 an
office worker and high school graduate, picks up a copy at a bookstore
of a best-seller titled A National Disgrace, written by a professor of
social science at a major American university.
It's thesis is that the homeless are a manifestation of the failure
of capitalism to care for the disadvantaged and truly needy, which always
happens when a society becomes morally and ethically bankrupt.
That evening, after dinner, he sits down in the living room with it
and begins reading. Soon his eyeballs begin to glaze over. Try as he might,
he can't seem to get any pictures in his mind as it wrestles with the abstract
words that fill the pages. After a half hour or so, he puts the book down,
planning to pick it up and continue when he's not as tired. But that time
never comes.
The same thing happens to Tom Jones, a salesman and a college graduate,
and to Bill Miller, the CEO of a large research company and the holder
of a PhD degree.
But it doesn't happen to Jim Clark, who is a high school dropout and
who now lives in the streets or to Butch Beamon, who never finished grade
school and who now sells dope.
You see, neither of them even tries to read A National Disgrace, being
totally convinced that he's not sufficiently educated to even begin to
understand it. It takes someone with a high school or college degree, someone
who works in an office or is a salesman or is the CEO of a large company
to be able to comprehend such an important book.
And it must be an important book. After all, it is a best-seller.
Think about it. |
