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"effectively the only time in your life that you can, guilt-free, learn about the arc of civilization..." You've got to be kidding, speaking as a well educated

by VLM 13y ago

"effectively the only time in your life that you can, guilt-free, learn about the arc of civilization..." You've got to be kidding, speaking as a well educated older guy. Also, if you feel your education ended permanently at 22, your educators probably want to leap off a building. When you stop your education, you may as well be dead. You can and should train for a vocation to make a living when you're 19 (even if for cultural reasons you call that vocational training "getting an education"), otherwise with no income stream, life will be a bit rough at 60 when you're supposed to continue your live long self education, seeing as with no vocational training you'd have starved to death at 23. "or study Shakespeare in depth" If you hate Shakespeare, why bother? If on the other hand, you love it, especially in our modern era of public libraries, internet, ebooks, MOOCs, free online university video lectures, how do you propose to stop me in my 40s from doing the same, better than I ever could have it in my early 20s? Its not like technology and culture stop progressing making it less likely you'll be able to learn in the future. Could happen, sure, but...

maj0rhn 13y ago
Of course education doesn't stop at 22. But the interests you develop at that age have a way of carrying forward, and lower the threshold for re-engaging those interests later in life. If you never appreciated the genius of Shakespeare or Thoreau at 22, why would you be motivated to pick them up at 40? The other big point is that, during those 20 years from 22 to 42, you have the advantage of wider learning in your bag, and it helps you communicate. Remember the "Space Seed" episode of the original Star Trek (the one with Khan)? At the end Scotty explains Khan's acceptance of exile to Kirk by saying: "Have you ever read Milton, Captain?" It's understanding references like that that make you a complete human, vs. understanding pointer dereferencing, which make you a tradesman.

by VLM 13y ago

maj0rhn 13y ago

Of course education doesn't stop at 22. But the interests you develop at that age have a way of carrying forward, and lower the threshold for re-engaging those interests later in life. If you never appreciated the genius of Shakespeare or Thoreau at 22, why would you be motivated to pick them up at 40? The other big point is that, during those 20 years from 22 to 42, you have the advantage of wider learning in your bag, and it helps you communicate. Remember the "Space Seed" episode of the original Star Trek (the one with Khan)? At the end Scotty explains Khan's acceptance of exile to Kirk by saying: "Have you ever read Milton, Captain?" It's understanding references like that that make you a complete human, vs. understanding pointer dereferencing, which make you a tradesman.