No Intellectual Discipline Without Formal Education.

[_Coggins7]

I

've noticed that done repeatedly. While I do not recall exactly where you were born and raised, I did know that you aren't an SC native. And what if you were? Of what relevance is the location of one's residence? And then there are the repeated "drunk" jokes.

I will say this much, Loran. You had the courage to subject yourself to a public interview on this board, you've answered sensitive questions and disclosed personal information that not many would have. And they use it to beat you with.

Nothing like taking the high road.

Thanks. I did pay a little price for it though, which actually, I didn't expect. To wit, PP always brought up, and still to this day, Scratch brings up my alcoholism (usually by calling me a drunk). Well, no matter. This is a garden variety addiction and one which for which the Gospel holds the key. I don't know what I'd do without the promise and hope it extends.

I was born and raised in The Seattle,Washington area, and spent most of me teenage years in San Diego (that's in California Scratch). I also spent five years in Maryland, and ten in Florida. I've been here almost eight years now.

[_Jersey Girl]

I

've noticed that done repeatedly. While I do not recall exactly where you were born and raised, I did know that you aren't an SC native. And what if you were? Of what relevance is the location of one's residence? And then there are the repeated "drunk" jokes.

I will say this much, Loran. You had the courage to subject yourself to a public interview on this board, you've answered sensitive questions and disclosed personal information that not many would have. And they use it to beat you with.

Nothing like taking the high road.

Thanks. I did pay a little price for it though, which actually, I didn't expect. To wit, PP always brought up, and still to this day, Scratch brings up my alcoholism (usually by calling me a drunk). Well, no matter. This is a garden variety addiction and one which for which the Gospel holds the key. I don't know what I'd do without the promise and hope it extends.

I was born and raised in The Seattle,Washington area, and spent most of me teenage years in San Diego (that's in California Scratch). I also spent five years in Maryland, and ten in Florida. I've been here almost eight years now.

Well, I'm sure Scratch can apply an intelligence level to each and every one of those locations!

Jersey Girl

[_Coggins7]

Yeah, a Confederate flag waving, cross burning surfer. Now that's a vicious animal.

[_Jersey Girl]

Scratch

I, too, commend you for going back. But I worry that you are too old, and too set in your ways, for you to absorb any of the tendencies I have been alluding and referring to for so long vis-a-vis you and your posts. But, we'll see. Perhaps the folks at---where? U. of South Car.?---can teach an old dog new tricks after all.

How old is too old to learn, Scratch?

Jersey Girl

[_Mercury]

Scratch

I, too, commend you for going back. But I worry that you are too old, and too set in your ways, for you to absorb any of the tendencies I have been alluding and referring to for so long vis-a-vis you and your posts. But, we'll see. Perhaps the folks at---where? U. of South Car.?---can teach an old dog new tricks after all.

How old is too old to learn, Scratch?

Jersey Girl

My answer would be 25

the brain pretty much stops "expanding" at that point.

[_Blixa]

Scratch

I, too, commend you for going back. But I worry that you are too old, and too set in your ways, for you to absorb any of the tendencies I have been alluding and referring to for so long vis-a-vis you and your posts. But, we'll see. Perhaps the folks at---where? U. of South Car.?---can teach an old dog new tricks after all.

How old is too old to learn, Scratch?

Jersey Girl

My answer would be 25

the brain pretty much stops "expanding" at that point.

That's silly, Mercury. While I think that habit and social expectation can encourage complacency as we age, that doesn't absolutely preclude the possibilty of intellectual growth.

I don't think I had a completely functioning intellect til I was about 35 even though I'd been a model student throughout my life and was near the end of a PhD program. I had the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time, though: mostly by accident I had ended up in a program with one or two astonishing teachers and intellectuals that made it possible for myself and my departmental "generation" of grad students to learn and think in ways that were wholly unexpected.

Your miles may vary, but this taught me to realize that every student/person has possibilities for intellectual work beyond how these are usually conceived. One of the worst things I encounter as a teacher are "colleagues" who have already decided that, for various reasons, its impossible to teach their students anything.

While it often appears to me that much prior "education" has rendered my students nearly incapable of thought, that certainly doesn't forclose all potential and I see a good deal of my job as trying to create a space in which that could happen (often in direct oppostion to the institution itself which throws up all manner of obstacles from class size to disciplinary compartmentalization).

[_Runtu]

Thanks. I did pay a little price for it though, which actually, I didn't expect. To wit, PP always brought up, and still to this day, Scratch brings up my alcoholism (usually by calling me a drunk). Well, no matter. This is a garden variety addiction and one which for which the Gospel holds the key. I don't know what I'd do without the promise and hope it extends.

I'd just like to second the idea that the cracks about your alcoholism are way out of bounds. I know how it feels to have my problems with depression used to beat me up, and I'm sorry that people have done that to you. I'm not embarrassed to say I suffer from clinical depression and take medication daily for it (thank God for chemistry), but one's personal problems should not be used as a weapon against him or her.

I was born and raised in The Seattle,Washington area, and spent most of me teenage years in San Diego (that's in California Scratch). I also spent five years in Maryland, and ten in Florida. I've been here almost eight years now.

I've been to Seattle and San Diego and Maryland (and to the airport in Miami on my way to and from Bolivia), but I'm originally from the Los Angeles area.

[_Mister Scratch]

I don't mind going out on a limb here.

Scratch

hat was precisely my point, Loran. You are confusing the term "expertise" with "discipline"/"professionalism." Just look at your recent exchange with gknowlton. Now, I could be mistaken, and you guys could have a history that I'm unaware of, but it seemed to me that you leapt right into your belittling comments about his intelligence, moral scruples, etc. That is not a sign of discipline or professionalism---by any measure---and it only reinforces my (and Bond's, apparently) sense that you lack this stuff on account of your never having completed college.

Based on your reading of my postings, assuming you've read some over time, would you say that I lack discipline or professionalism? Why or why not? Be brutally honest.

Jersey Girl

No, I wouldn't, Jersey. You tend to be patient and attentive when you read others' postings, especially the postings of those you disagree with. I thought that your exchange with Gaz on the homosexuality thread was remarkably patient, and that you were doing some interesting biblical exegesis (imho). You don't engage in the sort of unfettered and mindless flailing about that marks Coggins's posts as "undisciplined."

[_Mister Scratch]

Let us know by what right you attack me on each and every issue from political history to economics to the history of the Tienanmen Square massacre to homosexuality to film criticism. You have every right to do that of course, my interests are quite varied and wide ranging. However, I don't claim to be smarter than everyone else.

Yes, you do, as implicit in your repeated chant of, "you are not intellectually and philosophically serious."

I claim to have better ideas and arguments than others with whom I disagree, but not that my education per se allows me to flummox others by definition. I've heard children intellectually flummox adults on occasion.

So Scratch, wave your degree in my face. Let's see it.

No, I will not do it. That was my point.

[_guy sajer]

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.

I agree with you Coggins. One need not have an advanced degree to possess adequate or even deep understanding of issues. In some areas, as you mention, advanced degrees are important and they do equip one with the tools and framework to do specialized analysis. For example, a statistical paper on racial bias in NBA officiating drew lots of hoots and hollers from the radio talk show participants, most lambasting it, but not a single one of them understands statistics, research methodology, etc., and, quite frankly, they were not qualified to comment on the validity of the study (which, by the way, had been vetted with other academics at the U of Chicago in a research seminar, and having attended some of those, I can tell you that they are brutal with criticism).

But in terms of being able to comprehend other issues, posses insights, and the like, a degree can help, but is not necessary. I will criticize you for other things, but never for this. by the way, I know plenty of other credentialed persons who hold views every bit as whacked out as yours :-)