You cannot possibly even understand the concept of "intellectual discipline," since you do not hold a college degree.
This was meant by Scratch to be, of course, another slur against my intelleigence and background, but that's not why I'm starting a new thread regarding it.
I'm just wondering what others here thinking of this concept; the concept of credentialism which says that if one has not been to college or university, one cannot have a deep, advanced, or substantive knowledge of anything and should be ignored out of hand. Now obviously, some things, like the natural and hard sciences, medicine, and practical matters such as the construction trades, require hands on experience, field work, and laboratory work. But why, for example, could one not be an expert on seventeenth century French literature, or Greek mythology, or LDS history, or political economy, or various theories and modalities of modern psychotherapy, or New Testament textual studies, simply by reading, studying, and digesting the relevant knowledge in that area?
One wouldn't have the credential, and so one wouldn't be a professional in that area, but how would this affect one's having expertise in it?
Does anybody know, by the way, what advanced degrees or academic background Scratch has such that he must frame all his disagreements with me in terms of me being a "hick", a "rube" and generally, a dunce? I've had two years of formal college and twenty five of sustained, informal college (combined with an ever decreasing diet of TV, movies, entertainment in general). I am planning to return to college this year, and work toward an advanced degree in, at the moment, political science, with a minor in western philosophy. This, however, doesn't imply that I couldn't learn the very same stuff on my own. I could, and probably right here in my own study with the personal library I have now. But I'd like the credential for various reasons.