The key to understanding is that 'seniority' is not a measure of enlightenment, rather in fitness to operate in a power culture. It's really pretty impossible to even work in corporate life if you are enlightened, because your value system will almost certainly be incompatible with the low-blow power culture that will be your weekly reality.
My generation had parents who were unquestioning in the value of 'university'. I can state from hard experience that universities are suitable for practically gifted, intellectually more limited individuals, as they add value. They add zero value to intellectually gifted children who are less practically dexterous. They also add pretty much zero value to anyone who took a real gap year abroad (i.e. one where they lived like a young adult, not like living with mummy and daddy).
Schools do not educate, they brainwash. I have seen concrete examples of such brainwashing at schools in the UK and those regarded as 'young leaders' are brainwashed to an incredible level. They speak like mature politicians, glibly trotting out the party line, apparently supremely unaware of their total ignorance on the subject.
So, my advice to anyone who wishes to become enlightened at a young age is this:
1. Go to school assuming everything you are told is false until proven otherwise.
2. Don't see teachers as infallible Gods, rather individuals in a place of work who may or may not have passion for their job.
3. See any training which is fully paid for by employers as worth more than £100k of debts going to a university who couldn't really care too much about your future career. Your employers have an interest in you becoming skilled to benefit them.
4. See international travel as a way to detox from UK propaganda, particularly if you detox from social media at the same time. You can gain just as much insight communing with real human beings and with nature as you will sitting in a lecture theatre or being addicted to X, Instagram and Facebook.
5. Never equate wealth with wisdom, equate it with ruthlessness, brutality, being a monopolist and being a dominant controlling individual.
6. Always put doctrines into proper historical context: when were they formulated, upon what pretexts were they formulated, how relevant do they remain in today's world, how relevant are they today in the country you are living in?
7. Always understand that your parents and grandparents grew up in different times. It's OK for them to see the world differently, living their lives on a different timetable. Don't sell yourself short to please them, however.
8. Never assume that 'protected minorities' are all saints. There are tens of thousands of repulsive women, gays, blacks, Jews, Muslims, trans-individuals. White, heterosexual men do not have exclusivity over disgusting attitudes and behaviours.
9. Never assume that ordinary people from countries you are conditioned to hate are anything different to those in your own country. Russians love children as much as Brits and Aussies. Chinese value family as much as Italians. Iranians respect Jews, indeed they have one of the biggest global Jewish communities in Iran.
10. Never be afraid to call someone a patronising c**t if that is how they behave to you in public. If you suffer in silence, they will keep on behaving the same way.
Some great points here. Especially note 8, often overlooked. There will be some truly shitty people in Gaza. There will be some very lovely, gentle individuals in Israel (perhaps not as many as one would hope). Regardless, that does not give one group the right to dictate the fate of another.
University, though, is where one tends to get to know oneself and explore your own morals and beliefs by interacting with an expanded peer group from all backgrounds. It's almost a rite of passage and where you make your lifelong friends. In this respect, it does have value. Many people end up settling in the towns they attended uni. It's a breaking away from childhood and the comfort of home and learning to think for yourself. Universities are the opposite of schools when it comes to controlling thoughts, behaviours and narratives.
idk, universities more and more function within the system that feeds them and they've been pretty privatized, and with corporate capture of government, even their public funding is a vulnerability (as turns out). but the root of the protest seems indeed still at universities, admittedly.
The key to understanding is that 'seniority' is not a measure of enlightenment, rather in fitness to operate in a power culture. It's really pretty impossible to even work in corporate life if you are enlightened, because your value system will almost certainly be incompatible with the low-blow power culture that will be your weekly reality.
My generation had parents who were unquestioning in the value of 'university'. I can state from hard experience that universities are suitable for practically gifted, intellectually more limited individuals, as they add value. They add zero value to intellectually gifted children who are less practically dexterous. They also add pretty much zero value to anyone who took a real gap year abroad (i.e. one where they lived like a young adult, not like living with mummy and daddy).
Schools do not educate, they brainwash. I have seen concrete examples of such brainwashing at schools in the UK and those regarded as 'young leaders' are brainwashed to an incredible level. They speak like mature politicians, glibly trotting out the party line, apparently supremely unaware of their total ignorance on the subject.
So, my advice to anyone who wishes to become enlightened at a young age is this:
1. Go to school assuming everything you are told is false until proven otherwise.
2. Don't see teachers as infallible Gods, rather individuals in a place of work who may or may not have passion for their job.
3. See any training which is fully paid for by employers as worth more than £100k of debts going to a university who couldn't really care too much about your future career. Your employers have an interest in you becoming skilled to benefit them.
4. See international travel as a way to detox from UK propaganda, particularly if you detox from social media at the same time. You can gain just as much insight communing with real human beings and with nature as you will sitting in a lecture theatre or being addicted to X, Instagram and Facebook.
5. Never equate wealth with wisdom, equate it with ruthlessness, brutality, being a monopolist and being a dominant controlling individual.
6. Always put doctrines into proper historical context: when were they formulated, upon what pretexts were they formulated, how relevant do they remain in today's world, how relevant are they today in the country you are living in?
7. Always understand that your parents and grandparents grew up in different times. It's OK for them to see the world differently, living their lives on a different timetable. Don't sell yourself short to please them, however.
8. Never assume that 'protected minorities' are all saints. There are tens of thousands of repulsive women, gays, blacks, Jews, Muslims, trans-individuals. White, heterosexual men do not have exclusivity over disgusting attitudes and behaviours.
9. Never assume that ordinary people from countries you are conditioned to hate are anything different to those in your own country. Russians love children as much as Brits and Aussies. Chinese value family as much as Italians. Iranians respect Jews, indeed they have one of the biggest global Jewish communities in Iran.
10. Never be afraid to call someone a patronising c**t if that is how they behave to you in public. If you suffer in silence, they will keep on behaving the same way.
Some great points here. Especially note 8, often overlooked. There will be some truly shitty people in Gaza. There will be some very lovely, gentle individuals in Israel (perhaps not as many as one would hope). Regardless, that does not give one group the right to dictate the fate of another.
University, though, is where one tends to get to know oneself and explore your own morals and beliefs by interacting with an expanded peer group from all backgrounds. It's almost a rite of passage and where you make your lifelong friends. In this respect, it does have value. Many people end up settling in the towns they attended uni. It's a breaking away from childhood and the comfort of home and learning to think for yourself. Universities are the opposite of schools when it comes to controlling thoughts, behaviours and narratives.
idk, universities more and more function within the system that feeds them and they've been pretty privatized, and with corporate capture of government, even their public funding is a vulnerability (as turns out). but the root of the protest seems indeed still at universities, admittedly.
It didn't used to be that way. I went to Harvard in the 70's. Zero indoctrination. Students from all over the world. It was a high point of my life.