ONE OF THE THINGS that I've read recently that made me think was the fact that biblical scholars today have access to more background information in their subject than any previous scholars in that field. Which is kind of remarkable to think about, though it won't, in itself, guarantee the best or most important or useful scholarship. I would add as a caveat that today's scholars are probably as apt to be ideologically driven as they ever were and an attachment to ideology, when it comes to the pretense of doing pure research, is almost a certain guarantee of a diminution of quality and will, at times, hinder even a rational pursuit of truth.
This is a response to a whine that I dissed dear old Harvard, again, something which is always bound to raise a whine. To which I say what I said the other day, by their fruits you will know them and those of Harvard would generally be such a mix of superb and rotten that the whole of it would probably be sent to the dumpster at most mid-quality green grocers. It is a training brothel for the intellectual whores of oligarchy, especially its professional schools. But, really, they're more like the sleaziest pimps in the world. With some exceptions, it's product started out self-seeking and low on moral courage and its training is heavily geared to increasing the first and obliterating the second in those who might start with, respectively, less and more of them. If those who are better than that want to complain, why should they whine at me when it's Harvard that turns out AND SO OFTEN HIRES what is discrediting to it. And with such world-class arrogance and presumption in the mix!
It is remarkable to think that even at most of the mid-level or even lower state universities and many colleges, the resources to gain a superb education are in place in many subjects, especially those not requiring generally unavailable lab equipment or other such stuff. University libraries today have far more access to texts and other research materials, images, images of originals (where that's important) than any previous generation of students at even what were, then, more honesty considered the greatest universities - those were largely defined by their possession of such materials as are even found in great abundance online, especially if you have an institutional access to JSTOR or other such entities (I faked mine until it got caught). Online resources should be a great equalizer of such things.
The actual advantage to students of what faculties the universities and colleges have, the supposed greatness of the personalities of repute they hire is certainly a secondary thing. A diligent and sufficiently intelligent student will be able to go a long way even on their own with the resources they have available. I think in a lot of cases one of the things that keeps them from doing that, other than the nervous sense that they need to be guided on the real, right, reputable pathways, is the silly idea that they need someone's permission to undertake a study, that any which is unguided by a, likely, ideologically contained and motivated member of a faculty with their own professional reputation in their enclave to protect, will go off track. What keeps anyone on a real track is their own sense of integrity in searching for the truth and their moral obligation to letting the truth be their guide. In many, maybe most contemporary formal situations, it is what is professionally most advantageous and most likely to keep one reputable within the established order which does that. Guidance by a university faculty member has its own perils, you're as likely to get one who will be in it for themselves as for you and your pursuit of the truth.
I am convinced that the most original and best scholars are generally autodidacts, in the end. They may have had some really good and inspired teachers but those same good and inspired teachers have produced more work-a-day hacks and scoundrels than they have great original thinkers. In many fields* basing yourself in a formal university or college milieu is probably more harmful than it is helpful to doing good and original work. I know a lot of the stuff I was taught, formally, was stuff I had to get over and get past to make any kind of progress towards something like the truth. There's no guarantee that you won't face a stiff backlash, even on the most mundane of easily supported contradiction of the "common received wisdom" about fairly unimportant topics. In fact, I will promise you that the more evidenced your contradiction of the "CRW" the more perplexed and outraged the reaction among the college-credentialed will be.
When I first pointed out that Galileo's famous complaint to Kepler about the refusal of his enemies to even look into his telescope wasn't him whining about the Cardinals and the Pope but the university scientists of his day, giving dates that proved the bit of tripe being asserted was chronologically impossible - AND THAT BOTH GALILEO AND KEPLER WERE RELIGIOUS BELIEVERS, THEMSELVES. You wouldn't believe the anger over such an overturning of the show biz (Brecht, among others) and cultivated propagators of the "common received wisdom" got from these self-declared members of the "reality community" those whose professional pretense was that they would boldly go wherever the facts led.
That's one of the things I've found a college grad really has to fight hard to get past, I had to get past worrying about the reaction of my peers and (they certainly think so) betters, it's not easy. I can only imagine how much harder it is if you've invested so much of your money, your time, your desire getting the prestige and position that having an animal skin from Harvard or its like would make that.
Thank God I went to an unpretentious land-grant university where no one especially cared about me getting those glittering prizes. It's probably what gave me the freedom to break away.
* Today's post was almost another about the University of Toronto "emeritus" Prof of Psych and online huckster millionaire fraud Jordan Peterson who I've been seeing more about again. That universities even have departments of Psychology is overwhelming evidence that they are purveyors of fraud and superstition, even into the most modern of modern periods. Any field that could have someone like Peterson as a reputable member has something deeply wrong with it.
But Harvard has had an impressive roster of actual war criminals as faculty and "fellows" there was even a blog that started listing some of them, though, any such site that doesn't start with Henry Kissinger is certainly incomplete (they give the Annie Hall quote to that effect). The Kennedy School is an especially sordid cesspool for bringing the worst to Harvard, whether criminals from government or the media or the law, though Harvard Law can give them a run for the title of sleaziest school at dear old Harvard. If Harvard groupies and grad want to complain about someone pointing out what a sleazy joint it is, the first place for them to lodge their complaints is Harvard which is such a sleazy joint by its own choice. You can generally count on anything being considered "the best and brightest" to be a sordid cesspool because that's the way of the world-class and highly reputed of the world.
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