QotD: "To preserve one’s mind intact through a modern uni education is a test of courage and endurance, but the battle is worth it and the stakes are the highest possible to man: the survival of reason. The time is not wasted, if one knows how to use it wisely"

 "To preserve one’s mind intact through a modern [university] education is a test of courage and endurance, but the battle is worth it and the stakes are the highest possible to man: the survival of reason. The time spent in [university] is not wasted, if one knows how to use the comprachicos against themselves: one learns in reverse—by subjecting their theories to the most rigorously critical examination and discovering what is false and why, what is true, what are the answers...  

      "If, in the chaos of your motives, some element is a genuine desire to crusade in a righteous cause and take part in a heroic battle, direct it against the proper enemy. Yes, the world is in a terrible state—but what caused it’? Capitalism? Where do you see it, except for some battered remnants that still manage to keep us all alive? Yes, today’s 'Establishment' is a rotted structure of mindless, hypocrisy but who and what is the 'Establishment'? Who directs it? Not the big businessmen, who mouth the same collectivist slogans as your professors and pour out millions of dollars to support them. Not the so-called 'conservatives,' who compete with your professors in attacking reason and in spreading the same collectivist-altruist-mystic notions. Not the politicians, who are the eager dummies of your professorial ventriloquists. Not the communications media, who publicise your cause, praise your ideals and preach your professors’ doctrines.  

        "It is ideas that determine the actions of all those people, and it is the Educational Establishment that determines the ideas of a nation. It is your professors’ ideas that have ruled the world for the past fifty years or longer, with a growing spread of devastation, not improvement—and today, in default of opposition, these ideas are destroying the world, as they destroyed your mind and self-esteem.  

        "You are miserably helpless and want to rebel? Then rebel against the ideas of your teachers. You will never find a harder, nobler or more heroic form of rebellion. You have nothing to lose but your anxiety. You have your mind to win." 

    ~ Ayn Rand, from her searing evisceration of modern mis-education: 'The Comprachicos'
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