askchapo

Is 'reading the manual to understand how something works' also too posh?

...Actually, they'd probably say yes to that too. Unfortunately I think the answer to this is "you don't." This probably won't be a popular response, but I have been doing this stuff for a long time, and the thing that seems to be lacking most to me is that people do not want to learn. They don't want to learn, and they especially do not want to be wrong. You see this all the time in other places, too—"I shouldn't have to read to use my computer," "I shouldn't need to know how a car works to drive," etcetera. Maybe so, but no one ever hurt for having curiosity, that nonsense idiom about the cat aside. There is a joy in learning, a joy of discovering history and information and knowledge, but it needs to be taught and encouraged early and often. It's not, and I don't think it ever has been in modern society really, and so this is what we get: anti-intellectualism as a proxy for class interest. I don't know how to fix it, and I have severe doubts that you even can without some serious cultural reassessment, which is not going to happen soon.