CRAIG | 2006-10-15
NOT SPAM
NOT SPAM
In general I'm very confused.
Back in 2004, i was the typical neo-con buying political books. it would turn out to be my last trip but i came across "why johnny cant think". I read the summary of the book and sad to say, put it back. Then in October of 2005 your name come up in a forum i was reading, since i remembered it from the book i put it into Google. After finding your blog, i was blown away that an author would actually take the time and talk to average people. Instantly i became addicted to this blog and your archives. It sounds odd, but i didn't understand a word you said because i was so mired in wordism. Yet i knew it was important and it matched my feelings perfectly.
I live somewhere in small city. Many of us moved here specifically because it was the only one around which didn't practice busing. truly a city designed for the working class.
We've all mentioned someone we can circle in red in our family trees. Mark has one to be extremely proud of.
I don't have much to say, but in my lack of comments there is an active student.
ME:
Craig, you have been accepted as a member of this seminar, which means you have already outgrown the college education you haven't had yet. In my years helping out grassroots protests I have met many a person in his or her middle age who never finished high school who fell into that category.
You know working people, so you know EXACTLY what I mean.
Every other member of this seminar understands what you mean when you say "confused." We are all "confused" because we are all still trying to figure REALITY out. NO ONE who has NOT outgrown his college education is "confused." They are dead certain that Mommy Professor has laid out the Truth for them.
This is a disease I call Militant Ignorance. It is intellectual death. A steel worker who never finished junior high but reads a lot has done a LOT of learning by the time he is 40. More important, he is STILL learning. He is in my category, and I think that is the best group there is.
If you are not still a student your mind is ready for the pallbearers.
If I thought I had the Final Truth to give you, I wouldn't keep begging you to correct me and to comment. Frankly, I think I learn more here than anybody else does, and that is s BRAG. One mark of a good teacher is that he learns more than his students do.
Someone who has the disease of Militant Ignorance is absolutely unable to learn. In fact, he is PROUD of the fact that he simply has nothing basic to learn from anybody. What makes him hopeless is not his ignorance, but that he is MILITANT about how his ignorance is a sign of his sainthood.
You started your comment by saying you were confused and ended it by saying you are an "active student." To my mind, those statements are identical.