What are universities for anyway? I went to one and spent the whole time being a Trotskyist troublemaker at the taxpayers’ expense, completely neglecting my course. I have learned a thousand times more during my 30-year remedial course in the University of Fleet Street, still under way.Yep.
We seem to accept without question that it is a good thing that the young should go through this dubious experience. Worse, employers seem to have fallen completely for the idea that a university degree is essential – when it is often a handicap.
One of the most intelligent people I've ever known never went to Uni. I remember a moment with John Muggeridge that illustrates (John had almost got himself kicked out of Cambridge). We were sitting at the famous dining room table, discussing some obscure point of something or other and found ourselves stumped.
At the same moment, we both said, "We'll have to ask David. He knows everything
For many people, college is a corrupting, demoralising experience. They imagine they are independent when they are in fact parasites, living off their parents or off others and these days often doomed to return home with a sense of grievance and no job.
They also become used to being in debt – a state that previous generations rightly regarded with horror and fear.
I guess this officially makes me part of a "previous generation". Thanks Pete.
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I refer to universities as "monasteries of atheism."
ReplyDeleteWhorehouses of atheism, is more like it perhaps? "Let's hookup; friend me on Facebook" is the new 'Benedicite' in this monastery.
ReplyDeleteWriting from deep inside Higher Ed,
Tom