Do you need a college degree to be a "cultivated" person?
 

It's funny. I was at a dinner party at my girlfriend's uncle's place and this geeky obviously intellectual artistic emo dude comes up to me and tries to start a conversation. I mean, I'm normally open to conversing with people but this guy went into a tangent when the conversation veered towards art. The guy was talking about Clifford Geertz, Clement Greenberg, the Russian nihilists, etc etc. I consider myself a fairly cultivated and cultured person but.. really, Im your typical steak and potatoes guy. I like my beer cold. My women hot. And my cash plentiful. This guy talked about signifier this, subtext that, hegemonic constructivism there.

Is there anything wrong with the fact that I didn't even go to college and experience the 'intellectually enriching' environment of your typical liberal arts college? Yet I make MANY TIMES over what this guy makes.

What's the value of knowing who the fuck Noel Coward, Abelard, and Racine are when you're eating Stove Top stuffing for dinner? I say fuck the formal education and focus on MAKING REAL MONEY.


Your spin?

no, likely not

I would say,"I'm sorry but art is not my forte but if we could discuss Nostradamus or Thoreau I'd be happy to continue our conversation."

I prefer to just hand him $1000 and tell him to trade in the Pinto for a Yugo. :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Absolutely not. The person you talked to wasn't a normal person with a college degree, it was a guy trying and succeeding in being a pompous ass. I know people who can hold intelligent convo who barely graduated from college.

I have a degree, but I don't go to dinner parties and talk about obscure art, philosophy and classroom concepts that no one cares about. Lame.

I've talked to ditch diggers that were more interesting than doctors...and vise versa.

I think you're right. That dude was just some gimp ass liberal punk bitch. Probably never worked a real job in his life. People like him need to be lined up and shot. I'd take talking to ditch diggers all day than some jackass who's only claim to fame is he can explain De Man's concepts in a conversation.

Fuck getting a degree in some bullshit pseudo self enriching formal education prison. I'd rather make money, start businesses, travel and become self educated. It seems alot more rewarding. Although, I will admit that alot of fun, partying, friend-making can be had at college.

When people start 'out cultivating' me I normally go the other extreme and start talking about football and hooliganism :upsidedow
That way everyone comes out a winner. He thinks I'm a un-cult hooligan that got owned at talking about art, and I think he's a pretentious hahahaha who needs to learn that using an endless amount of long words in a sentence is not fancy, just a little pathetic (specially when they use them in the wrong context).

All I gotta say is FUCK FORMAL EDUCATION.

The only real education you need is how to get people to make money for you. That's all there is to it. Fuck everything else.

I'm glad I can't relate to tools like that.

art degrees are the lowest form of degrees you can get , they are just degrees to say you went to college and make yourself look good

in the real world they offer no real job prospects

had a friend went and do a marine biologist degree ,he was acting all high and mighty doing this degree ,
even now after his degree is finished , he works , delivering pizza's

i am always hanging shit on him , saying i wouldn't even bother getting out of bed for the chump change he makes

Now he's a PIZZA BIOLOGIST :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

This is my definition of educated vs. educated: If you know how to make money = you are educated. If you don't know how to make money = not educated.

Personally, I have friends who would describe themselves as "rednecks" and friends with medical degrees. IMHO, a truly cultivated person can sit on the front porch, drink Budweiser out of a can, and kick shit with country boys or ghetto thugs and the next day they can go to a dinner party and speak intelligently about current events.

To me, cultivation is all about making other people feel comfortable in your presence. An education is great, but it isn't everything.

... and then you die, and have all that money you made buried in your coffin. Or perhaps half way through your life, it kicks in, and you realize that life is not all about making money. :thumbsup

I've got two degrees, and am working on a Master's atm, and I have no problems hanging with people out in logging camp, as opposed to people back in the office. Doesn't matter how many letters you have after your name or how much money you make, because at the end of the day you're just human.

Well said. Fuck the assholes who go out of their way to prove to others that they are 'formally educated' :mad:

should have steered the conversation towards porn... then you'd be more cultivated in that aspect ;)

I would have explained to him the neo-Platonic ideals of an ass to mouth cumshot and how slapping a woman in the face with a flaccid dick corresponds with the Jungian archetype of the Aquarius figure. :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :thumbsup

I dont get people like that.
It pisses me off so much, i'll just leave this thread.

no i dont need college degree

No you don't. However, I hate it when people that haven't gone to school try to make people that have gone feel like they have wasted their time or are a 'nerd', etc. I got a lot out of education and I value my degrees. I think it is just as wrong for people with the education to look down on people that made the choice not to study on.

Virtues and good values is not learned at school..

to each his own. but if someone can carry a conversation about anything "under the sun" then that's a plus factor!

No, life isn't all about making money. It isn't all about being an "educated" snob either. You can be a money snob just like you can be an educated snob. Neither are very well liked.

My family is huge. I have like 28 immediate cousins. A lot of them are VERY smart. Had very good grades all throughout school. Went to Ivy league colleges on scholarships. Passed with good grades. One is now a teacher at a small high school, two others are graduated and have absolutely no idea what to do with their life. In fact one is going back to graduate school simply because she doesn't know what else to do. Now there's absolutely nothing wrong with being a teacher, we need teachers. And there's nothing wrong with going to graduate school, we need them, too. It just seems like such a waste of so much knowledge to me.

Truly brilliant people entering the workforce at mediocre positions while myself and my friends dropped out of school to build our businesses. And yet, they consider US to be the idiots. Hehe.

Money snobs and educated snobs. Plenty of both.

I'm not impressed by people who went to college. Not at all. I visited a lot of my high school friends when they were in college. It was like "summer camp" than a school; They rarely went to their classes.

I did three months of Marine Corps boot camp and I think I learned more about myself and in life in general than any other period in my life. There is nothing that pisses me off than someone who went to college and comes out with a big degree only to discover they've never had a real job and STILL have to start at the bottom like everyone else.

I also went to college; I have a AA degree in Computer Tech. It surely doesn't make me smarter than half the people in this industry.

i went to college and did all that, thing is you foget it within like a year and only remember parts, even my teachers who are brilliant read over everything before class because they've forgotten most of it due to information overload.

Generally, college is for worker bees

Sad, but true. Look at the current crop of business owners. Lots of dropouts in that lot.

in some cases those with a high level of education are the ones who have no ethics.

In my world, if you didn't go to college, your not educated enough to have a conversation with.

I think most of higher society would agree with me here. But then this is GFY, where some ruffians make a living selling boobies. YAH BOOBIES!

1- stop thinking that making money is the most important human function.
2- educational knowledge is not wisdom and a smarter guy is not always a creative guy.
3- remember you live in a country of plenty, where education is a matter of choice and making money is considered more than just feeding your children. get some global perspective.

My mother forced me to take 10 years of piano and 4 years of flute (bargained down from violin after a lot of hysterical screaming and crying) because "everyone needs to learn a musical instrument to be a well-rounded person". I still don't know wtf that means.

I have a bunch of college degrees but I don't think they necessarily make you cultivated, by default. Part of the definition of cultivated is to be educated, so a degree certainly could play into that. I suspect you could still be "cultivated" without the degree, though. Probably has a lot more to do with genetics, upbringing, and the desire to be so. I don't think how much money you make is a deciding factor, though.

I don't being educated makes you cultured. I believe the single most important thing is being able to have critical thinking skills. After that everything comes into place. Second I believe that knowing world history and having a good sense of the history of your country is very important. Third I think having a sense of being is third on that list. That guy learned something in a text book, which is good that he can remember but really does not help you in shit. If you know the above 3 things , Critical thinking, History and sense of being you can make money, be able to converse with anybody and not get your head chopped of in Iraq or knifed on the streets in America. Thats my 2 cents.

Getting a degree is like training yourself to be intelligent. It just doesn't work.

sounds like you think money = class from your constant references to it

While I think that everyone should read a thing or two about philosophy and psychology I also think it's very important to have good social skills. You know like if that guy is so smart then he should be able to figure out by your reactions that russian nihilists just a'int your thing and start steering the conversation towards some common ground subjects ;).

But on the other hand don't diss people for being so damn passionate about art/philosophy/etc.. I mean there's quite a lot of people here on GFY that seems to bang the whore we call "consumer culture" hard with their total fixation on booze/money/ladies/drugs ;).

It's amusing listening to a uneducated porn slinging nigga denigrate and mock those with a real education.

I would be flattered that he actually thought you may have been intelligent and cultured enough to understand what he was talking about. :1orglaugh

first thing you might want to learn is not to judge one on his educational status, it truly shows how ignorant one can be. :2 cents: :thumbsup

oh, but they don't teach that in school do they? :1orglaugh :helpme

Indeed. I think there is a lot of reverse snobs when it comes to education. I hate it when I see people doing all they can do to undermine someone who has done the work to get a degree.

When I told people I was going for my masters degree there were two types of reactions. The first were people that also came from familes where education was highly valued. Nearly all of them understood just wanting to do the degree for myself. On the other hand people that either wasted their college years getting drunk rather than going to classes and those that never really enjoyed education nearly always made some comment that suggested I was wasting my time because I wasn't going to walk into a hugely paying job because of it.

There is such a thing as education for educations sake and personal gratification.

Good post Sarah - and valid! :thumbsup

Very true. Many people love to learn in structured environments just for the sake of learning and intellectual exploration. This doesn't make them any more superior or inferior than other people. It all depends on one's attitude and how one carries one's self. In fact, I'm looking into getting another degree--Master's in History. I'd do it not because I need it for a job or to make more money, I'd do it because it would give more structure and depth to the stuff I already read and think about on a regular basis.

I respect both people who went to school and those who didn't go to school. Ultimately, what matters is how one carries one's self. Education can be found anywhere--structured and unstructured. It all depends on one's attitude whether a person comes off as an academic elitist snob or an ignorant jerk. :2 cents: