The Role of Education In Assigning Value to Societal Labor Sectors

[LizzieMaine]

Not everyone has a choice. That is true. But this is still the best country in the world if you want to make a better life for yourself and your family. The standard of living has decreased tremendously yes, especially over the past 20-30 years. But it is not due to lack of opportunity for those who want to be better. It is because of failed economic policies, imperialistic mis management and as we often speak of, the Decay of Education.....

I dunno if I'd agree with "best." I know a lot of Canadians who'd argue with you. And Swedes. And Finns. And Danes. And Swiss. And Germans. Basically everybody is conditioned to believe that the particular piece of dirt they were born on is the BEST piece of dirt with the best system for apportioning that piece of dirt, but that kind of inculcated nationalism doesn't lead to anything particularly constructive. I'm American because I was born here, and some of my people have been here for 350 years, but looking at it empirically, I can't see anything that'd cause me to want to emigrate here if I happened to be Canadian, or British, or any other comparable first-world type of country, and I can see a lot of things that would *not* make it my first choice if I were emigrating from a poorer country.

Is my life in America today better, freer, richer, more rewarding than it would be if my ancestors had stayed in Scotland or Ireland or England or Canada? I honestly don't think so. One of my earliest immigrant ancestors certainly didn't find a better life here -- she was hung by the neck until she was dead by a bunch of delusional religious fanatics who came here under the pretense of "freedom of worship." My most recent immigrant ancestors -- my maternal great-grandparents -- didn't come here in search of a better life. They came here because they were descended from Loyalists who were forced into Nova Scotia by eighteenth-century terrorist militants, and figured, after a hundred and twenty years, it ought to be safe to come back. But good luck getting back the land that was stolen from their great-grandparents, who, I guess, "got ahead" by stealing it from the Abenakis.

 

[JimWagner]

The engineer may *choose* to become a garbageman, but the garbageman will rarely have the opportunity to *choose* to be an engineer. I'm sure we'll hear in response about someone who grew up doing their homework on the back of a shovel with a piece of charcoal, worked their way thru MIT plucking geese in a pillow factory for ten cents a week, and then became the CEO of an international technology conglomerate, but exceptions don't define the general rule. Especially not now, when socioeconomic mobility is practically at a standstill -- or even going backwards.

This is what really irritates me about Barbara Ehrenreich and other such authors who think they understand what it is to face real working-class desperation because they spent six months working at Wal-Mart or whatever. The people who have no real choice in their lives because of circumstance don't have a "real life" to go back to once the experiment is over. Such experiments are the height of bourgeois class privilege, and do nothing to promote any actual understanding of working-class lives.

Tell that to all the immigrants I see coming here and starting their own businesses. Opportunities still exist. Those who don't seem to understand that and are unwilling or unable to put in the right kind of effort to advance themselves always blame "the system" or "the man" for their own lack of success. I've seen it all my life. It is about choices made along the way. Didn't study in high school? That was a choice. Grew up in a depressed area with poor schools? Didn't go somewhere with better opportunities afterwards? Another choice. Success isn't about working hard. It's about working smart.

When I see the old man my age bagging groceries at my local supermarket for minimum wage, I see myself if I had made the choice in high school to keep working for below then minimum wage at the local supermarket. We're both results of the same system, but not the same choices.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's comforting, I suppose, for nice middle-class people to believe all those slogans , but consider this: it could very well be that old man made the same choices you did, but at some point along the way the dice simply came up snake-eyes for him. Nobody under this system is as secure as they think they are -- every bit of security or comfort you enjoy today could be swept away at a stroke tomorrow by economic forces utterly beyond anything any individual's "choice" can control. To believe otherwise is a cold denial of hard reality at best, and simple whistling in the dark at worst.

As for immigrants, there are a lot of them in my state who are rethinking their decision to come here because the climate has become quite inhospitable to them over the last several years. And I'm not talking about the weather.

 

[JimWagner]

It's comforting, I suppose, for nice middle-class people to believe that, but consider this: it could very well be that old man made the same choices you did, but at some point along the way the dice simply came up snake-eyes for him. Nobody under this system is as secure as they think they are -- every bit of security or comfort you enjoy today could be swept away at a stroke tomorrow by economic forces utterly beyond anything any individual's "choice" can control. To believe otherwise is a cold denial of hard reality at best, and simple whistling in the dark at worst.

I certainly never said nor implied what you are now saying. I know as well as anyone that there is no such thing as security. I've certainly experienced layoffs and job loss in my life. I changed careers after one of those. In fact, I've changed careers several times. What I didn't do was give up and blame the system.

I didn't start out in the middle class. I've never had anything I didn't earn myself. The only money I had access to in high school was what I went out and earned and I had to buy my own clothing and pay my own school fees out of it. Other than a roof over my head and food my parents gave me nothing. They couldn't afford to. I left home the day after I graduated high school.

I bet my life against the chance of being sent to Vietnam and spent four years in the navy chasing Soviet submarines to get techical training in electronics and the GI bill afterwards. I could have rolled snake eyes, but I didn't. Some of my friends didn't survive the experience.

I worked for a while after the navy as an electronics technician for a business radio manufacturer. I got laid off and couldn't find another electronics job, so I made an admittedly mercenary decision to use the GI bill to go get an associate's degree in programming. Turned out to be a good choice.

Despite a couple of layoffs and a bankruptcy I had a pretty good career and now I'm retired courtesy of a wise choice to finish my career working for a state university.

I'm not about to feel guilty for what success I've had. NONE of it was handed to me. I doubt that very many I've worked with over the years actually had anything handed to them either. I've worked too long and hard for what little I actually do have for that.

But I would fight anyone who thinks that somehow I neither earned nor deserved to keep it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I don't consider "understanding the essential injustice of the system and resolving to change it" as being in any way akin to "giving up and blaming the system." And I won't puff up and threaten to fight someone who says otherwise, I'll look them dead in the eye and tell them they're wrong. What happens after that is up to them.

As for myself, I've never given a fat wad of spit about "material success" as capitalism defines it, either in substance or in symbol. " All is vanity and a striving after the wind," as Ecclesiastes says. I have done everything in my life that I've ever actually wanted to do, and I have not a single regret. What I thought we were discussing here was theory -- and what I was pointing out by describing my own life was that society does not necessarily "value" hard work, and that, contrary to what was posted earlier in the thread, those in working-class jobs don't necessarily enjoy lots of "free time." If you interpret it otherwise, you're the one doing so, not me.

 

[JimWagner]

I don't consider "understanding the essential injustice of the system and resolving to change it" as being in any way akin to "giving up and blaming the system." And I won't puff up and threaten to fight someone who says otherwise, I'll look them dead in the eye and tell them they're wrong. What happens after that is up to them.

As for myself, I've never given a fat wad of spit about "material success," either in substance or in symbol. I have done everything in my life that I've ever actually wanted to do, and I have not a single regret. What I thought we were discussing here was theory -- and what I was pointing out by describing my own life was that society does not necessarily "value" hard work, and that, contrary to what was posted earlier in the thread, those in working-class jobs don't necessarily enjoy lots of "free time." If you interpret it otherwise, you're the one doing so, not me.

Then we'll have to agree to disagree because I am going to look you in the eye right back and state you are wrong. And neither one of us is automatically right by making such statements.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Well, there we go then. I won a staring contest in the sixth grade, but I might be a little out of practice. But I'm ready if you are.

 

[JimWagner]

Well, there we go then. I won a staring contest in the sixth grade, but I might be a little out of practice. But I'm ready if you are.

Declined.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It wouldn't be fair anyway, you've got dark glasses on.

 

[DesertDan]

What role or responsibility does the Education Establishment have in bringing 'human value' paramount to monetary assignation? Should there be this distinction?

NONE.
The only role and responsibility of the "Education Establishment", as you call it, is to teach children to read, write, calculate and to comprehend the results. It has no business assigning value to individuals, cultures or religions nor promoting any social, political or moral philosophy or construct over any other, that is the purview of the individual. Higher education made indeed delve into such subjects but should be allowed to present them only in a purely neutral manner.

 

[LizzieMaine]

...but should be allowed to present them only in a purely neutral manner.

Allowed by whom?

 

[DesertDan]

I meant that in a general sense.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The thing is, though, that at no time in history has education ever been neutral in any way. It has always existed as the servant of the dominant ideology of its time -- first thru religion, then thru the political/economic state.

As I mentioned in another thread, I collect school textbooks of the early and mid-twentieth century, and there isn't a single one of these in any humanities related subject that doesn't promote a specific ideology. The earlier history and geography books, what we'd call "social studies" today, are very explicit, for example, in their promotion of white supremacy as a fundamental component of Western civilization. I posted a quote to illustrate that here, and it's actually quite representative of what an American high school student would have been taught in the 1910s and 1920s. There's nothing neutral about it -- these students were being indoctrinated in a particular set of beliefs just as thoroughly as British students were being taught that the Empire had a duty to civilize the lesser races, and Soviet students were being taught their history thru a Marxist lens.

If anything I think kids today are getting exposed to a greater range of beliefs and ideas than they ever were a hundred years ago. Is that a bad thing?

 

[ChiTownScion]

I'm not about to feel guilty for what success I've had. NONE of it was handed to me. I doubt that very many I've worked with over the years actually had anything handed to them either. I've worked too long and hard for what little I actually do have for that.

But I would fight anyone who thinks that somehow I neither earned nor deserved to keep it.

I certainly don't feel guilty or apologize for my success either. Yes, I did earn my way through school, and I worked a considerably difficult job for over 30 years, and I worked it well. None of it was handed to me, either. And now I enjoy a decent pension and have never enjoyed life more.

But I have to make this admission: others worked as hard as I did, or harder. And others overcame obstacles far greater than I could even imagine- let alone faced. They took chances and risks that quite honestly I was far too timid to face. They were, by any objective determination, far more deserving of the successes that I enjoy than I am. And yet, they are not living "the good life," by any stretch of the imagination.

I've been lucky, fortunate, even "blessed," if you want to add a metaphysical element to it that I am reluctant to articulate... if for no other reason than I find it hard to believe that a truly just, loving, and omnipotent supreme being could allow so many good and decent individuals to suffer without blame. There is that element of arbitrary fate to all of it. I haven't really got a damned thing to gripe about as far as my own situation, but I readily admit that it isn't fair, just, or equitable that so many have been dealt such a short straw in life. Sure, I worked hard to get where I am because fate allowed me to do so. Others were not so fortunate.

Lizzie's right: every bit of security and comfort I enjoy today could be swept away at a stroke tomorrow by economic forces utterly beyond anything any individual's "choice" can control. That's a brutal reality that I can only face by doing everything within my own power to work toward the end of seeing that things play out fairer for all- in both the microcosm and the macrocosm. I suppose, at the very least, that journey commences by not judging others in circumstances I do not fully appreciate.

I'm still trying to master that one... and while I can't claim perfection to that end, at least I can report progress. I'm not dead yet... so perhaps there still is some hope.

 

[dnjan]

There are sub steps that blur the lines of assigning any sort of 'across the board value' based on income. For ex, take two college graduates in engineering. One, decides he will go work for a firm and try to climb the corporate ladder. The other, decides he hates engineering and decides to go work as a bartender in Key West. They are both 'equally' qualified to persevere economically, and have the same baseline knowledge for their trade.

Add to the above the family (parental) pressure that perhaps would have considered the trained engineer deciding to tend bar as a failure while a different set of parents may have been glad that their child was doing something that made them happy.
I think that in many cases, parental pressure may be a stronger influence than college educators.

 

[philosophygirl78]

Add to the above the family (parental) pressure that perhaps would have considered the trained engineer deciding to tend bar as a failure while a different set of parents may have been glad that their child was doing something that made them happy.
I think that in many cases, parental pressure may be a stronger influence than college educators.

Add to the above the family (parental) pressure that perhaps would have considered the trained engineer deciding to tend bar as a failure while a different set of parents may have been glad that their child was doing something that made them happy.
I think that in many cases, parental pressure may be a stronger influence than college educators.

Yes, parental pressures are also a factor. They can really cause havoc on the way people view many aspects of life. This is why I do consider that there should be some branch in society that fosters humane regard. Perhaps another type of government checks and balance. IDK the answers. But it is very evident that something integral is lacking in society.

 

[philosophygirl78]

Anarchy Then!!! Each man for himself! Ha! Is that the consensus?

 

[dnjan]

Calm down! You've been watching too many political debates ...

 

[LizzieMaine]

A resurgence of Golden Era communitarianism would not be out of place.

"Being a member of a community means that each one of us takes part in and contributes to its life. The hand is a member of the body. It receives life from the body, If the body is sick, the hand cannot do its work well. If the hand is crippled, the body suffers. So your life is closely interwoven with that of the community of which you are a member. The best of your life comes from participation in its life."

-- The Community and the Citizen, by Arthur William Dunn. High School civics textbook, 1914.

 

[Fading Fast]

Yes, parental pressures are also a factor. They can really cause havoc on the way people view many aspects of life. This is why I do consider that there should be some branch in society that fosters humane regard. Perhaps another type of government checks and balance. IDK the answers. But it is very evident that something integral is lacking in society.

There are branches of society that do just that - religious organizations, charitable organizations, some branches of government and many of the small, but still extant, social clubs and organizations. Churches and charities exists, in part, to focus humans on "foster[ing] human regard." While many are a mess, there are many government programs that do the same. Maybe the balance is off, but churches, charities and government social programs are quite large, engaged and influential in our society. Maybe we wish more so, but they are the branch in society that promotes the element of human regard. And, many of us promote that element in our everyday lives.