I, for one, think we need more “Jakes of the world.”

I, for one, think we need more “Jakes of the world.”

I think you can see that Phil is both very generous with his time, and very kind to beginning students. I still haven’t seen anything worth engaging in, but here I am anyway. Phil is too kind to give you an assessment, and at this point it is clear that you have some prerequisites to complete before you are prepared for the core material. As I suggested above, you can learn a lot of this at Wealth Bondage (http://wealthbondage.com) the archives are a wealth of dialogs from very well read conversants, only a few of which have any sort of credential at all.

And as far as not completing the “assignment”… well, despite the fact that I didn’t have interest in getting “assignments” I had interest in having discussions, I absolutely completed the assignment. Phil asked me to read an ancient story/poem and I did. (Well, I read a more modern 1916 prose version, but I still got the point) I went on to post at length (scroll up) about my thinking on the subject.

Where is Phil?

The “teacher” has decided, apparently, that his student is not worth the time and has disappeared, leaving me to wonder if “education” was actually his interest in the first place or if he was instead only wanting to lecture.

But whatever. Phil’s not here, I’ve yet to see any level of engagement on this subject. Back to regularly scheduled programming.

The “F” is based on not completing the assignment. As far your protestations of not having enrolled in a classroom exercise, I say it is you who have invited this. Others would just let an uninvited assessment go, you seem to care, so who is setting up the student/teacher dynamic? Who is responding to it and keeping it going?

As I mentioned on Phil’s blog, I didn’t sign up for a course, nor did I want an “instructor” who refused to diverge from the lesson plan he’d already created.

Please explain what a grade of “F” is based on! Don’t tell me I didn’t take it seriously, and that I should drop the “course”. That’s a ridiculous way to expect anyone to actually learn anything. Imagine if that’s what teachers told their students if they failed the first lesson. That’s not education, that’s teaching/preaching to the educated/converted.

Clearly I stumbled into the digital equivalent of philosophy grad students at a coffee house on a mid-week afternoon. I wouldn’t be welcomed there, nor am I welcomed here. Fine by me, time to move on.

I don’t think it’s fair to say that I’ve rejected his lesson because I didn’t agree with it. How can you support his argument that we need to break out of our bonds, yet you’re not cool with me pushing back on Phil’s “teaching”? That seems a bit hypocritical, no?

Look, I get the point – that we’re so consumed with our consumption that we can’t see the greater truth, the great problem because we’re so blinded by the mass consumerism.

There’s two problems with that line of thinking: a) It removes any discussion of free will, saying that what this thinking disagrees with is completely, undebatable and wrong, and b) that there are only certain enlightened people who can see the “truth” and that the rest of us are just unsavable drones.

Just because I don’t agree with doesn’t mean I don’t understand it or have rejected the discussion….