I read an insult online the other day. Someone called another person “overeducated” — and the angry howling in agreement from the malingering crowd that followed that contextual rasping — make me realize there is a concentrated, and vocal, segment of this country that loathes learning and defiles any sense of being “book smart” or thoughtfully, formally, trained.
What, exactly, does “overeducated” mean? Too much college? An advanced degree? Graduating from high school?
Can a craftsman become “overeducated” by staying too long in an apprenticeship?
Why is being perceived as “overeducated” a bad thing? Does education suggest you are an elitist and not of the soil or from the land?
I am always learning, and I believe the longer I live, the less I know — but I suppose there are some in the world who might try to label me “overeducated” in some sort of wan attempt to reduce who I am and what I know and to redact what I have earned and stowed in memory — and yet I am still befuddled as to why, in the USA, it is more admirable to the religious majority and the conservative minority be “undereducated” than “over.”