Daly’s Maxim
Add a comment | Jump to posted comments | 
Share this post
“Higher education has absolutely no impact on character.”
- Daly’s Maxim
many moons ago when i worked at Gallaudet University, i struck up an odd friendship with a rather old, rather unusual physics professor named Daly. he and i would spend countless hours talking about our lives & experiences and just about everything was fair game.
one day he told me that he had only one maxim after all his years as a college professor in what he considered to be a rather frustrating arena (the university setting). Daly’s Maxim was born and was explained thusly:
“scott,” he said to me in a grandfatherly way, “if you were a dickhead before you got your college degree, you’ll still be a dickhead after you graduate. and getting a master’s or a doctorate won’t change that. higher education has absolutely no impact on character.”
“is there any hope for higher educated jerks?” i asked him, stunned by the profundity of his declaration.
“no,” came the terse reply.
If you liked my post, feel free to subscribe to my rss feeds
For more posts, browse in the archives :
December 30th, 2006 1:18 pm
# 1
i wholeheartedly agree. in fact, i might go so far as to say that one is more likely to be a dickhead the more higher education said dickhead obtains.
December 29th, 2006 10:41 pm
# 2
Hey Dude, ever since you first used Daly’s Maxim as a tag line on your email, I’ve been having a kick sharing it with others. I always express Daly’s Maxim in the same tone of voice (and style of writing) I’d use for “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” or “Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development” and it’s accepted immediately as though it was something they studied in one of their psychology courses but were too embarrassed to own up to.
L&K,
Moldy-Wan ;-)