tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4764506766343254616.post1592927741721885352..comments2024-03-16T10:25:12.712-04:00Comments on The Thought Criminal: A Great Labor Day Weekend Disussion Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4764506766343254616.post-43036944912783666832015-09-06T21:07:00.771-04:002015-09-06T21:07:00.771-04:00I don't understand the desire to destroy publi...I don't understand the desire to destroy public education, but other than football, there seems to be no interest in the work of public universities at all.<br /><br />Even though they are the sources of most of the scientific and technological research being done in America today.<br /><br />It's a mystery.....Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4764506766343254616.post-3754745297877687592015-09-06T12:10:49.161-04:002015-09-06T12:10:49.161-04:00Certainly it was variable in practice but I think ...Certainly it was variable in practice but I think even among those who didn't become intellectuals that they had more respect for education and hoped for it for their children and grandchildren than we are led to believe. They did, after all, establish public education. It's the elite of the "information age" who are doing their best to destroy that, led by such folk as Arne Duncan and Barack Obama, neither of whom set foot in a public school as a student and whose children never did, either. <br /><br />In New England we have a weird situation where our elites inevitably send their children to private universities and here, even in those states where you can't throw a rock without breaking a window in an elite private school, the ruling class that is the product of those elite universities have starved public education to the extent that our public universities haven't kept up with those in the Mid-West and other areas of the country. Yet those places are led to believe they are the centers of anti-intellectual activity. If they had been as proud of their educational aspirations as they have a right to be, I suspect a lot of things would be far different. And if New Englanders weren't so cowed by the Ivy League class elite, they'd demand more and, maybe, the region would lose its reputation for snobbery. But those are just speculations, who knows what would happen? The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4764506766343254616.post-66058268894885384922015-09-06T11:11:15.533-04:002015-09-06T11:11:15.533-04:00Regarding the farmers, an anecdote: the very urba...Regarding the farmers, an anecdote: the very urbabn/suburban part of Houston I live in was farm land and a farming community far outside Houston (half-a days ride by horse, they tell me) in the early to mid-20th century. I knew people who grew up on those farms. One told me of her father, who was the first Superintendent of schools in the area. She remembered he always had a stack of books by his chair and would read at night after working the farm that day. He never failed to read something, she said; and he read a lot.<br /><br />Probably by lamplight. Electricity didn't become common in this area until after WWII.<br /><br />I've decided such people were always more rare than common; but the idea that we've always been anti-intellectual in America isn't true, either.Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.com