Perception is a portable faculty that formal education and money cannot buy

Evidence

Let no man jump to the conclusion that Babbitt must take his Ph.D. in ecology before he can ‘see’ his country. On the contrary, the Ph.D. may become as callous as an undertaker to the mysteries at which he officiates. Like all real treasures of the mind, perception can be split into infinitely small fractions without losing its quality. The weeds in a city lot convey the same lesson as the redwoods; the farmer may see in his cow-pasture what may not be vouchsafed to the scientist adventuring in the South Seas. Perception, in short, cannot be purchased with either learned degrees or dollars; it grows at home as well as abroad, and he who has a little may use it to as good advantage as he who has much. — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 610

Categorization

• APHORISMS: The weeds in a city lot convey the same lesson as the redwoods — a democratic, anti-elitist statement of the core method.
• XREF: Connects directly to the polyad theme of attentive field observation and to Lofting’s listening ethic in The Soundscape. — connects to: Perception is the one recreation that does not consume its resource — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Other…, 606; Formal education can erode rather than sharpen perception of the natural world — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Other…, 83; Education and abstract values are unattainable without the material conditions that make them possible — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 347

Broader Connections

• Education and abstract values are unattainable without the material conditions that make them possible #corroborates (0.78) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 347