Of Fools & Legends

The Thinking Man's Dictionary

I ran across this rather mischievously irreverent site after searching diligently for a term that could best match my angst towards a certain type of individual, that being an educated fool. I know what one is--a person who fetishizes & wears his/her academic credentials like a blazing, unassailable seal of superiority and enlightenment yet possessing, in reality, the deepest, most stubborn ignorance & impoverished vision that not even the light of one simple truth can dare enter. We all know who they are--many of them work with us, some are members of our own family & quite a number reach the highest echelons of power and priveledge (G.W is the Mad Magazinesque Poster boy). Truly, I am sick of educated fools who, if one must be brutally honest, are the greatest purveyors of barbarism, corruption, falsehoods, cowardice and laziness-posing-as-delegation-of-tasks-to-the-less-thans. Maya Angelou once said that, "some people unable to go to school were more educated and even more intelligent than college professors.” I'm sure most folks can identify with this salient observation. Bob Marley mirrored this wisdom in many of his songs like, "Stiff-necked Fools", "Crazy Baldheads" and "Time will Reveal". He quipped in one interview, "If I was educated, I'd be a damn fool.”

I am not against education-- I am against those who believe education is simply the collection of certificates in the quest to be top dog in their narrow field of endeavor. Why does humility have to wither? Why must people be trivialized and disrespected in the pursuit of titles and fat pay checks? Why must education itself be nothing more than a market-driven tragedy of creating a minority of a priveledged few sitting on top of a vast majority of "less-thans"? How schools are financed, how teachers are trained, how school districts select textbooks, how certain groups are low-balled and tracked to failure, federal/state budget priorities, what constitutes "knowledge" and how certain facts are priveledged over others and a whole host of other forces play into this farce and spectacle termed "education".

So, to all the educated fools out there who think that your shit smells like sweet mocha chocolate with a dash of cinnamon, be careful of those who can truly see you for what you are. Hopefully, one day you'll allow some light into your dark, musty quarters and gradually, if not fully, embrace what an educated, selfless mind can do to uplift the least amongst us.

One Love

::MixMasterE::