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Education is a cult in and of itself — most follow its scriptures in just as similar a fashion as they would a priest. People just don’t think that hard about t

by setr 8y ago

Education is a cult in and of itself — most follow its scriptures in just as similar a fashion as they would a priest. People just don’t think that hard about things outside of their specialization (and often enough, not even then), and end up trapped in all sorts of belief systems, including “education” and “science” (have you ever taken a look at “I fucking love science” fb pages? Its called science, and its followers believe in science, but that group has nothing to do with it. Its just a bunch of rituals that eventualy produce an effect, with any arbitrary reason given) Its not a fix on its own, just accidentally more (likely to be) correct than psychics, from the perspective of the believer.

simonh 8y ago
Look at it that way and pretty much anything is a cult, at which point I’m not sure the label means anything anymore.
- noobiemcfoob 8y ago
  I'd agree with the first part of your statement. Though what it means is that anyone's worldview is a flawed model from the start better described as a cult than as the truth.
- setr 8y ago
  All a cult is in this view is an unwavering, unthinking group following over some belief system; in that sense, any form of education (of which the bible, and schooling, are just one of) can turn into a cult. Its not surprising that students are just as susceptible as some midwestern hick. Its also not that surprising that people take those teachings differently, and some treat that knowledge in cultish fashion, and others don’t. And its not that surprising that people don’t realize this occurs, and spreads the word blindly, with unwavering faith in its problem-solving ability
Jedd 8y ago
Luckily this is almost totally wrong. Claims that education, or atheism, are cult-like or religion-like are common enough, but they require ignoring what an education actually means and instead assuming it's just deferring to a (different) bunch of books. An education gives you critical thinking, the ability to rationally consider, deduce, conclude, the willingness to discover, to be wrong, etc. I guess gp was describing someone who was eager to discover, but certainly lacked an understanding or developed abilities around critical thinking.
- setr 8y ago
  It only gives you critical thinking if you... critically think about it. Not by its very nature. >they require ignoring what an education actually means and instead assuming it's just deferring to a (different) bunch of books. But thats the key. People do that. All the time. In practice, education doesn’t follow your idealized version of it. Education, by which I mean western education, struggles to even resemble the ideal, and if anyone tells you to go get educated (thinking of the ideal), they will lead you to a very different path, because it’s done as an accident of the education system (that is, a mistake, a rarity). My point is that people don’t think that hard about what they learn; regardless of the source. All the fantasicism and cargo culting of programming communities are a direct result of this: fully educated people falling prey to the same mistakes you can accuse any religious follower of. Both (educated) liberals and conservatives accuse each other of these mistakes on a daily basis. Education isn’t magic; you should be applying the same skepticism to it as anything else, and it becomes fairly obvious that people can and do make the same mistakes they do with the bible as they do with the textbook
  - Jedd 8y ago
    > It only gives you critical thinking if you... critically think about it. That goes without saying. Your argument seems to be that some people don't 'get' education. That's hard to argue with - I'm sure some people don't. You said originally: "Education is a cult in and of itself" And that's what I rail against. Your observation that 'education isn't magic' is well aligned with my original point.
    - setr 8y ago
      I meant that its a cult insofar as any form of mass teaching lends itself to cult behavior; it elevated and unquestioned status exasperates the issue, especially when used as a blind solution to any problem at hand (e.g., only an idiot would go to a psychic; go to a teacher instead... approach both similarly, and your outcome is only accidentally more correct); but in reality, its no magic bullet, and lends itself to the same issues (more problematically, the educated tend to believe they are less susceptible by virtue of their education, despite being offered few such protections) The bible too isn’t bad on its own... a good wholesome christian turns out to follow a pretty good set of morals. My railing is against the belief the education is inherently better in these things than any other form of teaching (religions, myths, tradition, etc), but its not — critical thinking is outside of it, and most won’t partake in it regardless of which teaching methodology. The only saving grace is that education supposedly embraces it as an operation, where perhaps the christians might have once damned you for it, but in practice, education systems try quite hard to minimize the act (it would slow down standardized teaching, and memorization far simpler, scalable and cheaper to teach)

by setr 8y ago

simonh 8y ago

Look at it that way and pretty much anything is a cult, at which point I’m not sure the label means anything anymore.

noobiemcfoob 8y ago
I'd agree with the first part of your statement. Though what it means is that anyone's worldview is a flawed model from the start better described as a cult than as the truth.
setr 8y ago
All a cult is in this view is an unwavering, unthinking group following over some belief system; in that sense, any form of education (of which the bible, and schooling, are just one of) can turn into a cult. Its not surprising that students are just as susceptible as some midwestern hick. Its also not that surprising that people take those teachings differently, and some treat that knowledge in cultish fashion, and others don’t. And its not that surprising that people don’t realize this occurs, and spreads the word blindly, with unwavering faith in its problem-solving ability

Jedd 8y ago

Luckily this is almost totally wrong. Claims that education, or atheism, are cult-like or religion-like are common enough, but they require ignoring what an education actually means and instead assuming it's just deferring to a (different) bunch of books. An education gives you critical thinking, the ability to rationally consider, deduce, conclude, the willingness to discover, to be wrong, etc. I guess gp was describing someone who was eager to discover, but certainly lacked an understanding or developed abilities around critical thinking.

setr 8y ago
It only gives you critical thinking if you... critically think about it. Not by its very nature. >they require ignoring what an education actually means and instead assuming it's just deferring to a (different) bunch of books. But thats the key. People do that. All the time. In practice, education doesn’t follow your idealized version of it. Education, by which I mean western education, struggles to even resemble the ideal, and if anyone tells you to go get educated (thinking of the ideal), they will lead you to a very different path, because it’s done as an accident of the education system (that is, a mistake, a rarity). My point is that people don’t think that hard about what they learn; regardless of the source. All the fantasicism and cargo culting of programming communities are a direct result of this: fully educated people falling prey to the same mistakes you can accuse any religious follower of. Both (educated) liberals and conservatives accuse each other of these mistakes on a daily basis. Education isn’t magic; you should be applying the same skepticism to it as anything else, and it becomes fairly obvious that people can and do make the same mistakes they do with the bible as they do with the textbook
- Jedd 8y ago
  > It only gives you critical thinking if you... critically think about it. That goes without saying. Your argument seems to be that some people don't 'get' education. That's hard to argue with - I'm sure some people don't. You said originally: "Education is a cult in and of itself" And that's what I rail against. Your observation that 'education isn't magic' is well aligned with my original point.
  - setr 8y ago
    I meant that its a cult insofar as any form of mass teaching lends itself to cult behavior; it elevated and unquestioned status exasperates the issue, especially when used as a blind solution to any problem at hand (e.g., only an idiot would go to a psychic; go to a teacher instead... approach both similarly, and your outcome is only accidentally more correct); but in reality, its no magic bullet, and lends itself to the same issues (more problematically, the educated tend to believe they are less susceptible by virtue of their education, despite being offered few such protections) The bible too isn’t bad on its own... a good wholesome christian turns out to follow a pretty good set of morals. My railing is against the belief the education is inherently better in these things than any other form of teaching (religions, myths, tradition, etc), but its not — critical thinking is outside of it, and most won’t partake in it regardless of which teaching methodology. The only saving grace is that education supposedly embraces it as an operation, where perhaps the christians might have once damned you for it, but in practice, education systems try quite hard to minimize the act (it would slow down standardized teaching, and memorization far simpler, scalable and cheaper to teach)