If the past 16 years of my education have taught me anything about humanity, it is this: give a mouse a cookie, and he’ll fish for a year.

I never read that book, and my education has been fleeting. It has become painfully apparent that so, too, has that of our illustrious student body, the media and most of society.

The ignorant train is getting tight, and they’re running out of complimentary pretzels.

It’s well understood that, as a species, human beings have made their fair share of “mistakes,” as we shall euphemize them. These boo-boos run the social history gamut from moderate (such as World War I), questionable (as in World War II), significant (i.e. Rachel Ray’s first television show), to cataclysmic (that being Rachel Ray’s fifth television show).

Perfection is hard to come by. There is no doubt of this. But there is something to be said from learning from the mistakes of the past. Most relatively developed humanoids complete with a conscience and working thumbs can grasp that neat package.

Others have a more difficult time.

Others, such as CBS, feel that the greatest contribution their small impoverished network can bestow upon mankind is yet another gateway to hell.

They opened the gateway a couple weeks ago, declared they would pit racially divided teams against one another in a series of stupid challenges, called it “Survivor 13” and let Beelzebub laugh his head off.

I like to believe I carry a loyal readership of approximately 21,000, give or take a bus full of Asians. I also like to believe “Mighty Ducks 4” is being made. I would believe that my readership is an intelligent lot, and as such could very well be saying to themselves as they read this, “CBS’s reintroduction of segregation into society is a poor idea,” or “We tried segregation once. I recall it did not turn out well,” or even “I would totally sign a petition to have ‘Mighty Ducks 4’ made.”

Now, with no credit to the CBS goon who suckles at the teat of the Dark Prince himself, the notion of segregating races for entertainment, or for “social experiment,” as the fire-and-brimstone-bound marketing team prefers, is hardly the worst thing to happen to this country of late (viz. Rachel Ray is still alive).

This is because what CBS has done is what we all do automatically on our own, perhaps unintentionally, but probably not.

We segregate ourselves. We congregate among our own. We set up fraternities, sororities, unilateral cultural groups, exclusive quail-hunting clubs, traveling improv. acting troupes and bi-weekly Scrabble consortiums that I can’t join because I’ve got “prior commitments.” Whatever that means.

None of us are immune to our respective proclivities to homogeneity, no matter how much we convince ourselves of our own liberality or open-mindedness. Except for me. I am immune to all human failings. Granted I can never feel emotion again, but it’s a give and take.

When CBS announced that “Survivor” would be racially divided, every talking head in the nation vehemently and publicly derided the decision as an ill-advised stunt, a veritable spitting in the mouth of public decency and cultural progression. I admit that I, too, was initially angered, outraged even, at the media’s latest cry for attention and ratings.

But then I thought, why?

Because we as a people are conditioned to act disgusted at the slightest inkling of race-speak? Because as a stipulation of enlightenment we are required to pretend we don’t harbor our own prejudgments on any given ethnicity, religious sect or Girl Scout troop? Or is it just because it is our duty as citizens of Earth to exhibit a level of good old pluralism?

When the race card is drawn, we convince each other that stereotypes and other such manifestations of ignorance don’t exist, that they are at best a good stand-up routine. But when the commentary spotlight is off, and we are within ourselves, we prefer to keep it like that — among our own.

If my education has taught me anything about humanity, it is this: don’t trust the Jews; they eat fish heads.

Max Lakin is a junior English major. He doesn’t trust whites, blacks, the Portuguese, people from Ohio, Persians, vegetarians, Scientologists, Yankees fans, women, men, zee Germans or evangelists. If you couldn’t possibly ever be offended by anything, ever … he hates your mother then.