This may belong on the Rant page but I figure I’ll get more readers on this forum. I am 18 years old and currently enrolled in my first semester of college at Drake University. What happened to the thirst for knowledge? A majority of my peers come from wealthy families and they’re all a bunch of ungrateful people that just drift through life. The only thing they’re concerned about is getting drunk and having sex. Are they just immature or is this what the world is coming to? Is knowledge no longer valued? No one has a real grip on life, no one has any goals, and no one reads books. They are attending because that’s what their authority figures have told them to do plus their parents have the money to send them. It’s just a means to and end for them. Their only concern is getting a job and making money. They go to class because that’s what their supposed to do, not because they want to. It’s as if they only turn their brain on when a grade is at stake. As soon as class is over, their brain is shut off. They don’t think for themselves, they think when they’re told to. I look at my peers and I am disgusted. What is our country coming to? Are these really the people that will be running our country? Is this just my generation? Or have those that have been through college encountered the same problem? Have those that value knowledge always been the minority?
What are you contrasting your generation to? I don’t think there was ever some golden period when the majority of the human population was engaged in scholarly thought and reasoned discourse, where they all sat around philosophizing over cups of tea.
For most of human history, most of humanity was illiterate.
I wonder if the majority of humanity still isn’t illiterate?
Sp,
I exist in the same world…
You gotta remember though, the philosopher’s road is by and large a solitary one. That is, it is sort of inherent to the type if thinking required that one be the idea savant; the person who analyzes the society around him because:
a) The hive workers sure as hell arn’t going to.
b) It’s interesting.
By and large people do what they’re interested in, and for many what is interesting it not Plato and Dostoyevski but the various things in which money can buy.
Last night I was involved in the same rant myself…
After leaving Wal-Mart (of all the places to find stupid people!) I sat down in my car and half-shouted “Am I The Only One Who Can Form An Idea!!?”
What spurred this? Standing in line behind an older couple who was trying to pay for their purchases with a credit card. They scanned the card, and the reader said “Would you like cash back? ($10) ($20) ($40) (No.)” (the last four things being buttons.) The old man looked at the cashier and said, “What’s this?”
“Just scan your card and say credit…”
"No, it says ‘Do you want cash back?’ "
“Really? Alright, let me see if I can figure this thing out…”
They spent the next five or ten minutes staring at the thing… all three of them! … and couldn’t for the life of them understand what was going on, until I spoke up.
“Do you want cash? If you say $10 it’ll charge you $10 more and she’ll hand you the cash. That’s the only possible thing it COULD mean, Wal-Mart’s not gonna hand you their money.”
All three of them: “OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH…”
the old man: “Well it’s hard when you have to think.”
And at this point I quit talking to them, because I wasn’t sure how to respond to this, the stupidest thing I had heard all day.
I tell this story to illustrate that it’s not just our generation, sp. It does kind of suck though, I’ll give you that. It would be really nice if people used that seemingly unnecessary organ that makes their head weigh so much.