"We have been learning since we were children how to make money, buy things, build things. The whole education system is set up to teach us how to think, not to feel"
About this Quote
Smirnoff smuggles a serious indictment into a plainspoken setup: we’re trained for production, not perception. Coming from a comedian best known for flipping Soviet-American contrasts, the line works like an inverted “In Soviet Russia…” joke without the punchline tag. The target isn’t a foreign regime; it’s the quiet ideology of modern success. “Make money, buy things, build things” is a three-beat rhythm of capitalism-as-curriculum, a list so ordinary it becomes damning. He’s not arguing that these skills are useless; he’s pointing out how totalizing they’ve become, how they crowd out emotional literacy.
The subtext is that schooling doesn’t just transfer knowledge, it manufactures a kind of person: efficient, legible to employers, fluent in metrics. “Teach us how to think, not to feel” sounds like a compliment until you hear the cost: a population trained to rationalize desires rather than interrogate them, to optimize rather than empathize. Smirnoff’s choice of “since we were children” sharpens the accusation; this isn’t an adult failure of character, it’s a long-term conditioning.
Context matters: Smirnoff’s immigrant vantage point gives him authority to critique American priorities without sounding like a scold. His comedy often relied on showing that “freedom” is complicated, sometimes lonely, sometimes transactional. Here, he’s suggesting that even in a society that prides itself on choice, we outsource the inner life. The line lands because it’s both confession and provocation: if we were never taught to feel, who benefits from our emotional illiteracy?
The subtext is that schooling doesn’t just transfer knowledge, it manufactures a kind of person: efficient, legible to employers, fluent in metrics. “Teach us how to think, not to feel” sounds like a compliment until you hear the cost: a population trained to rationalize desires rather than interrogate them, to optimize rather than empathize. Smirnoff’s choice of “since we were children” sharpens the accusation; this isn’t an adult failure of character, it’s a long-term conditioning.
Context matters: Smirnoff’s immigrant vantage point gives him authority to critique American priorities without sounding like a scold. His comedy often relied on showing that “freedom” is complicated, sometimes lonely, sometimes transactional. Here, he’s suggesting that even in a society that prides itself on choice, we outsource the inner life. The line lands because it’s both confession and provocation: if we were never taught to feel, who benefits from our emotional illiteracy?
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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