' point.

... but fortunately his hat conceals it.

Nah.

I don't know how people make it through college now for money. I understand grades have let up since the early sixties. Grades let up around '65, after much ferment, and then catapulted up for collegians as a group. Makes me wonder if humans changed. I hear the average is A now. Well, back in ought whatever, we were graded on a hell of a curve. I got the highest grade in one class with a B- (missed one question, all of them long). The professor requested that I come in to his lab for an interview for hiring, I did so well.

I admit that wasn't typical. Still, we lived with the curve, and C+ was average with the students from the highest echelon of the state getting that grade..

That was then. a few years before the pass/fail era.

For money.. people like me could go to school if we lived near it and could stay with family. I went to school at a UC campus before Reagan and his tuition thing. Lucky geography. Now I don't know how any but the richest can afford almost any college.

Back to the point, some people learn from school, and some learn despite schooling. A lot of us represent a mix of that.

The real question under all this is.... ta dum, do credentials make you smarter?

My view is yes, sometimes, and no, often.

Back to the idea of what is an intellectual?

We had an early thread on a2k about that.

spendius: Not only frat boys went on panty raids. Even the dormies went. The first time I heard the row I asked my room-mate what it was. I think it is the odor that spins their heads into nirvana.

talk-

I didn't know fabric conditioner had that effect.

From what I can gather the unwashed ones will have been sold on the internet. They are £10 here plus p and p (postage and packing) and are sold in sealed containers to maintain freshness.

I think it is a predictable response to the introduction of tuition fees.

i used to be a pseudo intellectual. but here at a2k, i guess i'm a mere garden-variety lunatic.

Yes, of course you are.

thanks, dys. it's nice to have a niche.

(as an aside, no resemblance to anyone intended, what would the global village be without some (global) village idiots?)

I know that you were just indulging a wry quip, Yitwail, so don't take this personally, it is not a remark addressed to you.

I don't believe in the Global Village. While it is true that this medium gives us the opportunity to communicate with people from all over the world, the impact of that communication is negligible. There are something over 50,000 people who have registered here. Even were all of those people active members, that is a drop in the cyber bucket. There are billions of people on this planet, and what we do here does not impinge on even a measurable fraction of them.

And not all of those who have registered here are active members. We are a handful of people who know each other in the passing sort of way of strangers on a train. When any of us "get off at the station," we are lost to all of the others. Were any one of us to stop posting, the likelihood that any of the others could locate us, could even learn of one's fate, let alone have any effect upon it, is slim to none.

I think the opportunities afforded us in such a venue are marvelous, and are a part of an important process of change in the world. I also think that local considerations, and the sad imperatives of tribalism, still govern our lives, for which this is simply an illusory and occasional distraction.

Set, appreciate the thoughtful comments, and it's gratifying if i prompted you to post them, even if i was being primarily facetious.

i don't have any illusions about the net bringing people together. even on a2k itself, there's a lot of partisan squabbling that goes on, although i like to think those are not representative of the membership as a whole. maybe i'll add more later, but my morning commute calls.

Neither the degrees themselves, framed and hanging on the wall, nor the accomplishments they each represent, make you smarter.

But they often come in handy when you're looking for a job.

emphasis added

In my view, that's about the only thing any degree at all is good for. Not only does an advanced degree not make one any smarter; sometimes it acts as a brake to original and creative thinking.

With many employers, I've found it not a good idea to play up those diplomas too much but rely more on experience and knowledge gained working in that field. I have always found that was more impressive in an interview and in a resume.