Keith Hudson wrote:
I disagree here. If you were selecting for resourcefulness alone, yes. But
the basic elements of a techno-culture, like all culture, is laid down so
early in a child's life, that street kids wouldn't have a chance of
establishing a toehold in a high-tech society. However, if our increasingly
high-tech society collapses -- and that's always a possibility to bear in
mind -- then the 'other' population of highly resourceful people (if it
then existed) would certainly have a better chance of surviving.
I disagree on this issue. Take my Steinway piano for example.
I bought 100
shares of stock in a company at two dollars a share and sold them six
years
later, added $5,000 of my Mother's money to the $10,000 from the stock
and
bought a "slightly used" Steinway which the company told me was fine.
It
wasn't and after two years of haggling and four pianos I ended up with
a new
$30,000 piano as settlement for my trouble. The company valued
its reputation
and dealt with me as a part of their consumer capital.
But it was not the
IQ folks in the company who knew how to deal with their consumer base.
It
was the artists and technicians who came from all walks of life but
mostly,
like Beethoven, from the lower and lower middle classes.
Why did I buy the stock? The President was a Jewish
friend of mine who
was making optical parts for the space program. I
say Jewish because his
father, in a small village in Russia, fell on his son to protect him
as the Nazis
shot them. My friend, who was five years old, crawled out and
escaped into
the winter forest. From that time till the end of
the war he was a child
resistance fighter carrying a 38 pistol and living in the forest.
After the war
he and the other wild children were shipped to Israel where the Jewish
authorities cared for them. Emphasize cared. The
taught them that they
were the future of Judiasm and that they must live and become but they
did not take their guns away. Eventually, when they felt
safe, they gave
them up. They were re-united with the remnants of their families,
in my
friends case, his mother and brother, and they moved to NYCity.
My
friend worked the streets and learned English in the movies.
He also
studied hard and earned a PHD in physics from City College. He
made
mistakes but eventually this former Jewish countryboy turned freedom
fighter, made one of the most significant scientific discoveries, having
to
do with Time, of the space program. I don't mention his name
because
he has never been a public soul and I will respect that.
But let me say this. The most significant people that I know have
come
from the lower middle and lower classes and still do. As for
British schools,
perhaps the problem is their curriculum and its practicallity.
That is a
rather common problem for "Education of Scale." That
is also the reason
for a successful "home school" movement in the USA. Unfortunately
the
social skills necessary for networking are not learned in private lessons
but need the "banging of heads" that is only found in the school environment.
I suspect that it is a lot like singing. I never met a voice I
couldn't train. There
are many who claim "tone-deaf" disabilities but if the time, money
and desire
is there anyone can learn to sing and read.
But that does not mean that
anyone can learn to sing in a chorus. "Mass produced music"
requires that
the learning already have taken place and the using ready to begin.
Being
able to sing changes one's life. If it doesn't then the growth
stops and the
limitations of the singer's mentality destroys the talent. We
call it having the
"fire in the belly." Most don't, but sometimes societies
suffer from the same
loss of heart or visceral intelligence as well. Like the
"end of government"
folks who would give up their freedom and vote to a TNC.
IMHO it all
depends on the society's courage, tenacity and willingness to put up
with the
changes that takes place when education is successful.
Real education tears
down the weak and the unprepared even in educational institutions.
It also
doesn't tolerate rigid fools. But most of all it costs
much more than can ever
be planned or budgeted. It is rare that there is the courage
to practice it
even though the survival of a society and culture is what's at stake.
I notice that the "well schooled" are better at networking than the
lower
classes and the poor but this could be laid to more resource capital
in
their own class. What I don't see in this upper IQ
group, is a
committment to genuine freedom and unique discoveries unless it is
found in an institution.
I didn't learn
much about institutions on the Indian reservation but I did learn that
freedom can be lost and uniqueness is a value above all monetary
"worth." So I never was and still am not a very institutional
soul although
many of my more civilized upper class colleagues are. I don't
escribe
utlimate value to one or the other although I do believe that my way
is
more correct for me. What I don't accept is ascribing ultimate
value
to the more institutional and traditional methods of testing.
I don't
believe that there has been a true test of "ultimate value" created
thus far although my success on the Miller Analogy test made my
high school teachers believe in my value even though I was the same
person before and after taking test. These mass producing
teachers
only noticed when a flag went up to get their attention.
It is the process which must be learned, not just the "specific" of
street
or book. If a process learned in the street is applied
to a physic's
problem requiring the same process then success will follow if the
connection is made. People who choose their mates
based upon
projection of their culture or class are falling into the lake of their
beliefs. I believe wisdom is more holistic than that and
that success
in life requires such wisdom.
Love is holistic, IQ is generally low level perceptions. I would
trust love,
with caution, far above intellectual self interest in choosing a mate.
I
would also consider emotional compatibility as being more practical
in my life's success as well. Two stars in a room make for very
little
real work, too much struggling for position. This
is just my opinion.
Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director
The Magic Circle Opera Repertory Ensemble, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
