BF2S Forums Work sucks!

^ that is a valid point, also... a few centuries ago university education was there to cultivate character, culture and personal refinement. people were sent off to study and sent on tours of the continent to learn about life in general, to gain a humanist perspective on the world- and to generally dabble in Enlightenment liberalism and further boost their mental faculties, reasoning and appreciation of fine things.

fast forward 200 years, go through an industrial revolution and the rise of global capitalism as the main paradigm for societal structure, and the expectation and 'aims' of education are to 'equip a workforce'. people are told to go to universities to study 'vocational' subjects - or even more, to get diplomas or apprenticeships in extremely-specific areas. wide, humanist education and principles of grammar, rhetoric, classicism, philosophy etc. are brushed aside as middle-upper class luxuries to a wave of management students and 'business' majors. commerce and your pay-packet are the main criteria of success in the modern-era. this is a form of intellectual 'brainwashing', as people are being inculcated from birth to think about making major life-choices that will augment their future salaries, as opposed to giving them any genuine sort of 'proper' education and awareness.

if you can't at least concede that point then i don't know what world you're living in. especially the yanks.

Shahter wrote:

SenorToenails wrote:

Shahter wrote:

But he's already doing what he loves.  By me saying 'doing more', it basically means, 'continue to do'.  The difference there is merely working for someone or for yourself, is it not?  If the work is the same, how can collecting a steady paycheck automatically make it crap? 

That wasn't me agreeing with you.

ffs, man, read the fucking thread. you CAN do stuff you love and call it your job. what i'm trying to say is that by making stuff you love a part of your job you TAKE AWAY form the enjoyment you get for doing thas stuff.

That doesn't really make sense dude.

You're saying that because I enjoy doing stuff, and then have the added bonus of being paid to do the same stuff, I no longer enjoy it?

That's just a plain weird logic you got going on there.

Uzique wrote:

^ that is a valid point, also... a few centuries ago university education was there to cultivate character, culture and personal refinement. people were sent off to study and sent on tours of the continent to learn about life in general, to gain a humanist perspective on the world- and to generally dabble in Enlightenment liberalism and further boost their mental faculties, reasoning and appreciation of fine things.

fast forward 200 years, go through an industrial revolution and the rise of global capitalism as the main paradigm for societal structure, and the expectation and 'aims' of education are to 'equip a workforce'. people are told to go to universities to study 'vocational' subjects - or even more, to get diplomas or apprenticeships in extremely-specific areas. wide, humanist education and principles of grammar, rhetoric, classicism, philosophy etc. are brushed aside as middle-upper class luxuries to a wave of management students and 'business' majors. commerce and your pay-packet are the main criteria of success in the modern-era. this is a form of intellectual 'brainwashing', as people are being inculcated from birth to think about making major life-choices that will augment their future salaries, as opposed to giving them any genuine sort of 'proper' education and awareness.

if you can't at least concede that point then i don't know what world you're living in. especially the yanks.

200 years ago, how many people went to college?  Not nearly as many as today, and they were mostly wealthy so they could afford to roam about the continent for life lessons and purely humanist reasons.  If that were to happen today, the costs of such an education would be quite high and not many people want to pay all that to end up with a degree that is unmarketable and regarded as nearly useless.  Perhaps things are different in circles of wealthy people, but most people aren't there.  Of course, I was a tard and went for physics and math.  Not many companies want just theoretical physics and math in this economy (most of the job postings I saw were for engineers), so I must've missed the 'base life choices on future salaries' memo, but I see your point.

The liberal arts education still exists at some schools, but it's terribly basic and nowhere near as 'classical' as the education you refer to.

SenorToenails wrote:

Uzique wrote:

^ that is a valid point, also... a few centuries ago university education was there to cultivate character, culture and personal refinement. people were sent off to study and sent on tours of the continent to learn about life in general, to gain a humanist perspective on the world- and to generally dabble in Enlightenment liberalism and further boost their mental faculties, reasoning and appreciation of fine things.

fast forward 200 years, go through an industrial revolution and the rise of global capitalism as the main paradigm for societal structure, and the expectation and 'aims' of education are to 'equip a workforce'. people are told to go to universities to study 'vocational' subjects - or even more, to get diplomas or apprenticeships in extremely-specific areas. wide, humanist education and principles of grammar, rhetoric, classicism, philosophy etc. are brushed aside as middle-upper class luxuries to a wave of management students and 'business' majors. commerce and your pay-packet are the main criteria of success in the modern-era. this is a form of intellectual 'brainwashing', as people are being inculcated from birth to think about making major life-choices that will augment their future salaries, as opposed to giving them any genuine sort of 'proper' education and awareness.

if you can't at least concede that point then i don't know what world you're living in. especially the yanks.

200 years ago, how many people went to college?  Not nearly as many as today, and they were mostly wealthy so they could afford to roam about the continent for life lessons and purely humanist reasons.  If that were to happen today, the costs of such an education would be quite high and not many people want to pay all that to end up with a degree that is unmarketable and regarded as nearly useless.  Perhaps things are different in circles of wealthy people, but most people aren't there.  Of course, I was a tard and went for physics and math.  Not many companies want just theoretical physics and math in this economy (most of the job postings I saw were for engineers), so I must've missed the 'base life choices on future salaries' memo, but I see your point.

The liberal arts education still exists at some schools, but it's terribly basic and nowhere near as 'classical' as the education you refer to.

classical educations and liberal arts education-standards are still very high here in europe... which probably says something. you mention the exact word that refers to shahter's 'brainwashing' capitalist orthodoxies: "not many people want to pay all that to end up with a degree that is unmarketable". in the era when education actually meant something and was an accomplishment, degrees were not there to make you 'marketable', they were there to refine your character and give you an all-round sense of education. people being fast-tracked into ridiculously abstract and specific degrees that are tailored to 'x' job in 'y' industry are not 'smart'... they have been brainwashed and developed specifically to fit into a cog in the overall capitalist machine. that may sound like marxist rhetoric, but that is precisely what most lower-class educations equip people for nowadays... kids are counselled by 'careers advisors' from fucking age-12 to 'choose a profession' or 'nominate a career path' and then to specifically develop their talents, skills and abilities to perfectly match a pre-elected TASK or ROLE. that is not education, that is being moulded into the ideal worker for 'x' application. now, if that is not brainwashing -- bearing in mind the original scope and intention of Western humanist education, what is? people that have the illusion of being 'smart' when they have adapted themselves, throughout their entire adult life, to maximize their salary and thrive in a corporate environment... to what standard of real 'intelligence' do they fit? no worthy one, that's for sure.

200 years is not a long time in terms of human history, nor in terms of the history of education- but you can see that the rise of global capitalism and the increasing competitivity of free-market idealisms has penetrated through into the education sector, too. nowadays if you don't specialize in one particular subject (worker-specialization being a trademark attribute of the later, advanced stages of capitalism) then apparently you are 'worthless': "unmarketable". that's a shame, and it is a brainwashing doxa taken from political and economic idealisms, e.g. free-market capitalism, that has become so deeply entrenched in our modern education systems that is has become orthodoxy. i don't agree with that, but perhaps that is because i am given to an entirely different set of idealisms: classical liberalism and enlightenment humanism. perhaps that is as a consequence of my own socio-economic factors - as you mentioned - but really, what system of education stands for the better ideals?

well it's a pretty huge and disparate area - 'employment' - to be able to make any universally-applying statements, isnt it?

the point is, rather, that if you can 'understand' it and empathize with his point, then it carries at least a modicum of credibility. nobody is going to be able to make a statement about work that everyone can universally wholeheartedly agree with...

Uzique wrote:

nobody is going to be able to make a statement about work that everyone can universally wholeheartedly agree with...

That's the point I've been trying to make here, fallen on deaf ears yet again.

Uzique wrote:

classical educations and liberal arts education-standards are still very high here in europe... which probably says something. you mention the exact word that refers to shahter's 'brainwashing' capitalist orthodoxies: "not many people want to pay all that to end up with a degree that is unmarketable". in the era when education actually meant something and was an accomplishment, degrees were not there to make you 'marketable', they were there to refine your character and give you an all-round sense of education. people being fast-tracked into ridiculously abstract and specific degrees that are tailored to 'x' job in 'y' industry are not 'smart'... they have been brainwashed and developed specifically to fit into a cog in the overall capitalist machine. that may sound like marxist rhetoric, but that is precisely what most lower-class educations equip people for nowadays... kids are counselled by 'careers advisors' from fucking age-12 to 'choose a profession' or 'nominate a career path' and then to specifically develop their talents, skills and abilities to perfectly match a pre-elected TASK or ROLE. that is not education, that is being moulded into the ideal worker for 'x' application. now, if that is not brainwashing -- bearing in mind the original scope and intention of Western humanist education, what is? people that have the illusion of being 'smart' when they have adapted themselves, throughout their entire adult life, to maximize their salary and thrive in a corporate environment... to what standard of real 'intelligence' do they fit? no worthy one, that's for sure.

200 years is not a long time in terms of human history, nor in terms of the history of education- but you can see that the rise of global capitalism and the increasing competitivity of free-market idealisms has penetrated through into the education sector, too. nowadays if you don't specialize in one particular subject (worker-specialization being a trademark attribute of the later, advanced stages of capitalism) then apparently you are 'worthless': "unmarketable". that's a shame, and it is a brainwashing doxa taken from political and economic idealisms, e.g. free-market capitalism, that has become so deeply entrenched in our modern education systems that is has become orthodoxy. i don't agree with that, but perhaps that is because i am given to an entirely different set of idealisms: classical liberalism and enlightenment humanism. perhaps that is as a consequence of my own socio-economic factors - as you mentioned - but really, what system of education stands for the better ideals?

Things ought to be different, especially with regards to education.  If I could have gotten a more well-rounded education and not had to worry about the associated costs, I would be in school studying history, literature and probably religion.  Given what I had available to me, I needed to be pragmatic with my life choices so I didn't get saddled with 30 years of debt and a degree that I can't figure out how to use to actually pay that back.  The real shame that the cost of education is so high.  I wish I could have just studied for the sake of studying, but I couldn't afford to.

Shahter wrote:

Vilham wrote:

Well that's exactly why he has been fairly slammed for it. There are clearly quite a few people here who don't match his generalization.

And tbh I don't know if that actually matches his original statement.

keep looking for excuses. you are incapable of "slamming" me at all - you haven't made one good argument, ffs. you are simply too affraid to actually look at yourself - because you mignt just find out i was right and all the stuff you do you'd be much more happy to do without it being your job with all that that entails.

I have already pointed out in that post you JUST quoted that I enjoy being a designer more than ever.

im sure all of the fully-working adults here will take a giant bit of advice from some starry-eyed, rhetorical-bullshit high-school graduation.

yah, i can agree with that. even at my school which was apparently one of the better schools in the world, the ethos of the place was all very much based in elitist-pride and every person there is raised with the belief that they are fortunate, 'chosen', destined for something big. there's not enough 'big positions' in the world for all of these privately-educated 'special chosen children' to fit into, and graduation ceremonies (and the uk/european equivalents) are all rhetorical-bullshit fests, full of pomp and occasion, just to basically self-congratulate the school on doing such a fine job of educating such a brilliantly-exceptional bunch of students.

yawn.

actually in england the chances of becoming successful are more determined by your school than in america... so technically, i have more chance. it's all bullshit, though. you go-go though on that american dream: im sure KEN appreciates work-advice from a starry-eyed fresh graduate that hasn't even started college yet. big 'ole bank of experience there.

Uzique wrote:

actually in england the chances of becoming successful are more determined by your school than in america... so technically, i have more chance. it's all bullshit, though. you go-go though on that american dream: im sure KEN appreciates work-advice from a starry-eyed fresh graduate that hasn't even started college yet. big 'ole bank of experience there.

you think that's not how it works in America?

a graduate from Harvard

a graduate from SUNY Brockport

hmm, wonder who'll get the job.. 'course it's not always like that, but with the big name jobs it certainly is

and i actually have more work experience than you, so my opinion here > yours

Uzique wrote:

err we're talking high-school graduation you fucking donk; since when was harvard a high-school?

high-school graduations are pitiful and pointless, that's been the point for the last few posts.

and yeah okay, you have more 'work experience', right on dude. again im sure KEN appreciates some sagacious erudite wisdom from a fresh-faced high-school graduate that has worked summers in McDonalds and Wal-mart to get a few bucks to buy the latest Xbox 360 games. you can't pretend to have any real independence or financial responsibility, let alone any career-level experience. that's the point, and you're missing it by a country mile.

and again, by your logic, your opinion has even less of a value than mine. you have no job, live off of others money and you're still in college

so gg

and i never denied HS grads are pointless now did I? obviously you're going to have more job opportunities than a dropout, but college/grad school graduations mean a lot more. the quote just happened to come from one and it was a facetious post to begin with, fuck sake

and you can talk down my work experience all you want but I still actually have experience. you do not.

Last edited by Poseidon (2010-07-02 15:20:08)