Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Is it really knowledge?

Something that I am finding in my university studies is a division between the types of subject matter I am studying. A division even more general than that of Math, Science, English, Spanish, etc... I have started to divide what I am learning into two groups; actual information (facts, figures, laws, formulae) and stuff that people made up.
The latter group I have difficulties with... things like "post-colonial reasoning" and "dominant understandings" sound silly to me. It sounds like people sitting around and making shit up.
Now I respect the fact that the people who use and understand these phrases are much smarter and more educated than I am, they have more world experience and probably have a far more mature outlook on life. However I can't get behind the idea of "abstracting to higher and higher levels", when do we stop abstracting and interpreting and gleaning and actually do something with it? I think my dislike of this type of knowledge has a few causes; my age (infallibility of youth and all that), my inexperience with academia, and my need for action! I like doing things, not pontification about the underlying principles and motivations thereof.
This probably makes me a stupider person because I do not appreciate the art of abstracting from ideas already present and regurgitating new knowledge, but I just don't have the patience for it!
Alright, rant over. Back to studying...

Zhen

1 comment:

ibbar said...

It is not your age. I also disapprove of the making up of garbage phrases and words to make people appear smarter. One only has to read a current "news magazine" to find a plethora of fantasy based words and phrases. I can only imagine the distaste of having to study such idiocy. Rant over.