Individual You seem to be saying that an education prevents people from understanding things. Do you really believe that or are you trolling?

If you do believe it, can you explain why? Like, do you think that it is because stupid people go into academia or is it that the education makes them stupid?

I don't agree with you, because I am quite sure I got smarter during the years I spent getting a university degree, but I would like to understand why you think this was not only a waste of my time, but apparently turned me into an idiot who can't see things properly?

Have you been to uni? If not then perhaps you could give it a go and then you would have some real life experience on which to base your beliefs about education.

"the West is one giant soup kitchen whose duty it is to feed the rest of the world.
SPQR,
and to top it all off it has to be muslimised. Unfortunately, you can show this scenario to the academic educated but you can't make them understand."

The academic educated says:

"And what could possibly be wrong with either of those scenarios, Individual?"

"We're all animals. If we can feed and protect ourselves from the elements, and the elephants, or even befriend the elephants, then that's all you need. Anything else is a bonus. Think about it: does your life really consist of only your economic activities? Would life not still be worth living, even if you were forced at gunpoint to pray to Allah the merciful four times a day?".

"If there was a tree in the middle of the forest that you could never access, would it still be more beautiful than an Ikea bookshelf? If some bastard was tailgating you, and a wallaby jumped out onto the road, would you brake for it and have said bastard run up the back of you, causing you damage and hassle? What if it were a possum, or a rat? What if the rat was cute?"

"If the Liberal Party supports free trade, then surely that entails supporting unhindered labour mobility? Isn't that intrinsic to free trade? Will the efficiencies garnered through free trade not be nullified by conditions of restricted labour mobility?"

"Put yourself in their shoes and see how you like it. What would you do in their situation?"

"What are you afraid of? Fundamentally we're all the same. If you don't believe me, ask an alien - though come to think of it, didn't star wars teach us that aliens can get along quite well?"

Oh man, I got up this morning feeling like I needed a good dose of ECT, but but blaming the ills of the world on others' thoughtlessness is much more fun!

Oh do come on Molly!

University, & real life mutually exclusive, & should never be included in the same paragraph.

& yes I was there during the Vietnam marches, & have seen it near its most ridiculous.

Hasbeen I am sure I am showing my ignorance of real life people now - if you are a real life person that is - but I don't understand what you are saying.

Are you saying that you met academics back in the '70's during the anti-Vietnam marches and they were stupids who didn't understand anything and that is the basis of your judgment about university learning being a bad thing?

Could I suggest that things have changed at Universities an awful lot since the '70's and when I was at my University during the '90's the Arts faculty and their antics were regarded as a source of some amusement by the psychologists, biologists and engineers. But, we figured they were here first and deserved some tolerance because they have always been an integral part of western civilization and they deserve some leeway because of that.

I am assuming from some of the posts I've read that it is the Arts that is the 'big satan' for 'culture warriors'. And I'm assuming that you are a culture warrior? One needs to make a lot of unsupported assumptions to participate in forums like this and that is a problem for me. I like evidence to support my assumptions.

But surely the culture war is over and despite the heroic effort by John Howard, the left has won a lot of ground that needed to be won. But really now the artie lefties are a bit old-fashioned and irrelevant, and should be ignored rather than encouraged by any more attention or alternatively we could just enjoy the way out stuff they like to talk about. It's a bit like poetry, my professor used to say.

So did you march in the Vietman demos yourself?

I threw the eggs, with the rest of the people doing some real study, rather than hocus pocus

As someone who wasn't able to acquire much education until adulthood, then slogged my way through two degrees and a PhD while being a wife and mother and working, I treasure every bit of my hard won education.

I educated myself because I always felt I was capable of a lot more than my early family circumstances had permitted me. For me, it was a way of rising above horrific childhood experiences, and not letting them destroy me.

I guess I could have turned to drugs , and copped exactly the same kind of abuse, just from a different perspective.

I don't ask for credit for any of it, but it would be nice once in a while if people in forums such as this one didn't slag off at people who educate themselves. We have our reasons. Sometimes we do it to save our lives.
Jennifer.