For over half the people who pursue higher education—particularly those who pay for it with debt—it’s not a very good deal. From el gato malo at boriquagato.com:
and the other baggage of mistaking signifiers for that which they signify
the “cargo cult” represents an important concept and this seems especially so of late. early observations of such behavior emerged in island cultures exposed to european explorers. ships unlike anything previously dreamed of arrived full of strange people with wonderous trade goods for exchange. metals, mirrors, muskets, you name it. the desire for these advanced goods was strong and so the locals traded for them with gusto. then, at some point, the newcomers left. the locals wanted more trade and in order to attempt to foster it, many adopted rituals whereby they would create what essentially amounted to effigies of ships and float them on the sea in hope that this would make the trade goods come once more.
astonishingly, examples of such practices remain, even today.
Xygalatas, Dimitris (20 October 2022). “What Cargo Cult Rituals Reveal About Human Nature”. Sapiens. Retrieved 5 November 2023
in essence, this practice is a category error of mistaking the surface marker or seeming of a thing for the thing itself and before anyone gets too supercilious and starts laughing up their sleeves about “those poor ignorant savages and their imaginary landing strips to which no planes will ever come” let me first caution that this is not only one of the most human of phenomena, but also one of the most prolific. it’s absolutely fricking everywhere and being an “educated modern person” is zero defense against it and may well increase one’s overall vulnerability especially given, as i will begin to explore below, the inevitable effect it has on issues like higher education. it’s a model of the world worth considering.
Wow! This is a superb article!
The underlying “issue” that BC (Bad Catitude) cites is one of epistemology! It is representative of our continuin “flight FROM reason.”
Other examples are legion, but his use of the very human phenomenon of the irrational mixing of the rational use of correlation and causality, set free when politics trumps epistemology and the reality that is the final arbiter, is wonderful!
If you can get past the lack of capitalization, this guy is very astute. The cat theme is brilliant, at least in this lover of cats’ estimation. If you subscribe to his Substack, you get a couple of compilation of memes every Sunday, most of which I see nowhere else on the Internet. There’s at least one gut-buster per compilation.