V interesting, thanks.

Have you heard of Simon Reeve? He makes travel documentaries for the BBC. He focuses on issues like the environment and social injustice. Your piece is reminiscent to me of his stuff. (Simon never puts a foot wrong, as far as I'm concerned.)

http://www.shootandscribble.com/sr/1.html

16 minutes ago, Kak said:

V interesting, thanks.

Have you heard of Simon Reeve? He makes travel documentaries for the BBC. He focuses on issues like the environment and social injustice. Your piece is reminiscent to me of his stuff. (Simon never puts a foot wrong, as far as I'm concerned.)

http://www.shootandscribble.com/sr/1.html

I haven't. Thanks! The biography sounds very interesting and relevant to my interests. 

This is super interesting. You should turn this into a magazine article or something.

I, too, am angered and puzzled about the roots of anti-intellectualism in this country. And what's hilarious is that the very people who appear to the masses on this ground (Drumpf and even Dubya) have Ivy League educations. Ridiculous.

Is it America's Puritan streak?

OK...while writing this response, I came across a very interesting blog post that gets at this issue. https://scienceoveracuppa.com/2016/01/10/the-roots-of-american-anti-intellectualism/

Count me in as someone who would love to see a revolution, but I feel a bit guilty about even expressing that because I know that there are rarely (if ever?) bloodless revolutions. But something has to change. The country is more divided than I've ever seen it and the growing social inequality won't stretch forever. At some point it will break and I fear that the snap-back will be fairly brutal.

1 hour ago, EyeQueue said:

This is super interesting. You should turn this into a magazine article or something.

Thanks. I wrote it in the blog editor on FJ and forgot about it until I went to create a new blog. It only now occurred to me that I could have copy & pasted the text into word, saved it, and worked on it some more. 

1 hour ago, EyeQueue said:

I, too, am angered and puzzled about the roots of anti-intellectualism in this country. And what's hilarious is that the very people who appear to the masses on this ground (Drumpf and even Dubya) have Ivy League educations. Ridiculous.

Is it America's Puritan streak?

OK...while writing this response, I came across a very interesting blog post that gets at this issue. https://scienceoveracuppa.com/2016/01/10/the-roots-of-american-anti-intellectualism/

Thanks for the article! 

1 hour ago, EyeQueue said:

Count me in as someone who would love to see a revolution, but I feel a bit guilty about even expressing that because I know that there are rarely (if ever?) bloodless revolutions. But something has to change. The country is more divided than I've ever seen it and the growing social inequality won't stretch forever. At some point it will break and I fear that the snap-back will be fairly brutal.

There won't be a revolution until there is some sort of food shortage. We are too well fed (despite the fact that we have 15.3 million children living in food insecure homes), and too entertained. Even when my salary was less than this dress, I was still (relatively) comfortable. I had food, I had shelter (with roommates), I had entertainment. I was (relatively) safe. My neighbors at the same level of poverty were also reasonably distracted with the drama that consumes life in poverty, television, and day-to-day necessities. It's so easy for the wealthy to distract and exploit the masses - poverty, working class, middle class, even upper middle class - with marketing, media, and the thrill of spending and trying to "keep up with the Jones." But I digress. 

I don't really want a revolution as much as a cultural shift. I don't want people to be hurting each other in the streets or taking the anger out on each other. I don't even want people to go the way of the French Revolution or the Chinese Revolution and start executing the wealthy in the street. I just want people to  peacefully change from prioritizing wealth to intelligence. I'd also like to see an end to "brand name" education, and less praise for simply "working hard." Not that there is anything wrong with being diligent and working hard. But sometimes "working smart" is better than "working hard." i.e., sometimes it's smarter to hire someone to do your PR, rather than just tweet whatever you want about your company, whenever. You might think you are saving money by setting up your tweets and facebook points on hootsuite, but you might also be losing money because you majored in astrophysics and don't know how to talk to people. (weird example, I know.) 

I can go on forever. Thanks for reading! 

I am so with you on most of this. I would love for people to start valuing time over money and do the working smart thing so they have more time to engage in community projects, artistic pursuits, etc. I'm so tired of the seeming competition among my peers about who is the busiest. It gets old and it's something I've definitely opted out of.

         It's funny, parents say they value education, what they really value is grades. It sometimes seems little value is placed on actual intellectualism. I can go on and on but I'm tired.