Parasite Cleanse FAQ:
“I don’t disagree. However, you appear to presume that no poor people ever formed a part of the intelligentsia.”
“I don’t disagree. However, you appear to presume that no poor people ever formed a part of the intelligentsia.”
By making higher education inaccessible to the poor?
Mule-
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I don’t disagree. However, you appear to presume that no poor people ever formed a part of the intelligentsia.
You pretty much summed it up right there. Lack of education is what keeps the poor, well, poor. In that case, I would say that the real parasite is not the intelligentsia class, but rather ignorance and the denying of education because you cannot pay for it.
If anything, what is irritating about these well-educated people is not the fact that they’re educated, but the elitism with which they treat each other and the knowledge they so proudly hang on to and withhold from those who aren’t deemed worthy. But I guess that elitism comes from their being “high class”, therefore able to afford their higher education, making this trait not one of educated people in general, but rather one of high class people who have found yet another money-acquired privilege to be snobby about.
I can’t speak for the whole world, but your statement is not true for the vast majority of western democracies where access to higher education is very great indeed. In fact, in the United States, there are far more people in universities than there should be because social policy for the last 50 years has emphasized the importance of higher eduction.
Thus, there are many people who are not prepared for university life enduring the unendurable, and failing because they believe they need a university degree. Many of these people would fare better if they went on to a technical education which would better prepare them for life, and give them the means to earn far more money than most college graduates.
But, to your point — in the western democracies access is not limited by ability to pay as there are scholarships, government loans and work/tuition plans that enable anyone who is academically qualified to receive a university education regardless of ability to pay.
The developing world is another matter. They don’t have the money to make higher education accessible to everyone; and that is one reason their economies are disadvantaged. But their failure to provide assistance isn’t necessarily class related, it’s just an economic and budgetary fact of life.
Furthermore, given the fact that my parents worked hard for everything they had, and I’ve worked VERY hard for everything I have, how can I as a member of the Intelligentsia be classified as a “Parasite?” Don’t you think that’s an unfair exageration?
if you define parasite as an organism feeding of another that gives nothing in return, then the ‘intelligentsia’ is certainly not such a thing. think of all the advances in human culture, art, science, medicine etc that benefit all people. the internet for example, one of the greatest of all tools to uplift the poor (in wealth and/or mind) from ignorance and single vision, has been brought about by the affluent intelligentsia.
however it maybe so that the affluence that has made these advances possible has always been made with the power of slaves, in one form or another. all humans enslave other animals. only some humans have the power and desire to enslave other humans.
never forget that being rich and educated doesn’t mean you understand basic reality and can say you are content with yourself.
You know, I have known somewhere of a saying that God had informed someone that ‘the poorest among the poor is your body’.
Higher education doesn’t mean a separation of being from one entity…
Guiding influence is not a teacher but a guiding light of ones being.
Imposition is not leadership but a subjective for their own whims and wills. Freedom and liberty is within the bound of laws of reason. Education is what you learn from all aspect of learning… Be it good or bad, your intellect upon learning would just set in.
I don’t, but I would ask whose intelligentsia, ours or theirs?
It is not the way of the Creator, Sarswathee and truly intelligent, educated and wise people to behave in the most unintelligent way.
The gift of education is for every one and be accomplished with a lot love and compassion.
One cannot call the hypocrites and crooks as intelligentsia!