American distrust of scholarship

[Brickjectivity]

You can talk about the politics past or present without bias or sharing your opinion.

It may not be possible.

 

[Fallen Prophet]

I understand your concerns, and this is a real problem particularly in countries that try to completely indoctrinate. How would you go about helping students to learn the lessons of History? History makes the difference between a student with no background and who is gullible and vulnerable and a student who is wary and has foresight.

Teach what happened. Share both sides of politics at the time. Don't insert your own opinion.

 

[Fallen Prophet]

It may not be possible.

If that is true then my kids aren't going to university.

 

[epronovost]

You can talk about the politics past or present without bias or sharing your opinion.

And that's what the overwhelming majorit of scholars do, but don't fall prey to the balance fallacy. In any given situation there aren't always two equal sides on which to compromise.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

Many attempts have been made to tune universities to prevent political interference and to keep them from oppressing students among other wrongs. They're corruption magnets.

Anything that is taught , apparently argues for something. And so anything that is taught , has a motive in a given direction. Any movement in any direction , can be perceived as corruption , as it moves away from a point of intellectual rest or resolve

If you're not understanding what I'm talking about then you're not going to be able to retort anyway.

I don't want to assume that automatically know , because I could form examples in my own mind of what you're talking about , that could be incorrect

Yes but its not just got protestant roots. It has a history of agriculture, isolation, severe independent libertarian roots.

all of these things seem as though they could be tightly related . They all speak of decentralization

They might own one book which was actually a library of books called the bible translated into English. Later in early 19th century they might have added a dictionary to that one book, and that early dictionary was filled with opinions about the bible, too, acting as a commentary.

Well , some americans were apparently highly educated . Have you ever tried reading the memoirs of general sherman? He starts off the book by talking about he how was educated in latin, greek, and french ! And then proceeds to write an enormous and highly detailed book... Are you sure that maybe things didn't get less intellectually intense

 

[Fallen Prophet]

And that's what the overwhelming majorit of scholars do, but don't fall prey to the balance fallacy. In any given situation there aren't always two equal sides on which to compromise.

Scholars or educators?

The vast majority of the professors I had were very biased and vocal. I've heard it only got worse under Trump.

 

[Colt]

True in many schools, but you can pick your school if you know ahead of time. I think it was Jordan Peterson who said that 25% of Sociology departments were Marxist. If true that means 75% are not.

Lots of young people are trusting and unsuspecting of the bias they will encounter in universities. Some may already have certain leanings when they arrive, but most kids are looking for a social scene.

 

[epronovost]

Scholars or educators?

The vast majority of the professors I had were very biased and vocal. I've heard it only got worse under Trump.

Both. In university students and professors are both scholars while only the professor are also educator (unless we are talkin about student in master and doctorate level in education who are also educator though not educating anyone while they attend classes).

 

[Brickjectivity]

If that is true then my kids aren't going to university.

If your university still bothers with education at that point and isn't just some fancy club for tea parties. There is online education, now. What can't be taught online, however? There are some things they would miss out on such as ethics where you learn the major changes in thought which have paved the way to modern society, and you learn how to critique ideas based on one system or another.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Anything that is taught , apparently argues for something. And so anything that is taught , has a motive in a given direction. Any movement in any direction , can be perceived as corruption , as it moves away from a point of intellectual rest or resolve

College football league on television. Students are drafted by universities including state universities for their sports ability. Sometimes their bad grades are overlooked. Justify it. Now tell me how this was allowed to become common practice. Now tell me how to stop it. These are the kinds of corruptions universities have. Its not only a modern development although football is and college sports are.

all of these things seem as though they could be tightly related . They all speak of decentralization

I don't know how to describe it. It is a culture of self reliance made necessary by long distances. Perhaps like Africa.

Well , some americans were apparently highly educated . Have you ever tried reading the memoirs of general sherman? He starts off the book by talking about he how was educated in latin, greek, and french ! And then proceeds to write an enormous and highly detailed book... Are you sure that maybe things didn't get less intellectually intense

Yes they were.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

If that is true then my kids aren't going to university.

It is not that easy.
Let me try to explain. Take an issue like politic rights, say property rights. Now the moment you are going to explain that you end up with the problem of that includes meta-ethics. What is good and bad?

And now we are off to the races, because doing that includes one position using counterarguments on the other side and in reverse. And then you have to explain how to compare different arguments using different methods for that. In the end you end with a "bias" if you go fully honest. You end with limited cognitive, moral and cultural relativism.
You end teaching the students that sorry to say reason, logic, evidence, truth and faith are all social constructs to a certain degree and in the end we all have different subjective belief systems.

But I doubt you want your children to learn that. But that is what it means to teach without bias.

 

[74x12]

Let me mention to you the distrust of scholarship in this country and why I think it exists so strongly. Scholarship has a reputation for betraying us. We don't trust scholarship, because while it seems ideal it is often used against the uneducated and poor. Its used as an excuse to take away property rights, used to swindle west virginians out of their land, destroy ways of life. Scholars make arguments to destroy God with. They blame religion for everything. They make better weapons, excuses to make us work harder, reasons to doubt ourselves. They invent things like scientific management. They try to take away the children to re-educate them in foreign ways and claim it will be better.

Since 1800 in relative isolation a nation of poor farmers (USA) has of necessity grown its own bible interpretations and its own seminaries. Meanwhile our standard high end professional seminaries have gradually become critical of our bibles, critical of our lowborn opinions. Snooty universities for the wealthy classes. We are criticized continually, but what comes of the wisdom of scholars? More junk, more wars, more theft, more trouble. Now everything is scientific, and the rules change so fast you can hardly recognize yesterday. In news usually the poor are to blame for everything evil such as crime, and scholarship is the highlight of humanity!

We read this in our bibles: "Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" (1 Corinthians 1:20) To a farmer and a poor man this message resounds. It says "My bible is written to me and is meant to confound the scholars."

Yes this completely misconstrues the true context of the scripture, but added to this are the contrivances and the machines of the scholars which provoke every poor man.

I'm speaking in general terms of how this seems to us as a whole, but I value scholarship. I understand the importance of having people dedicated to study. I'm not saying its evil, nor am I saying Americans are right to distrust scholarship. I'm saying why we don't trust scholars.

********************

What do you think? Why do Americans in particular distrust scholarship, or do you think it is more widespread?

I personally don't trust anyone much less scholars. I question everything, even my own religious persuasion and if it hadn't been for God in my life I wouldn't believe. I'm not a trusting person. I believe if scholars are truly objective then they would encourage questioning and doubting their own conclusions. If they discourage it then that means they aren't sincere. And unfortunately I think that is what many of them do. Being a fan of history in general I like to compare current times with ancient societies in an attempt to see through all the fluff and determine the true state of the world. Which is why I feel justified to say that scholars are the priestly class of the modern cult so long as they discourage free debate and contradiction and aren't objective.

When it comes to Bible scholars that we have a clear conflict of interests when they don't even believe the Bible; how can those of us who are Bible believers trust that they are being fair with their scholarly views? We can't. They have an agenda like everyone else. Their bias tends to cast doubt on and disprove the Bible.

So believing the Bible will always come down to faith. You can never do enough scholarship to take faith out of the equation. My faith is based on my own life and God in my life. So I see the Bible come true right now.

The textus receptus is what I consciously choose to cling to because it's the most hallowed and trusted throughout generations. It's what martyrs bled for and cherished. It shouldn't be lightly tossed aside just because someone finds an older text that contradicts it. Because until you find the original documents themselves the textus receptus is the most trustworthy. There is a reason why people chose it and rejected the others.

Is it always right? Probably not; but it's the most trustworthy.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

College football league on television. Students are drafted by universities including state universities for their sports ability. Sometimes their bad grades are overlooked. Justify it.

It looks to be something that humans justify , but scholarship does not , if we think of scholarship as a standalone concept

 

[Heyo]

Let me mention to you the distrust of scholarship in this country and why I think it exists so strongly. Scholarship has a reputation for betraying us. We don't trust scholarship, because while it seems ideal it is often used against the uneducated and poor. Its used as an excuse to take away property rights, used to swindle west virginians out of their land, destroy ways of life. Scholars make arguments to destroy God with. They blame religion for everything. They make better weapons, excuses to make us work harder, reasons to doubt ourselves. They invent things like scientific management. They try to take away the children to re-educate them in foreign ways and claim it will be better.

Since 1800 in relative isolation a nation of poor farmers (USA) has of necessity grown its own bible interpretations and its own seminaries. Meanwhile our standard high end professional seminaries have gradually become critical of our bibles, critical of our lowborn opinions. Snooty universities for the wealthy classes. We are criticized continually, but what comes of the wisdom of scholars? More junk, more wars, more theft, more trouble. Now everything is scientific, and the rules change so fast you can hardly recognize yesterday. In news usually the poor are to blame for everything evil such as crime, and scholarship is the highlight of humanity!

We read this in our bibles: "Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" (1 Corinthians 1:20) To a farmer and a poor man this message resounds. It says "My bible is written to me and is meant to confound the scholars."

Yes this completely misconstrues the true context of the scripture, but added to this are the contrivances and the machines of the scholars which provoke every poor man.

I'm speaking in general terms of how this seems to us as a whole, but I value scholarship. I understand the importance of having people dedicated to study. I'm not saying its evil, nor am I saying Americans are right to distrust scholarship. I'm saying why we don't trust scholars.

********************

What do you think? Why do Americans in particular distrust scholarship, or do you think it is more widespread?

I think you may be right. I have just one thing to add: people in the US are told to mistrust education by republicans. Education has a liberal bias and universities have huge liberal bias. (A bias, I don't say they indoctrinate. There are few places where you can discuss politics as freely as in university.)
Education is the natural enemy of conservatism and authoritarianism. So it's natural that the right is trying to discredit it.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

I personally don't trust anyone much less scholars. I question everything,

You don't see it as more of a continuum at least ? For example, there are obvious situations in life where you need split - second trust of reality. Where I live for example , the freeway can sometimes experience a whiteout. I better not be in a state of questioning everything too abstractly if I am in that situation

So believing the Bible will always come down to faith.

and so is faith the same as trust?

 

[Brickjectivity]

It looks to be something that humans justify , but scholarship does not , if we think of scholarship as a standalone concept

But we're talking of scholarship's reputation among Americans not scholarship as a standalone (ideal) concept. Americans approve of the concept. That's not the problem.

 

[74x12]

You don't see it as more of a continuum at least ? For example, there are obvious situations in life where you need split - second trust of reality. Where I live for example , the freeway can sometimes experience a whiteout. I better not be in a state of questioning everything too abstractly if I am in that situation

Yet as you make those split second decisions you still may question it in your mind. And split second decisions are not always right even though they are necessary because doing nothing is not always an option.

and so is faith the same as trust?

Yes of course and the point is that after deliberation we all must draw our own conclusions and trust something.

 

[blü 2]

Let me mention to you the distrust of scholarship in this country and why I think it exists so strongly. Scholarship has a reputation for betraying us. We don't trust scholarship, because while it seems ideal it is often used against the uneducated and poor.

What's an example of "scholarship" doing that?

Its used as an excuse to take away property rights, used to swindle west virginians out of their land, destroy ways of life.

Why wasn't that simply a case of fraud, available to anyone who was literate?

Scholars make arguments to destroy God with.

Alternatively, the truth will set you free. The US has a constitutional guarantee of freedom of views regarding religion. Are you objecting to that?

They blame religion for everything.

The Four Horsemen were a bit like that. But remember they grew in the soil of religious fundamentalists trying, illegally, to teach creationism as science in public schools, which very properly drew a disgusted reactions from the rest. But that degree of outright aggression seems to be fading along with the enemy's.

They make better weapons, excuses to make us work harder

Yes, the law of unions in the US leave many out, Biden has just moved to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, up from $8 or so. But you can blame capitalism, not "scholarship", for all that.

reasons to doubt ourselves.

C'mon now! The Christian religion teaches you you're a doomed sinner from the moment of your birth. If psychology is included in your sweeping term "scholarship" then in professional hands it's a move towards the antidote.

They invent things like scientific management. They try to take away the children to re-educate them in foreign ways and claim it will be better.

Eh? Quoi? ¿Ché?

Since 1800 in relative isolation a nation of poor farmers (USA) has of necessity grown its own bible interpretations and its own seminaries. Meanwhile our standard high end professional seminaries have gradually become critical of our bibles, critical of our lowborn opinions. Snooty universities for the wealthy classes. We are criticized continually, but what comes of the wisdom of scholars? More junk, more wars, more theft, more trouble. Now everything is scientific, and the rules change so fast you can hardly recognize yesterday. In news usually the poor are to blame for everything evil such as crime, and scholarship is the highlight of humanity!

We read this in our bibles: "Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" (1 Corinthians 1:20) To a farmer and a poor man this message resounds. It says "My bible is written to me and is meant to confound the scholars."

Ah, is this what you're actually motivated by?

How does any of it impinge on your right to believe what you want?

(Anyway, having said it, I hope you feel better now.)

 

[Brickjectivity]

To reiterate the OP question is: "What do you think? Why do Americans in particular distrust scholarship, or do you think it is more widespread?"

If someone thinks there isn't a problem and that Americans trust scholarship then feel free to say so. As for pulling my OP apart and wrestling I'm only interested in the topic and am not looking for an endless battle. Nor will I respond to misrepresentations of my position.

 

[Fallen Prophet]

If your university still bothers with education at that point and isn't just some fancy club for tea parties. There is online education, now. What can't be taught online, however? There are some things they would miss out on such as ethics where you learn the major changes in thought which have paved the way to modern society, and you learn how to critique ideas based on one system or another.

I don't think universities have a monopoly on ethics and critical thinking.