Ha. I woke up this morning with this on my brain.
It’s a paradox BadAim. Chomsky is a paradox. On the one hand, he comes up with the concept of a universal grammer, implying that human beings are hard-wired to learn. On the other, he implies you are a dumb-ass unless you are taught by a formally educated person. I accept the former and reject the latter.
If I iterate to a baby over and over, “red” while pointing to a red ball, what have I taught the baby? Is the baby no longer a dumb-ass with respect to “red”. I submit that I can not know. I can only speculate that the baby understands “red” as I understand “red”. But I am not the baby. I can test the baby, but still, only the baby really knows how he/she has conceptualized “red”. Maybe I have inadvertently planted the seed for the the baby to grown up and be a communist hope and changer. Or maybe this was my intent all along? Hello elite mentality. No. Drawing a line between the supposed dumb-asses and the teachers is a futile excercise. It’s a relative line that requires context to mean anything at all and even then, subject to one’s interpretation. If I cut myself and apply a bandaid, am I not now a doctor? In my mind, I am a brilliant doctor and that is all that matters to me at that point in time. Just as we are hardwired to formulate our own opinions of “red”. Our inate ability to use our senses, to take in data, analyze it, formulate, reflect, and make a choice about “red” and, if necessary, revisit our decision in the future. Or, simply not worry about it and throw it out as garbage. Did the baby throw out my interpretation of “red” as garbage??? Maybe the baby is color blind. On a broader scale, this is why we have elections in America. To revisit our past decisions. The 80% human beings are not dumb-ass automatons that must rely on and support the 20% “formally educated” class to be the interpreter. The ability to learn is inate. The desire to learn...inspiration comes in many forms. Teachers can choose to provide inspiration or indoctrination. It’s up to the individual to interpret the meaning and the individual can change his/her mind whenever they feel like it.