Reply #59: It happens all the time on DU. [View All]

[distantearlywarning]

Bugs the shit out of me.

People who don't work in a field but have a factually correct opinion get told to shut up because they don't work in the field and therefore don't know anything.

However, if someone does work in the field and says so in an attempt to provide a basis for others to evaluate their opinion, they get accused of being a snob or trying to lord it over other posters intellectually.

And lets not forget the gifted child wars from many months ago (summary: gifted children are all smug assholes whose rich parents pulled strings for them in school). And oh yes, the DU thread the other day where a recent college graduate talked about how he couldn't find a job in Bush's America, and half his responses were filled with invective that went something like, "If you weren't such a priviledged self-entitled little shithead you'd stop whining and get yourself a REAL job slinging burgers like the rest of us MORALLY UPSTANDING people who never went to college".

This is probably the one thing that pisses me off the most about DU (and the world, really). The bitterness and hate for intellectuals and people who've made something of themselves educationally, or just even people who work hard at thinking through problems and actually finding something out about the opinions they spout. I'll probably get flamed to hell and back here for saying this, but a job at a university is just as valuable as a blue-collar job, and in some cases, more valuable, at least in terms of making the world a better place. That isn't to say that people in non-intellectual jobs aren't important or good or anything like that, or even that they aren't good or valuable people in the world. But I personally worked all kinds of shit jobs in my life before I went back to school, from hostessing at a fast-food seafood restaurant to construction to secretary for a corporate insurance company VP who couldn't even figure out how to read his own email (but at least he wasn't one of those Ivory Tower assholes who think they're better than everyone else, right?). And I think my current work as a Ph.D. student in a research science discipline is more valuable and important than my work at any of those other jobs. Just my opinion... (P.S. - Before any embittered anti-intellectuals get their panties in a wad, please note that I did not say that I became a more valuable person after going to grad school.)