this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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United States | News & Politics
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Terrifying. I was so stunned when I left college and realized how much I have to limit my vocabulary around most people. It made me feel distant from many of my peers.
This kind of oppression is so insidious and creates so much shame. Ive been following the tik tok of a ~35 year old man learning to read. Its been such a hard journey for him.
We live in a society based around the rule of law. People cant read the fucking laws. What the fuck.
Foucalt was right. If schools were anything other than prisons, the kids would be able to fucking read when they were done.
To be fair, there are a lot of things that you learn in college that are supposed to be specialized for your field of study.
I was told that I was being condescending when I use words that nobody else understands. To put it in the words of one boss: @inetknght, you're smart and you do good work. But, @inetknght, you can't handle stupid. So I have to move you to another team.
It was kind've eye-opening to realize that stupid people don't just exist. They're all around us. Always have been. Being moved to my own team of one just so people wouldn't feel dumb around me definitely made me feel distant too.
I've been lucky that many of the people around me were happy to learn. I haven't worked a white collar job yet so my work has been unrelated to the vocabulary. And people aren't insecure or defensive about education because they aren't payed to be educated. It was actually fun to teach the ones that wanted to learn. But I would also see lots of confused looks and so I lowered my vocab.
But I mean less terms like a-priori and more like flabbergasted or circumnavigate, pincer, dilapidated. Just higher reading level words that you might use in a description or as an adjective. nothing too jargony.