We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day “I think that people can legitimately complain that the educated class that dominated Wall Street and Washington first made the mortgage mess and then railroaded through a bailout in which a transfer of wealth from main street to Wall Street was marketed as a benefit to main street. The educated class is losing the respect of the rest of America for reasons that are well deserved.”
– Arnold Kling. The quote is equally applicable to the UK.
Read the whole item. It contains interesting commentary on a new book by Thomas Sowell. By the way, the question of the influence of an “educated class” begs the interesting question as to whether this class is all that well educated in the first place. Surely one of the hallmarks of a traditional, liberal education was understanding certain lessons of history, such as the dangers of concentrations of power in a few hands with few checks or balances. Just a thought.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Neil Stephenson once said that people had lost faith in intellectuals because in the twentieth century, the people handed the reins of society over to the intellectuals, who turned the century into a bloodbath.
Which is fair comment.
I think the point about whether they are really “all that well educated” is very important. The fact that a person has attended a prestigious educational establishment does not automatically mean that he or she has gained any real insight into the world. It does not guarantee the development of wisdom, critical thinking, or openness to new ideas. It may encourage arrogance and complacency in people who are already inclined to think they know it all. In the end it may bestow nothing more than a fancy certificate and a stock of conventional opinions.
So it would be better to talk of the “credentialed class” rather than the “educated class”, because it is those fancy certificates that grant them access to the worlds of wealth and power rather than any proof that they are genuinely well educated. If more of them really were, the public would have a lot more confidence in them.
Yes, Andrew, the arrogance one learns from one’s professors as they impart their superiority.
It boggles my mind the Keynes has got away so long, simply on the arrogance of his presentation because his logic just is not there.
It (the arrogance) works.
And that is almost the most terrifying thing.
I think it’s too much education, or more correctly the boundaries to which it has been pushed. Not so long ago physics had more to do with the real world – gravity, tensions, how to build tall buildings and how to move a huge rocket into orbit. Now it’s about endless theories and computer models about twenty-three dimensions with little or no practical use (?).
Extend this to every discipline and education now about rarified knowledge that only the few can attain which credentials them to be our masters. That seems to be the plan in the first place. Yet, I don’t want to come off as some sort of populist like a brown shirt railing against the intelligentsia.
I look at the middle class not only from an economic point of few, but from an intellectual point of view. The upper classes have an inappropriate view of themselves and their role, a form of noblesse oblige abounds in their whole attitudes, including how they are educated. The blue collar folk have their own myopic, simplistic view of the world. Neither have much use for sound economic theories, they just want results. The former are too nuanced to be of use, the latter are too crude. It is the middle class, those who work for the upper class, can even aspire to reach the next class (or con themselves that they can) and very many have come themselves from the blue collar ranks, and so can identify with them and see their errors. At the very least many middle class folk worked as unskilled laborers while educating themselves.
So the middle class, both economically and intellectually, see that the world isn’t as simple as the uneducated view it, and the destruction to wealth and happiness that occurs when “luditism” holds sway, nor is it as complicated as the rarification the upper tier make it out to be. I guess there is huge part of the distribution curve where common sense interacts with the natural world, where sensible erudition coupled with labor produces bounty. The tails of the distribution are made up the overly erudite who don’t labor (and never have) and those who labor and sedate themselves with bread and circuses the rest of the time.
At least that is how it used to be. The middle class is slowly being eliminated. The Statist rise of the last century has been forged by an alliance between the upper classes and their “lupin redistribution” schemes and the underclasses who view the government as a cornucopia out which their share has been commandeered. The middle class (intellectually especially) is being rubbed out. The new model (as with all Statist models) is to have the few ruling over a land of servitude.
Ah, the lumpen intelligentsia. There are few things more annoying than someone with an IQ of 117, a degree in Basketweaving and a strong sense of received virtue.
Brad, that’s hardly a “new model”. Rather, it has been the norm throughout most of human history. We have been lucky to live in an extraordinary age. Unfortunately, it appears to be reaching its end.
PFP, lumpen intelligentsia is a great phrase!
One of the dangers inherent in any centralized political system is the development of an oligarchical group which manages to entrench itself in positions of power and influence.
The ancient traditions relied on birth, religious orthodoxy, and military prowess.
The modern variation, at least in the west since the fall of the autocratic royal houses during WW1 and its aftermath, involve ideology, wealth, and political connections.
One of the pathways to attaining entry into the club of those who are “inside” is educational achievement at the high prestige schools. This trend began in earnest during the New Deal, and then WW2, when legions of experts were summoned to Washington to help solve the myriad problems associated with those complex social situations.
It is long past time for some serious examination of the track record of this alleged expert group, the “educated class” recently cited by columnist David Brooks in a column for the New York Times, (which itself is the flagship media source for those who consider themselves members of that class).
While they may have had some successes, as the power of the political entities they control has increased, the economic and social consequences of their policies has frequently been counterproductive, to say the least, and the rule of the “best and brightest” has most recently led to the near collapse of the financial system that supports the modern global economy.
Brooks was upset, or at least concerned, that the mass of society was turning against the powers accumulated, and policies advocated, by the members of the “educated class”.
I certainly hope that’s true. If it is, there may yet be time to recover the freedom and vitality the west will need to overcome the many challenges that lie ahead.
As I commented at reason, we need to stop the endless ceding of words to these people.
What we’re talking about is not the most educated class of our societies, but the most indoctrinated class of our society.
I think he meant the over-educated class.
otpu
optu, I prefer to refer to them as “educated beyond their capacity.”
It is not “education” in the sense of teaching people true things.
What is taught in much of history, political and economic teaching in schools and universities (including most of the private ones) is nonsense – and it is evil nonsense.
So it is NOT the stupid students we need fear (the ones for whom the whole thing is “beyond their capacity”), on the contrary it is the intelligent and hard working students who are the problem (not the ones who spend their days looking out the window or trying to look at the girls).
The intelligent students then take the information and docrtines they are taught to their logical conclusions.
And as that information and doctrines are false, this is the road to Hell.
“But surely intelligent students would dispute what they are taught”.
That is to misunderstand the nature of “intelligence”.
“Rebel” students tend to be people who denounce other people (such as lecturers) for not taking the collectivist doctrines to their logical (extreme) conclusions – that the doctrines themseleves are utterly false does not enter their wildest dreams.
How can it?
Intellience is problem solving (that is how it is measured) not doubting the basic information and the basic ways (the doctrines, or theories) one is instructed to interpret the basis of the information upon.
A person who doubts the basic structure of what he is being taught is NOT showing “intelligence”, he may be showing “wisdom” or being “barking mad” (take your pick), but it not “being clever”.
One can call this the difference between “lateral thinking” (intelligence) and “diverse thinking” (wisdom) if you wish – or you can simply say (as I am sure those with power would) “there are some people who are just ignorant tea party Rednecks – who should be kept down for the good of society” (that would be the point of view of the “Economist” magazine and so on).
By the way – a lot of the above (although not the last paragraph) comes from Ludwig Von Mises. He had reached these conclusions before even the First World War.
I must stress that some “wise” people are also intelligent (in the problem solving sense). For example, Ludwig Von Mises himself had a very high level of both forms of mental activity.