I thought of Lost. They’re not all villains, but they’re all kind of shitty.

I call universities white collar vocational schools because that’s what they’ve become.

The “studies” degrees and other liberal arts programs hearken to an earlier understanding of the university as being a place of higher learning. In the US, our view of post-secondary education has changed in recent decades and we now look at university degree programs largely as white collar vocational training. The old higher learning paradigms still exist, but now there is a societal expectation that they prove their economic value. Knowledge and wisdom no longer have inherent value, only that which can be exploited by capital. Higher learning in its traditional modality is a luxury.

I agree. I changed my mind about a lot of things in my 30s. My views on politics, religion, and social issues all changed.