One of the ways of trying to reduce the vast disparities in economic success, which are common in countries around the world, is by making higher education more widely available, even for people without the money to pay for it.
This can be both a generous and wise investment for a society to make. But, depending on how it is done, it can also be a foolish and even dangerous investment, as many societies around the world have learned the hard way.
When institutions of higher learning turn out highly qualified doctors, scientists, engineers, and others with skills that can raise the standard of living of a whole society and make possible a better and longer life, the benefits are obvious.
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What is not so obvious, but is painfully true nonetheless, is that colleges and universities can also turn out vast numbers of people with credentials, but with no marketable skills with which to fulfill their expectations. There is nothing magic about simply being in ivy-covered buildings for four years.
Statistics are often thrown around in the media, showing that people with college degrees earn higher average salaries than people without them. But such statistics lump together apples and oranges — and lemons.
A decade after graduation, people whose degrees were in a hard field like engineering earned twice as much as people whose degrees were in the ultimate soft field, education. Nor is a degree from a prestigious institution a guarantee of a big pay-off, especially not for those who failed to specialize in subjects that would give them skills valued in the real world.
But that is not even half the story. In countries around the world, people with credentials but no marketable skills have been a major source of political turmoil, social polarization, and ideologically driven violence, sometimes escalating into civil war.
People with degrees in soft subjects, which impart neither skills nor a realistic understanding of the world, have been the driving forces behind many extremist movements, with disastrous consequences.
These include what a noted historian called the “well-educated but underemployed” Czech young men who promoted ethnic identity politics in the 19th century, which led ultimately to historic tragedies for both Czechs and Germans in 20th-century Czechoslovakia. It was much the same story of soft-subject-“educated” but unsuccessful young men who promoted pro-fascist and anti-Semitic movements in Romania in the 1930s.
The targets have been different in different countries but the basic story has been much the same. Those who cannot compete in the marketplace, despite their degrees, not only resent those who have succeeded where they have failed, but push demands for preferential treatment, in order to negate the “unfair” advantages that others have.
A friend of mine who ran a small business preferred to hire applicants with a GED rather than a high school diploma. She said, "A GED tells you that they actually know something, whereas a diploma just proves they've spent the last 12 years in an institution." That is becoming increasingly true of college degrees.
Youre right, the whole good and evil paradigm is silly. It's not Satan, but English majors who are responsible for the horror and gnashing of teeth!
Come on NRO, start actually reading these articles and discussing their merit before you let these people with "marketable skills" (like schmoozing your bosses into believing you'll do great service to the pharmaceutical companies that own NR) post these ludicrous articles.
By the way maybe you can find someone with a hard degree to fix your error stricken website.
Also keep it up with the NRO-RINO polls which assure us that it's impossible for Mitt Romney to be greedy because RINOs love how he cares more about a dollar than a baby fetus!
(I bet you ten thousand dollars I'm right!)
Based on how your second paragraph began, I thought you were actually going to discuss the merits. Perhaps you were going to explain to us how spending a plurality of years seeking a degree in "Comparative Blog Retorts" per se qualifies an individual as deserving of a high income - or at least to have those years so spent covered by the individual that toiled for 4 years seeking an education in engineering and then again toiling for unheard of hours in extreme conditions to become a surgeon.
But, I guess not. It's much easier to just rant. By the way, did you get permission to use your iPad at whichever OWS site you currently inhabit?
"People with degrees in soft subjects, which impart neither skills nor a realistic understanding of the world, have been the driving forces behind many extremist movements, with disastrous consequences."
Occupy. Wall. Street.
The fact that we even allow some to "occupy" a portion of America is proof of how far our schools have fallen.
Who said anything about denying them the right to peacefully assemble? Peacefully assembling (which the OWS did not do) and occupying places that was not theirs (which they did and violently so) are two separate things.
The point stands. Occupying things is not meant to be a means of peaceful protest.
YOU: Peacefully assembling (which the OWS did not do) and occupying places that was not theirs (which they did and violently so) are two separate things.
ME: Paint with a broad brush much? In fact, as much of a pain as they can be, peacefully protesting is exactly what most of them are doing, the occasional public sex, hideously loud music, and random acts of violence notwithstanding.
If by "occupy" you meant the violent acts only, fine. I took them as scare quotes indicating that it wasn't really an occupation (which, generally, it isn't, since real occupations require a lot more than sitting around on your butt).
I believe it's you who are painting with a broad brush. One cannot be peacefully protesting and engaging in public acts of indecency, cacophony, and violence. Then again, you probably think the entire Tea Party movement is racist.
No, I mean by occupy that they occupied public places and buildings for days on end, without point, without substance, and only to antagonize and intimidate. Occupy is occupy, but then again, it is you, blsdaniel, and your comprehension of things has already been shown to be vastly different from everyone else.
YOU: I believe it's you who are painting with a broad brush.
ME: That's because you're an idiot. You said, "Peacefully assembling (which the OWS did not do) and occupying places that was not theirs (which they did and violently so) are two separate things."
Had that been "Peacefully assembling (which SOME IN the OWS did not do) and occupying places that was not theirs (which SOME did and violently so) are two separate things", then you wouldn't have been painting with a broad brush.
YOU: One cannot be peacefully protesting and engaging in public acts of indecency, cacophony, and violence.
ME: Yes, but MOST (which is what I said) can be peaceful with other aren't.
YOU: Then again, you probably think the entire Tea Party movement is racist.
ME: And, wrong again. Even if significant acts of outright racism could be shown by some in the Tea Party movement, unlike you, I am not into turning the acts of a few into alleged universal traits.
YOU: No, I mean by occupy that they occupied public places and buildings for days on end, without point, without substance, and only to antagonize and intimidate.
ME: Boy, the OWS has really hit bottom when they have you telling them that they lack substance.
In fact, I walked through the OWS branch here in DC yesterday and went completely non-antagonized and unintimidated, as did everyone else passing through them.
No, you happened to not like my language. My language stands. I didn't paint with a broad brush. I made observances based on the behavior of each and every last Occupier from multiple locations. Put in words all you like; there are more than enough incidents with OWS that my brush is not broadly painting, but yours is. You are attempting to turn them into a "mostly peaceful movement with some acts of violence here and there". That's like saying the Arab Spring was mostly a Jewish moment with some acts of anti-Semitism here and there (which was also present at OWS, but then the movement isn't racist).
Which is probably why not too many people want nothing to do with them.
Oh, and did you see the kid that threw smoke bomb at the White House? Of course you didn't.
"And, wrong again. Even if significant acts of outright racism could be shown by some in the Tea Party movement, unlike you, I am not into turning the acts of a few into alleged universal traits."
See, that's where you're wrong. There was zero, count them ZERO acts of outright racism made by the Tea Party. In fact, Andrew Breitbart's payout is still available to anyone who is willing to prove him wrong that the Tea Party has acted racist. The same cannot be said about Occupy Wall Street. Simply Google "Occupy Wall Street Violence" and get back to me. Yours is one where you are marshaling language to cover up for your inequities. The Tea Party movement was never racist, but the OWS movement was horribly violent and completely unsanitary.
As for being substantive, I have more substance in my pinkie than the entire OWS movement had. Which is probably why the Dems are not trying to court them now. Incoherence has always been its message.
Then again, you are incoherence writ large, blsdaniel. How is it that you end up defending the indefensible anyway? Besides, have you noticed that I'm really the only who bothers with you. Pretty good for an "idiot" to have an exclusive follower, eh?
Now I REALLY have to leave you alone. I feel the fangs coming out!
"Now I REALLY have to leave you alone. I feel the fangs coming out!"
Truthfully, I think that we have often brought out the worst in each other. There are certain things that we will never agree on (many of Dr. Sowell's points, proper style for comment formatting, etc.). But that doesn't mean this has to be a blood feud.
I know that I'm tired of this flame war, and I'm betting that a big part of you is as well. Why don't we both call a ceasefire. Erista, with whom I also spar now and again, likes the quote, "Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends." And he and I pull it off fairly well. I think that we should aim for that, or at very least not drink at blood enemies.
For all that I have done so far to poison this well, I apologize.
I think the actual text of the bill of rights says,
"right of the people to storm bank lobbies, close bridge traffic, disrupt commerce, close commercial trade ports, and defecate anywhere they choose, shall not be abridged."
...or words to that effect.
I mean, come on, read your constitution, dude. It's, like, totally in there.
Very good point. I wonder how many Occupiers standing up for their freedom of association rights, and then usurping use/rights-of-way of public property, would also stand up for the freedom of association rights (and corresponding right NOT to associate) of those forced into unionized "closed shops" to ply their vocation!
Also, one of the 3-4 selling points for invadi...err, liberating Iraq was that it would free women from their Sunni subordination, but we won't liberate Zuccotti park from rapists hiding in the Occupy movement?!
"Early to bed and early to rise makes one happy, wealthy, and wise."
"Some college majors make more than others."
Such are the revelations one gets from reading columns by Thomas Sowell these days. His only other point to a two-page article, that people with lesser degrees (especially education) have been the driving forces of socially disastrous revolutionary movements, is a good example of falling into the classic fallacy of thinking that "A implies B" (being a revolutionary leader implies that one is educated in soft areas) means that "B implies A" (producing more and more people with educations in soft areas is dangerous because it can lead to revolutions).
Furthermore, where are his examples to back this up? He gives us Romania of the 1930's as an example, but without naming anyone. There the leader of the student movement was Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (see: External Link), whose University studies were in political economy (today simply referred to as economics, hardly a "soft" field, as I'm sure Sowell would agree, since that's what he studied). Nor does he give us any better examples in his only other example, Czechoslovakia, as he again names no names.
If soft majors presented the danger he says it does, we should be able to take random revolutionary figures and find that they were so educated. But Lenin was trained in law (see: External Link), Che in medicine (see: External Link), Castro in law, and Hitler in nothing (never made it higher than a secondary education, see: External Link).
Once again, we are left to rely on Sowell's favorite form of proof: truth by assertion.
"s a good example of falling into the classic fallacy of thinking that "A implies B" (being a revolutionary leader implies that one is educated in soft areas) means that "B implies A" (producing more and more people with educations in soft areas is dangerous because it can lead to revolutions)"
Only you made that assertion (*wink*nod*). This is what Dr. Sowell said, "In countries around the world, people with credentials but no marketable skills have been a major source of political turmoil, social polarization, and ideologically driven violence, sometimes escalating into civil war.
"People with degrees in soft subjects, which impart neither skills nor a realistic understanding of the world, have been the driving forces behind many extremist movements, with disastrous consequences."
He neither made any assertion about revolutionary leaders or their education, only about the people who eventually support said leaders. But that's okay, we are always better off when we have blsdaniel's analyses on very complex subjects as a two page column because we all know that columns should be filled to the brim with as much facts as possible (especially Dr. Sowell's). Congratulations, sir.
That Dr. Sowell needs you to play spin doctor for him is perhaps the best critique of him.
YOU: He neither made any assertion about revolutionary leaders or their education, only about the people who eventually support said leaders.
ME: Actually, he didn't say a thing about supporters. He said "driving force". If you think that the followers are the driving force, then show me ANY source that says that the rank and file members of the extremist movements of Romania and/or Czechoslovakia majored in grade school education (or some similar soft-subject).
Unfortunately, Wikipedia is down today, so further support (or lack thereof) will have to wait. In the meanwhile, the best source I could find was this pro-Codreanu site (see: External Link), indicating that university students in Romania tended to be either Marxists or more moderate nationalists and that Codreanu initially had better luck recruiting from high schools and those attending commercial and technical institutes before turning his attention to the peasantry. Maybe we could find a definition of "driving force" that excludes both the leadership AND the primary pools of membership.
YOU: But that's okay, we are always better off when we have blsdaniel's analyses on very complex subjects as a two page column because we all know that columns should be filled to the brim with as much facts as possible (especially Dr. Sowell's).
ME: Nice straw man. I'm not asking for articles that are nothing more than citations to scholarly work, but is giving out SOME kind of basis for why we should believe the author so radical? This, coupled with the fact that, when Sowell does say something that is more readily verifiable / falsifiable than what field the degrees of extremist Romanians and Czechoslovakians of the last century were in (e.g., did long recessions happen before 1929, was the 90s a good decade for native-born Americans in terms of Nobel prizes, or is the primary cause of the deficit laws that were passed when Democrats had full control of Congress and the White House), they are so often false, leads me to believe that his recent short works are of little value.
blah, blah, blah. Why do you waste your time doing this you/me stuff? No one reads it anyway.
Besides, Dr. Sowell doesn't need me to do any truth twisting on his part. Nothing you've said will begin to marginalize him anytime soon.
"He said 'driving force'."
And Obama was elected on $5 contributions. :P One man with ideas is just a man with ideas. A man with many people who supports his ideas is driven by said force. Dr. Sowell's point stands. Yours doesn't.
