It's All Performance Art 81

My problem with the privileged liberal arts folk is how they undervalue and underestimate those of us who do not share their privilege.  It's actually kind of insulting.  It's the assumption that only people born into prosperous middle or upper middle class families can actually have the capacity for empathy and wisdom that I find particularly galling.  What classist, what casteist absolute rubbish and nonsense!

This isn't to say that we wouldn't benefit from this kind of, shall we call it, high-falutin book-l'arnin'.  Just as the privileged white and honorary caucasians in High Academia could also benefit from having to do without, to learn what it is to have to scrape together a living, to eke out one's existence, so to speak, and to actually get their soft little hands dirty as a condition for staying alive.

I had to learn through the whole uncertain but rather fun process of self-education.  Not perfect, but better than nothing, and I think that has also helped me with writing this blog.  I know that I am also a very resourceful person, and that living in poverty, having to do much with little, or more with less, has made me a particularly able and creative individual.  I would say much so than your average university educated Canadian.  This has also helped me in my experiences of language learning and travel.

The privileged classes always do poorly in times of adversity.  They are too soft and too cosseted from their many comforts and conveniences.  None of their lovely emotional intelligence is going to dig them out of the rubble after a killer earthquake.  On the other hand, if the benefits of a liberal arts education became universally available and mandatory, how would this affect voting patterns?

The Brahmins and the Great Unwashed really do need each other.  We need the knowledge and world view of the educated.  The educated are lacking our resourcefulness and toughness.  This all needs to be integrated.  Lower class people have a strength and grit and a capacity for making creative choices and decisions that would greatly benefit the rest of us if balanced by the education that comes from free and universally accessible postsecondary education.  Expensive, yes, but right now we are paying even more dearly for knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing.