Sunday, February 28, 2010

Those who seek knowledge suffer from the sin of despair and frustration

This excellent piece by



 
Those who seek knowledge suffer from the sin of despair.


3 comments:

John in Boston said...

Darker times only so long as corporatism is the order of the day, aided and abetted by Tea Partiers despite themselves.

The Tea Party is, of course, entirely too new to be blameworthy for the ills alluded to in your post. However, the Tea Party *pathology* existed before the Tea Party and is considerably to blame. The United States, as a refuge for intellectual laze and malaise, has made her own bed and now, lying in it, must deal with the fleas and bed bugs for which she can only blame herself.

The Tea Party epitomizes what's the matter with Kansas, as it were. I see direct correlation (although not necessarily cause and effect) between TP pathology and education debt crisis, on so many levels.

Cryn Johannsen said...

I didn't mean to allude to the so-called powers or blameworthiness of the tea party. I think this article does a good job of also suggesting that there are a lot of people, parties, etc., etc. culpable for the things going on in the U.S.

As I always tell people, I hope my negative outlook is entirely wrong - that would be wonderful! However, I have a lot of fears about the state of the U.S. and am particularly concerned about it maintaining its influence as a world leader. There is so much political strife, so many people suffering in the U.S., etc., etc., that it looks pretty ugly.

Moreover, I was speaking to a new friend in Korea - an African American woman who's a fellow alumna at U. of Chicago - and we were agreeing that fall out for voting an African-American president hasn't even begun yet. If you think about that fact, along with the student lending crisis, the housing slump, high unemployment (just to name a few), and things seem pretty uncertain.

But, again, I hope I am utterly wrong. Trust me, I do, because I want more than anything to return to a country that has gotten its act together and who cares more about its citizens than it does now.

Anonymous said...

I just found out that a friend of mine from studying abroad in Europe several years ago was killed by his partner...he stabbed to death in their apartment in Amsterdam.

Why this is relative to this site, and your cause...my friend lived abroad because his student loan debt kept him from returning to the states. He married this man in Holland so he could stay in The Netherlands legally...so it was purely a marriage of convenience. Now, he's dead by the hand of his husband.

Maybe if graduates didn't accumulate this kind of debt, people would have more choices as to what to do with their lives, and this wouldn't have happened to my former classmate. My heart breaks for him.