I know not "seeming." Education is ideally the purpose of university. University isn't the only place you can get educated, but for many people, it is where it really starts, and for some, it's where it mostly ends. To quote Allan Bloom:
""The importance of these years for an American cannot be overestimated. They are civilization’s only chance to get to him.”
Part of education is mentally liberating people from their own time and place. It's good to have an understanding of all that, but you should really have more if you're going to expand your mind.
Well, with quotes like this, it's rather important not to take them in a vacuum. Take a figure like, say, Kierkegaard and his war on what he described as "Christendom." He saw formal education in religious matters as being used not used simply as a tool for "mentally liberating people from their own time and place" but rather as tools of indoctrination into an ideological system. Nietzsche agrees to a notable extent but extends this view beyond religious education, to education in general. How did he put it? "What does one learn in school? Obeying and commanding." Granted, much is gained along the way and many potential viewpoints and potential mental tools, but presenting school as "mentally liberating" is only part of the picture. In school, especially post secondary school, one falls into the realm of indoctrination into certain popular modes of thought - school, method, ideology. Some of the greatest thinkers of the past several hundred years had to leave school because they found its relative intellectual inflexibility smothering - Nietzsche and Kierkegaard being two of those figures.
Philosophy and various types of art appreciation should also be universally pushed.
Lord Bertie:
I'm guessing that's Russell? Sounds like him, though I understand you're a big fan. I agree with the statement "art appreciation" and "philosophy" should be universally pushed... But I'm not sure that formal education always does so in a great way. Bert talks of liberating from the prejudices of common sense, but I think you'd find a Nietzschean counterpoint that the institutions of education create a new series of prejudices, an insular of the erudite
"Education: essentially the means of ruining the exceptions for the good of the rule. Higher education: essentially the means of directing taste
against the exceptions for the good of the rule." (Will to Power)
He goes on to describe institutes of education as "hothouses" - a breeding ground of certain prejudices and norms, an intellectual way of thought. Nietzsche is critical of reading too much, ironically, and insists that all great thoughts (paraphrasing here) come when walking, not reading or in a classroom. A message is repeated in many forms throughout Nietzschean philosophy... Though they're important, get your nose out of the books, and leave the classroom - they might just taint your ability to interpret the world.
Also, keep in mind, I'm not in *any* way pushing abolishing university or some such. I'm more preaching to a point of balance, of establishing the value of other ways of learning. Practical learning, the learning of trades, is just one of many such methods and focuses.
Anyway, I don't look down on anyone based on what they do for a living, and I agree (and have said in this thread) that education cannot universally be a ticket to better economic circumstances (poverty in the first world, for example, is mainly a result of the combination of a market-based income distribution system and insufficient redistribution to people who are unable to work). And if everyone has a higher education, it doesn't provide any competitive edge. No disagreement there.
If I suggested you did specifically, my apologies. It's more of a general point. As a culture, there is a pretty long standing bias in favour of the university in our culture - towards formal education, the white collar, jobs where one has clean hands.
I'm not sure university is for everyone and, even intellectually, it has its own pitfalls. I think some departments count the pitfalls as their virtues, no less, liberating from the "prejudices of common sense" only shackle the young thinker with the prejudice of (insert school of thought here.) I'd like to see more focus put into other forms of learning, other avenues of acquiring skills and knowledge, and maybe get rid of some of the stigma of working with one's hands for a living.
On a side note, some of the most interesting and successful young artists in my area work in construction... Why? Because the knowledge of methods of construction is integral to their artistic method. Simply put, the "hands on" approach of learning, and what you gain from ground level involvement rather than just ivory tower theory, is invaluable to their art. Heck, I guy I work with frequently just received a grant from the state for his work dismantling old barns and using their aged lumber to create these odd industrial antique art pieces...
