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Politics : View from the Center and Left

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To: epicure who wrote (95256)11/11/2008 11:19:30 AM
From: Sam  Read Replies (1) of 541864
 
The ambivalence to education is deep-seated in American culture. Here are some quotes from Thomas Jefferson that illustrate that ambivalence:

State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe.

brainyquote.com

Certainly it is true that educated people can do a great deal more harm than uneducated people--consider the current financial crisis and Warren Buffett's oft-repeated stricture to "Be wary of nerds bearing esoteric formulas."
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