{ folks will recall that Mensa was created for that time honored
reasoning, the sin que non of Raison de Etre, 'meeting girls.' }
{ I take the MaleDominatedApproach here, since as we all KNOW,
decent women went to college to get an MRS, and not an MS... }
p2: The Great Leap Forward in TechnologIsm, of course arrives
with the Soviet Launching of Sputnik, and the need to 'close the
missle gap' with the RedHordes, which would be clouded over with
'getting a man to the moon by the end of this decade'. When at
last the MilitaryIndustrialComplex would plant the Flag on the Moon,
folks would have arrived at the slightly more complex set of questions,
"Not can we do it,
But should we do it?"
The former is merely a question of the appropriate application of
the available technology, the later is a Policy Question, and as
such is basically immune to the Scientific Method. A construct
that would be slow in understanding both for the americans, as well
as for the rest of the world.[2]
p3: some folks would also notice the More FRIGHTENING thought,
namely, that academics would be launching anthropologist, not
to some strange distant land of 'brightly painted savages' but
would send them to rummage through the dustbins of Americana and
wonder how 'civilized' our very own society really was. As one
of my NativeAmerican friends likes to say:
"Western Civilization, a Good Idea,
when are they going to try it?"
And as most folks will recall, there was the great rise of
'situational ethics' - and "moral relativism" as the sole 'viable'
model for creating YuppiePuppyEthicalSystems. Probably a useful system
for people who will never have to consider 'nuclear weapons release
authority' or taking any such actions as may well lead to the death
of humans, such as creating NonExplodingCars, but generally has been
considered to be a 'sign post up ahead' to the TwiglightZone.[3]
p4: I would argue against the Belief that the Akademik environment
had been, or should have been, the Pivitol Role in the creation of
culture, since it had, at one time, been alledged that the role of
the akademiks were to transmit the culture, not to create it. For all
those who may have forgotten their love of Newton's Calculus, that
great 'weeder course' of modern BS, the Great Savant, 'created' the
fine art while on leave from cambridge, due to the PLAGUE... We might
be able to blame the whole process of WebMania on the Akademiks, as
the fine folks at CERN were unable to organize a reasonable medium of
information exchange, and wandered sideways into the notion for lack of
a more reasonable mechanism. When the WEB leaked out of Akadamia, it's
been one long Continuous Flow into DrekDom.
The same is true of UNIX, which AT&T was unable to sell, and which they
pawned off onto the Akademiks, who infested their students, who could
not get real jobs..... Likewise APPLE's hiddeous infatution with PASCAL
which had been alledged SOLELY to be a 'learning languge' and was never
intended to be used in real production code.
{ the up side, I guess, is that I can now get a subscription to
the San Jose Mercury ON-LINE, and will not have to Murder Tree Persons
merely to read Dilbert, and WORRY that Management will consider him
to be sound advice!!! }
p5: One might also Take a Brief Pause and Ask which portion of the
Illuminati had been the father to 'MBA' as a model for EconomicManagement?
Generally I have been under the perchance, illadvised opinion, that
the Harvard Business School was some HotBed of Red Kommunist Economy Wreckers,
but one might judge from the economic impact of handing over corporations
that had been run by Engineers to a collection of Fresh Faced, no Experience,
little boys with MBA's to have done more damage than the Whole International
Konspirakii of PinkoWimpLiberalFellowTravelorsOfTheRedHordes!
In summary, the Sixties Bored out the Mythology that one HAD to go to
college, to become 'well rounded' and to get laid, was not really able
to ever keep up with the Transition of Technologies which would spawn
the 'information revolution' - which had been based upon a network design
theory that presumed the NET would need to survive a Nuclear Exchange and
hence must be totally decentralized - and now scares Everyone, as NO ONE
is really in charge. And having created the Mytholgoies of 'Science'
found that 'Science' was totally unable to answer the deep inner personal
questions, like, "why do I want to get laid?" and "what does it mean?"
Sorry Kampfr's but a Six Hour Lecture Course on Hormonal Imbalances
just doth not Romance Make...
{ The lab's might have been interesting, but were they going to grade on
a curve, and how would I turn in my lab work???? [4]}
And last but not least, allow me to reference the Great 'flame wars'
between the news groups talk.bizarre and alt.postmodern, in which the
later were so painfully clueless as to presume that their last ditch
rear guard efforts to rescue the 'novel' - that "late night TV" genre
of the PreTV Era - was some how worth the Pedantic Splitting of Follicles.
If anything, the Complete Success of AkadamiaLand to teach us all
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, made the need to sit
quietly in class, a bit redundent at best.
ciao
drieux
"taking it to the Streets...."
[1] an indepth analysis of the 'college environment' in the
cinemographic images of the american culture will lead from
the Absolute Brilliance of Ronald Reagan in 'bed time for bonzo'
through the Cultural Revolution of 'Animal House' on down into
the less than elegant collection of films about boy meets girl
on college campus and has coming of age experience....
[2] the absolute FUN of the "Marxists" was their Religious Belief
that by co-opting the language of Science that this alone would
suffice to make it science. A process that would be repeated time
and again through out Akadamia Land, to the point now where we
no longer use the term 'metaphysician' - since Kant made that
anathema - but have almost been able to rescue 'cosmologist' who
were once one rung below metaphysicians.
[3] Actually the Struggle between the Moral Absolutists and the
Moral Relativists never did get a good conclusion, as we can see
today when various factions attempt to establish which of the
TRUE OneTrueFaith is the Morally Imperative one.
[4] actually the most unsettling thought would be where would
one appropriately footnote the sourcing for a romance?
Appendix:
Good Akademik works should have both foot notes and an appendix
as this makes them look and feel correctly. But like the human
appendix, one rarely notices them until they are inflamed....