Education Level And Elitism

Although most people would like to have the benefits of the elite line boarding an airplane and other perks of wealth, conservatives have been labeling people as  'elitist' people due to their college educations.  Scientists and doctors especially right now are dismissed as elitists if they say that people should wear masks to avoid spreading COVID-19 or if they say that climate change is real.  

On the other hand when people say that we should be focused on economic inequality instead of race, conservatives cry "Class warfare."  This is just another example of how Conservatives are totally inconsistent in terms of content.  Their only consistency now is their focus on winning by any means necessary.  Even by overturning a democratic election.  

A couple of posts back I had the elitist label thrown at me by two regular readers because I suggested that college graduates were harder to fool than non-college graduates.  I'm responding here, in a new post, rather than in the comment section, because I can put an image here and I can't do that in a comment.  Here's what I wrote at the end of a post on Denialism:

"Also, remember, only 35% of US adults has a bachelors degree or more education.  The chart below is from Wikipedia.  That does affect how susceptible people are to the arguments of organized deniers."  

[Including this chart below]

Education	Age 25 and over	Age 25-30
High school diploma or GED	89.80%	92.95%
Some college	61.28%	66.34%
Associate and/or bachelor's degree	45.16%	46.72%
Bachelor's degree	34.98%	36.98%
Master's and/or doctorate and/or professional degree	13.04%	9.01%
Doctorate and/or professional degree	3.47%	2.02%
Doctorate	2.03%	1.12%

Jacob responded (in part):

"Steve so often writes of his concerns that we should all be scholars in life, but I am one of those folk who never could sit still for college study. I'm one of his 'stupid' people who don't have a college degree (as evidenced in his chart and its implication to thinking things through).

It shows a sort of prejudice that I, not being a Trump supporter, still feel from folk who think themselves better for having achieved. I read. I write. I think. But I don't have an institutional degree.

And I'm thought worse for it, in what work I can do; in what people think of me; of what people assume my ability to think at all. No wonder too many Trumpers think of the 'other' side as being elitist."

And Oliver wrote:

"Steve, these people I would wager do not have degrees ,Carpenter.

Carpet installer .Electrician .Heavy equipment operator (or anyone in the construction trades) .Insulation installer .Landscaper .Painter. Plumber, auto mechanic but might possess a few smarts. I would take anyone of them over a room full of Fine Arts majors or anyone who's degree ends with the word 'studies'. 

Oliver "

A writer recently reminded me that once you put something on paper, it is no longer yours.  People take it and interpret it as they want.  So let's consider this a discussion.

I DID NOT say that all people who go to college are smarter or less likely to be conned than all people who do not go to college.  I never would say that.  

But I would say this: People who go to college get exposed to ideas they would not likely have been exposed to, and they are challenged by classmates and teachers to defend their own ideas and explore the ideas of others in a more disciplined way than most people who do not go to college.  There are lots of caveats.  The abilities of one's classmates.  The abilities and dedication of one's teachers.  Other influences in one's life that might hone these skills without college.

And as I wrote the words quoted above, I was thinking about the statistics I'd seen about college educated and non-college educated voters - particularly whites, particularly white males.  Those statistics support what I was suggesting - that more (not all) non-college educated voters were likely to vote for Trump.  

From a November 12 Brookings Institute Report:

This chart looks at the changing gap between Trump and Clinton and Trump and Biden voters in different categories.  In both 2016 and 2020 the non-college women, and to a greater extent, the non-college men voted at much higher rates for Trump than for the Democrat.  

To have a 48% gap between non-college educated men who voted for Trump and Clinton in 2016, you need 74% voting for Trump and 26% voting for Clinton.*  So after I copied the Denialist strategies that are designed to con people into believing things that aren't true, I was merely pointing out, afterward, that only 35% of the US population had a bachelor's degree.  

*Third party candidates probably skew the numbers a little, but it's still a big deal.  

And the data on how college educated men and non-college men voters marked their ballots sure looks like it supports the implication I made.  You could argue that these non-college men weren't conned and that they simply prefer a sexist, racist, lying, law breaker as president.  

I'd counter by saying that a college education would have exposed them to how sexism and racism actually hurt our economy and the value of the rule of law.  That wouldn't have changed all their votes - there were still a lot of white males with college educations who voted for Trump - but it would have changed many of them.  

Do I think everyone should go to college?  Not really.  People have different aptitudes and learning styles.  Many like Jay simply can't sit still and do the kinds of assignments most colleges require.  But I do believe that in a constitutional democracy, we all need to understand that constitution because it is essentially the "user agreement"  with the ground rules that we all, tacitly, have agreed to.  It's the one thing that all United States citizens and residents have in common.  

And I've written about my thoughts on alternative ways to get this knowledge to people who have talents in areas other than academic studies.  Here's from a post I wrote during a University of Alaska president search on the clash between the business culture of many on the board of regents and the academic culture of universities.  

"It is precisely this conflict between the business model's use of instrumental rationality and traditional academic use of the substantive rationality model - in this case scholarship and learning and truth and even the meaning of life - that is raging around universities everywhere.   Faculty are told to be more productive, which translated first into "more students per class" which would mean less expenditure for each tuition dollar.  It assumes a large lecture model as the ideal, the larger the better.  In fact, why not just do internet courses with thousands of students?  For certain students learning certain topics, this can work.  But this model ignores the possibility that education (as opposed to training) is about self examination, about learning to think critically, about exploring the moral implications of one's actions, about learning to write and learning to recognize the legitimacy of others' knowledge.  It ignores that this kind of learning  requires an intense interaction between a student and a teacher, among students, and among a teacher and a group of students.  The value of that interaction is diluted as more students are added beyond an ideal size. You can get a certain amount from reading a book.  You learn even more from discussing it with others.

Universities are being asked to do too many things

There are lots of things problematic with large modern universities.  For one thing, we decided, as a nation, that everyone needed a college degree, because that is the ticket to earning more money over one's lifetime.  (See how that technical rationality gets into everything, making, in this case, the purpose of a college degree, earning more money?)   A degree rather than an education has become the goal of many students.   Some online schools offer those degrees,  quickly, while the student works full time.  Just send in your money.  There are good online programs that serve students who otherwise couldn't get an education.  And there are schools that essentially sell degrees.

I do think that everyone would be better off learning to do the things I listed above - gaining self knowledge, critical and ethical thinking abilities, etc. - but I  know that not everyone has the aptitude or interest to pursue traditional college level academic studies.  There are lots of other important skills that society needs, but most have been sacrificed in K-12 to focus everyone into a college (translation:  academic, STEM, etc.) track.  We don't have tracks for less academic but still important vocational education which could also be more than technical training.  They could also include self awareness, critical and ethical thinking, but in areas that involve building, growing, and creating in more tangible disciplines than in academic disciplines.  Skilled craftsmen used to have a reasonable status in life and learning one's craft well involves learning the various sciences related to it as well as the social and political and economic realms in which a craftsperson lives.  Why not use carpentry or culinary arts or music or electrical work, or health care as the focus rather than history or math or political science?  Then bring in the other fields as they relate to one's focus.  Carpenters, nurses, cooks all need to know chemistry and biology.  Understanding the humanities, ethics, history, and government are also valuable to a craftsperson making a living.   People with different aptitudes would learn what they need much more easily when it's tied to doing what they really want to do, rather than some isolated, abstract academic subject. 

But we've created an educational monster that forces everyone into an academic track starting in first grade.  And if you aren't ready to read or add and subtract when the curriculum guide says you should be,  you acquire a negative label like  'slow learner' and you (and others) start seeing you as less capable than everyone else.  School becomes increasingly oppressive as you're forced to perform in areas you don't like and aren't particularly good at."

So, no, Oliver, I wasn't demeaning carpet installers.  I was thinking the ideas in the quoted paragraphs above.  That the way education is structured, people without academic skills, are much less likely (not "unable") to acquire a well thought out set of problem solving skills, and an understanding of the political, economic, psychological and other contexts that are needed for negotiating the complex issues of our day.  And the system we have doesn't insure college grads have it as well as they should either.  

I was just saying those without college degrees are more susceptible to a con artist like Trump and more likely to vote for him.  And the numbers seem to support that conclusion.   

The challenge we have is to get that ideal education system that allows people to find the educational tracks that most appeal to their subject interest and learning style.  

Now if you have some facts I've missed, not just opinion, to counter what I've said, please present them.