17/06/2017
Let’s start by defining educated and education. An education is really an understanding of a socially constructed world view. A non-literate tribal warrior has an education designed to help him cope with the world he lives in. A Phd in Literature has an education designed to help him cope with the world he lives in. They are not the same world or the same education. In both cases, they are educated when the social organism says, in some form, that they are “educated”. In different worlds, the “educated” are likely to not be considered “educated” by that standard. In those terms, the criteria for being “educated” is how well they thrive in the world given the appropriate “education”. The non-literate tribal warrior will die if he can’t feed himself and contribute to the tribal well being. The Phd has a better deal.
White-supremacists educated in an appropriate enclave would be considered “educated” by that group. Other groups would argue that that is programming but not a real education.
At this point, I think most people would opt for “educated”/”education” as being educated within the context of a world view relating to all humanity and not just the social organism that worked so hard to program us. You are still stuck with a socially constructed world view, but at least it is more rigorous than the previous definition and is, I think, the right answer to the difference the question asked for.
The other things mentioned in most of these comments are socially constructed positive attributes that they associate with being “educated” according to their socially constructed ideas of an education and are applied by people who see themselves as “educated”. But I would argue that they are not necessarily the difference between “educated” and “un-educated” persons across all nations and groups. Specifically, educated people are not more wise, moral or less likely to be jerks. But that is just my experience with highly educated people. You may actually have stats on this. I haven't (but should have) googled for stats. Like I said, positive characteristics tend to be socially constructed and, therefore, problematical. Of course, it is hard to get educated unless you have the positive traits they list. A chicken and egg thing. I like my definition, but your mileage will vary.
MUSt join : The Brother Grimsby
