Hubris of/Damage Caused By the "Educated" Class

[Belligerent Savant]

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(The title of this this OP refers particularly to the reaction to Covid authoritarianism/policies, though it also applies to some degree to the various events that have occurred since 2020; needless to say the 'Educated' Classes have offered positive contributions as well, historically)

This has been a theme I've (and others here have) explored in RI over the last ~3yrs; it can be inserted in almost every active thread here. It can't be underscored enough, as it explains much of what we've endured to date -- at least as far as reactions by the populace, across demos -- since 2020.

Of course there are numerous exceptions to this on both ends of the spectrum, and other factors involved, etc., but as someone that grew up in a middle/working class town/environment and now works in (and is generally surrounded by) a white collar/upper class environment, the below resonates strongly/aligns with my observations.

The Robber Baron
@Robber_Baron_

People don't realize how completely the Covid overreaction broke the societal view many of us had

I watched my "smart" friends follow every insane rule while my "uneducated" friends saw through the BS

The establishment was revealed for the fraud it is

All trust has been lost

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@sbmeunier
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It feels like the educated class is more susceptible to the social pressure to conform to the politically correct / mainstream propaganda of the day (bc if you don’t conform, then you lose your spot/social status in this class)

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@Robber_Baron_
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Absolutely, I think this explains the vast majority of the compliance.

So many of my contacts in higher ed. just had no will to speak out or push against the norm even if they had inclinations that we were making terrible choices.

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@MosquitoCoasty
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It has been incredibly uncomfortable being the smart guy who identifies with the common sense uneducated.

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@AndyFinkbeiner
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Yes, this is true. Highly educated people tend to be easier to brainwash since they are comfortable with compliance and authority.

https://x.com/Robber_Baron_/status/1719 ... 83846?s=20

[JackRiddler]

Did you go to college? What's your highest degree? What did you study?

You sure write like an edumacated.

[Belligerent Savant]

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Thoughtful reply. Shall I include it as Exhibit A?

If so, here's Exhibit B:

...

@tlowdon
SCOTT GALLOWAY:
- Aug 2021: You have "your head up your ass" if you aren't willing to take this EUA COVID shot. It should be mandated!
- Oct 2021: Anyone refusing the vaxx should be fired! Maybe even imprisoned.
- Oct 2023: Look, we were only doing our best. How about a little grace & forgiveness, huh?

https://x.com/tlowdon/status/1718361009457705377?s=20
...

Alas, there aren't enough pages in this thread to provide a full accounting of Exhibits.

[JackRiddler]

What this board badly needs is another thread to air grievances about Covidianism as something done by "elites," when at the same time you know that the leading and most effective critics of it are themselves highly educated scientists, doctors, lawyers, journalists, etc. who often (rightly, understandably) point to their own degrees and academic or professional careers in establishing their credibility. The problem is not "experts" but which "experts" get the boost of hegemony in the media and state.

Of course Chomsky's old insight about college-educated people ("easier to brainwash" as it's put above) supporting the U.S. invasions of Indochina, while the non-college-educated working class opposed them, applies in many other cases -- STATISTICALLY. I'd say that the effect is even more due to class politics or class blindness than due to the effects of their education.

This says nothing about education or the desire to acquire genuine expertise as such, or the importance of the academic disciplines and being rigorous about them.

Anyway, it's a serious question: if you're going to suggest general disqualification or "brainwashing" on the basis of one having too much education, are you qualified? Do you possess any of the higher-education degrees or academic expertises yourself that would render your opinion suspect or paradoxical? Can you promise us you are poorly educated, so that we can trust you? How come you write like an educated person?

[DrEvil]

I don't have a degree, but he won't listen to me either!

STATISTICALLY. I'd say that the effect is even more due to class politics or class blindness than due to the effects of their education.

Probably because it's not the college educated or their children being sent off to die. There's a reason recruiters target poor people.

[Belligerent Savant]

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I thought the qualifiers I clearly placed at the onset were clear; apparently not.

Once more, of course there are myriad exceptions regardless of education level, but every point raised by the Twitter comments I quoted above are absolutely valid and demonstrable.

I have a Bachelor’s degree; I was en route to law school but instead took an opportunity at a start-up in a (then relatively new/unknown) field of ‘Computer Forensics’, thinking I’d eventually go back to school. Never did, as I learned more ‘on the field’.
(I took time off at various times during my college years, and attended several colleges before I finally obtained my degree in my later 20s; managed to pay my own way my final ~2yrs at a CUNY college)

Perhaps due to the fact that I didn’t complete college in 4 years and didn’t go to a large University, the ‘conditioning’/‘Programming’ didn’t quite work as well on me. Or perhaps it’s because I’m a first generation American raised by parents with broken English capabilities. But then again, this is far from reliable as a metric/predictor as others in similar circumstances opted for other routes in their ‘decision trees’ when they made their decisions these last few years.

In my line of work, which includes not only exposure to others in my industry but clients across practically all industries (largely Fortune 500 companies; orgs in Finance, Pharma, Life Sciences, Silicon Valley, Non-profits, Energy, Manufacturing, Professional Sports Leagues, etc), the overwhelming majority either subscribed to the dominant narratives with minimal discernment, complied but quietly disagreed, or otherwise obtained Fake Vaccine Cards. The remaining percentage — likely in the 10% - 15% range, but perhaps lower — opted for exemptions or were terminated (as I and others were).

When the 'unvaccinated' were terminated due to our personal medical decisions, there was no advocacy on our behalf by any of our fellow colleagues. The 'DEI' (Diversity, 'Equity' & Inclusion) teams were SILENT throughout our experience; during those early months when the 'unvaccinated' employees were EXCLUDED from participating in any company events or visit the corporate offices in-person, and then, when those that refused to comply were eventually terminated, there was no registered opposition (other than some offlist notes of condolences by a subset of peers). This was a universal occurrence, not merely relegated to my anecdotal experience.

While this is in part anecdotal, it also aligns with other data points observed as well.

It may be a bitter pill for some to swallow, but yes: a majority of the ‘educated classes’ quietly complied, and a significant percentage also expressed sentiment quite similar to the loathsome Professor Galloway quoted above, at least when the vile rhetoric was at its peak and the incentive to go along with ‘the madness of crowds’ rather than stand up to the ethical positions(s) was too great for too many of the ‘comfortable’ classes.

[JackRiddler]

(note: this is a cross-post, not a reply to the above)

First of all, there is no "educated class." There are classes likelier to get an education. Education can (won't always) help one achieve upward mobility (or downward, if you like the humanities, ha ha). So education level and class correlate, but it's incoherent to describe education as a class. Money, family income and wealth, property and control of capital: these constitute classes. To replace the ruling classes, the owners and managers of the corporations and the state -- for whom many an educated lackey serves -- with "education" is confusionist. It's been a basic staple of right-wing culture war ever since the over-ambitious patriots lost the war with Sparta and decided they had to execute Socrates for corrupting the youth. The problem ain't the owners and the billionaires and the managers, it's some fast-talking educateds. It's educateds per se! It's respect for education and the disciplines! The problem ain't a set of structures and systems and institutions and organizations, it's the educational degrees of the workers in them.

Harvard, Georgetown, U Chicago, Columbia, several dozen others in the vein -- all these places absolutely do condition the majority of their students in a way that reinforces and cements a world view that, for the most part, they already came in with. They turn self-centered teenagers into professional assholes. And there are many academic departments that train students specifically in the arts and tech of ideological indoctrination, so that they can serve the system (see typically economics, IR, "business" degrees, etc.). But the main thing that happens at these universities to condition the students is not happening in any of the departments, let alone inherent in the disciplines themselves. It's all about the socialization. The solidarity of class, among the rich students; and, among the less rich students, the desire to be among the rich students. That's what these places reinforce. Hatred and disgust of the lower orders. (Very little of that is being taught by the faculty, especially nowadays when the majority of them ARE the lower orders.) Solidarity of the upper classes. Club membership. Being in the alumni network, getting a job through it. Outside of the hardest of hard sciences, no one's looking at the damn GPA. Marrying the right sort. Laughing at the wrong sort. Learning how to obey and conform to and live out ideology with all its turns, not when it comes down from the university, but from the media corporations and the state. That's how it works. The knowledge part follows, is fit to the function.

[Belligerent Savant]

No argument/dispute with much of the above.

Increasingly though, as you know all too well, the "educated" class is practically synonymous with those at the higher ends of middle class and/or upper classes. So while I grant your point, It's evident that consistent and sound education is increasingly a challenge for those not in positions of comfort. Covid policies/lockdowns certainly hastened this development.

I don't consider any of my comments in this thread to be "right wing", but I appreciate how such a phrase is increasingly subjective.

[stickdog99]

[JackRiddler]

So if you'd run a standard college career, would you be less you and more brainwashed into acting like someone you're not? My guess is, fuck no. On this, your description of your experience says the same thing I am saying: Who goes in is usually who comes out, but usually reinforced, refined, and rendered more consciously in solidarity with their class or their desired class position by the experience. The "education" (in the sense of the subjects studied, the formal knowledge acquired, the degree) isn't mainly what accomplishes this reinforcement. The surrounding sociology of the "college," as a part of the systems of the society, is mainly what does that. And actually, it's also not. Just getting older within the systems of the society already does that!

In any case, you're starting yet another thread in which you want to once again mount a prosecutorial case against the apparatchiks of a system for doing what they did. But rather than see them as apparatchiks of a system, loyal servants trained to be loyal servants, you want to define them by the degrees or education or expertise they supposedly have, and effectively blame "education" rather than class or system, and blame them for their status rather than their decisions. Or blame the apparatchiks' training, rather the fact that they are willing apparatchiks -- even as their most effective opponents possess the same training, are also doctors and scientists! That's in your thread title. "Educated" is a "class," and it's the problem.

The apparatchiks themselves are probably not as confused on this point. They know what pays them directly, and it's not that they had an education (a precondition) but that they do a job within a larger organization, or they have a career as faithful producers in a field.

Also, you seem to want to allow no moral difference between these apparatchiks and the far larger group of conformists, or those who only conform because they're misinformed, or because they're afraid, or because they're lazy. You want to say the apparatchiks are apparatchiks and the conformists conform because of their "education," which self-evidently does not describe either. Further, this fails to describe a reality in which conformity cut across lines of both education and class. Plenty of people without college went along and still go along!

Yes, this approach you're choosing is reactionary, too bad. Yes, "education" is a central obsession of right-wing culture war, which doesn't mean anyone who attacks it is right-wing, but it's still so, and for a reason: It's not looking at structure. It is not looking at systems but at individual behaviors. It is confusing the reality. From a practical or strategic standpoint, it is designating a lot more enemies than can be defeated, or that need to be defeated in the cause of self-defense, or than actually see themselves as enemies to what you think (at least until you insist that they are, in which case you might reinforce that idea for them). You seem to want some kind of general retribution, some score settling. Years of this now. This desire and the arguments it produces are not so different in their logical structure from what the vocal Covidian haters of the mandate opponents wanted and hoped for.

[drstrangelove]

i've thought a lot about this and have come to the conclusion it has to do with the power of taboo.

professional classes are obsessed with status, working classes aren't. another way of saying this is that educated people care what people think of them more than uneducated people. another way is that educated people have a need for their views to be taken seriously, working classes don't.

this is a more in depth explanation in a segment of an article i wrote on institutional child abuse at the BBC.

People, most people, have a need to express things they believe are important and for it to be taken seriously by others. To deny them this need you simply laugh at them, or better yet, get a group of people to laugh at them with you. No person will remain in a social setting that denies them the need to be taken seriously. They will either change their beliefs to be taken seriously, or remove themselves from the environment. It takes a person of enormous will power to express something they believe to constant laughter.

This is why information authorities like the BBC are especially effective at brainwashing the classes of people whose need to be taken seriously is greatest — the expert/professional classes who are obsessed with status. And why in turn this method is less effective on the working classes less concerned with status because they don’t take themselves as seriously. This dynamic was on full display during the pandemic.

The whole thing relies on people's fear of sounding unhinged or becoming of unsound mind. It's not really a thought process so much as a cultural vibe picked up on, like fitting in at school or dancing in rhythm to the music to avoid looking spastic.

It seems I’m talking about conformity but it's more like taboo. Conformity is about a desire to identify with something that makes people feel good. When the attractive celebrity puts on the jacket or dress, people who want to feel attractive put on the jacket or dress. There's nothing inherently mean about this. It's just fashion playing on people's desires.

Taboo is a much more powerful and cruel kind of anti-fashion based on fear, that works through aversion to identifying with something people know will exclude them from fulfilling their needs. So they self-censor their beliefs to fulfil those needs.

Conformity is a cheap trick, taboo is a dire threat.

Another thing worth pointing out is that the most highly educated people of any society are part of cults. I would imagine an adult scientologist is more educated than 99% of the population. You can tell by how universities teach studying skills in terms of 'memorisation' that they aren't trying to teach people how to think, but what to think.

[Belligerent Savant]

^^^^^

Great observation, drstrangelove; i tend to agree that there is historical & incremental brainwashing/conditioning tactics in play to sway demographics to view opposition to State-sponsored dictates as 'taboo'.

...
In any case, you're starting yet another thread in which you want to once again mount a prosecutorial case against the apparatchiks of a system for doing what they did. But rather than see them as apparatchiks of a system, loyal servants trained to be loyal servants, you want to define them by the degrees or education or expertise they supposedly have, and effectively blame "education" rather than class or system, and blame them for their status rather than their decisions. Or blame the apparatchiks' training, rather the fact that they are willing apparatchiks -- even as their most effective opponents possess the same training, are also doctors and scientists! That's in your thread title. "Educated" is a "class," and it's the problem.

The apparatchiks themselves are probably not as confused on this point. They know what pays them directly, and it's not that they had an education (a precondition) but that they do a job within a larger organization, or they have a career as faithful producers in a field.

Also, you seem to want to allow no moral difference between these apparatchiks and the far larger group of conformists, or those who only conform because they're misinformed, or because they're afraid, or because they're lazy. You want to say the apparatchiks are apparatchiks and the conformists conform because of their "education," which self-evidently does not describe either. Further, this fails to describe a reality in which conformity cut across lines of both education and class. Plenty of people without college went along and still go along!

Yes, this approach you're choosing is reactionary, too bad. Yes, "education" is a central obsession of right-wing culture war, which doesn't mean anyone who attacks it is right-wing, but it's still so, and for a reason: It's not looking at structure. It is not looking at systems but at individual behaviors. It is confusing the reality. From a practical or strategic standpoint, it is designating a lot more enemies than can be defeated, or that need to be defeated in the cause of self-defense, or than actually see themselves as enemies to what you think (at least until you insist that they are, in which case you might reinforce that idea for them). You seem to want some kind of general retribution, some score settling. Years of this now. This desire and the arguments it produces are not so different in their logical structure from what the vocal Covidian haters of the mandate opponents wanted and hoped for.

You are misframing. I placed "educated" in quotes as a shorthand but broadly, it applies predominantly to the professional/comfortable/upper classes. To repeat, you are once again attempting to frame my position as if I don't account for plenty of exceptions, which of course there would be. I emphasized it in the bolded bit of my OP. YES, there were quite a few doctors, scientists, businesspersons (individuals across classes) etc, that did not comply and even vocalized their opposition to policies. BUT clearly this was a relatively SMALL minority in 2021/2022.

I believe it's short-sighted take to call this "reactionary" (as bolded in your response, above). Of course 'structure' is an inherent part of what occurred. I've emphasized this numerous times over the last few years, the systemic aspects that contributed to what we experienced in 2021-2022. BUT: the PEOPLE that complied or silently adhered were/are COMPLICIT as well. Your attempts to diminish this or frame it as a "right wing" talking point seems like an effort to re-categorize what occurred into a different type of discussion (though I'll grant that there are numerous tropes by both 'left' and 'right' wings that will interpret events and classify/define them to reinforce their world views, etc; some of these interpretations have more merit than others, though quite a bit of it tends towards tribalistic bias).

The FACT remains that when these policies were being implemented and enforced, the MAJORITY of those in the professional/comfortable/Educated classes DUTIFULLY COMPLIED, applied little/no DISCERNMENT, and in a significant number of cases were the loudest CHEERLEADERS for the overt acts of discrimination, segregation and otherizing of the "unvaccinated". (the example I presented above as "Exhibit B" is merely 1 of thousands).

IT is PRECISELY due to the overall dutiful compliance (and at times zealous participation) of this very influential 'professional' class -- their COLLECTIVE COWARDICE, COMPLICITY, PARTICIPATION IN DISCRIMINATION and HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES [due to unwillingness to challenge their conformity, 'taboo' factors as raised by drstrangelove, incentives to 'play along', and/or other forms of incremental conditioning/brainwashing measures over time, etc.] that these policies were successfully implemented and PERSISTED far longer than they should have. As mentioned in the primary covid thread, TO THIS DAY 'Vaccine Mandates' persist in far too many colleges, including (unsurprisingly) the so-called "Ivy Leagues".

The simple reality is that If a MAJORITY -- particularly an influential majority -- voiced and EXPRESSED opposition when it was needed, the egregious harms to (and loss of) lives, livelihoods and HUMAN RIGHTS abuses would not have occurred (or, at the least the duration of these affronts would have been greatly diminished, AND there'd likely be greater potential for near-term repercussions/accountability).

And clearly, there remains, today, a REFUSAL to take ownership of this complicity and recognize/acknowledge the BIG part played by so many, and particularly those in the 'professional'/more affluent classes (and typically, yes, they are largely "educated" as well).

When the opportunity rose for them to SPEAK UP and VOICE opposition to BLATANT and BRAZEN AFFRONTS to human rights, due process, ethics, rules of procedure, livelihoods..... they [the professional, educated, largely affluent classes] FAILED. To the contrary, they largely PARTICIPATED in these affronts.

[slight Edit to content in an attempt to tone down rhetoric]

[Belligerent Savant]

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Additional point: a key reason for the need to have (broad-scale):

Acknowledgement of the egregious Harms (caused by policies), irrespective of any perceived/claimed 'benefit';
Apologies by those responsible for policies, with assurance there'll be no recurrence;
Accountability & Repercussions;
Etc.

...is so that these affronts are never repeated.

The problem is -- as we are currently observing -- those same entities/individuals in the professional/affluent/credentialed classes (or demographics, if preferred) are requesting 'Amnesty' while attempting to revise/lie about what was known and when it was known, and by diminishing the malevolence of their actual intent, or attempting to claim intentions were wholly benign (which they may well have been in a number of instances, particularly among those outside of positions of influence/authority). Otherwise there remain many that simply prefer to act like their [minimally ill-informed] actions never occurred; the affronts practically never really happened, certainly not as currently claimed. etc.
[Attempts to memory hole, in other words]

And, to date, there is NO ACCOUNTABILITY for the harms these policies caused.

It should be clear by now that the actions implemented/enforced since 2020, and the resulting mass compliance -- especially by those that should have known better, or did know but opted to remain quiet -- transcends covid.

If these issues aren't directly & broadly addressed, they will be repeated for any number of other 'crisis' scenarios, be it related to health, climate, economy, acts of terrorism, etc (manufactured or otherwise). THIS is why a discussion on this issue is warranted.

[stickdog99]

When you ain't got nothing, you've got nothing to lose.

[drstrangelove]

When you ain't got nothing, you've got nothing to lose.

this puts it most simply.