Posted by
Phil LaFontaine on Friday, January 08, 2010 12:31:00 PM
There was a time when holding an MBA, BS, BA, Phd meant that you were, in the eyes of some, part of the educated elite. How things have changed. Give me a high school graduate who has common sense, a sense of wonder about things, and the desire to continue learning. We are losing that in this country, for the benefit of academia, and the detriment of the country.
I remember growing up watching movies where the elite wore white, lived in clouded castles,were subserviant to no one,but were served by the unwashed masses. They were educated, they knew better than the servants,and near the end of the movie, there was always one person "a community college graduate no doubt" deciedes that the elite are wrong and goes about destroying everthing in site for the benefit of the masses he feels pity for. The movie always ends with an alliance between the elite and the people they had enslaved. We also know that the elite will play ball until the unwashed repair their world, then it's class warfare all over again.
When I grew up, there were people who did not have the above degrees, due to having to leave school to assist the family, because of economics, health,etc. Most in the 30's 40's and some in the fifties, had little education beyond the eighth grade or a high school diploma at best.What they did have was a boat load of common sense. Because of the nessesity of a trade education, these folks learned how to repair their homes, their cars. The knew plumbing, electrical, carpentry,and landscaping. When the family auto broke, they didn't have the luxury of running to the dealer to have it repaired, they had to try and figure it out them selves. Where is that today?
When I was a child, my grandfather was building a small home in Warwick, RI, four rooms total. My father and my mothers brothers dug the foundation hole by hand with shovels. Are you kidding me, an entire basement one shovel full at a time! They proceeded to construct the home from lumber stored from a previous hurricane, insulated with layers of the Providence Journal.
That spirit is alive and well today, but their numbers are dwindling, with the concentration on that sheet of sheepskin. What we have now is a collection walking degrees, who have little common sense, and a lack of desire to tackle anything beyond what they have been taught in college. They are corporate giant's who can close the deal, design the plant (Thanks to autocad), perform fancy accounting practices "cook the books" and understands that his "nose" always belongs stationed approximatly two and one half feet above the floor.
My point here,is that these are not the giants or the elite in this country, it's the blue collar men and women who fix your car, build your home's, erectes bridge's and skyscrapers, farms the land, and makes sure that everyday life continues without interuption, without them, Mr. Phd would not have a home, a car, an office, or a working crapper for that fact. So if you do anything this week, please take a moment to respect the guy with the shovel on the side of the road, "not the eight guys watching him" thats working to make your life easier. The world will go on with out the Phd, but the world would come to a grinding halt without the mechanic.
For the elite, get your hands dirty, it doesn't hurt, and it washes off!