What is with all this anti-intellectual sentiment lately? Honestly, do we prefer to be led by idiots?
I hear it all the time. Even my daughter, attending closing ceremonies in the Peace Corps was told it's best not to get a PhD. Esp. not to go to a university like Harvard. Or Yale. Oh, God forbid if you go to the best universities in this country.
(I am not saying that simply attending these universities is enough . . . After all, there are a few legacies . . . )
But people do seem to ask -- why seek out the best education? ( Why bother to rise to the top of your law school class? Esp. if you want to lead this country? ) I mean, honestly, why challenge yourself to be a real thinker? Better to be one of "the people."
Better to be like the rhinos in Ionesco's play Rhinoceros - a play about the birth of Nazi-ism, fascism, nationalism . . . in which everyone is taken over by the urge to become a rhino . . . It's an amazing play and film-- and unforgettable.
Oh, let's just be rhinoceri . . .
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I heard a comedian on Comedy Central say that the people want leaders who make them feel good about themselves, therefore they want leaders slightly less intelligent than themselves. Ha! I think it's not that they can't be intelligent, but they can't seem like they think they're better than everyone else. It's tricky.
But notice that most people running for president in the last twenty years have gone to the Ivy Leagues, right? Gore, Bush II, etc...
Post a Comment