What is Intellect?

Rise of the Educated Idiots

What is education, and what constitutes intelligence?  Is intellect the accumulation and memorization of information with the ability to regurgitate the data on cue, or the interpretation and application of that information?  One could argue that education, as we know it today emphasizes accumulating a wealth of knowledge, without attempting to understand how that knowledge is relevant on a daily basis.  Any idiot can memorize data and parrot those statistics like a drone, but to understand what the numbers mean, and how individuals, communities, and whole societies, are affected by the reality of those numbers, exposes the essence of what it means to be intelligent in the literal sense.  Are there intelligent people with a university education?  Yes, but does a university education make you intelligent, or is it a sign of intelligence?  There may have been a time when the answer to both of these questions would have been yes.  However, we have seen recently that standards have taken a back seat to a woke agenda.  Affirmative action as it exists in academia, is a great illustration of lowering the bar for excellence in education, while pandering to minorities.  That may sound terrible but yeah, I went there.  But consider creating the narrative that minorities need to be pushed to the front of the line, hence promoting the idea that minorities are less capable, or not as smart as Caucasian applicants.  Is that not showing disdain for minorities by treating them like they make up a lower tier of evolutionary biology?  I view affirmative action as a blatant insult to minorities, or some may call it overt racism.

Is education still in the business of educating, or have they become a vehicle for woke ideology and propaganda?  Degree programs should provide tools that prepare students for careers in fields that are in demand.  If a degree doesn’t offer any marketable skills to an individual, I don’t think that federal student aid funds should go to students pursuing these Mickey Mouse degrees.  For example, someone pursuing an “education” in gender studies, should not be receiving tax payer money to earn that degree.  If they have rich parents, and they want to get a degree that exudes the level of legitimacy that one would give to the “Free Toy Inside” a box of Cracker Jacks, then they should be able to do so.  But let’s not give that person the same recognition as someone that gets a degree in a practical field, like something that falls under STEM.  That brings us to science and math, that are very practical and provide knowledge and skills that translate to many fields, but some programs have even allowed these subjects to become corrupt.  Science has become less interested in the scientific method and experimentation, and more obsessed with consensus and politics.  As if that was not bad enough, there are school systems that have recently accepted the idea that math is racist and perpetuates white supremacy.    Why do they think this?  Because these “intellectuals” decided that the fact that you must come up with the correct answer for a problem, discriminates against minority students.  Once again, doesn’t this sound like racially profiling the ability of a student based on his skin color?  This coming from the people that constantly accuse conservatives or anyone that disagrees with them, of being racist. 

The indoctrination camps that we like to call universities, have failed in preparing our young people for the battlefield of ideas that is reality.   If we do not know how to apply the knowledge that we have acquired, or explain the rationale for our positions we are just mouthpieces for others’ ideas.  There is another saying, that people do not have ideas, ideas have people.  Education as it exists in its current form also encourages conformity and obedience to the system.  Who are the individuals that really push us to new levels and propel us into the future?  Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs,  America’s founding fathers.  Were any of the people listed above obsessed with following the rules, and falling in line?  Of course not, the opposite is true.  They were called crazy, they were not constrained by the status quo and they didn’t follow others, the carved out a path to take on their own so that people would follow them.  This is the mentality that we must instill in our children.  The sooner we recognize that they are not going to learn this in our current system, the better  We want to raise free thinkers, not programmed propaganda machines.