"Experience vs Education"

 

The Cartoon above I had saved several years ago, something like 6 years ago, for me it was telling, you ever see a cartoon that really makes a mark? well that one did with me.  I had had discussions with people that argued with me pitting their education against my experience and thinking that my experience was inferior to what they were taught, that somehow what I had seen and experienced with communism and when the wall fell was somehow not as worthy as what some professor regurgitated and my experiences were somehow not valid when I talked what I had experienced in the communist countries because what i had experienced wasn't "real communism"  Really?  My Experiences during the Gulf War were irrevelant and what their professor told them about Saddam being a peaceful msn and the rape of Kuwait, and gassing the Kurds, not withstanding?0

        When I talk about the Soviets and what the Cold war was like, they immediately go with the United States was the aggressor and that the Soviets were only defending themselves....Really? then why were the Soviets exporting communism through the southern hemisphere and throughout the world, financed a bunch of terrorist groups like the "Baader Meinhof Gang", the "PLO", "Stasi" and any other communist or leftist groups out there.  Despite my family history of having maternal family members disappearing in the gulag systems of the communist countries of Eastern Europe. somehow my experiences don't matter, I was 8 years old when my mom took the oath of citizenship at the courthouse in Georgia in the early 1970's somehow my folks experiences going though the citizenship process don't mean anything compared to the illegals that jumped the border during sleepy Joe's presidency. My folks made sure that they did things the right way, but somehow that is now the wrong way, its bizarro world.    I am getting to the point that i don't want to talk to anyone anymore, people ask what has made me angry and not want to talk to people any more and this is what did it for me.

    I find myself not wanting to talk to people anymore.

    I clipped this from Michael Smith off farcebook

I've written a couple of essays that touch on the value of experience and the danger of lacking it.

It matters that people born after 2001 did not witness the Towers falling.

It matters that people born since the Berlin Wall fell only know what they have been taught, rather than living with the experience of a divided Berlin where the differences between communism and capitalism are only separated by a wall.

Graduate Student correcting the experienced due to his superior education

It matters that they didn't witness the violent takeovers of entire countries by the Soviet Union and the subsequent installation of puppet rulers.

It matters that they never experienced the Cold War and Mutually Assured Destruction.

It matters that there are no longer Civil Defense shelter signs in public and government buildings.

It matters that they weren't there to see the race to space between the US and the USSR.

The traditional vs the Modern college experience.

It matters they didn't see the spree of bombing, murder and mayhem of the leftists during the 60's and 70's.

It matters because even the best, most accurate, most complete telling of a story doesn't match the impact of witnessing the events.