Quote:
Originally Posted by squeeeb
i bother because everyone has a different way of arriving at the point of "themselves" and "what they know." yet so many people cannot agree on how something should be done, what something really means, what something is. so the way i see it, knowledge, reality, is almost subjective. if that is the case, then why is it so important to people who has a degree in what, who has experience in what, etc?
the op is totally about making evaluative statements involving notions like "real" or "authentic." i just don't see them as being arbitrary.
i wasn't trying to figure out which is better. i was trying to figure out IF one was better, if they equaled out in the end, or if it was comparing apples to lamps.
based off your answer, you say it's comparing apples to lamps (unless i misunderstood). and so you've answered my question. thanks.
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But this IS a false dichotomy. It is not about whether one is better than the other, but whether they are separate things. Academia IS life, as well. Cutting edge academic knowledge is created not just through books, but by doing as well.
Medical research involves doing real medicine on real people every day; cutting edge business research involves real business; and so on. As Keynes once said:
"Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. "
In the real world, the stereotype of the clueless but book savvy nerd and the charming street smart uneducated outsider really rarely exist, though the stereotype is often invoked as a sort of anti-intellectual rallying cry.
For certain things, of course first hand knowledge is important, and generally in those things academia includes that first hand knowledge experience. In others, like complex societal level stuff, there is simply no amount of personal experience that will substitute for "book knowledge." No one will ever understand Africa without understanding its history, for example.
Now, the real question is can academic knowledge be obtained outside of academia? In some instances, yes, but they are far from the majority.
I would trust the recent vet school graduate with my pets a lot more than a butcher with 20 years of experience...