Agreed. If you go to school and get your PhD in Medicine, how does that give one any insight onto who would be a good political leader? If someone spent the last 4 years studying accounting, how does that make them more intelligent when it comes to politics? The left loves to propagate the myth that higher education = more qualified to choose a candidate, but "educated", as in having a degree, does not equal educated on the subject of politics, but they don't want non-critical thinkers to understand that.
Not sure it's merely a left thing. Plenty of conservatives I know equate higher education to being smarter, and it's just not true. Sure, you know more things, but that doesn't necessarily bring innate intelligence. More examples of this in the world than one could count.
You are assuming that those who voted for Macron were stupid. The truth is you may be you have no idea of the realities of French Politics : Le Pen family has been in politics for at least 40 years. They were hated by the most revered President, The General de Gaule, as they were kind of involved in an assassination attempt against him. So it was unlikely that retirees voted for Le Pen : their vote is not insignificant. May to put it simply : if today, a US president hopeful was said to have been involved in the assassination of your beloved JFK, no matter the hopeful qualities, it would be very difficult for this person or any family member to be elected potus. Also, the most educated people would know about these sort of things.
That's not at all what he was saying. The both of us were refuting Covertibility's claim that those who voted for Macron did so because they were of higher education. It was he/she who was making the point that the educated voted for Macron. We were making the point that academic education was not necessarily an indicator of being intelligent. Please pay attention, monsieur.
I agree fully that academic education is no indication of being intelligent. Though MOST fortune CEOs have a degree ; even those who dropped out - Bill Gates, Steve Jobs who are often quoted managed to land into the best US colleges, and only dropped out because they already knew what the teachers were teaching in their areas of interst ( Computer Science). Academic education does bring something : - ability to think critically - ability to analyse information So may be, it is time some politicians realise that they are not going to get voted just because they are , but that they need to step up to the plate and bring in real qualities.
No, the assumption made, based on many years of observation, is that blind partisanship and political idealogy will trump intellect in many cases, and that education is no guarantee of intelligence, political or otherwise, but especially political.
Really interesting debate : I have come to change my views and starting to believe that education does improve people's political acumen. The lack of education , I am now starting to think, make it easy for people to be manipulated politically. May I ask : how did you come to have your point of view ? I used to think the same, but now, I have started to see things differently.
If education were pure, perhaps. But since it is presented in a way that is slanted, it is more manipulative than truly educational.
I am not talking about rote learning - though it has its benefits - I am talking about learning critical thinking.