Comments on: The death of general knowledge

By: Hugh

Hugh — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:30:57 +0000

Interesting one, this, and I believe you’ve hit the nail on the head:
“but it is also vital that young people in particular acquire a working knowledge more generally of the world in which they live and in which they will want to be active”
Its got to do with a sense of curiosity and wonder (which a lot of people seem to have lost). If you’re not the curious type, you probably won’t take the time to find out where Baku is, or what fullerenes are, or why Santiago de Compostella is famous, or who painted “The Scream”. Nobody can know everything, but I’ll bet that nine times out of ten a casual conversation with a curious person will be infinitely more interesting than with a specialist!
The way back to G K is simply to educate people to be curious about the wide world. You can’t teach it.

By: ljmaximus

ljmaximus — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:06:28 +0000

Well, in this case, we can say that the aforementioned book authors sinned with bias toward Irish

Shame on them!

By: Perry Share

Perry Share — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:41:16 +0000

How does one reconcile the alleged death of general knowledge with the rise and continued (if somewhat diminishing) popularity of the pub quiz?

It also depends whose GK we are talking about. I recently perused – in our library – an American book that claimed to list all the things an ‘educated person’ should know (eg where Baku is &c &c). Surprisingly the names Beckett, GB Shaw and Heaney were notable by their omission.

By: universitydiary

universitydiary — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 16:12:29 +0000

Feel free to contribute actively – always welcome here!

By: Aidan

Aidan — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 09:27:59 +0000

I am certainly not saying that people know less. In fact they know far more but because there is the amount of information is so vast the definition of general knowledge depends on the group to which you are applying it.
In the past people absorbed a lot of useless information which they could spew out at will in quizzes or whatever. For instance, knowledge of Shakespeare’s works would have been general knowledge but that was only because the value judgment of educators at the time. If you grew up in a Communist country you would have a different concept of general knowledge.
Watching University Challenge on the BBC is enlightening in this respect. The candidates now seem to go from zero to hero and back. They may not remember the periodic table but they can answer questions about Buckminsterfullerene just because that interested them

By: ljmaximus

ljmaximus — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 01:22:41 +0000

Thank you, very much!

Though I arrived here through Google Alert, I’ve found another interesting blog to follow! However, I would like to warn – I a “spammer” in terms of leaving comments

By: universitydiary

universitydiary — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:49:14 +0000

Ali, you are most welcome as a contributor here – and I’ve also had a quick look at your own blog. It’s very informative!

By: Ron C. de Weijze

Ron C. de Weijze — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:46:05 +0000

As there never have been, I am afraid there never will be consolations for the generalist, only for the specialist*. Therefore these people are not so much intelligent and at the cutting edge of knowledge, but at the best career position, if they eventually still want to run the rat race.
*http://ru.philosophy.kiev.ua/edu/ref/sci/feyer.html

By: ljmaximus

ljmaximus — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 23:54:41 +0000

Well, the date of the Battle of Waterloo is 1815, Austerlitz – 1805 and Leipzig – 1813. And if I am not mistaken, Trafalgar should be in 1809, and of course Borodino is in 1812! I know this not because I am a historian, but when I studied at school, remnants of good old Soviet educational system were still solid and strong, despite Soviets perished a year before I went to school.

The soviet system was intended to give some general knowledge to every citizen of the country and as a result ordinary city dweller had somehow excellent worldview. But what such a system failed was to create bright minds. Just have a look at scientific achievements of Soviets and the rest educated countries.

I believe there should be some golden middle line, both to give ordinary general knowledge and open the way for creativity of bright minds.

P.S. All hail Ali G.! And Baku is in Azerbaijan

By: universitydiary

universitydiary — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 19:43:48 +0000

I’m not sure I agree with Aidan and Vincent. You are either saying that there is much more direct access to information now, so they know less (which doesn’t compute), or that their knowledge is more focused on certain things. If the latter, then by definition it isn’t general knowledge. General knowledge is not about being good at your specialist subject, it’s about being good at knowing other things. It’s about having a reasonable knowledge base that covers the major issues of politics, geography, arts and science. It’s not about knowing the name of the latest album by Jay-Z (which, by the way, is The Blueprint 3).