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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam who wrote (420901)

10/17/2019 10:52:58 AM

From: koan

Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 541627

What I learned in my long life Sam, is that humanity is a direct outcome of education. People don't want to say it openly, as it may make some people feel badly, but it is a simple equation: the more education the more humanity and the vast majority of the terrible things on earth like all inequalities, abuse of women and just plain raw crime is due to ignorance.

I saw first hand how education totally changed me and other people. And I have a pretty good working knowledge of how education changed history and made both republics and social humanity possible.

I also spent my life studying the thinking of many of the great thinkers to try and find out what they were talking about and what they saw. Starting with the ancient Greeks and following whom I could find all through history and up to today with great thinkers like Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehead, the Huxleys, Sartre and Camus et al. It changed my life and now I know why the Plato's were so important and what they were talking about.

When I started "junior college" (a terrible name), I was so ignorant. My reality was so small and so wrong. I had no idea about the difference between the dems and pubs, Nixon and Kennedy, Bringham Young university and state universities, and thought the word society meant "high society". It would take me a week to write a terrible 500 word paper. Something I can do today in five minutes.

I went into college so ignorant and walked out four years later as an existentialist. That is a very long and very important journey.

Education is the glue that keeps societies democratic and humane. If one looks over poor countries where people are not educated it is more often than not a horror story e.g. Sudan, Nigeria, etc, . All though Africa, South America and Asia, poor uneducated people and societies are victims of strong men and dictators.

The perfect example is the Philippines. They endured the despot Marcos for so long and finally got rid fo him and had a good leader in Corazon Aquino, but recently voted in Duterte. They did not have enough education to hold on to their democracy in a meaningful way.

And apparently neither do we.

Cheers.

<<

Your deep belief in education is touching. I have spent too much time in several different universities and have seen plenty of departments that were barely functional due to partisan splits. These were all educated people. Even smart people in their own way.

But it is true that for the most part they didn't beat up or kill each other.