NYT: 'Jaw-Dropping' Data on Black Male Student Achievement

This is not about knocking achievement. It's about how the credentialed class use their credentials to arrogantly boss around the non-credentialed class because the credentialed - the brights if you will - supposedly know best in all matters of social policy. Since the brights have given humanity communism, Nazism, wacky environmentalism, etc, they do not have a good track record.

William F. Buckley once said that he would rather be governed by the first few names (don't recall the exact number) of people from the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. So would I. Now if I wanted to learn about English literature, or astrophysics, or a host other topics I would select the Harvard faculty. I would trust them to teach me about their area of expertise, but I would not trust them when it comes to making political decisions. That was my point.

 

So in other words it is an anti-intellectual rant.

 

:grin:

 

Start Poor. Work Hard. Do Well. Be Hated Anyway. Why do Americans resent upward mobility?
By Anne Applebaum

In 1958, an English sociologist and Labour politician named Michael Young imagined a future in which the British establishment dissolved itself, abolished all forms of hereditary power, and created instead a meritocracy (a word Young invented) based on IQ. In Young's fable, the academically talented working class happily join the elite. But the less talented resent them even more than they did the old dukes and duchesses. By 2034, this resentment leads to the creation of a violent populist revolution, which sweeps the meritocracy away.

To some, this story has always seemed like a warning to the United States. In 1972, American sociologist Daniel Bell cited it and predicted, with amazing prescience, the rise of an anti-elite-education populism. Bell got one thing wrong, however: He thought the coming attack on universities would take the form of enforced quotas and lowered standards. In fact, American universities staved off that particular populist wave in the 1970s by expanding their admissions to include women and minorities while keeping standards high.

The result of that expansion is now with us: Barack Obama, brought up by a single mother, graduate of Columbia and Harvard Law School, is now president. Michelle Obama, daughter of a black municipal employee, graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, is now first lady. They brought with them to Washington dozens more people, also from modest backgrounds, mostly without inherited wealth, who have entered high government office thanks in part to their education. Not that Washington wasn't stuffed with such people already. Think of Clarence Thomas, son of a domestic servant and a farm worker, graduate of Yale Law School, and Supreme Court justice.

Despite pushing aside the old WASP establishment—not a single WASP remains on the Supreme Court—these modern meritocrats are clearly not admired, or at least not for their upward mobility, by many Americans. On the contrary—and as Bell might have predicted—they are resented as "elitist." Which is at some level strange. To study hard, to do well, to improve yourself—isn't that the American dream? The backlash against graduates of "elite" universities seems particularly odd given that the most elite American universities have made the greatest effort to broaden their student bodies.

Because they can offer full scholarships, the wealthier Ivy League schools in particular are far more diverse, racially and economically, than they were a few decades ago. Once upon a time, you got into Harvard or Yale solely because of your alumnus grandfather. Nowadays, your alumnus grandfather still helps, but only as long as you did well on the SATs, were the captain of your ice hockey team, and in your senior year raised a million dollars for charity. (The last was not a requirement when I got into Yale, but it seems to be now.) If you did all that and come from a broken home in Nevada, so much the better.

At one level, the use of elite to describe the new meritocrats simply means that the word has lost its meaning. As Jacob Weisberg points out, when Sarah Palin, Christine O'Donnell, or—bizarrely—Justice Thomas' wife, Ginni, fling the word elitist at opponents, it often means nothing more than "a person whose politics I don't like," or even "a person who is snobby." But after listening to O'Donnell's latest campaign ads—in which the Senate candidate declares proudly, "I didn't go to Yale. … I'm YOU"—I think something deeper must be going on.

I suspect the "anti-elite-educationism" Bell predicted is growing now not despite the rise of meritocracy, but because of it. The old Establishment types were resented, but only because their wealth and power were perceived as "undeserved." Those outside could at least feel they were cleverer and savvier, and they could blame their failures on "the system." Nowadays, successful Americans, however ridiculously lucky they have been, often smugly see themselves as "deserving." Meanwhile, the less successful are more likely to feel it's their own fault—or to feel that others feel it's their fault—even if they have simply been unlucky.

I can see how this is irritating, even painful. But I don't quite see what comes next. When Ginni Thomas tells a cheering crowd of Virginia Tea Partiers that "we are ruled by an elite that thinks it knows better than we know," who, or what, does she want to put in its place? Young imagined a revolution (led, interestingly, by the wives of the high-IQ elites) and a classless society to follow. Unfortunately, this idea has been tried before, and let's just agree that it wasn't an overwhelming success.

In America, the end of the meritocracy will probably come about slowly: If working hard, climbing the education ladder, and graduating from a good university wins you only opprobrium, then you might not bother. Or if you do bother, then you certainly won't go into politics, where your kind is no longer welcome. We will then have a different sort of elite in charge of the country—and a different set of reasons to dislike them, too.

 

Good thing we got those non-brights to give us modern technology and medicine. Can't forget to thank the lucky stars for our non-bright, non-elitist founding fathers for not using enlightened rational thought to establish the foundations of our democracy, which has lasted for 223 years. Just imagine if there were no "brights" during the dark ages, just mindless lemmings , we'd still be living in a fuedal utopia, enriching our lords with our hard work. **** those thinking bastards and their radical ideas (like democracy) for depriving us of the opportunity to serve our lords.

 

Only if you think intellectuals should exclusively rule the country. I explained my position, why are you being such a jerk?

 

I explained my position, why are you being such a jerk?

 

Conservatives throw around the word elitist like our side throws around the word racist. In truth, such name calling accomplishes nothing more than entrenching the extremes, on both sides, that have hijacked political dialogue.

 

I explained my position, why are you being such a jerk?

 

Probably because it's such a stupid position. You'd prefer to have average people solving complex problems facing this country rather than the best and the brightest. That's stupid. Slogans aren't solutions, just so you know.

 

That's not what I am saying and I think you know that. Either you are doing this deliberately or you are being stupid. The credentialed have their place, but you don't have to have an Ivy League degree to be a successful businessman who understands the effect of taxation and regulation on job creation. A lot of "average" people have keen insights. On the other hand, a lot of the credentialed brights have little real world experience. If we allow only the brights to run things, we are depriving ourselves of a lot talented people. That's all I am saying.

What I find ironic is that the people who are accusing me of being anti-intellectual seem to be intellectually incapable of grasping what I am saying. Guess I should not be surprised. The brights and their wannabes in the Amen Choir are never as clever as they claim to be.

 

Variety in opinion is nice, especially if it leads to a discussion where you can arrive at the best solution. If you have to choose one of the two, however, wouldn't you use the educated person with credentials to make the decisions?

 

Good question. No I would go with the phone book. Sure I would get some stupidity, but I would get a wider cross section of opinion than you would get out of the faculty lounge at Ivy League school.

Now let me ask you - under your approach, why even have a democracy?

 

My approach? Don't misunderstand me; I realize that my proposed question isn't realistic because there's not a singular entity that decides everything. The ideal is that you vote for with guy with the best ideas or the guy you agree with. That's democracy, IMO. If a leader educated person has better ideas than a Harvard graduate, I'll go with them. That said, I think it's really silly to immediately distrust people just because they graduated from an Ivy League school. One should always listen before making any sort of judgment and that ideal just doesn't seem prevalent in our voters these days (you'll likely disagree with the latter point and that's fine; it's just my opinion.).

Sorry for typos... I'm typing on my phone while on the toilet!

 

More (now that I can type FO REALZ):

If I had to choose between person A and person B for a seat in the Senate and I knew absolutely nothing about them except for where they were educated, I would of course vote for the guy with the better education. Again, however, that's not realistic; you know about candidates, you know what they stand for. That should be the determining factor, not how much they're educated. I don't give a crap if you're from Princeton if you ideas suck.

My issue these days, as I mentioned before, is that there seems to be an inherent assumption that everyone who has Ivy League educations or whatever are condescending a**holes. While true sometimes, I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. I'll still listen to their ideas and not immediately dismiss them because they're "probably" elitist prick. A lot of people seem to be doing so, however, and that's what I take exception to.

But at the very least, I see your point of view: education does not dictate validity of ideas. Educated people can still be stupid. Uneducated people can still be brilliant. I agree. Still, I'd tend towards believing more education yields smarter people... it just seems logical to me. Someone who has studied economics extensively at an Ivy League school probably has a better idea on how to fix the economy than some politician who took some classes once in college. Note that I said probably, not always.

 

As the Cons love to point out we do not have a Democracy we have a Republic.

Actually it's a Democratic Republic. The people choose the leaders to make decisions for them. The leaders appoint cabinets and advisors of experts to help them with complex issues.

Appointing people out of the phone book is beyond stupid. The cross section of opinions would be a majority of people that are misinformed on the issues or if properly informed would still not grasp them. This has been talked about repeatedly on this board, HCR will increase the debt, Obama bailed out the banks when it was Bush that signed TARP, Obama increased my taxes, etc. etc. etc.

 

Joe Miller has a JD from Yale and graduated from West Point. I also think he's a complete lunatic.

 

Yeah, it takes some geniuses to blow up the national debt, give the world communism, etc. You go brights!