This is an excerpt from Seton Motley’s Introduction to a book he is co-writing with Luis Corchon entitled College IS for Dummies: How Liberalism, and Rudimentary Sense, Have Laid Low Higher Education. Seton wasted his parents money and his time at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Luis is founder and President of On Call 25/8, a computer and network solutions company; he has been tremendously successful in several technological business endeavors, bereft of any post-secondary education whatsoever.

Education, Meet Knowledge

Education and knowledge are often mutually exclusive.

The above is a personal maxim devised, a conclusion reached, while I was still involved (early on, in fact) in the formal scholastic process here in the United States.

I utilize “often”, and not “always”, for two reasons. At the first, universal statements are at all times incorrect and should absolutely never be utilized. At the last, there is a great deal that can be gleaned and gained from an engagement of an official educative system; just not the one we have, as currently constituted, here.

It is an axiom of an accord with, if not exactly identical to, the venerable Mark Twain’s statement, “I never let schooling interfere with my education”.

I in no way liked any aspect of my education; by that, I mean I hated school. I have always, however, loved the acquisition of knowledge. The preeminent problem with school (and there were and are a great many from which to choose) was the scarcity of usable knowledge dispensed there, and the inability to alternatively decide that into which one delved.

Rarely A Good Idea

I fully understand that allowing the inmates to run the asylum, especially in the formative years, is a recipe for disaster, and that I was undoubtedly an exception to whatever rule this proves. But I posit that today, wherever Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder is diagnosed, wherever Ritalin is dispensed, there is but a child who is bored into advanced over activity, in and by a system that will not deviate even a bit from its rigid, limited curriculum to adjust to the “problem” it has at hand. Better to continue to mindlessly apply the one size public school program fit to all, and medicate into submission those who find it lacking.

Perhaps the prescription is not a stimulant, but, say, a book chosen from the boundless array not found on the syllabus.

I am old enough to have preceded this new Era of Good Feeling (Via Medication). I instead self-prescribed as much time in the library as I could find, spending nights, weekends and summers exploring as many areas as possible, wherever my investigative meanderings led me. I even developed scholastic themes; for example, the welcome break after seventh grade was dedicated to the religions of the world, past and present, alive (I read the Quran and the Torah) as well as those (such as the Greek and Norse mythos’) that have faded into pagan, polytheistic oblivion.

Graduation Day

All of this very quickly delivered me to the realization that my education, i.e. school, was cutting considerably into my time spent in knowledge acquirement. Thusly, a saw was born.

I apply this truism to all levels of organized instruction. However, this tome specifically addresses the slow motion intellectual train wreck that is American higher education. The reasons that so many students at once maniacally and irresolutely pursue this objective are myriad.

As are the reasons politicians, mostly but not exclusively Democrats, doggedly seek to ascribe as much import and dedicate as much public money as possible to the purpose (thereby further poisoning the well and pricing it out of all Realistic scale).

But the motives of the seekers and the abettors share the commonalities of the quest itself; superfluousness, duplicity, redundancy and squander.

We are now forty years removed from the Age of Aquarius and the sonic gathering of the unwashed in Woodstock (actually Bethel), New York. A great many of this movement’s participants subsequently sought refuge and found homes on the campuses of our nation’s colleges and universities (others, in Congress).

If I Can Score Tickets, I Will Be Teaching Business Administration at Harvard in the Fall

When finally forced to face Reality, they quickly discovered that their world view did not at all jibe therewith. They were most pleased to find, however, that this hardly mattered at the likes of Yale, Brown and Berkeley; it in fact enhanced their educative employability.

Those who can - do; those who saw the Grateful Dead in at least six states - teach college.

The mindless, Liberal professors under whose tutelage these now aging Hippies matriculated at least had received, when it was their turn, a quality education. But with this generation currently ensconced in senior collegiate positions, we have closed the ignorance circle; the blinded are now leading the blind.