Gradually though, ANYONE could create their own wealth and/or hold power and influence. They didn’t need to go to college to be successful.
People who did not have a college education began to gain influence, success was now obtainable for all through ideas, inventions, hard work, and determination.
Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, and Henry Ford are early examples having no formal education yet still becoming very successful.
So, what started happening is that professors and those from “royal” or “wealthy” bloodlines, became resentful that anyone, who worked hard, had imagination, and determination, could become wealthy, influential or powerful.
''Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.''
Joseph Stalin
Street Smart Versus Book Smart
“It seemed to me,” Socrates would say, “that the people with the greatest reputations were the ones who were most deficient [in true knowledge], while others who were supposed to be their inferiors were much better in practical intelligence.” –
I believe what Socrates was referring to are people I refer to as ‘blowhards.’ Blowhards spend their time crowing with conceit rather than demonstrating any sort of true education or scholarship.
When I worked in Emergency Medical Services, I found the saying “Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach,” to be true.
There are many EMT’s (an EMT is like a nurse, a paramedic is like a doctor) who could run circles around paramedics.
I know many EMT’s who have spent many years working “in the street” but are not book smart enough to pass the medic requirements. I’ve seen paramedics who barley pass the requirements but throw them into the middle of a train wreck and they take charge and run things seamlessly. And I’ve witnessed paramedics with Masters Degrees who place oxygen masks on their patients upside down and are truly incompetent in the field. I would trust my life with an EMT who has 10 years of street experience over a medic who holds a Master’s Degree.
It’s amazing to me that society has stopped talking about the possibility of becoming successful UNLESS you graduate college…when all around us are great examples of people who have elected to dedicate themselves to learning and earning independently of higher education.
Some recent examples of success without school: Food Network Star Rachel Ray, Hollywood heavy hitter Steven Spielberg, and Mark Zuckerberg (dropped out of Harvard to pursue Facebook) and Mark Wahlberg.
Envy is a part of human nature. It can be used as a positive tool to inspire people to aspire to reach similar success – or better success. Or, envy can be used as a negative tool to fan the flames of anger – spite – resentment.
Remember one of our “fears” in life is that we will not be significant. Professors and Old Money Elite began losing their status - and when a group or person feels their power slipping, they feel their security is threatened. They no longer feel special – and, indeed, for thousands of years, it has been biologically and historically impressed on them they were born to be powerful.
The USA grew and prospered due to those who wore work boots while the “intellectual” were busy studying.
Though “regular” college became more accessible, the “Ivy League Educated” became the new Superior; The new Royalty, Nobility, Monarchy. They believe they know better. They believe they are better. And we believe them – why, because we (regular people) accept what we think we deserve – and we’ve been sent mixed messages by parents, by books, by culture, by media, movies, etc - to think we are not deserving.
On one hand (you didn’t build this!) yet on the other hand, we are groomed to believe that Utopia exists and we all deserve to be happy BUT only if EVERYONE is happy. Who is sending these mixed messages? People who control the media and people in media attended “name brand schools.” And these name brand schools show by their actions they are being led by their lizard brain; basic animal instincts; concerned with STATUS, tribal affiliation, preening like peacocks, ego. They seek to control.
The sad thing is, we’ve rolled over and allowed their HARVARD STAMP to control us, guide us, bully us, and devalue our own independent accomplishments.
If you are told by a landscaper wearing torn jeans and work -boots to plant a tree in sunlight and keep the dogs away from it, you consider the advice. But, if someone else comes along and says, “I graduated from Harvard with a doctorate in nature studies. You should plant the tree in shade and use organic compounds scientifically proven to nurture the roots and establish improved growth.”
You have to admit you will tend to put more trust in someone who has never planted a tree but STUDIED it at an “Ivy League” school, rather than the jean wearing, sun tanned, tattooed, landscaper.
John Dewey, known as "the father of modern education," was the co-author of the "Humanist Manifesto." The U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities discovered that he belonged to 15 Marxist front organizations. Dewey taught the professors who trained America's teachers. Dewey was obsessed with creating dependency, creating a ‘collective’ a ‘herd’ of people. Dewey once said, "You can't make socialists out of individualists. Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society, which is coming, where everyone is interdependent."
History has conditioned us to rely on pseudo-science, educational experts, and of course, the wealthy. The non- scholars (us common people) have been conditioned not to question the well-educated. And the well – educated have been conditioned to dis-regarded their own ideas, they can draw no independent conclusions, unless they cite a study and other "experts" have confirmed it. "Studies show" is to the college graduate what "Scripture says" is to the religious fundamentalist.
