A Prestigious Education Is No Shield From Criticism

Does this picture look familiar? I thought about the once shining example that was Florin Hilbay -- back then he was an inspiration of having worked part-time to finish his schooling in a high standard school, he topped the board, he did everything he could. But the present Hilbay is what Get Real Philippines states the following:

University of the Philippines law professor and former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay has become the butt of jokes on social media. While I don’t follow him because, for one, I am not a fan and two, he has already blocked me on Twitter, some of his posts still find their way onto my timeline. I personally get a kick out of reading them. Sometimes they elicit a few laugh-out-louds for their silliness, but they are mostly head-scratchers.

Unfortunately, it's not just him but also others who tend to think that having a prestigious education is a shield from criticism. This is the biggest problem is that people think that just because you're educated means you're not stupid. Stupidity comes in many forms. That person doesn't necessarily have to be stuck in kindergarten or elementary to have the emotional maturity of one. The person can be so highly educated yet his or her mindset still thinks like a toddler or elementary school student when it comes to dealing with criticism. In short, that person is part of the prevailing stupidity of the crowd and what's worse is that some of the most stupid people are highly educated.

How can you be stupid and well-educated at the same time? The problem with test scores is mostly an issue of whether one prepared well for them or not. Today, the problem of test scores and the use of one's past achievements as a shield from criticism is this -- what's the good of having an impressive track record in the past if your present performance is good as garbage? It's just like what happened to a lot of impressive track records. A good example is best friends forever Noynoy Aquino and Mar Roxas have degrees in Economics in hard to enter to schools but both of them still think protectionism works better than free trade. They can't use the fact that they graduated there to say that they're not stupid.

Do you remember the story of the Scholars and the Lion? You can think about the problem of three highly educated people and one who hasn't become a scholar. The three were gifted in so much magic but they failed to see the consequences of their actions. They used their magic to revive an obviously deadly animal. It's just like having a degree in Chemistry or Chemical Engineering yet one performs obviously dangerous quack experiments or being a lawyer yet one caters to highly idiotic or even invalid cases. The scholars were highly intelligent in one area but they were also very stupid. Their scholar status didn't make them not stupid in practical areas. They should have known better than to put themselves in a situation that's guaranteed to kill them.

It's time to consider this -- an education gives you an edge of knowledge. But it doesn't matter how much knowledge you have or how many legitimately taken degrees you have. Besides, it's really crazy how some of the most stupid people today are also those with high degrees and high bar scores. It's time to consider the fact that one should measure stupidity not by the highness or lowness of one's scores (since most of them may indicate one's diligence or laziness more than intelligence) but by one's lack of common sense.

Still think of using whatever education you have as a shield from criticism and as an excuse to say you're not stupid?