Michael Sandel's "The Tyranny of Merit" doesn't say it, but the pandemic has become the ultimate expression of upper-class America's obsession with meritocracy
Our hyperdrive to demonize The Other in terms of education and class is the iceberg into which the Titanic is being steered.
True merit--knowing how to do things, deal with all kinds of people and situations, and the wisdom to know when and when not to do them--is a worthy goal in life. But college degrees and credentials have little to do with that kind of merit, as reflected on our generally piss-poor Governing and Chattering Class.
Matt, it's much more complex. Everything you address is a symptom, not a root cause.
The abject failure of college education arises out of a misunderstanding of what a college degree means and who needs them. In a factory of 1,000 workers, there are probably 15 people whose college education has some value. That's my upper-limit estimate. We observed that these people made more money than those without college degrees, and decided that if everybody just got college degrees then everyone would make more money. That's not the way it works. You first need to create positions requiring college degrees, not throw college degrees at positions. So, everyone was told "Go to college." And loaned the money to do so, without ever examining whether the degree had any commercial value, or even if the individual should go to college at all.
People were told to "follow your dreams," and no worse advice was ever given. "I want to be a marine biologist!" sounds good. What are your realistic prospects of getting a job in the field? Close to zero. A degree in accounting comes with a job at the end. Invented disciplines such as intersectional geriatric Innuit and learning-disabled pregnant East Absurdians get loans. The politicians boast about helping everybody get college degrees and, and when the whole thing blows up, Ronald Reagan gets blamed. Or curmudgeonly old white men. Or anybody but the public school teachers and the parents who failed to teach their children financial literacy, and the numbskull government clerks look great while chaining our children to a lifetime of debt.
We don't need a lot of college graduates. I have a bachelors in Spanish and Music, a Masters in high-energy laser physics, and a medical degree from a German University. My brother in law is an elevator mechanic. His net worth is many times mine. I should have skipped college and become a plumber.
Physical therapists decided that they would make more money if they got Doctorates. So, the entry-level degree is a doctorate. That does nothing to increase the need for physical therapists nor the money to pay for their services. Pharmacists followed suit. The entry-level degree is a PharmD. That creates no new money to pay for their services, just shoved more money into colleges' pockets.
We graduate people with estimable degrees in aromatherapy or gender studies and when they are lucky they get promoted to barista five years after graduation. Life is about choices, informed choices, and parents, teachers and federal loan officers hide information from those seeking degrees. When they wake up to reality, few of them recognize the moral hazard to which they had succumbed. Instead, they blame baby boomers (I'm one) and uneducated stupid right wing bigots, society, and look everywhere but a mirror. I've been told on-line multiple times I'm useless and should die to get out of the way of the deserving.
I've devoted the last 20 years of my life to working with entrepreneurs, coaching them through how to turn their life experiences into jobs they own. Regardless of race, creed, sex, gender identity or anything else, those that put in the work reap the rewards. The last time I was charged out to a client as a management consultant I was billed at $500/hour. I gave that up to help those who had been crucified on the cross of "progressivism." Millenials assume I am uneducated because I extoll the virtues of entrepreneurism. That means I'm white, male, a racist, a sexist, an homophobe, hate all foreigners, and the only reasons that I fail to agree with every jot and tittle of one of these Masters of the Universe's wise pronouncements about his or her moral superiority are ignorance, stupidity or malice. I posted widely on the coronavirus in January 2020 as soon as I learned that Taiwan had closed its borders. The WHO was venerated, and I was banned from many platforms for pointing out that this is an extraordinarily contagious common cold virus. We needed to focus all protection efforts on the most vulnerable: the elderly and obese, and leave everyone else alone until we had more information. I'm still shunned for advising people not to get a vaccination until they have talked to their family physician if they are under 20, or pregnant, or immune-compromised, or have an autoimmune disease. None of these people should be vaccinated by anyone other than a physician. I am fully vaccinated, had breakthrough COVID, and two hospital stays exposed me to how much Kool Aid nurses have downed.
COVID19 is the gift that can't stop giving. Remember bending the curve in two weeks? Now a college in Connecticut has 100% of staff and students vaccinated and mandates they wear masks outdoors, where it is almost impossible to get infected. There is no end to the lockdown, and that's exactly what the authoritarians want.
All that I can say is that while I do not have a degree, my covid-vax-refusing husband has a master's in a hard science and many of the people I know who are "vaccine hesitant" are also well educated but trained well enough in critical thinking that they are highly skeptical of the narrative.
Covid fanaticism is the religion of midwits -- usually degreed but with poor thinking skills -- who worship those with credentials and terminal degrees whether the intellectual dogma they push makes sense or not.
A timely comment from another blogger, about the difference between knowledge, education, credentials, and faith in credentials:
"This is what Vico was talking about in his discussions of the flight into abstraction as one of the things that drives the collapse of societies — in place of concrete realities (practical know-how), you have an abstract representation of that reality (an education), then an abstract representation of that abstraction (a certificate), and then an abstract representation of the abstraction of the abstraction (“trust science!”) — and usually it’s right around then that the wheels do in fact come off." https://www.ecosophia.net/the-negative-sum-economy
These halfwits confuse being credentialed with being educated, and educated with being intelligent and competent. Meanwhile they denigrate critical thinking and embrace groupthink. If these are the smart ones, I'll relish my idiocy.
It's a pseudomeritocracy because the people involved and most hateful of the uneducated are actually completely incompetent and less educated than a high schooler from a few decades ago. It's participation trophy meritocracy.
"I should be able to look down on the plebs no matter how many times I get caught in half assed lies, prove to be incompetent, and shown I am not that bright!" - America's elites
Hm, I am not sure about this. I have an MFA degree and was an adjunct professor -- and it is true that much of this left Marxism is being driven by university indoctrination and these "educated" people believe that all conservatives and particularly Trump supporters are uneducated Walmart shopping rubes. But even though that's the narrative droned on by media, university elites and Hollywood, I think this stereotype and framing of this divide is inaccurate. I know health care workers, business people, professional people, and even a few college professors and teachers--actually people from all walks of life -- who are part of this divide because they are educated and students of history. And the same holds true with the over-simplification you insist upon ascribing to people with vaccine hesitancy. There is also a cross section of people not wanting to take this vaccine and they are not anti-science or even pro or anti Trump. I taught argument classes and I know all vaccines are not the same and this one has not been studied. There are probably next to NO people who are actually anti-ALL-vaccines. Anyone who studies science also knows that since it has not been studied properly, the ADE effect, the Marek Effect, or some of the problems with flu shots. And the way these vaccines are behaving should give everyone pause. I'm not sure if it is your intention but you seem to be implying that only uneducated people are vaccine hesitant. It's true these are the narratives been regurgitated about both this vaccine AND people who supported Donald Trump, but it just isn't accurate on either count. Health care workers are educated people and they are among some of the biggest protestors about this vaccine mandate. I am a full time care taker for my father now (who has Parkinsons) and exactly half of the nurses and therapists who come in here refuse the vaccine to date and the others who got it were not happy about it. At any rate, I don't think your point is very clear here.
Its funny to me how many books and think pieces have come out trying to solve the mystery of the "Trump voter." I know thats not the only thing this book is getting at but still. I live in an area that went for Trump, I know people of all levels of education and income that voted for him. It seems like all these people want to endlessly ponder about what made someone vote for him but they don't want to have an actual conversation with an actual person who voted for him. Why? Are you afraid you might find out that they're not some inbred hick monster straight out of deliverance? Are you afraid you might find that they're...well, shit, just like you?
I am a college educated citizen and I am horrified at the obnoxious arrogance of the educated class. It really rose to the surface during Covid. Educated people were demanding more and longer lockdowns and were shaming anybody who did not agree. The truth was that they didn’t really want “lockdowns”, they wanted working people like truckers, food workers and delivery services, Amazon and warehouse workers, garbage collectors, nurses, and landscapers to go out to work so that the educated aristocracy could hide at home. Working people kept this country going during the pandemic. I honor all of the blue collar heroes who make up two thirds of the voters in our country. They don’t drive Audis, they don’t belong to country clubs, they choose country music and rock n roll over opera or jazz, but most of them are smart and hard working. Bless them all.
Here's the dirty "secret" of the globalism that's (largely) responsible for putting us in this position: You can't compete with global wages while paying local prices.
Globocorps know this. They tell us that we could compete if we were just willing to work harder, but they're lying, and they know they're lying. No matter how hard Americans work, they can't get around the fact that cost of living in China (or wherever) is a fraction of what it is in America.
This is starting to apply to white collar jobs as well (think tech being outsourced to India). The only ones who can never be outsourced are the ones doing the outsourcing, because they're the ones making the decision to outsource or not. Which is terribly convenient for them.
The rich are forcing the poor and middle class into a no-win position, then blaming them for losing.
So I guess one of the main points of the piece is that in this current age, those of us with degrees look down on and disparage those who don’t have a degree, and think they are unintelligent. They are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Maybe it’s because I was the first person in my family to obtain a degree, but I don’t see how those with degrees can justify that nonsense. Maybe it’s because my dad was a 20 year Navy guy and my uncle was a 20 year Marine. Maybe it’s because I use “uneducated” plumbers, heating/AC guys, and other such trades people to fix things in my house. They all have way more common sense and innate intelligence than many I know with degrees. They also happen to be very nice, pleasant, real, salt of the earth people.
Charles Murray (the Left's Satan) wrote in his book 'Coming Apart' that the upper and upper-middle classes still live "vague ideas that success should be tied to virtues like thrift, discipline, and wisdom" with, for example, lower divorce rates, while publicly proclaiming at the same that these are old-fashioned ideas. He also noted that decades ago the elite use to live among the "poorly educated" in small cities and towns. Now the elite live in the big city high-rises and gated communities totally cut off from the working class world.
I really dislike the terms poorly educated to categorize people as less than. I grew up in a working class environment and worked my way up quite high in the corporate world without a college education. Yes, that was a long time ago and things have changed dramatically. But working class are not stupid and let me tell you their are a lot of people out their with Bachelor and Master degrees that don't have a clue.
Not everyone is suited for college and not because of IQ. People have different interests. I hated school...all of it. I found it stifling and wanted to work outside. Working with a bunch of like minded men outside and sometimes battling the elements were some of the happiest times in my life. And yes, these men I worked with were from all walks of life. Later I hopped on the corporate ladder and, while more lucrative, it was not as fun or satisfying.
We do need more trade schools and schools that teach high-tech fields. You don't need a college degree to do coding.
Finally, Biden is just angry because COVID is not working out as he hoped and is just lashing out. Kind of like his Afghanistan speeches.
Oh, and regarding the vaccines. The jury is still out. Information is changing by the hour.
>>They’re all but rooting for each other to die now
Man that last sentence was a real gut punch. There's a subreddit called r/HermanCainAward that's all about laughing at unvaccinated people who die from Covid.
Our hyperdrive to demonize The Other in terms of education and class is the iceberg into which the Titanic is being steered.
True merit--knowing how to do things, deal with all kinds of people and situations, and the wisdom to know when and when not to do them--is a worthy goal in life. But college degrees and credentials have little to do with that kind of merit, as reflected on our generally piss-poor Governing and Chattering Class.
Matt, it's much more complex. Everything you address is a symptom, not a root cause.
The abject failure of college education arises out of a misunderstanding of what a college degree means and who needs them. In a factory of 1,000 workers, there are probably 15 people whose college education has some value. That's my upper-limit estimate. We observed that these people made more money than those without college degrees, and decided that if everybody just got college degrees then everyone would make more money. That's not the way it works. You first need to create positions requiring college degrees, not throw college degrees at positions. So, everyone was told "Go to college." And loaned the money to do so, without ever examining whether the degree had any commercial value, or even if the individual should go to college at all.
People were told to "follow your dreams," and no worse advice was ever given. "I want to be a marine biologist!" sounds good. What are your realistic prospects of getting a job in the field? Close to zero. A degree in accounting comes with a job at the end. Invented disciplines such as intersectional geriatric Innuit and learning-disabled pregnant East Absurdians get loans. The politicians boast about helping everybody get college degrees and, and when the whole thing blows up, Ronald Reagan gets blamed. Or curmudgeonly old white men. Or anybody but the public school teachers and the parents who failed to teach their children financial literacy, and the numbskull government clerks look great while chaining our children to a lifetime of debt.
We don't need a lot of college graduates. I have a bachelors in Spanish and Music, a Masters in high-energy laser physics, and a medical degree from a German University. My brother in law is an elevator mechanic. His net worth is many times mine. I should have skipped college and become a plumber.
Physical therapists decided that they would make more money if they got Doctorates. So, the entry-level degree is a doctorate. That does nothing to increase the need for physical therapists nor the money to pay for their services. Pharmacists followed suit. The entry-level degree is a PharmD. That creates no new money to pay for their services, just shoved more money into colleges' pockets.
We graduate people with estimable degrees in aromatherapy or gender studies and when they are lucky they get promoted to barista five years after graduation. Life is about choices, informed choices, and parents, teachers and federal loan officers hide information from those seeking degrees. When they wake up to reality, few of them recognize the moral hazard to which they had succumbed. Instead, they blame baby boomers (I'm one) and uneducated stupid right wing bigots, society, and look everywhere but a mirror. I've been told on-line multiple times I'm useless and should die to get out of the way of the deserving.
I've devoted the last 20 years of my life to working with entrepreneurs, coaching them through how to turn their life experiences into jobs they own. Regardless of race, creed, sex, gender identity or anything else, those that put in the work reap the rewards. The last time I was charged out to a client as a management consultant I was billed at $500/hour. I gave that up to help those who had been crucified on the cross of "progressivism." Millenials assume I am uneducated because I extoll the virtues of entrepreneurism. That means I'm white, male, a racist, a sexist, an homophobe, hate all foreigners, and the only reasons that I fail to agree with every jot and tittle of one of these Masters of the Universe's wise pronouncements about his or her moral superiority are ignorance, stupidity or malice. I posted widely on the coronavirus in January 2020 as soon as I learned that Taiwan had closed its borders. The WHO was venerated, and I was banned from many platforms for pointing out that this is an extraordinarily contagious common cold virus. We needed to focus all protection efforts on the most vulnerable: the elderly and obese, and leave everyone else alone until we had more information. I'm still shunned for advising people not to get a vaccination until they have talked to their family physician if they are under 20, or pregnant, or immune-compromised, or have an autoimmune disease. None of these people should be vaccinated by anyone other than a physician. I am fully vaccinated, had breakthrough COVID, and two hospital stays exposed me to how much Kool Aid nurses have downed.
COVID19 is the gift that can't stop giving. Remember bending the curve in two weeks? Now a college in Connecticut has 100% of staff and students vaccinated and mandates they wear masks outdoors, where it is almost impossible to get infected. There is no end to the lockdown, and that's exactly what the authoritarians want.
Never has the credentialed class been this incompetent. Maybe that's what fuels their rage. Deep down, they know they're mostly worthless.
All that I can say is that while I do not have a degree, my covid-vax-refusing husband has a master's in a hard science and many of the people I know who are "vaccine hesitant" are also well educated but trained well enough in critical thinking that they are highly skeptical of the narrative.
Covid fanaticism is the religion of midwits -- usually degreed but with poor thinking skills -- who worship those with credentials and terminal degrees whether the intellectual dogma they push makes sense or not.
A timely comment from another blogger, about the difference between knowledge, education, credentials, and faith in credentials:
"This is what Vico was talking about in his discussions of the flight into abstraction as one of the things that drives the collapse of societies — in place of concrete realities (practical know-how), you have an abstract representation of that reality (an education), then an abstract representation of that abstraction (a certificate), and then an abstract representation of the abstraction of the abstraction (“trust science!”) — and usually it’s right around then that the wheels do in fact come off." https://www.ecosophia.net/the-negative-sum-economy
These halfwits confuse being credentialed with being educated, and educated with being intelligent and competent. Meanwhile they denigrate critical thinking and embrace groupthink. If these are the smart ones, I'll relish my idiocy.
It's a pseudomeritocracy because the people involved and most hateful of the uneducated are actually completely incompetent and less educated than a high schooler from a few decades ago. It's participation trophy meritocracy.
"I should be able to look down on the plebs no matter how many times I get caught in half assed lies, prove to be incompetent, and shown I am not that bright!" - America's elites
Hm, I am not sure about this. I have an MFA degree and was an adjunct professor -- and it is true that much of this left Marxism is being driven by university indoctrination and these "educated" people believe that all conservatives and particularly Trump supporters are uneducated Walmart shopping rubes. But even though that's the narrative droned on by media, university elites and Hollywood, I think this stereotype and framing of this divide is inaccurate. I know health care workers, business people, professional people, and even a few college professors and teachers--actually people from all walks of life -- who are part of this divide because they are educated and students of history. And the same holds true with the over-simplification you insist upon ascribing to people with vaccine hesitancy. There is also a cross section of people not wanting to take this vaccine and they are not anti-science or even pro or anti Trump. I taught argument classes and I know all vaccines are not the same and this one has not been studied. There are probably next to NO people who are actually anti-ALL-vaccines. Anyone who studies science also knows that since it has not been studied properly, the ADE effect, the Marek Effect, or some of the problems with flu shots. And the way these vaccines are behaving should give everyone pause. I'm not sure if it is your intention but you seem to be implying that only uneducated people are vaccine hesitant. It's true these are the narratives been regurgitated about both this vaccine AND people who supported Donald Trump, but it just isn't accurate on either count. Health care workers are educated people and they are among some of the biggest protestors about this vaccine mandate. I am a full time care taker for my father now (who has Parkinsons) and exactly half of the nurses and therapists who come in here refuse the vaccine to date and the others who got it were not happy about it. At any rate, I don't think your point is very clear here.
Its funny to me how many books and think pieces have come out trying to solve the mystery of the "Trump voter." I know thats not the only thing this book is getting at but still. I live in an area that went for Trump, I know people of all levels of education and income that voted for him. It seems like all these people want to endlessly ponder about what made someone vote for him but they don't want to have an actual conversation with an actual person who voted for him. Why? Are you afraid you might find out that they're not some inbred hick monster straight out of deliverance? Are you afraid you might find that they're...well, shit, just like you?
I am a college educated citizen and I am horrified at the obnoxious arrogance of the educated class. It really rose to the surface during Covid. Educated people were demanding more and longer lockdowns and were shaming anybody who did not agree. The truth was that they didn’t really want “lockdowns”, they wanted working people like truckers, food workers and delivery services, Amazon and warehouse workers, garbage collectors, nurses, and landscapers to go out to work so that the educated aristocracy could hide at home. Working people kept this country going during the pandemic. I honor all of the blue collar heroes who make up two thirds of the voters in our country. They don’t drive Audis, they don’t belong to country clubs, they choose country music and rock n roll over opera or jazz, but most of them are smart and hard working. Bless them all.
Here's the dirty "secret" of the globalism that's (largely) responsible for putting us in this position: You can't compete with global wages while paying local prices.
Globocorps know this. They tell us that we could compete if we were just willing to work harder, but they're lying, and they know they're lying. No matter how hard Americans work, they can't get around the fact that cost of living in China (or wherever) is a fraction of what it is in America.
This is starting to apply to white collar jobs as well (think tech being outsourced to India). The only ones who can never be outsourced are the ones doing the outsourcing, because they're the ones making the decision to outsource or not. Which is terribly convenient for them.
The rich are forcing the poor and middle class into a no-win position, then blaming them for losing.
So I guess one of the main points of the piece is that in this current age, those of us with degrees look down on and disparage those who don’t have a degree, and think they are unintelligent. They are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Maybe it’s because I was the first person in my family to obtain a degree, but I don’t see how those with degrees can justify that nonsense. Maybe it’s because my dad was a 20 year Navy guy and my uncle was a 20 year Marine. Maybe it’s because I use “uneducated” plumbers, heating/AC guys, and other such trades people to fix things in my house. They all have way more common sense and innate intelligence than many I know with degrees. They also happen to be very nice, pleasant, real, salt of the earth people.
Charles Murray (the Left's Satan) wrote in his book 'Coming Apart' that the upper and upper-middle classes still live "vague ideas that success should be tied to virtues like thrift, discipline, and wisdom" with, for example, lower divorce rates, while publicly proclaiming at the same that these are old-fashioned ideas. He also noted that decades ago the elite use to live among the "poorly educated" in small cities and towns. Now the elite live in the big city high-rises and gated communities totally cut off from the working class world.
I really dislike the terms poorly educated to categorize people as less than. I grew up in a working class environment and worked my way up quite high in the corporate world without a college education. Yes, that was a long time ago and things have changed dramatically. But working class are not stupid and let me tell you their are a lot of people out their with Bachelor and Master degrees that don't have a clue.
Not everyone is suited for college and not because of IQ. People have different interests. I hated school...all of it. I found it stifling and wanted to work outside. Working with a bunch of like minded men outside and sometimes battling the elements were some of the happiest times in my life. And yes, these men I worked with were from all walks of life. Later I hopped on the corporate ladder and, while more lucrative, it was not as fun or satisfying.
We do need more trade schools and schools that teach high-tech fields. You don't need a college degree to do coding.
Finally, Biden is just angry because COVID is not working out as he hoped and is just lashing out. Kind of like his Afghanistan speeches.
Oh, and regarding the vaccines. The jury is still out. Information is changing by the hour.
Apologies for any grammatical errors.
Blue America hates poorly educated white people.
"To all those who supported our campaign I am humbled by the faith you have placed in us.
"To all those who did not support us, let me say this: Hear me out as we move forward. Take a measure of me and my heart.
"And if you still disagree, so be it.
"That’s democracy. That’s America. The right to dissent peaceably, within the guardrails of our Republic, is perhaps our nation’s greatest strength.
"Yet hear me clearly: Disagreement must not lead to disunion.
"And I pledge this to you: I will be a President for all Americans."
-Joe Biden, January 2020
"YOU bad Americans are ruining it for US good Americans."
-Joe Biden, September 2021
>>They’re all but rooting for each other to die now
Man that last sentence was a real gut punch. There's a subreddit called r/HermanCainAward that's all about laughing at unvaccinated people who die from Covid.