"We are losing out best and brightest to AIDS." Joycelyn Elders.
"We did not send our best and brightest to fight and die in Vietnam." Donna Shalala.
Therefore our "best and brightest" are either gay or inject themselves with illegal drugs. Or perhaps it is simply a comment upon the pre-Clinton gays in the military policy.
"We did not send the children of the rich." Donna Shalala.
I was unaware that "the children of the rich" are "our best and brightest," nor that they are gay, nor that they shoot up drugs. I have lost touch with the liberal times.
"I feel vindicated in not serving in the Vietnam war." William Clinton.
As President Clinton did not serve in the war, his staff believes he is either gay or uses drugs and likely is infected with AIDS.
I can play with the logical conclusions from these statements for the rest of the article but that is not the point. These people have no idea what logic is. They are incapable of thinking.
Other than the gratuitous insults to those without AIDS, to those who do not inject drugs, to those who served in Vietnam, the assumption of who are the "the best and brightest" strange to say the least. The best and brightest are the rich, at least the children of the rich, standing in stark contrast to the usual direct or implied condemnation of the wealthy, the "not paying their fair share" crowd for example.
Rather again why would gays be singled out as "best and brightest"? On the off chance she was not considering drug users bright, just what is it about gays she considers bright and best? Is it perhaps the stereotype of "artistic"?
I hate to break it to them but the worship of the arts is the worship of something easy. The arts have been around all through history and in all places. The art of thinking, engineering, the sciences, is relatively recent and still somewhat rare.
Were the arts something of an accomplishment the roles between the sciences and the arts would be reversed and we would find e=mc² written on stone age cave walls. The Golden Age of Greece would be the Stone Age for the world. Our anthropologists would be cataloging each cultures' invention of geometry and counting their Aristotles.
So what are their idea of "best and brightest"? If I may be so bold? It is the worship of the "feeling" of the liberal arts over thinking.
Why would they do that? Because that is the best they can do. If it is only a matter of feeling they elevate it. Of course, self deception in feeling is trivial. Anyone can convince themselves they can "feel" better, more strongly, more deeply than others.
After all, absent telepathy there is not way to compare feelings. Therefore the demonstration of feelings is to have a knowledge of what others have said and to be able to repeat them. Thus, a liberal arts education best suits their needs.
And thinking for themselves would mean using different words, introducing new ideas. That would mean they would be compared to the accepted, memorized opinions of others. As there is no reason involved in opinions the new thinker is up against the "thus spake Aristotle" brick wall.
Thus back to the list of logical conclusions from those statements. They were not intended to be logical or rational. They were intended to express an emotion, a feeling, they were not intended to convey information that could be objectively assessed.
This is but one example of the consequences of our present educational system. Critical thinking is not required. In fact, its memorization approach is designed to stifle thinking.
All through the first twelve years of schooling were you ever encouraged to come up with your own ideas in a manner that rewarded disagreeing? Does it change in college? Consider the idea of research in the liberal arts, to recite the thoughts of all the "greats" and at best develop a synthesis from them.
I have to ask, if that had always been the idea of learning who would the "greats" have memorized?
But this is our educational system. And our educational system is the only guaranteed passport into the good life without ability. And to get that passport the requirement is to quote the "greats" without ever thinking of becoming a "great." After all, society can not stand people thinking for themselves.