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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| I always feel that there is something else I'm supposed to do with "all that knowledge" and yet, as a "useful citizen", refuse to let go of the things I've learnt just in case they might be necessary for the next "something else I'm supposed to do." |
I think you'll find that, as an intellectual, you are not in fact a "useful citizen". The test is always the same: do people say to you, "I'm sure that's very interesting, dear, but when are you going to get a proper job." Over time, however, fewer and fewer people ask this as they slowly come to the realisation that "a proper job" is not necessarily all it's cracked up to be. Until, as you clearly indicate, the point is reached when the only person still asking it is yourself.
| Does one ever believe they've done it all? That there is nothing left to learn, nothing else to achieve? |
This is precisely the parting of the ways. For non-intellectuals, this is nirvana and reached with remarkable ease and at a remarkably young age. Whatever lip-service they pay to "keeping up to date", they make sure there really is "nothing left to learn" as early as possible. They do not change their careers, they do not change their political opinions, they do not start a second family, they do not emigrate to another country, they do not alter their circle-of-friends, they do not undergo religious conversions, they do not start having sex with the light on, they do not start believing in astrology, they do not start dis-believing in astrology.
| They'd have even more if the whole truth was finally exposed. How do they think it can remain hidden? |
I think you misunderstand the mind-set. Whenever a new truth is revealed to them, they incorporate it into their lives without breaking step.
But we should not forget that "the two nations" are inside our heads too.
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Was anyone here identified as gifted as a child? I would be curious to know. (Or is "giftedness" a somewhat recent North American middle-class obsession?)
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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I vaguely remember during my last year at primary school in the mid-sixties, the headmaster had me up in front of the class and proclaimed me a 'mathematical genius'. Fortunately I didn't allow this to go to my head and it never swayed me from the true path .... sex and drugs and rock and roll ...... The rest is just a blur.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I was advised not to apply to university. If only I had listened.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Rocky wrote: | | Was anyone here identified as gifted as a child? |
Self identified.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| I was advised not to apply to university. If only I had listened. |
I dropped out of University, one semester shy of an honours, double-major BA in History and Philosophy.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Just submitted a critique of an undergrad essay on the topic of "notions of identity that arise and are attached to the practice of smoking" which was well-researched but seemed somehow lacking in personal observations/analysis.
The response, from dad, was "His essays are pretty much like that - I think they are expected to regurgitate lots of references. He tried putting in more of his own thoughts last year and got knocked back a bit, I think. He was slightly disillusioned with the process so he has decided to do it their way and get to the end of the course. Quite sad, really."
"Quite sad, really" indeed but he clearly has the nous to play the game. The lad will no doubt go far if he can endure three years.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| The lad will no doubt go far if he can endure three years |
You are entirely underappreciating the subtlety of the North Korean government. The system is designed to be self-regulating. As soon as the process has taken root, ie the subject has ceased to think for himself, he decides entirely of his own volition to leave 'the system' and take up his allotted task of being a useful citizen.
When that will be varies with the individual and with external circumstance. For most people, ten years' cumpulsory 'schooling' is sufficient but nowadays, what with one thing and another, it is necessary to lay on 'sixth form colleges' and 'universities' with ever-decreasing entry requirements (you will note that magically everybody who wants a place can find a place somewhere).
In our own work we often come across the really hard core, people who have to undergo not merely post-graduate indoctrination but are obliged (they oblige themselves of course) to place themselves within permanent 'disciplines' where -- and this is rather neat -- one of their duties is to ensure that the system itself is refined and taken forward for another generation.
Naturally The System also has space for professional insurrectionaries who are encouraged to throw pebbles from the sidelines to maintain a general air of freedom. That is all. Return to your duties.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| As soon as the process has taken root, ie the subject has ceased to think for himself, he decides entirely of his own volition to leave 'the system' and take up his allotted task of being a useful citizen. |
You mean get a job? That's assuming that graduates can find work, the market must be flooded with 'em by now. Students realise very early into the course that they've lumbered themselves with 3-4 years of tedium for the sake of obtaining a qualification... what happens when educated, disaffected chaps find themselves in a straitjacket of corporate obedience or professional correctness? Presumably they will drift onto the net and find the AEL site.
'Twill be interesting to see if, as jobs get scarcer in the coming months or years, academic departments lose even more funding (Astrophysics and sciences generally already seem to be cutting back).
| Naturally The System also has space for professional insurrectionaries who are encouraged to throw pebbles from the sidelines to maintain a general air of freedom. |
This smacks of pissing from inside the tent. Insider critics don't over-rock the boat; it's fine to mutter about reforming the system but unless they've broken away they resent outsiders' criticism no matter how justified. It is, after all, their livelihood and there are always kindred spirits to console/consort with.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| This smacks of pissing from inside the tent. |
I was referring to ourselves.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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There are plenty of people on the inside who are critical of the educational system without the likes of us to spur them on; they don't have the necessary clout perhaps to change the way subjects are taught but they'd probably merely substitute the existing regime with another, similar, one. At present the course that would-be teachers have to take seems calculated to put anyone except the most determined off the whole idea.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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How little you know of the world, dear. Everybody in education is hypercritical of the educational system. It is because they are without exception prisoners of the system (otherwise they would have left years ago) that they are so deeply, deeply unhappy.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I have an interesting tale of Academic folk to report. But first you'll need some background. The premier site for Anglo-Saxon specialists is the ANSAXnet. I joined many years ago under the rubric John Hailey. After some (I thought) highly entertaining exchanges about various things related to THOBR, I was accused of being a Troll and my posting privileges were withheld -- anything I write goes direct to the Head Honcho who decides whether to let it on. [Oh how I wish I had such powers for some of you tossers.]
All this was a long time ago, I haven't posted for perhaps two years and I really thought I would by now be long forgotten. So I posted this on a subject you will recognise
Ever wondered why English lost its second person singular but French and German didn't? Well, it all comes down to an accident. English-writers started using a y rather than the thorn for 'th' (as in Ye Olde Tea Shoppe) which meant every time you tried to write thou it ended up as you. Hence the literate classes got used to using you all the time, and speech tends always to follow the written form for reasons of prestige. So now we all use you for both singular and plural except in the most ureconstructed Mummerset dialects (and of course the Amish).
John Hailey |
For non-Anglo-Saxonists a 'thorn' is an A/S letter denoting (I assume) a 'th' sound. I think most of you will agree this was a minorly interesting observation of relevance to Anglo-Saxon specialists. The tone is perhaps a little more jocular than is normally the case on ANSAXnet but otherwise fairly unremarkable. Anyway the Moderator let it through, and it was immediately (and all the following came within two hours, a most uncharacteristic flurry) replied to with
Let the clamoring begin.
David Porter |
Since it is apropos of nothing, I suspect it must be trolling.
Daniel O'Donnell |
Yeah, where's Bothvar when you need him?
Rebecca Brackman |
Are you expecting us to set you straight on this myth ?
Norman Hinton |
Norman is the Great Panjundrum of the ANSAXworld and this particular reply was interesting to me since it clearly implies that my discovery was not original, and was indeed rather old hat.
It's easily refuted. The Amish speak German.
John Isles |
Normally I would take this as a joke (and quite a good one too) but with ANSAXnet you can never be quite sure -- they really do lack any sense of evidential scale. Something we should look at more closely -- we have all experienced it here and elsewhere. By the way, is it true about the Amish? I was going strictly on telly and films that use them so frequently as plot devices.
Fortunately, and at last, I got some support, albeit cackhandedly.
The "Thou Are You" troll's post may have been nonsense, but at least it is half-educated nonsense, derived from what I understand to be factual: that the y in the word ye in functions like "Ye Olde English Inn" is a distorted thorn. So don't knock him back too hard, don't tear off his arm.
Of more interest to us may be the way two completely different words have come together to designate persons jumping out of nowhere into an internet forum as trolls. (DNFTT: do not feed the trolls.) First they were described as "trolling," a fishing term derived from French, and thence they became "trolls," a fairly late Scandinavian word of which I don't think anyone yet knows the origins.
Even here there has been a flow of meaning, because originally trolling had a different function and was not frowned upon. Here's what Wikipedia says at "Troll (Internet)":
The most likely derivation of the word troll can be found in the phrase "trolling for newbies," popularized in the early 1990s in the Usenet group, /alt.folklore.urban/ (AFU).^[7]
etc etc
Marijane Osborn, thinking about trolls this morning instead of going to church |
Isn't this the same guy who told us that Beowulf was a Tudor forgery?
Mary S. |
Now this was funny, and rather helpful:
Johnxhailey wrote:
<<So now we all use you for both singular and plural except in the most unreconstructed Mummerset dialects (and of course the Amish).>>
Tha's like as not get tha' lights knocked out if tha goues aroun' sayin' Barnsley is owt t' do wi' Mummerset.
Bill Bedford |
And finally from the Moderator himself.
There are better explanations based on observable facts.
Bill Schipper |
I will return if anything more occurs but at the moment they are all too busy discussing Trollery and Wikipedia to bother with li'l ol' me or why we lost our second person singular. By the way, if anybody has anything to contribute to this question, especially whether they'd heard my explanation before -- it does seem blindingly obvious -- please post it up in the Matters Arising thread.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| the y in the word ye in functions like "Ye Olde English Inn" is a distorted thorn. |
Actually, it's a distorted th, by the way.
| Of more interest to us may be the way two completely different words have come together to designate persons jumping out of nowhere into an internet forum as trolls. (DNFTT: do not feed the trolls.) First they were described as "trolling," a fishing term derived from French, and thence they became "trolls," a fairly late Scandinavian word of which I don't think anyone yet knows the origins. |
They are clearly the same thing, by the way.
troll: Also (Sc.) trow {L = U/W} [Origin uncertain: cf. OFr. troller (mod. trôler) quest, wander casually, MHG trollen stroll, toddle.] Saunter, stroll, amble; spec. (slang) cruise in search of a sexual partner etc... Entice, allure... Fish by drawing bait along in the water... move in an alluring manner... Circulate; be passed round...
Compare draw, trawl and trolley.
Trull (prostitute, disreputable or promiscuous woman) and trollop ("origin unknown") obviously mean street-walker/solicitor. (Hence, trollies = knickers?)
And the alluring, beguiling sense is the same as in
troll: [Sw. (Da. trold) f. ON, of unknown origin. Cf. Da. trylla, trylde, Sw. trolla bewitch, charm, ON trolldomr witchcraft.] Originally, a witch, a sorceress. Now (in Scandinavian mythology), a member of a race of grotesque dwarfs (or, formerly, giants) usu. dwelling in caves or under bridges.
The disreputable, slovenly sense in trollop fits the later sense of troll, too. (I suspect there are other shades of meaning here for the technically-advanced, sea-faring, incoming-from-the-west, dark-haired Trolls/Giants/Dwarves, too.)
| There are better explanations based on observable facts. |
We should all sign up: clearly, they have all the answers.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| But that got me thinking about whether or not it is true that grouping strong students with strong students and weak students with weak students undermines public education. |
The school system is all about who you know not what you know and is admirably suited to maintaining the status quo which relies on having a ready supply of obedient (well-schooled) rather than well-educated workers.
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