I wish higher education or the arts or social media were the open forums of intellectual debate they seemed to be when I was younger. But personally it seems cl

I wish higher education or the arts or social media were the open forums of intellectual debate they seemed to be when I was younger. But personally it seems clear after devoting decades of my life to all three that they aren't and fundamentally can't be for some reason or reasons. Open to the hope that they still can be though of course. Even when I was a freshman I remember knowing that I was going to college to learn how to survive in 21st century western human society. And it felt that way both when I was an engineering student and an art student. Learning post-modern double-think and new-speak (half-joking terminology) seems like it was a huge part of that survival education for life both in and outside academia. Also learning how to stay human on an introspective personal level while participating in broken hypocritical institutional machines seems to have been a big part of what I was absorbing. Very angsty but it feels like it worked in retrospect and I made it a lot further than I thought I would.