Why is it that with so many 'educated' people among us, our society is still plagued with such an abundance of stupid decisions & policies ?
One could be excused for thinking that 'educated' people would be sufficiently intelligent & competent to overcome these shortcomings ?
Why is it that these 'educated' have not got the upper hand years ago ? Why is stupidity still so widespread ? Every Govt harbours 'educated' people yet hardly any seemingly educated policies emanate from their circles ?
I might be totally on my own here but, I'd have thought 'educated' people would d be smart & capable enough to overcome the shortfalls of society more & more as time goes on, alas !
Should not Education be a tool rather than a mere stepping stone ?

How is it a cow eats green grass, it turns into red blood and comes out as white milk?

Josephus,
how is it when you give some people all the information at hand they become more stupid ?

Individual,

Perhaps it's the "football club" mentality of our
political system that's at fault - where you support
the team no matter what and the "educated" are not
the ones in control.

To Individual-

I think that academics fear for their position is a factor.
Fear is a fair but not sufficient response. Actions need to be taken to overcome the source of the fear. The paradox is authority is necessary within constraints- global power is without constraint.

I guess that the reason that they are afraid is because the opposition is overwhelming. If academics were to organise cohesive opposition to university "wokeness", "Locke Liberalism", "Locke Globalism", etc they would have to fight the university unions, professional bodies, the media, etc, etc. They have been captured by the "possibility over probability" ideology that ties them to a narrow road.

Possibility is the likelihood that an event will occur. Possibility is a list of events that can occur within the set without regard to likelihood. A Possibility over Probability Fallacy incorrectly attributes equal probability to all possibilities- or often an "agenda controlled" list of ideologically approved possibilities.

http://seekfind.net/Logical_Fallacy_of_Appeal_to_Possibility__Appeal_to_Probability.html#.X2WZw6bLeaY

The opposition strikes from the dark through the institutions.

Mao used his four pillar attack on the institutions.

Confront conventionally win by surprise.

Small compromises can lead to the self.

Officers lock up the guns of the soldiers till they can be directed in their goals. Ideologues lock up the academics and politicians thoughts and pens. Small controlling the large.

Ironically the Postmodern Deconstructionists were contemporarily correct in a sense that everything in modern society is about power. But parish societies were perhaps more about cooperation. I would like to return societies balance in favour of cooperation over power.

This is what happens when too few control too many.

There are too many people.

The ultimate power is not control over things but over people.

There are some very brave academics in Australia sadly they can't fight alone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew_Fraser

Fraser was accused of being affiliated with White Supremacist groups, including the Patriotic Youth League (PYL), by the anti-racist group FightDemBack. Although both he and the PYL initially denied any connection, Fraser admitted he had attended PYL meetings and signed up to the PYL website after video footage of a PYL member describing him as an official legal adviser surfaced.[5]

Following an outcry from Sydney's Sudanese community, Macquarie University Vice-Chancellor Dianne Yerbury on 29 July 2005 decided to suspend Fraser from teaching any further at the campus on the grounds that the race debate was "threatening to spill over into the classroom" and was "affecting the university's ability to operate effectively."[6] Macquarie University offered to pay out the final year of his contract but Fraser declined, describing the offer as a "dishonorable discharge".[7]

On this incident, Fraser wrote:

Truth is no longer a defence when it comes to charges of academic deviance. Instead of an invitation to debate the issues, the Vice-Chancellor's office sought to get me off campus as soon as possible by offering to buy out my contract. The head of Human Resources made it clear to me that my public comments were damaging their efforts to market Macquarie University to foreign students.

When I refused the offer on the grounds that it amounted to a dishonourable discharge, VC Di Yerbury, ordered that I be suspended from teaching. This was justified on the specious grounds that the safety of students supposedly had been threatened by, among others, my supporters! For what must be the first time in academic history, alleged threats by outsiders to disrupt classes were met, not by tightening security to deal with the disrupters, but by getting rid of the disruptee.[8]