I don't get it

[maevele]

when educated people are pig ignorant about lives other than their own. Do they just not know anyone not just like them, or do they just not pay attention? Because I am a dropout. I should have an excuse to be ignorant. and sometimes I am. I don't have formal training in critical thinking, or other's cultures, or any of it. So if I can see how your educated, sophisticated intellectual ass is hanging out, what's your excuse?


I guess it must be either only knowing people like themselves, or not paying attention. If it is the first, how does that happen without *trying* to recuse yourself from the "others?" Are most people's surroundings much more homogenous? Is madison wisconsin some extreme example of melting pot diversity? I'd think just being at college would have given these people a chance to interact with people who are not just like them in all ways.

And if it is the second, how do you get by in life without noticing the lives of other people around you? Do you only ignore those different from you, or everyone? And how do you fit in to the world around you if you ignore so many people?

Is there some complexity here that explains why my alleged "betters" don't get other people?

Comments

[owlectomy]

(1) Because of the sheer size of most colleges, it is pretty easy to treat them as Big High School, where the purpose of your social life is to find the people who are most like you as quickly as possible and just stick close to them.

(2) College is, in part, about socialization into a particular (middle-class) way of thinking that can tend to narrow your experiences more than expand them.