Quote:In this story we anti-Trumpers are the good guys, the forces of progress and enlightenment. The Trumpers are reactionary bigots and authoritarians. Many Republicans support Trump no matter what, according to this story, because at the end of the day he’s still the bigot in chief, the embodiment of their resentments, and that’s what matters to them most.
I partly agree with this story; but it’s also a monument to elite self-satisfaction.


So let me try another story on you. I ask you to try on a vantage point in which we anti-Trumpers are not the eternal good guys. In fact, we’re the bad guys.


This story begins in the 1960s, when high school grads had to go off to fight in Vietnam, but the children of the educated class got college deferments. It continues in the 1970s, when the authorities imposed busing on working-class areas in Boston, but not on the upscale communities like Wellesley where they themselves lived.


The ideal that “we’re all in this together” was replaced with the reality that the educated class lives in a world up here, and everybody else is forced into a world down there. Members of our class are always publicly speaking out for the marginalized, but somehow we always end up building systems that serve ourselves.


The most important of those systems is the modern meritocracy. We built an entire social order that sorts and excludes people on the basis of the quality that we possess most: academic achievement. Highly educated parents go to elite schools, marry each other, work at high-paying professional jobs and pour enormous resources into our children, who get into the same elite schools, marry each other and pass their exclusive class privileges down from generation to generation.


Daniel Markovits summarized years of research in his book “The Meritocracy Trap”: “Today, middle-class children lose out to the rich children at school, and middle-class adults lose out to elite graduates at work. Meritocracy blocks the middle class from opportunity. Then it blames those who lose a competition for income and status that, even when everyone plays by the rules, only the rich can win.”


The meritocracy isn’t only a system of exclusion; it’s an ethos. During his presidency Barack Obama used the word “smart” in the context of his policies over 900 times. The implication was that anybody who disagreed with his policies (and perhaps didn’t go to Harvard Law) must be stupid.


Over the last decades we’ve taken over whole professions and locked everybody else out. When I began my journalism career in Chicago in the 1980s, there were still some old crusty working-class guys around the newsroom. Now we’re not only a college-dominated profession, we’re an elite-college-dominated profession. Only 0.8 percent of all college students graduate from the super elite 12 schools (the Ivy League colleges, plus Stanford, M.I.T., Duke and the University of Chicago). A 2018 study found that more than 50 percent of the staff writers at the beloved New York Times and The Wall Street Journal attended one of the 29 most elite universities in the nation.


Writing in Compact magazine, Michael Lind observes that the upper-middle-class job market looks like a candelabrum: “Those who manage to squeeze through the stem of a few prestigious colleges and universities in their youth can then branch out to fill leadership positions in almost every vocation.”


Or, as Markovits puts it, “Elite graduates monopolize the best jobs and at the same time invent new technologies that privilege superskilled workers, making the best jobs better and all other jobs worse.”


Members of our class also segregate ourselves into a few booming metro areas: San Francisco, D.C., Austin and so on. In 2020, Biden won only 500 or so counties, but together they are responsible for 71 percent of the American economy. Trump won over 2,500 counties, responsible for only 29 percent. Once we find our cliques, we don’t get out much. In the book “Social Class in the 21st Century,” sociologist Mike Savage and his co-researchers found that the members of the highly educated class tend to be the most insular, measured by how often we have contact with those who have jobs unlike our own.


Armed with all kinds of economic, cultural and political power, we support policies that help ourselves. Free trade makes the products we buy cheaper, and our jobs are unlikely to be moved to China. Open immigration makes our service staff cheaper, but new, less-educated immigrants aren’t likely to put downward pressure on our wages.


Like all elites, we use language and mores as tools to recognize one another and exclude others. Using words like problematic, cisgender, Latinx and intersectional is a sure sign that you’ve got cultural capital coming out of your ears. Meanwhile, members of the less-educated classes have to walk on eggshells, because they never know when we’ve changed the usage rules, so that something that was sayable five years ago now gets you fired.


We also change the moral norms in ways that suit ourselves, never mind the cost to others. For example, there used to be a norm that discouraged people from having children outside of marriage, but that got washed away during our period of cultural dominance, as we eroded norms that seemed judgmental or that might inhibit individual freedom.


After this social norm was eroded, a funny thing happened. Members of our class still overwhelmingly married and then had children within wedlock. People without our resources, unsupported by social norms, were less able to do that. As Adrian Wooldridge points out in his magisterial 2021 book, “The Aristocracy of Talent,” “Sixty percent of births to women with only a high school certificate occur out of wedlock, compared with only 10 percent to women with a university degree.” That matters, Wooldridge continues, because “The rate of single parenting is the most significant predictor of social immobility in the country.”


Does this mean that I think the people in my class are vicious and evil? No, most of us are earnest, kind and public spirited. But we take for granted and benefit from systems that have become oppressive. Elite institutions have become so politically progressive in part because the people in them want to feel good about themselves as they take part in systems that exclude and reject.


It’s easy to understand why people in less-educated classes would conclude that they are under economic, political, cultural and moral assault — and why they’ve rallied around Trump as their best warrior against the educated class. Trump understood that it’s not the entrepreneurs who seem most threatening to workers; it’s the professional class. Trump understood that there was great demand for a leader who would stick his thumb in our eyes on a daily basis and reject the whole epistemic regime that we road in on.


If distrustful populism is your basic worldview, the Trump indictments seem as just another skirmish on the class war between the professionals and the workers, another assault by a bunch of coastal lawyers who want to take down the man who most aggressively stands up to them. Of course, the indictments don’t cause Trump supporters to abandon him. They cause them to become more fiercely loyal. That’s the polling story of the last six months.


Are Trump supporters right that the indictments are just a political witch hunt? Of course not. As a card-carrying member of my class, I still basically trust the legal system and the neutral arbiters of justice. Trump is a monster in the way we’ve all been saying for years and deserves to go to prison.


But there’s a larger context here. As the sociologist E. Digby Baltzell wrote decades ago, “History is a graveyard of classes which have preferred caste privileges to leadership.” That is the destiny our class is now flirting with. We can condemn the Trumpian populists all day until the cows come home, but the real question is when will we stop behaving in ways that make Trumpism inevitable.

(08-04-2023, 03:05 AM)Schmoe Wrote: LMAO.  

So the reason Trumpists exist is to fight the highly educated left?  The poor bumpkins can't fend for themselves, so they rally behind, wait for it, TRUMP, to fight it?

What a joke.  I was JUST starting to give the author a little credit when they rolled out that whopper.  

I guess I'm just another bumpkin, then.  Only a highly uneducated wastrel like myself would see that blame goes both ways, left AND right.  I'm  probably being generous here, but at least 90% of these career politicians are self-serving pieces of shit.  They've lost touch with reality, and have forgotten who they (are supposed to) serve.

I'm of the opinion they need a harsh wake-up call.

Quote:Are Trump supporters right that the indictments are just a political witch hunt? Of course not. As a card-carrying member of my class, I still basically trust the legal system and the neutral arbiters of justice. Trump is a monster in the way we’ve all been saying for years and deserves to go to prison.

(08-04-2023, 09:38 AM)Ninurta Wrote:

Quote:Are Trump supporters right that the indictments are just a political witch hunt? Of course not. As a card-carrying member of my class, I still basically trust the legal system and the neutral arbiters of justice. Trump is a monster in the way we’ve all been saying for years and deserves to go to prison.

I think it's fair to point out that what the author says here is a perfect illustration of what he is ranting about - and he seems not to even realize it. The only reason he still "basically trusts the legal system" is because, as a card carrying member of a privileged class, he has not experienced that legal system being weaponized against HIM... yet.

There is always tomorrow, and the system they are building to protect their privileged asses will, at some point be turned on THEM by the opponents they seek to destroy by building it now. Nothing ever stays the same, the wheel is always turning and the pendulum swinging, and eventually it will roll around to being their turn in the hot-seat. They will then only have themselves to blame for having built that system and having set that precedent.

Their error is in seeing "education" as a merit in their meritocracy. They are aiming for the wrong targets - they aim for indoctrination over ability, and that is NEVER a safe bet. Actual merit always, ALWAYS falls to those with ability, not necessarily those with education or the proper indoctrination.

Allow me an illustration here.

My dad's IQ was measured at 198. He was a very smart man, a man of abilities. But his education was a bit lacking. He quit school in the 7th grade. That did not affect his native intelligence or abilities, however.

Education? I went through a total of 8 years or so of college. Educational achievement? I graduated college summa cum laude. Dear Old Dad had none of those advantages - I think I mentioned that he quit school in the 7th grade.

Now, I'm no slouch in the IQ department, but I can't even hold a candle to his - his was just short of being unmeasurable because it was so high.

For all of that, I will never be as smart as my Dear Old Dad. There is no amount of education - or indoctrination for that matter - that will ever be able to raise my IQ to the level his was measured at. There is "education", and then there is "intelligence". They are not at all the same thing.

I had more education, and he had more intelligence. Of the two, he also had more ability, more "merit" due to his higher intelligence, his ability of sheer thought. Yet in a manufactured "meritocracy" that places more stress on "education", he was at a disadvantage - but he could run rings around me for actual smarts... which is where the merit really resides.

50 years ago, Dear Old Dad once told me that some of the stupidest people he ever met were college-educated. They had the education, but weren't smart enough to know what to do with it. It was true 50 years ago, and it's still true today. maybe even truer, since nowadays what passes for "education" is really nothing more than indoctrination.

Eventually, all those "educated idiots" at the top of their made up, but invalid, "meritocracy" will be taken down by people with far less education, but far more intellect, more ability, more merit  than they themselves possess.

You can take that to the bank... and the wheel will keep turning long after you do.

.

(08-04-2023, 04:49 PM)Schmoe Wrote: Agreed on the "highly educated" sometimes being the dumbest people you'll meet.  I'm not knocking ANYBODY who wants to further their education, but some of them go to these big universities, get their sheepish minds stuffed chock full of ideas, then go around repeating and basically enforcing it because they now think they're entitled to do so, due to their "superior" education.  And of course it's not all of them, but many.

There are many varieties of "smart." If the shit hits the fan and society collapses, who am I ganging up with?  Some survivalists who couldn't name 3 ivy League schools?  Or the economist who has 2 doctorates?  If society collapses, suddenly the survivalists are the Harvard-educated geniuses.

It seems some of them go these big universities, and have an attitude of "I paid $400k to have my IQ boosted by 20 points, listen to all I say!  Bow to your all-knowing lord!"

(08-04-2023, 06:04 PM)dbcowboy Wrote: Anyone pushing for more or bigger government, anyone pushing for less freedoms and liberties is the bad guy.

Quote:We also change the moral norms in ways that suit ourselves, never mind the cost to others. For example, there used to be a norm that discouraged people from having children outside of marriage, but that got washed away during our period of cultural dominance, as we eroded norms that seemed judgmental or that might inhibit individual freedom.

(08-04-2023, 08:29 PM)Ninurta Wrote: The author seems to be sublimely unaware that everything "his side" does inhibits individual freedom. Quite the contrary he appears to think - or wants US to think - that his side somehow promotes individual freedom. I don't see that, personally. What I see is everything they do inhibiting individual freedom. It's only logical to conclude that anyone with a collectivist mindset does not even comprehend individual freedom, only collective, hive-mind, thought.

'These are the rules we abide within... you should too'

(08-04-2023, 08:29 PM)Ninurta Wrote:

(08-04-2023, 06:04 PM)dbcowboy Wrote: Anyone pushing for more or bigger government, anyone pushing for less freedoms and liberties is the bad guy.

Did you notice the following quote in the author's diatribe?

Quote:We also change the moral norms in ways that suit ourselves, never mind the cost to others. For example, there used to be a norm that discouraged people from having children outside of marriage, but that got washed away during our period of cultural dominance, as we eroded norms that seemed judgmental or that might inhibit individual freedom.

The author seems to be sublimely unaware that everything "his side" does inhibits individual freedom. Quite the contrary he appears to think - or wants US to think - that his side somehow promotes individual freedom. I don't see that, personally. What I see is everything they do inhibiting individual freedom. It's only logical to conclude that anyone with a collectivist mindset does not even comprehend individual freedom, only collective, hive-mind, thought.

Personally, I believe he's just trying to slip a few fast ones past us, and make us think things that are not true. A promotion of misinformation of sorts. Of course, he assumes he can do that, because clearly we are less educated than him, and therefore in his mind less intelligent... because that ivy-league education never explained to him the difference between the two. As a matter of fact, his indoctrination to make him believe he is at the top of the intellectual heap due to his over-education purposely conflates the two, just so that he could be indoctrinated into believing he is in the Master Race.

Therefore, only HIS "individual freedom" counts in his mind, and he in actuality has none. One does not have individual freedom in a hive. The hive will soon put an end to that if they ever detect it. Even the Queen Bee, at the end of the day when all is said and done, is really just another - privileged - member of the hive.

.

(08-04-2023, 11:42 PM)Infolurker Wrote: Makes me wonder when they start banning / imprisoning Christians for being "haters" that they might go "WAIT, WE ARE JUST LIKE THE NAZI's"

(08-04-2023, 10:14 PM)dbcowboy Wrote: Individuality is an anathema to the Marxists.

(08-05-2023, 02:12 AM)Ninurta Wrote:

(08-04-2023, 10:14 PM)dbcowboy Wrote: Individuality is an anathema to the Marxists.

Yet they appear to be all too willing to muddy the waters with false claims of aspirations to individualism, in order to pull the wool over the eyes of their opposition that actually believe in such frivolities as having a mind of their own and individualism....

.

Quote:Seeking an alternative to Twitter, users have been turning to the recently announced rival from Meta, Threads. However, we can’t put expediency over consumer rights and the public good. Join us as we call on Meta to ensure a set of guardrails to prevent Threads from spreading disinformation, extremism, and hate—and to ensure it won't repeat the errors of current and past social media sites from Big Tech.

Meta needs to confirm that they will:
-Immediately implement robust and comprehensive policies to address violence and hate speech, with a specific plan to protect marginalized communities from online and IRL harassment.
-Invest in and establish guardrails around the creation, use, and distribution of AI and deepfakes that compromise personal and national security.
-Create internal and external structures and teams to ensure public transparency and data privacy and security, including data access and methods for researchers to analyze Threads’ business models, content and moderation practices.
Why is this important?
We cannot jump from one mishandled, corrupted social platform to the next. Meta needs to listen to the public, establish trust, and address serious concerns from the start if they want to grow this new platform.
Sign the petition now.