This is the one stinking whopper that they always tell and I can’t for the life of me figure out why people fall for it. The idea that republicans are fighting for the “little guy” is only believable if you’re white, and even then its a pretty big pill to swallow.

Why do they tell it? Because their entire path to victory is based on destabilizing the guiding Western paradigm since the Enlightenment: that reason, observation and evidence are the best way to understand reality. Since even third-grade reasoning can figure out that the Republican platform is destructive for 98%+ of the population, they have to destroy Reason itself to win. It will destroy them, too, ultimately, but only after the rest of us have been swallowed by the maelstrom.

How can they sell it? 1. they make sure that the vast majority of people are completely disgusted by politics by buying off half the opposition party so that the whole game appears (and is) rigged, 2. they control all the media that ordinary people might see, and on that media they balance a stream of racist propaganda with never showing a liberal who’s not either a whiny, worthless douche, a corporate tool, or a scary Other.

I think they fall for it because the Democratic party is so terrified of being called liberal, and so keen to avoid being associated with their own supporters, and of course are owned outright in many cases, that they have essentially ceded the debate to Republicans over what constitutes “real” America.

Every time the Democrats have a chance to really get out there and snatch back the terms of debate for themselves, like when they can finally make the point that liberal policies work, or enact the policies they ran on to solve a problem caused by the other side, they deliberately and voluntarily fuck it up. Obama tells people that offshore drilling is safe just in time to get lumped in with supporters when a spill happens. Or he sends Gibbs out to assure everyone he still opposes gay marriage the second prop H8 is overturned. Or he creates a debt commission against the wishes of his own party and stacks it with people who want to overturn Social Security, making it impossible to credily argue voting democratic will protect the program. Or Howard Dean comes out against the <strike>coat factory community center</strike> “Ground Zero Mosque!!!”.

etc etc etc.

Adding that the Democrats have turned “bipartisanship” into such a disgusting onanistic display I’m shocked they haven’t changed the party logi to a picture of a blind donkey holding a picture of the GOP Elephant in lingeree. They will often literally contradict their own supporters just to curry favor with the enemy, something republicans will never do.

One side makes a public fetish out of finding a way to compromise with the other to the point of undermining their own platform.

The other side refuses to do so, and constantly calls the other side every name under the sun without any real consequence - in fact, some times this just makes the other side try harder to be best buds.

At some point, people start to think that maybe the side who cares the least about their principles does so because those principles aren’t really “true”.

See, I feel the same way about the Democratic party as well.

Ooh!  I’ve been voting in Delaware since I voted for Dukakis, so maybe I’ll have something to contribute for next couple of months.

The issues that Delawareans have with O’Donnell are that she makes Sarah Palin look experienced and like a deep thinker, and the last time she ran, she ran on a heavy anti-choice platform.  I hope that her winning will galvanize the voters to come out in numbers for the Democratic candidate.  He previously was the sacrificial lamb to Castle, but with Castle out of the way, maybe this is one the Dems can steal. 

And these feelings have nothing to do with social class, since I thought she was a yuppie, just an arch-conservative one.

One side makes a public fetish out of finding a way to compromise with the other to the point of undermining their own platform.

The other side refuses to do so, and constantly calls the other side every name under the sun without any real consequence - in fact, some times this just makes the other side try harder to be best buds.

Perhaps there are not two sides?

If you wanted to implment a de facto plutocracy over a de jure democratic republic, the best way to do it would be to institute an “us vs them” two party state - and co-opt “them”. Any opposition could be channelled into “them” - who would be part of yoyur ruling structure.

There’s a simpler explanation for the nose-holding in O’Donnell’s direction. Castle led Coons by 12, O’Donnell trails him by 12. It’s sour grapes, pure and simple. The fact that the sour grapes are manifesting themselves as classism is fascinating, though.

And should we be too surprised that the Republicans are all over O’Donnell for being broke at one point? Their argument against homeowners in predatory loans they can’t pay off getting bailout money is that they’re just irresponsible for being so poor. To a Republican, poverty and brokeness aren’t tough circumstances people sometimes end up in, they’re personal failings people ought to be punished for.

Well, she’s apparently a professional of some sort and perfectly employable, but she would rather run for office full-time than actually work.  If only she were self-made like our governor from 1977-1985, Pierre Samuel du Pont, IV.

Here’s my opinion, the term “elite” has multiple meanings and maybe in this case they might mean elite as in “smart” or “intelligent.”  Conservatives are all about dumbing down the country and they acknowledge liberals as smarter and fear that we will actually accomplish good.  We see this with their opposition to secular public schools and teachers.  It’s sort of how they oppose “political correctness”, they know that they are wrong, but want to make being right bad, hence political correctness.

Or Amanda is right and this is the ultimate big lie.  Or maybe we’re both right.

Interesting comment about Carl Paladino’s supporters having an “average income a couple of brackets over the average”. I don’t know for sure, but I think his supporters are like many tea party types, average or below, unless you count having a job at all being above average, which it is in Buffalo.

I live in Buffalo, know Carl Paladino, have done business with him and have watched his politicking for years. My neighbors support him “because he’s angry”; that’s enough for them. He has great support among people who are angry - same emotion driving tea parties.

Carl is mainly just a player. He’s long lavished money on all sides of every election in sight. He’s the State’s biggest landlord in Western New York, his company earning something like $5 million a year in rents to state agencies. He’s a lawyer who’s made millions doing a combination of mid-level and very low-level real estate development. He’s a frickin’ insider to the max and is hoodwinking his supporters. What else is new?

Great writing, by the way. I really appreciate Amanda’s clear, edifying prose.

Oh, and I forgot to mention. Carl Paladino is also, in my personal experience and long years of observation, an odious human being.

Both Albert and Amanda are right.

They split the Franklins in twain, keeping the wealth and privilege part of it, while shedding the East Coast Ivy League Liberal part of it.

The Liberal Part they’ve placed onto academia, and people like Ward Churchhill and Henry Gates, the ivy tower sort that doesn’t have to live in the “real world”.

Whether the common right wing prole still resents the Franklins for being both rich AND snooty liberal is the question of which I’m not certain. I guess that’s Hollywood, the rich snooty liberals that can be resented, while the question of “Old Money” just disappears into the background.

I forget where I read the argument, but someone said the biggest problem with America is that we didn’t have a monarchy. Were the Bushes allowed to live in a great big palace and hold parades in their honor and act like snobs and heads of state, they probably would have stayed the hell out of electoral politics, and the Cokie Robertses of the world could get out of politics and into the tabloids with their noses up the royal asshole.

It seems like the only time the “liberal media” thing really worked was when Kennedy was president. Then, you had the president who was also the royal family, and so the media loved it all so dearly! The monarchy they so dearly wanted, and later tried to establish for Bush.

I think that’s basically the answer.

I think that a big part of what you’re missing here is that “elite” doesn’t really mean money, in this context, it means culture and education. That whole “effete snob” thing (coined by a highly educated classist without a lot of children, of course). So as long as you smoke during your gourmet meals, know the current price of every one of your wines, play whatever music you prefer for background noise, and have someone choose your art to match the carpet and the sofa, you’re not one of the elite. Extra points for some kind of hobby that involves expensive equipment and burning lots of gasoline.

So when they’re talking about the elite, they say they mean the rich, but really what they mean is the literate and the jews.

There’s a specific socioeconomic term called “high prole”, used to describe people with lots of money but stereotypically working-class tastes (which is kinda ironic because the real working class can’t afford most of those toys any more). There also used to be something called “class X”, which described people who had the culture that used to go with old money, but without the money—lots of minor academics and writers and artists were in it, but that’s mostly vanished too, because white-collar jobs with leisure time and decent salaries/benefits are so seriously on the wane.

The old guard was just simply more interested in selling their vicious right wing politics through dog whistles and polite lies, and the new school is more loose-lipped.

I think that the conclusion a lot of republicans drew from Obama’s election is not that white people are becoming less bigoted and proportionally fewer in number in this country, and that it might therefore be wise to retire the Southern strategy, but rather that not enough white people heard their dog whistles during the 2008 election, so they have to be more blatant about things.  Bigots tend to believe that they have a lot more support than they actually do, just that “political correctness” is keeping others in their group from expressing it.

Of course, part of the screaming on bigots’ part may also come from the fact that Obama’s election showed them that, contrary to that belief, a lot of “their people” kind of think they’re a dick.  That’s bound to throw some level of panic into a person.

Just as an additional comment:

For the first part of Nixonland, I really couldn’t help feeling for Richard Nixon. He really was a hard working, smart Quaker boy who never got a damn shake in his life. And he saw the Franklins, who had everything for no effort at all, an American ruling class who never had to try.

I’m not even going to pretend I had the same experience as Nixon, but I resent the Franklins, too. I think most working people resent them.

Where Nixon and I split ways was our reaction to this. He decided to hate them for their tastes, their lifestyle, their cosmopolitanism, their culture. So he eventually crawled into bed with Old Money and southern racists to show them what for.

I’d love to show those Franklin motherfuckers what for too. But I have a different plan: estate taxes. Ending legacy admissions in East Coast schools. Affirmative action. Wall street reform. Banking reform.

Comparing my plan, and Nixon’s plan, I think my plan would actually get rid of the Franklins, or at least get them to STFU. I’ll never really understand why Nixon took his resentment to the right when it seems it would take him to the left.

Last comment, just on a train of thought:

I always found it odd that Nixon went right while Johnson went left. If you looked at just their biographies from 1-20 years old, you’d never guess who was who.

Caro paints a picture of a young boy who resented his father’s failure. Sam Ealy Johnson worked hard to help the poor of East Texas, and was hated for being an evolutionist and sort of cosmopolitan. You’d think that would have made Johnson hate the poor proles who love to bite the hand that feeds them. Johnson also seemed to be a creature of power, who loved being in control purely for the sake of self-aggrandizement. He wanted to be in power just because. He even compared himself to “a Hitler” right before he died. Had he grown up to be who Nixon was, and had Nixon been LBJ, it just would have seemed to make a lot more sense.

But LBJ was the vicious fighter for civil rights and rights of the poor, and Nixon and his goons have gone on to basically entrench an American ruling class. If it were fiction, you’d never believe it.

Seebach:

I think that’s because Johnson (afaik) didn’t envy the cultured establishment the way Nixon did. Nixon spent a lot of time with cultured europeans, with Kissinger only the most prominent example.

One of the appeals of bigotry is that even the dumbest, poorest, and meanest member of ‘the chosen people’ can have some claim to cosmic aristocracy. 

Those who think that the GOP better represents the ‘Common Man’ want a society in which Whiteness, Maleness, Christianity, etc, are considered more important measures of human worth than talent, intelligence, sophistication…

It is the belief in a social hierarchy based on reason and merit instead of blood and physical control that is seen as ‘elitist’.  The typical bigot is unable to imagine anyone truly preferring meritocracy over Thunderdome and so assumes that anyone who claims to must be putting on airs.

I’m with Albert Cirrus and paul on this one.  The term you omitted. paul was nouveau riche.  It’s nothing more than an attempt to make all judgments quantifiable and ignore measures of quality.  We’d been making inroads on that for years - quality of life was finally a buzzword in residential development, sustainability in agriculture and resource development, etc. But the real good life requires some intelligence, imagination and scope.  The Paladino types and even the Bush types are so stymied by their inability to really have the good life (because when you base it on money, there’s always someone who has more) they’re never content.  So they become the blind man who can only imagine color.  ANd then they get ugly and nasty - dog in the manger.

It’s not that O’Donnell has had financial troubles, it’s that she has used campaign donations to pay her rent.

Linnaeus:

It depends a lot on which part of the “new class” you’re talking about, but it’s my impression that a huge chunk of the white-collar professionals and office workers are actually among the ones the Tea Party appeals to. The massive growth of college education in the US has not really been matched by a growth in “liberal education” (I don’t know how else to call it, but the stuff that lets you think about the world and appreciate things more or less for themselves, rather than just the stuff you need to cram into your brain to do your job). As a result, a lot of people with college degrees have been trained rather than being educated.

Yeah, I know that’s an elitist, privileged view of things, but I think that for this discussion it’s an important one. The resentment is against people who know and care about things that don’t have clear monetary value. (And aren’t about burning fuel, killing animals or watching people hit one another.)

OK, that’s not exactly right either, but what I am saying is that I know a lot of doctors, engineers, lawyers, businesspeople who are right up in the rational technocratic class but have a level of appreciation for cultural pursuits that would make Scrooge look like an intellectual and a sybarite.

(Posted too soon)

She uses a luxury town home she lives in as her “headquarters”, only one room of which has anything to do with campaigning. The Wilmington News-Journal has reported this, along with several other instances of possible campaign fraud over the years. The News-Journal is not exactly a “village” newspaper.

IOW she’s making a living as a professional perennial candidate, knowing she can never really win. I don’t know about Greenwald, but that strikes me as something only a scumbag would do.

let me add that planning, etc. were things that the right wing of the 1940s-50s explicitly argued were leftist tendencies.

Probably taken directly from the Soviet Union’s running their economy on the basis of 5 year plans. 

Ironic how IME with the progressive extreme left student body at my undergrad college and among those I’ve met in the art and music world, they all tended to associate those very traits to the “Fascist” military-oriented far-right. 

Heck, one has even gone so far as to say that anyone who runs their lives on the basis of any planning “cannot possibly be creative” and thus, would fail miserably at any creative endeavor.  Of course, the “creative spontaneous type” who said that to me in college has yet to make anything of himself in the arts or music world. 

Moreover, I’ve personally associated such extreme enthusiasm for planning with both the extreme left communist governments and extreme right fascist militaristic governments as both systems overwhelmingly privileged the state over the individual citizens who were effectively treated as disposable cogs in a large impersonal machine.  An association that has been strengthened the more I studied the history of Fascist and Communist regimes in college and beyond.

When you have so much of the population indifferent to basic reality, what do you do?

Last year I had someone ask me, “If humans came from apes, where did giraffes come from!?” as though they’d offered some kind of killer critique of new-Darwinian evolutionary theory. The part of the country in which I live was the setting for Jesus Camp. Over the past 50 or so years, starting with the Birchers and White Citizens Councils and extending through the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition and into the Tea Crackers, you’ve basically got a bunch of anti-modernists who elevate willful ignorance.  The problem is that they’ve created alternative “educational” institutions like Patrick Henry and Liberty and and Regent and cultural institutions and media networks that allow them to simply reinforce their ignorance…and their sense of persecution by the secularists and the liberals and the homos and the feminists, all while ignoring the upward redistribution of wealth and income that’s taken place over the past 40 years.  But it’s me, the sociology teacher who struggles to pay rent and insurance and all that jazz who’s the oppressor while excusing the corporate directors who they’re working for and who are paying them less and taking home more.

The US is an empire in decline, which is only going to make this shit worse. But it’s the willfully ignorant, “America, fuck yeah!” christian nationalists who are going to make it as terrible as possible as we move on down.

Moreover, I’ve personally associated such extreme enthusiasm for planning with both the extreme left communist governments and extreme right fascist militaristic governments as both systems overwhelmingly privileged the state over the individual citizens who were effectively treated as disposable cogs in a large impersonal machine.

When you go way too far to either the left OR the right, you’re going to end up with authoritarianism because the vast majority of people just aren’t that extreme and won’t freely choose a system like Communism (more properly called Stalinism or, as I prefer to call it, “Sovietism”) or Fascism freely.

To clarify, I mean extreme in the true sense of the word, not what the beltway media would characterize as “extreme”.

The interesting thing about the concept of the “New Class” was that it was developed by a Yugoslavian Marxist (whose actually ethnicity I can’t remember). The Neo-Conservatives brought it to America because the were very familiar with Marxist thought.

  I’m going to take the side of the faction arguing that when American rightists talk about elitism they aren’t talking about money but rather culture and education. It traces back to a lot of the anti-intellectualism in Anglo-sphere culture in general and American culture in particular, there is a distrust of people who are viewed as very cultured and educated and capable of abstract thought. Most of American Jew-hatred originates from this anti-intellectualism. So Rightists aren’t necessarily lying when they say that they are anti-elitist. They are just defining elitist as somebody that likes going to museums or reading serious academic history rather than somebody who has a lot of money and is often invited to social functions where tuxedos and fancy gowns are practically required. In this world view, Republican politicians are less elite than Democratic ones because they come off as cruder and less polished.

Completely unrelated, but I just heard about the storm that hit Brooklyn—glad you;re OK and back on-line.

That being said, I think Glenn is wrong about O’Donnell’s class status. There is a difference between struggling financially because of factors largely beyond your control like being born into a poor family or having some sort of disability and struggling financially because you are an incompetent. O’Donnell clearly seems to fall in the latter quality and some people really are beyond any help in this regard.

There is a difference between struggling financially because of factors largely beyond your control like being born into a poor family or having some sort of disability and struggling financially because you are an incompetent

Not to mention there are financially struggling people that were not forbidden from office by “the village”.

Just to give a Delaware-related answer, Joe Biden graduated with a C average from a state university with a used car salesman as a father, for fuck’s sake, yet the beltway media has liked him for a long time (or at least has had a love-hate relationship with him).

It depends a lot on which part of the “new class” you’re talking about, but it’s my impression that a huge chunk of the white-collar professionals and office workers are actually among the ones the Tea Party appeals to. The massive growth of college education in the US has not really been matched by a growth in “liberal education” (I don’t know how else to call it, but the stuff that lets you think about the world and appreciate things more or less for themselves, rather than just the stuff you need to cram into your brain to do your job). As a result, a lot of people with college degrees have been trained rather than being educated.

You’re speaking of the much vaunted “Liberal Arts Education” which has been defined as what you’ve described as a “proper” college education. 

Moreover, I’m not sure if the problem is the lack of matching growth in “liberal education” so much as the fact that its value was partially derived from its association with wealth and extreme exclusivity…..and at least in the Ivy League and similarly regarded non-Ivy schools the vast majority of its recipients paid far more attention to the social networking aspects among those mostly of their own social class rather than appreciate the liberal arts education being offered.  In fact, I recalled in a biography of FDR that he equated academics at Harvard College to being as exciting as a dim light bulb and W was an even more egregious and one of the last blatant examples of the attitudes of most of the students in that era. 

If anything has changed, it has become much more acceptable to look upon a liberal arts education as a “worthless frivolous waste of time” whereas in the past….one had to keep those attitudes more hidden.  Simultaneously, I’ve heard from my Yale ‘70 uncle and others in his generation that undergrads admitted after the mid’60s had a higher proportion of students who took education…even the liberal arts education seriously compared with their more country-club oriented earlier classes like W’s. 

I will concede that many older classmates and alums who graduated in the 1960’s-1980’s have noticed a steep rise in the proportion of students with pre-professional attitudes starting in the late 1980’s.

Ben D at 29, correct. The problem with communism, fascism, theocracy and any other sort of overly ideological system is that they only work if everybody really believes in it fully and willingly does his or her part in the system. Since most people aren’t like this, authoritarianism is required to get them to be like this. Center-left and center-right governments work better because they don’t require ideological consistency among the entire population.

As an aside, this is also (partly) what was behind conservative anxieties about science and American science policy in the immediate post-WWII period.  So, for example, American conservatives were not always on board with initiatives like the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) despite its obvious Cold War importance; to such conservatives, the NDEA and policies like it would only make the United States more like the Soviet Union because of an excessive enthusiasm for technical prowess which was, after all, what the Communists wanted for their own countries.  Interestingly, these same right intellectual pointed to humanistic values and works (more specifically, their idea of what these were) as what the West needed more.  Interesting how things have flipped to some degree in the present day, and it’s the silly poets who need to be run out of the academy because they’re all un-American subversives.

A large part of this “switchover” is a combination of more freely expressed pre-professional tendencies among most Americans including most college students and how the form and purpose of a “liberal arts education” has changed.  Before the 1960’s, a liberal arts education was mainly defined as knowledge of Western Classics, elite history/politics/culture of Western Europe/Anglo-Saxon world/US, and some proficiency with Ancient Greek or Latin and was mainly to ensure everyone who graduated from college and joined the elevated social milieu were on the same page in their socio-cultural socialization. 

Traces of this could clearly be seen today in schools which offer a liberal arts oriented curriculum like Columbia College’s or UChicago’s “Core Curriculum”.....though both now have broadened their offerings beyond the Western literary and cultural canon.

re: bad jim #28

If it is proven that O’Donnell used her campaign’s funds for personal uses as described in these reports, she may not only end up going to prison for misappropriation of campaign funds, but also possible fraud if she misleadingly/falsely stated that the misappropriated funds were being used for campaign purposes when it was actually not in part or completely respectively.  This violation becomes very serious if her campaign funds are being matched by public funds. 

Unless a resident lawyer here can cite some exceptions, I was under the impression that campaign funds can only be used for expenses related to the campaign and not for the personal use of the candidate or his/her family and friends.

I wonder if part of the problem with the perception of elites is that the truly disadvantaged are almost completely absent from the public eye. Relative to the people that run for office, work in the msm, are portrayed on tv, and so on, your average teabagger is a lot poorer. Teabaggers get away with pretending, maybe even truly believing, that they are poor and oppressed is because the truly poor and oppressed are completely shut out of the national discourse, rarely portrayed realistically on tv and in movies, etc.

Except, the tea crackers aren’t, actually, that much poorer.  The average person, sure, but the tea crackers?  No.  Their mean, median, and average are all above board.

They aren’t vastly wealthier than the average american and they are much poorer than the elites I described above.  I would guess their statistics are not that different than other people who are active in politics on either side—politically active people tend to be a bit better off than the average American.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/127181/Tea-Partiers-Fairly-Mainstream-Demographics.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=Politics

, I was under the impression that campaign funds can only be used for expenses related to the campaign and not for the personal use of the candidate or his/her family and friends.

You can appoint yourself to a paid position within a campaign and use campaign donations to pay your “salary.” Alan Keyes was known for doing this, and it’s how he supported himself in the 90s.

As far as these class issues, a lot of people are very invested in the hard work they put into being successful, or at least not failures. And they probably did. But to reinforce their sense of pride, they need to justify why everyone else who’s not like them didn’t really earn what they have, so they get a petty obsession with explaining why everyone else’s success (or job) isn’t “real.” So Paladino the multimillionaire slumlord needs to feel that he’s a hard-working salt-of-the-earth guy who thinks that the legislative staffer making $50k/yr or the associate professor just scraping by is just an “elitist” who doesn’t really “deserve” what he has. In reality, what I alluded to before, is that such people are considered “elites” that he resents because they likely have the social capital and professional competence to speak to a guy like Paladino as an equal or even not take him seriously because they have their own jobs, lives, and professions that don’t depend on him.

I think Rove would kiss a turd if he thought the turd was electable, but I think their may be something to the idea that republicans don’t like people that have had financial struggles.  Like here in Colorado. the republican nominee for governor Dan Maes seemed very electable, but once republicans learned he was lower middle class they started trying to to talk him out of the race; and Tancrazy jumped in to split the vote.  they really do seem to hate the idea of a non-rich person getting any kind of power.

the NDEA and policies like it would only make the United States more like the Soviet Union because of an excessive enthusiasm for technical prowess which was, after all, what the Communists wanted for their own countries.

That pretty much went by the wayside after Sputnik, it’s kind of hard to argue that we shouldn’t try to keep up with the Soviets when they have a ball of metal in the sky. 

The cultural thing was important because the Soviets used to export theirs as a product of Communism, no Communism, no need to count them by developing and exporting ours.

Before the 1960’s, a liberal arts education was mainly defined as knowledge of Western Classics, elite history/politics/culture of Western Europe/Anglo-Saxon world/US, and some proficiency with Ancient Greek or Latin and was mainly to ensure everyone who graduated from college and joined the elevated social milieu were on the same page in their socio-cultural socialization.

Which in turn was a reaction to the too-successful mimicking of the German University system by our own higher education:

Origin

It came about as the result of a discussion among American academics and educators, starting in the 1920s and 1930s and begun by Prof. John Erskine of Columbia University,[3] about how to improve the higher education system by returning it to the western liberal arts tradition of broad cross-disciplinary learning. These academics and educators included Robert Hutchins, Mortimer Adler, Stringfellow Barr, Scott Buchanan, and Alexander Meiklejohn. The view among them was that the emphasis on narrow specialization in American colleges had harmed the quality of higher education by failing to expose students to the important products of Western civilization and thought.

They were at odds both with much of the existing educational establishment and with contemporary educational theory. Educational theorists like Sidney Hook and John Dewey (see pragmatism) disagreed with the premise that there was crossover in education (e.g. that a study of philosophy, formal logic, or rhetoric could be of use in medicine or economics).

Great Books started out as a list of 100 essential primary source texts considered to constitute the Western canon. This list was always intended to be tentative, although some consider it presumptuous to nominate 100 Great Books to the exclusion of all others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Books

The Greek and Latin gradually fell by the wayside after WWII, Latin by then being somewhat useful in the medical and legal fields but nowhere else, and Greek more a prep school tradition than anything else.

alysia, have you seen the salary today of a large portion of those teaching at colleges and universities - the academic effete snob elites according to the teabaggers, and the adjunct faculty in university speak.  Yea, the retired, benefits (medicare getting) teabaggers are much better off $$-wise.

My father is a University professor. I don’t know how salaries have changed, but he has been making over $50,000 since about the mid-90s. He is in a tech field, so I don’t know if liberal arts professors dont make as much. He is in the same income category as 50% of Americans and 55% of teabaggers. I would bet that a much larger percent of college profs are in the 50,000+ category than teabaggers are in that category. Poor people are just so invisible in the country that college professors SEEM poor.

In fact, I recalled in a biography of FDR that he equated academics at Harvard College to being as exciting as a dim light bulb and W was an even more egregious and one of the last blatant examples of the attitudes of most of the students in that era.

Except that he was President of the Harvard Crimson, which bespeaks a certain command and grasp of English language above and beyond what his grades would indicate, and he didn’t let his dislike of academia keep him from passing the NY state bar exam, just from completing law school.

“Second-rate mind, first-rate temperment”.  Keep that in mind when evaluating Roosevelt as a ‘typical’ Harvard student.

I think a reader of Louis Auchincloss would get a better picture of the reality of the Ivies back then than what you write here exholt, but perhaps, if you’re into fiction, you could read The Rector of Justin, it deals with Groton:

History

Groton School was founded in 1884 by the Rev. Endicott Peabody, a member of a prominent Massachusetts family and an Episcopal clergyman. The land for the school was donated to Peabody by two brothers, James and Prescott Lawrence, whose family home was located on Farmers Row in Groton, Massachusetts, north of Groton School’s present location. Backed by affluent figures of the time, such as the Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks, the Rev. William Lawrence, William Crowninshield Endicott, J.P. Morgan, and his father, Samuel Endicott Peabody, Peabody received pledges of $39,000 for the construction of a schoolhouse, if an additional $40,000 could be raised as an endowment. (According to the school’s 2006 calendar year tax returns, the endowment is worth over $368,000,000 today.)

Peabody served as headmaster of the school for over fifty years, until his retirement in 1940. He instituted a Spartan educational system that included cold showers and cubicles, suscribing to the model of “muscular Christianity” which he himself experienced at Cheltenham College in England as a boy. Peabody hoped to graduate men who would serve the public good, rather than enter professional life. The school’s motto, “Cui Servire Est Regnare,” taken from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, translates literally as “[God] whom to serve is to rule,” emphasizing the social goals of its founder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groton_School

Larry Bartels, a Harvard Political Scientist, has a book called Unequal Democracy. It is a great exploration of the relationship between class and political power and how political power in turn creates class. One of the startling points of the book is that only the richest Americans are really heard in political discussions. Republican and Democratic platforms both most reflect the views of the top 1/3 of earners. Republicans only follow that 1/3 while Dems also are influenced somewhat by the middle third. The bottom third is completely ignored. If the average teabagger is at like the 60th percentile of earners, he/she is still much poorer than the average person who matters (about the 83rd percentile).

Here is a link to that book’s web page:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/127181/Tea-Partiers-Fairly-Mainstream-Demographics.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=Politics

Shit wrong link! Here is the right one:
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8664.html

Exholt at 37: Another thing that changed, besides the definition of what is a liberal arts education, is the fact that a liberal arts education used to be seen as critical. Now, not so much. For centuries, it was accepted in the West that to be an educated person you had to have familiarity with the Western Classics and some working knowledge of Greek and Latin. Now, not so much. Our definition of what counts as an educated person has expanded and knowledge of the Western classics is no longer seen as necessary.

“The Biggest Lie”

Nice Husker Du reference, if that’s what it is.

Why do they believe it?  Because it’s always the dean who tells you the truth, and the dean is the bad guy. 
(“Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to get through life” - well, 2 of 3 anyway as I don’t think “fat” - particularly as currently defined in pop culture as anyone not anorexic - is really of any importance to getting through life).

One possible answer to the situation is to join with a mass action in Washington DC, Oct. 2nd 2010, and Demand the Change We Voted For: http://www.onenationworkingtogether.org/ Washington DC, Oct. 2nd. Go to the website and sign up.

The event was called by groups such as the National Urban League, the NAACP, Campus Progress, Green For All, SEIU, AFL-CIO, United for Peace, Interfaith Worker Justice, and many more.

If you’re in the Chicago area, there are scholarships available for unemployed, underemployed & students to take buses. If you are interested in these scholarships email: onenationchicago [at] gmail [dot] com.

If you have other questions let me know.

Paul @14:
you also missed the term genteel poor - those raised to appreciate and strive for culture due to family traditions and former status without the wealth to take it for granted or even reach it most of the time.

@exholt at 34:

That why I’m not sure “liberal arts” is the right term to describe it. But I think that there’s something important to the idea that education is about something more than just learning the skills you need for a job or even a career.

Anecdata: the europeans seem to do this better than we do. I still remember the time I went back to visit the tiny village (population a few dozen) in germany where we had stayed when I was a kid. I ran into the brother of someone I had known, a guy who had taken over his father’s stonecarving business and spent all day cutting and polishing rocks with hand tools and a pre-WW1 one-cylinder diesel engine. Still better informed on world affairs than I was.

Paul, that would have more to do with their media than anything else like basic education from a decade or more previously.

alysia, go ask you dad about the adjunct faculty - not professors, not grad assistants, but lecturers, visiting instructors.  At some universities and many more colleges, they make up about 40% of the teaching “faculty” thought they often have no voice in any faculty decision making and don’t even get to attend faculty meetings. Some teach full course loads, some are restricted to 3/4 or 1/2 loads so that they have to cobble together income at more than one university.  They don’t get benefits.  They don’t get any of the other perqs profs do. Sometimes, not even offices - they teach out of their car trunks.  Many have the doctorates.  There is no path to full employment.  Many full timers are on limited term contracts - after 2-4 years, it’s BYE BYE,no matter how good a job they’ve been doing.  (THough they’ll generally drop you back to that part time status where you suddenly get 25% less per class and one class less which equates to a 50% drop in pay.)  Oh and that full time adjunct pay?  Try in the $20-25K range. Even after a decade or two of experience.

I disagree, helen.  You need the education to understand the media reporting of events, heck, even to have the ability to focus on an extended argument. .  Look at the difference between an NPR report and FAUX NOISE, between USA today and the NYT.  Who is reading which?

When you have so much of the population indifferent to basic reality, what do you do?

I wish I knew. I really wish I knew.

How you convince 50% of a 300+ million resident country to essentially vote against their own interests is one of the greatest triumphs in propaganda and brainwashing in recorded history. If there were ever something for conservative leaders to be proud of - that would be the one. If it was physical, it could join the list of the “7 Wonders of the World”.

What scares me more is that a lot of these true elite actually have drunk their own cool-aid. That makes it even more pernicious. It makes it insane.

I fear for our children’s future, and particularly because I am biased, my own child’s.

This is from the Chronicle of Higher Ed, cited on Wiki, in case any one needs a cite.

In the last twenty to thirty years, however, universities have increasingly utilized adjuncts (along with the trend towards hiring more full-time “Lecturers”) to cover courses in fundamental undergraduate skills, such as beginning mathematics and freshman composition. Some English departments are now staffed by a majority of adjunct teachers. Various problems result from this expediency on the part of university administrations, such as a general reduction in research accomplished by the overall faculty, increased departmental administration duties spread among fewer full-time faculty, and a reduction in academic freedom due to adjuncts’ generally precarious job security. It has also raised the competition among PhDs, especially in the humanities, to find tenure-track assistant professorships (see above), calling into question the existence and value of many PhD programs that produce graduates unable to find positions in their fields.

Adjunct pay in state and community colleges, including some private institutions on the East Coast hovers around $2,000 for a 3-credit hour course. To make anything resembling living wage, adjunct professors have to teach six or more classes a semester, preventing them from giving the preparation and one-on-one time with students necessary to ensure good teaching. As some colleges are now staffed with more than 50% adjunct professors, the reliance on adjunct professors may be doing great harm to the educational system.[16]

scathew, unfortunately, I think the answer of how they did it is easy.  It was the luck of finding a black man in the Oval Office and then bringing out all the dog whistles, when they weren’t called on that they turned up the volume.

And in some respects, it’s the fault of the academics and postmodernists.  They did a GREAT job of teaching the more than one truth and each one deserves respect and non-judgment.  It’s a short step from that to anything can be a truth and all versions are equal and how dare you criticize mine because you have no way to ever prove it.  This surface view of the postmodernists relieved them of even feeling the need to support their claims.

Phylospher wrote:

Adjunct pay in state and community colleges, including some private institutions on the East Coast hovers around $2,000 for a 3-credit hour course. To make anything resembling living wage, adjunct professors have to teach six or more classes a semester

Elitism I don’t really think is necessarily defined by income, though it certainly is a factor. For instance my guess is a lot of reporters for NPR, Washington Post, etc. make pretty meager salaries and yet could be termed nothing but the “elite”. It’s a sort of tribalistic identification, though not always a voluntary one. I have no degree and come from a lower-middle class family and yet to some extent I would have to classify myself “elite”. I don’t think I’ve forgotten my roots, but my proclivities place me in a somewhat “elitist” category. If nothing else I think Budweiser is piss-water and I wouldn’t be caught dead watching Fox News.

In the end I don’t think it much matters if you are “elite” or not - it’s a canard used to conveniently tar victims. In the end, as my best friend essentially noted, “It’s the policy stupid.” It doesn’t matter if you’re elite, uncouth, a liar, a straight up moral guy - it matters what you do with it.

If you listen to Tony Blair, which I admit is highly dubious, Bush was the most honest leader he knew and yet we all know what a nightmare he turned out to be. Clinton on the other hand we’re all pretty sure was a lying scalawag, but he was one of the most competent presidents on record (and, I should add, while coming from a poor family, continued to help institute policies that were largely beneficial to the elite). The Kennedy’s, while still being part of the problem, were certainly “elite” but also made enormous efforts to help the poor and lower classes.

Anyway, the word “elite” has become twisted. It no longer means “rich and looking down on people” (which Bush certainly fit), it means “liberal and erudite”. It’s just an effective twist of language similar to how “liberal” or “socialist” were turned into epithets similar to the “n-word” by very careful propagandic repetition.

scathew, unfortunately, I think the answer of how they did it is easy.  It was the luck of finding a black man in the Oval Office and then bringing out all the dog whistles, when they weren’t called on that they turned up the volume.

True, but this has been going on a lot longer than Obama. I would say it was in full swing even during the Clinton years.

And in some respects, it’s the fault of the academics and postmodernists.  They did a GREAT job of teaching the more than one truth and each one deserves respect and non-judgment.

Agreed. I think this goes with so-called “journalistic objectivity” that pits a tin foil hat argument against a sane argument on equal footing. Ideas that should be laughed off the stage are treated with the same respect as fully reasoned ones. It’s become a “horse race” where the truth is just a spectator.

alysia, it’s not just that your father makes $50k/yr, which is a middling , though by no means impressive salary for a professional. It’s that your father, having a full time tenured position, has done the professional equivalent of hitting the lottery. Given that this is what’s considered the “pinnacle of success,” you have to wonder where this “elite” tag comes from. I’ve argued it comes from the fact that he has what a lot of middle class people don’t: freedom and professinal self-assurance that does not depend on sucking up to guys like Paladino (or the actual elite like Bush, for example), and that freedom is something to be resented.

phylosopher: the adjunct system works best when the adjuncts have full time positions at another university or have some other professional job and are teaching part time. $2000 for a class is a great little bonus in your pocket for teaching a class. Not so great as a means of trying to create a living wage out of adding them up.

Wow, Ben D., I think you should read a link before you pass such vicious judgment on it.  You would find a) he’s not defending O’Donnell and b) the criticisms he quotes are about her actual financial problems independent of her scumminess.  He’s not saying it’s good to pay your rent with campaign donations.  He’s saying that taking 7 years to finish college because you can’t afford it isn’t something that should bar you from politics.

Except that he was President of the Harvard Crimson, which bespeaks a certain command and grasp of English language above and beyond what his grades would indicate, and he didn’t let his dislike of academia keep him from passing the NY state bar exam, just from completing law school.

“Second-rate mind, first-rate temperment”.  Keep that in mind when evaluating Roosevelt as a ‘typical’ Harvard student.

Dark Avenger,

I cited him along with W as two examples of the “country-club” attitude most of the Ivy-league students exhibited before the mid-1960’s.  Not saying that some weren’t intelligent….just that there wasn’t really a “Golden Age” when most of the students actually took the “Liberal Arts Education” seriously.  Both wouldn’t be considered “serious students” by most college Profs/TAs that I’ve had/know as friends. 

Keep in mind that my Yale ‘70 uncle started college when W was in his third year and he recounted the “country-club” attitude prevalent in the prior classes like W’s who were admitted mainly on family connections, wealth, and more blatant legacy preferences. 

Exholt at 37: Another thing that changed, besides the definition of what is a liberal arts education, is the fact that a liberal arts education used to be seen as critical. Now, not so much. For centuries, it was accepted in the West that to be an educated person you had to have familiarity with the Western Classics and some working knowledge of Greek and Latin. Now, not so much. Our definition of what counts as an educated person has expanded and knowledge of the Western classics is no longer seen as necessary.

Another factor is the perception that a far higher proportion of high school graduates are now going on to attend and graduate from college.  Despite the recent Federal statistics that only 33% of high school graduates ultimately get a 4 year degree, that’s still too many to those who believe that a college education should be restricted to the extremely wealthy and/or the “highly intelligent”(Top 5-10% of population).

Reminded me of the statistical fallacy case we discussed in my stats course about the alarmism over falling SAT scores since the mid-1960’s.  Upon deeper examination, that drop in the SAT scores was really the result of a greater proportion of the high school population taking those tests than in past years when only the wealthy and/or students in the top 5-10% of their classes were expected to go on to college.  Everyone else were expected to start working upon graduating from high school. 

Anyway, the word “elite” has become twisted. It no longer means “rich and looking down on people” (which Bush certainly fit), it means “liberal and erudite”. It’s just an effective twist of language similar to how “liberal” or “socialist” were turned into epithets similar to the “n-word” by very careful propagandic repetition.

There’s also the feeling of being put upon because “hardworking people” like them are being heavily taxed by “elite” politicians only to have the money redistributed to those who “don’t deserve it” because they are on various social welfare programs…especially those who are 18-50 and thus “fit to work”. 

It is one reason why Paladino’s call for using prisons to train the unemployed/welfare recipients has resonated with the tea party types…..especially those in upstate NY who feel all of “their” “overtaxed” money is going to the “liberal NYC leeches”.

The problem with the “it’s all about education!” thing is that it reinforces a narrative that is objectively false: that liberals and Democrats have better jobs and education than conservatives.  On the contrary, conservatives are *more* likely to hold college degrees and make a comfortable living.  They’re less likely to be bookish, sure, but things are extremely unstable when “elitism” has nothing to do with income, degrees, class status and is more rooted in things like “likeliness to spend money on organic food and Prius instead of super nice lawn and SUV”.

And that’s what the universities try to portray (have to ask if you are a tenured academic or an administrator?) - but of the 40-50% adjunct faculty - how many of those are really in that position? maybe 5-10%? THat still leaves a whole bunch of academics with degrees and student loans making Walmart wages and bennies.

I am a about-to-be tenured professor who makes about $65k running a popular program at my university. I supervise three adjuncts who teach the introductory classes. The one with a PhD makes $35k; the other two make $27. This is for teaching four classes per semester. They have both health insurance and the academic equivalent of a 401(k). I teach two classes per semester, but I have to publish and they don’t—unless they want to get a tenure-track job somewhere. I hit the lottery*; they have it okay; academics who teach part-time at community colleges would be better off getting a job laying carpet or something like that. Three of my former adjuncts now have tenure-track jobs. What the system is really like is more of an apprenticeship system: whereas you used to get your doctorate then become an assistant professor, now you have to go through the intervening step of being an adjunct or visiting professor** for a few years first.

* though in fact I didn’t get lucky: I very carefully picked a speciality whose popularity I knew was going to grow.
** there are a plethora of titles indicating minor gradations in status and salary.

It also bears pointing out that things like the liberal arts, being erudite, etc. Do not fall under the category of “elite” or “cultured” anymore (if they ever were)—the term usually used to describe such tastes is “middlebrow.” Studying Latin and being knowledgeable about opera and the classics was something pursued by middle class people of above average intelligence trying to “better” themselves. Ironically it causes resentments on both sides of the class spectrum: the working class think they’re being uppity snobs and the upper classes think they’re “trying too hard.”

Really—how many Harvard educated I-Bankers do you know who have an affection for ancient Greek studies?

So are we coming to agree that in the mouths of republicans “elite” pretty much means “people who aren’t selfish assholes”?

The problem with the “it’s all about education!” thing is that it reinforces a narrative that is objectively false: that liberals and Democrats have better jobs and education than conservatives.  On the contrary, conservatives are *more* likely to hold college degrees and make a comfortable living.  They’re less likely to be bookish, sure, but things are extremely unstable when “elitism” has nothing to do with income, degrees, class status and is more rooted in things like “likeliness to spend money on organic food and Prius instead of super nice lawn and SUV”.

IME, conservatives tend to go overwhelmingly for pre-professional majors with most majoring in business while the smarter/harder working ones go into engineering or pre-med.  The few non-pre-professional types tend to major heavily in Art History, history/poli-sci with concentrations in US/Western Europe*, and economics.  In short…whatever will help them make the most money and/or garner them much prestige with the real elite crowd. 

Liberals IME tend to choose majors which would help them learn more about the world around them, what could facilitate their efforts to contribute/improve society, and whatever is creative(arts/music).  As a result, their incomes after graduation tend to be lower on average.  They also tend to be disparaged by conservatives for choosing “impractical majors” such as English lit, race/gender/class studies, creative related majors, etc. 

*A.K.A.: Pre-business/pre-law for those with a slightly more intellectual interests than the undergrad business major crowd.  However, this crowd is one reason why US/European concentrators weren’t regarded very highly by the more serious history/poli-sci majors I’ve met during my time in college.

Paladino, of course, is a millionaire who had $10 million of his own money just laying around to spend on a primary campaign for an election he has to know he’s going to lose.

It’s good to get $12 million in tax breaks, no?

On a more serious note, when the choice offered by the major parties is between a bestiality-loving buffoon and a legacy candidate, like felagund mentioned, it’s hard not to be completely disgusted by politics.

felagund - are your adjuncts unionized?  And East coast - COLA is higher.

As far as an apprenticeship - nope and BULLSHIT. IN an apprenticeship/tenure, there is a clear track of what one needs to do to retain employment/get a raise.be promoted.  Those avenues are simply not there for most.  Performance review criteria for adjuncts - simply not there. 

ANd don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back for “choosing” your field.  You also chose to live without integrity if you chose a field because of marketability.

The one with a PhD makes $35k; the other two make $27. ... they have it okay

My grad student stipend paid me $24k. My friend who quit being a social worker to study to be a nurse practitioner makes something in the 90s. Sorry, that’s not having it “okay”: these are not good jobs, and few of these “apprentices” are ever going to have tenure track faculty positions. The only thing keeping them there is a delusion that their lottery number might come up. As for those complaining that after 2-4 years on an adjunct contract that it’s “bye bye”: they are trying to tell you something, namely “STOP FANTASIZING ABOUT A TENURE TRACK POSITION.”

You also chose to live without integrity if you chose a field because of marketability.

Or maybe he just made a smart career move and you made the mistake of swallowing the propaganda that the only thing worth doing in life was studying the subfield you wanted and staying in academia for the hope of a TT faculty position.

All that aside, the fact that academics are considered the “elite” for various reasons should not be considered an opportunity to vent about how hard it is TO GET AN ELITE JOB. That is one of the reasons it’s considered “elite.”

Tyro, middlebrow was generally used to describe people who didn’t think/choose for themselves yet wanted the accoutrements of real culture.  So really getting an education out of genuine interest wouldn’t be middlebrow.  Having season tickets to the symphony because that’s what cultured people do, would be.

It may be interesting to see, if we last that long, how health care reform changes some of this dynamic. It might ease up some of the fear that makes people choose jobs/careers as if their lives depended on monetary success (because they could). Or it could make the republican dead-enders even more furious, because people could choose not to maximize income without risking catastrophe quite so extravagantly.

So while we’re on the subject of ragging on postmodernism, did you all forget how it informs us that a lot of what makes up our societies are arbitrary inventions and that the way we interact with each other doesn’t have to be the way we currently do.

And to suggest that post-modernism prevents people from judging and arguing against what they feel is wrong is beyond the absurd. We can chose what we feel is right and wrong based on what we decide is right or wrong, we can reject what others think is right and wrong, the understanding that there is no objective fundamental truth to human expression allows people that freedom.

If you want your fucking hand held then turn to some shit god or read Ayn Rand.

Selfish tyRANT, the university is still stuck in the 1960’s when it comes to who students and adjuncts are, particularly grad students and grads.  The majority of people in the liberal arts ghetto tend to be older non-traditional students today than before- and not as mobile as the single 20-something grad.  They also turn out an inordinate number of MA’s for whom tenure track is simply not a possibility.  So the idea that it is an apprenticeship is pretty much false for the majority of those adjuncts. These are simply jobs.  Making people who could be contributing to the university very insecure is not the way to go about it.  At some point, they do get it and stop giving the 110% teaching requires - I mean - why bother other than personal integrity?  If tenured academics were smart, they’d realize how much someone with a sense of belonging to a place and being rewarded for going above and beyond could lighten their load. 

As for various status designations - yes, those designations are on contracts and in bios in online catalogs - (generally adjuncts simply aren’t included, IMO)  which many undergrads never look at. They aren’t on doors, and everyone is addressed as professor.  Students are also under the impression that age = seniority, esp. at non-ivy league schools.

Claiming an objective truth certainly doesn’t men buying into preconceived or other’s ideas, RT.  ANd POMO’s attack on logic undermines the very possibility of arguing in any other but the foot-stomping and yelling sense. 

Further more, objective truth never rejected the possibility of different perspectives, except in its most co-opted authoritarian forms.  But it did allow that some truth claims would be found false.

The continued support of pomo thinking means that anyone can claim up is down and down is up and allows the reTHUGlicans to act the victim if sane folks question that.  Welcome to the 1984 of your own making.  We are indeed again in the age of the Sophists and the Tyrants.

Tyro, middlebrow was generally used to describe people who didn’t think/choose for themselves yet wanted the accoutrements of real culture.

But the “elites” who used to study Latin and Greek and classical literature and arts and such as part of a “standard” education 100 years ago at Harvard were doing the same thing: it was part of being a “gentleman.” Now pursuing such things in the same way for the same reasons is “middlebrow” whose consumers are ambitious middle class people: mostly because now it is accessible to most anyone who wants it. And because that kind of thing is my taste, I’m considered a snob by people who aren’t that into reading books and laughably middle class by rich people. That which is “really” elite is always going to be, by definition, that which is not widely accessible or understood. Which means that those things which can be accessed by anyone who wants it—like a liberal education—is going to be devalued, even if it has its own cultural/personal/intellectual value. That you can choose to do something that other people don’t choose to do is, in its own way, considered a slap in the face to everyone who made a different decision.

Postmodernism is a way of deconstructing and reconstructing thought, philosophy, moralities, cultures, and societies.

It doesn’t say that you must to reject the google of datum that is the reality that we know by the way of knowing things that is science.

A person who is postmodernist and wants to therefore be a sophist or solipsist? That’s a choice they can make. I’m a postmodernist who’ll bash said person’s skull in with the ball-ping hammer of science, and arguing with the facts of reality has a lot of weight.

They attend classes - I am very unsure if they are getting an education - grade inflation, etc.  A BA is the new high school diploma, with a dose of vocational training, in many cases.  SO “studying those things” is still pretty elite - but it’s now relabeled a grad degree.

Can you translate that middle paragraph if you want a response?, RT?

The one with a PhD makes $35k; the other two make $27. ... they have it okay

I should have said, “...okay, in comparison to most adjunct faculty.” Sorry for the imprecision. For that matter, I should have said that adjuncts are in a KIND OF INFORMAL apprenticeship system. Very few newly minted PhD’s get tenure-track jobs; they have to make their bones as I did by publishing while working as adjuncts. Does this system suck? Yes. As for unions, I work in the South, where essentially nobody is unionized. Which is a pity.

And don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back for “choosing” your field.  You also chose to live without integrity if you chose a field because of marketability.

Fuck you.

On the contrary, conservatives are *more* likely to hold college degrees and make a comfortable living.  They’re less likely to be bookish, sure, but things are extremely unstable when “elitism” has nothing to do with income, degrees, class status and is more rooted in things like “likeliness to spend money on organic food and Prius instead of super nice lawn and SUV”.

Comment #68: Amanda Marcotte

I would like to venture that the education conservatives have are more than likely MBA’s which, in my opinion, are just sheepskins that are used as filtering devices to maintain the status quoe. 

Those I know of in my company who have degrees in anything but business are more likely to hold liberal ideals.  The MBA’s are by and large <strike>assholes</strike> Machiavellians.

I’m saying in that line that postmodernism doesn’t preclude a person from accepting that there is an objective reality that we know of by way of empirical evidence.

I can safely say that if go to law school and major in something besides pre-law as an undergraduate than you are not putting yourself at a disadvantage. I majored in history as an undergraduate and got through law school and the bar exam fine. Pre-med makes more sense because it does really help you in medical school, so I wouldn’t necesarily say its a bad thing. Also, many doctors and lawyers lean Democratic, not necessarily liberal but Democratic. Same with teachers. Engineers lean Republican/libertarian.

They attend classes - I am very unsure if they are getting an education - grade inflation, etc.  A BA is the new high school diploma, with a dose of vocational training, in many cases.  SO “studying those things” is still pretty elite - but it’s now relabeled a grad degree.

This is highly dependent on the college/university one is attending…even within the same profile.  One can still get a liberal arts education though it is admittedly easier at a small private liberal arts college than a large university where pre-professionalism tends to reign. 

Also, not all colleges grade inflate and from what I heard from Profs and older friends who attended colleges before the 1960’s….a higher proportion of current undergrads take their studies far more seriously than most of their classmates….especially at the Ivys where most of the students had a “country club” attitude towards their studies. 

Only negatives is that current undergrads also tend to be much more pre-professional and open about their contempt for humanities and social science courses. 

As for grad degrees….I would think their more narrow academic focus/specialization would mean they would not be a good substitute for a “liberal arts” education…..unless you’re talking about inter-disciplinary grad programs….

Those I know of in my company who have degrees in anything but business are more likely to hold liberal ideals.  The MBA’s are by and large assholes Machiavellians.

Cynikal @87:

Comparing most MBAs to Machiavelli/ans is giving them far more intellectual credibility than is warranted IME.

Felagund: I am glad that the folks at your university have it so good. Seriously. But where I live, TEXAS, and probably throughout much on the non-California west, it is “Right-to-work (anti-union) and the situation is as described by the original commenter.

Our income is completely cobbled together, there is no hope, realistically, of tenure EVER for adjuncts, even when they are rated “exceptional” and “first priority to hire”, we receive no benefits whatsoever (that mean NO HEALTH INSURANCE) and many many valued and esteemed professors work for the university system for 40-50 YEARS without ever having a moment of job security.

Adjuncts in the arts are only allowed to teach 2 classes a semester, to keep us desperate. It is totally a money-making system by the universities: they can get PhDs for cheap, charge high tuition and pocket the profits. Every year there are a new bath of PhDs to threaten your long-timers with!

If you love to teach, it is a sorry situation, and really, criminal.

My point wasn’t that all college professors are rich. Just the AVERAGE PhD is better off than the AVERAGE American. And while the AVERAGE Teabagger is better off than the AVERAGE American, they are very likely not as well off as the AVERAGE “person who matters.” I think this is why it is possible for teabaggers to seem like “just folks” when they are actually doing rather well. And i also didn’t mean to imply that professors were the some total of elites ( I dont even think I was the first one to mention them). I just think that we are making a mistake to claim that teabaggers are the masters of the universe class when it is very likely that the politically active far-right isn’t that much different ON AVERAGE than the more liberal political activists. It is also important to remember that the actual “little guys” are completely invisible in America.

Here is data on PhD salaries http://www.indeed.com/salary?cat=degree&q1=Bachelor’s&q2=Master’s&q3=Ph.D.&q4=MBA

This is basically irrelevant to any point, but it shows that PhDs are not super wealthy ON AVERAGE, but they are definitely in the $50,000+ category like half of americans and slightly more than half of teabaggers.

“some” should be “sum”

Amanda at 68: Considering the sheer number of people who label themselves liberal and conservative in America, we are talking in the tens of millions for both, I’d wager that both factions spread across the socio-economic-educational landscape fairly broadly. Class is a very messy concept in America, always has been since it had to revolve around money due to a lack of a titled nobility with a distinict set of values. Race and religion further complicates class in America. The lack of ideologically coherent parties until relatively recently also complicates things.

I can safely say that if go to law school and major in something besides pre-law as an undergraduate than you are not putting yourself at a disadvantage. I majored in history as an undergraduate and got through law school and the bar exam fine. Pre-med makes more sense because it does really help you in medical school, so I wouldn’t necesarily say its a bad thing. Also, many doctors and lawyers lean Democratic, not necessarily liberal but Democratic. Same with teachers. Engineers lean Republican/libertarian.

In the workplaces where I worked with lots of engineers and computer programmers, their politics tended to go to the extremes with a slight lead to the right.  Either libertarian to the extreme right or real granola DFH.  Rarely encountered a political centrist/moderate among them. 

Out of curiosity, what kind of law do you practice?

As a liberal engineer married to a liberal engineer (and working in the MIC), it can get lonely sometimes.  But most of the more liberal engineers I know are engineers; the more conservative ones are positioning for management and toying with the idea, currently persuing or have MBAs.

@ Exolt:
Design engineering is both creative and technical.

KMTBerry, we’re a right-to-starve state too. There are temporary adjuncts, but the number of classes they teach is dwarfed by that taught by visiting professors, which are salaried positions with benefits. I grant that they don’t have much job security, or that many of them make it to the brass ring, and that this is a sucky system. Visitors teach a 4/4 load. The ones the university really likes but who could never get anything published often become a “senior lecturer,” which is an ongoing position that pays better.

RT, then I suggest you go back and read the last sentence of my post - I said surface meaning.  those “middlebrow” reTHUGlicans don’t have a deep understanding of pomo, which may have a more nuanced meaning at deeper levels.  THeir takeaway is - no need to argue for the truth, there are multiple truths and everyone is as good as the rest and you have to respect it NYA NYA.

AS for rejecting science - helloooo climate change and all the naysayers hoodwinking - pomo has allowed the replacement arguments for/against truth claims and critical thinking to judge said arguments with emotional and sentimental popularity contests.  We’re reaping the fallout of that now.

No successful lawyer attending a prestigious law school would have ever been caught dead in a major like “pre-law.” Though I can imagine that local lawyers who make up the Republucan “small town elites” have a lot of that crowd among them. (and a lot of this “anti-elitist” posturing comes from a bunch of small town elites angry at the professionals and technocrats who don’t depend on the good graces of these small-minded small-town elites for their livelihoods)

Engineers have a lot of conservatives among them because it’s a job that allows you to make (what 21 year olds think is) a lot of money right after graduation. The more old school engineers in the military-industrial complex jobs lean more conservative than, say, computer scientists at google. But the younger generation of engineers tends to be less conservative.

Liberals are highly represented among graduate degree holders because a lot of “liberal” civil service jobs like social work, teaching, and public administration require Masters degrees.

As a liberal engineer married to a liberal engineer (and working in the MIC), it can get lonely sometimes.  But most of the more liberal engineers I know are engineers; the more conservative ones are positioning for management and toying with the idea, currently persuing or have MBAs.

The engineers repositioning themselves with an MBA in my workplace tended to be with both libertarian and DFH.  Only motivating factor in common was that they were fed up being at the bottom of the corporate hierarchy and having key decisions affecting their departments such as budgeting being determined by MBAs with little/no technical experience and who were unwilling to solicit information from the actual engineers/techies in the department.  A common issue in multinational/US corporations unless one is lucky enough to work for a technology firm like EMC where engineers and techies are placed in key decisionmaking roles. 

@ Exolt:
Design engineering is both creative and technical.

I’ve known many liberals/progressives….especially those in the artistic/musician type communities who look upon engineers as politically suspect and “uncreative” because they are often stereotyped as “conservative” and cannot “be spontaneous/creative” with their work because they must stick to certain design parameters, must do some planning, and need to adhere to schedules. 

The latter attitude is not only annoying to those outside of their milieu, but even those within it from the countless complaints I heard from musicians who are fed up with fellow musicians who “flake out” by showing up late or even failing to show up to scheduled rehearsals and/or shows without any prior notification to the rest of the band.  They’ve even joked that dealing with such musicians is an “occupational hazard”.

Did you read the article?  Again, I’d say you’re working off some privilege and luck there, felagund.  Publishing while working as an adjunct - at two or three universities and the job search for the next semester at the same time? That “informal” makes a HUGE difference.  When you complete an apprenticeship, one is then generally considered to now be that craftsman - a journeyman.  If there is work, and you get the job, you are paid as a journeyman, period.  In the case of the adjunct,  even if you have a stellar accomplishments, you are often cut and paid as less than an apprentice - a reduction in salary and status (and often the resources that would allow you to work to publish, etc.).

exholt, yes, different colleges will vary. 

But I’m going to disagree that students take their studies more seriously - they may take their grades more seriously - it costs $$ to retake, or precludes grad school versus the GWB - C students.  But their education?? apathy.  Absolutely NO intellectual curiosity.  Can’t even be bothered to google a word if they don’t understand it. DO only what is specifically assigned.

One more time Alysia, Correction in quotes mine. My point wasn’t that all college professors are rich. Just the “won the lottery tenure track” AVERAGE PhD is better off than the AVERAGE American.

THe adjunct PHd is often much worse off - the college debt, the mortgage if non-traditional.  And the adjunct PHd is now becoming the norm.

exholt, yes, different colleges will vary.

But I’m going to disagree that students take their studies more seriously - they may take their grades more seriously - it costs $$ to retake, or precludes grad school versus the GWB - C students.  But their education?? apathy.  Absolutely NO intellectual curiosity.  Can’t even be bothered to google a word if they don’t understand it. DO only what is specifically assigned.

Apathy and lack of intellectual curiosity are certainly the last adjectives I or anyone who has attended/taught at my college or other similar profiled schools would use. 

Though there were some that didn’t take their studies seriously, they either shaped up or were gone by the end of sophomore year at the latest.  Then again, as with the vast majority of conservative or religious students, the vast majority of pre-professional students tended to avoid applying to my undergrad alma mater in the first place.

Phylo—the link i provided listed the average income of all phds. The number given included tenured professors and adjunct professors. What I said was literally and unequivocally true. If I were only to look at tenured professors, the gap would likley be much much higher than the average of all PhDs. This website http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos066.htm#earnings gives the median wage for ALL “post secondary educators” and shows that it was $58,830 so that means that more than half of professors earn 50k+—putting them right in line with teabaggers. In fact, my link above shows that PhDs are represented among teabaggers very similarly to how they are in the population (roughly 15%). None of this is to deny that being an adjunct sucks, and that many adjuncts struggle to get by. In fact, I have no idea what PhDs have to do with this topic. However, I still stand by my main point, which is that teabaggers are well off, but seem poor because, relative to the people that actually get to matter in the national discussion, they are poor.

Usually exholt, the pre-professional IS my college ( or any other ) and it is another department that does the gen ed core.  Once upon a time, majors weren’t declared until third year.  SO there may at least have been the semblance of exploring all areas equally to see what one really liked and what one was suited for.  Today, the university is indeed seen as job training, and the entering freshman pre pro feels justified in turning his or her nose up at having to take (insert liberal arts course here) or any other course that cannot be seen as directly related to his/her degree.

“at” my college

alysia, we may be talking past each other a bit here.

But, your first link sort of proves my point.  BA’s make the same as the PhD - what? but if you consider that most PhD’s will be employed in academe - it makes sense.  But they also have @ $100K mor ein student loans. 

The second link uses it’s own, inaccurate at my university, nomenclature for job titles.  where I’m at, it’s lecturer, instructor, lecturer.  I’m not sure if that link even accounts for those who are not full time, yet cobble together a full time gig.

AS for rejecting science - helloooo climate change and all the naysayers hoodwinking - pomo has allowed the replacement arguments for/against truth claims and critical thinking to judge said arguments with emotional and sentimental popularity contests.  We’re reaping the fallout of that now.

An interesting assertion but people have been denying scientific facts long before postmodernism and likely will for a long time. Postmodernism, like some other philosophies, allows people to deny reality, yes, but I think that it doesn’t deserve the blame you assign it.

Most people aren’t postmodernists and don’t have the philosophical and educational foundation to understand it.

However there are lots of people who believe in gods and magic and there are also those who understand science but will fight against the facts known by it for personal gain.

I think that it is religion, tribalism, unchecked emotions, and certain economic philosophies that has and is causing the harm we are experiencing now.

Yeah, I was comparing income to “average American” not bachelors degree, i didn’t even look at the bachelor’s salaries—the point being that most phds are in the “upper half” just as most teapartiers are. I would assume the 2nd link does account for adjuncts because it said the bottom 10% made $27,000/yr or something. Which isn’t a lot, but it is still a lot more than the bottom 10% of all Americans. I am fairly sure that some adjuncts and many community college instructors only have masters. It just annoys me a bit how a lot of the “chattering classes” of progressives forget that most Americans don’t even have college degrees and that those people are basically invisible in the political process. I really recomend the Bartels book I linked to above. He shows that only about the top 1/3 of Americans really matter at all to political decisions, leaving a large gap between “above average” and “important person” and I think the teabaggers fall into that gap, so it is rare that they would have their voices heard at all, let alone become media mega-darlings.

Usually exholt, the pre-professional IS my college ( or any other ) and it is another department that does the gen ed core.  Once upon a time, majors weren’t declared until third year.  SO there may at least have been the semblance of exploring all areas equally to see what one really liked and what one was suited for.  Today, the university is indeed seen as job training, and the entering freshman pre pro feels justified in turning his or her nose up at having to take (insert liberal arts course here) or any other course that cannot be seen as directly related to his/her degree.

Agreed with your point that university is increasingly seen as job training.  However, students declaring majors earlier than junior year not may necessarily indicate anti-intellectualism so much as students being much more certain about their academic/professional pursuits at much earlier ages and having the confidence to act upon it. 

This is especially the case with those of us who took college-level or bona-fide college courses during our high school years as the vast majority of high school classmates and many college classmates did.  If anything, in the high school/college environments I was in….waiting until one’s third year in college to declare a major was considered by most an indicator that the student was “immature”, “lacking motivation/direction”, and/or only attended college because s(he) was forced to by the parents. 

Students with multiple academic interests at my college tended to declare several minors along with their major as I did with some declaring double and even triple majors.

Not saying that some weren’t intelligent….just that there wasn’t really a “Golden Age” when most of the students actually took the “Liberal Arts Education” seriously.  Both wouldn’t be considered “serious students” by most college Profs/TAs that I’ve had/know as friends.

Oh, I didn’t argue that there was a majority at any point in time, but Little Johnny Middle-Class would certainly have been studying Latin or Greek if his parents could afford a private school so that he could then go on to Harvard and then not have to learn any more dead languages in his climb on the way up.

Keep in mind that my Yale ‘70 uncle started college when W was in his third year and he recounted the “country-club” attitude prevalent in the prior classes like W’s who were admitted mainly on family connections, wealth, and more blatant legacy preferences.

Yale, despite it’s pretensions, was never a citadel of intellectualism, when I scored high enough on my SATs to get lots of offers from different colleges and Universities to apply to, Yale was absent, Harvard wasn’t.

I would tell you that there was probably more of a liberal arts dedication at my alma mater, Washington University, in 1977, than in 1970s Yale.

It took, and still takes some students based on local connections, as well as being choice #2 for students from NY
and Chitown(especially those of Jewish extraction), it would also recruit actively around the country for smarties like me who while middle-class would by our (hoped-for) accomplishments add prestige and tone to the institution.

Also, not all colleges grade inflate and from what I heard from Profs and older friends who attended colleges before the 1960’s….a higher proportion of current undergrads take their studies far more seriously than most of their classmates….especially at the Ivys where most of the students had a “country club” attitude towards their studies.

Oh, we had some of the ‘gentlemen’s C’ types(as a professor who didn’t give me a C in her class said about my attitude in it!) but they took what where considered the ‘easy’ majors like Art History, and you also had students who used the mandatory required classes outside their major to their advantage, like a friend of mine who took a Philosophy class even though he found it useful because his major was math and the class was Set Theory.

As Tyro and phylosopher have each pointed out, the real drive towards intellectualism and liberal arts came from the middle class, like my mothers’ friend whose whole neighborhood was filled with the strains of the Metropolitan Opera live broadcast, as a common assumption was that culture could be transmitted in a sort of sonic osmosis originating from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera and elsewhere.

There’s “struggling financially” and there’s “wingnut welfare deadbeat”, to pick up Charlie Pierce’s terminology.

I do think there’s a degree of snobbery from elite wingnut welfare recipients towards O’Donnell, who is a bargain-basement version of same: bullshit organization and title, a chunk of time spent as “Republican strategist” (which is shorthand for “unemployed pundit on producer’s Rolodex”) and a couple of doomed, FEC-cited campaigns of dubious financial soundness.

So it says something about the people who have tenure w/r/t wingnut welfare, but it doesn’t preclude a judgement on O’Donnell, who has spent most of her adult life scratching out a living on the freak-show edge of the pundit circuit as opposed to doing something useful with her life.

You’re probably right that most people don’t understand pomo, but there are also some who do who reject it.  Much of pomo’s ever waning success has come because of a misunderstanding of the modernism and objectivism (not in the Randian sense) that came before. 

But give those who’ve had a smattering, or even the watered down tolerance/non-judgmental indoctrination and couple that with the elements you’ve listed = a very toxic soup.
And it renders impotent the ability of the sane to push back. 

Sure there were those before who rejected science - and they generally got laughed out of the room, or dealt with the eyeball roll.  Today, they found a foundation ( e.g. DI or what’s the neo-con physicians group that does really bad abortion studies) or get money from one to push their garbage.  They have a soapbox in the Internet, or if they jibe with FAUX’s focus, a megaphone to trumpet their shit.

exholt, we move in very different levels of academe it sounds like.  My state is sooo backwards, there were only a handful of students doing dual enrollment.  ANd those views of students as immature is part of the PROBLEM. How the F can an 18 y o decide what they’re going to be or even what field of the academy, when they haven’t even encountered some of the subjects taught there? 

Sorry, but ts a really bad thing to push those kids to declare.

alysia - are you listening???????  There are full time adjuncts and adjuncts who are part time at 2 different colleges to make ends meet.  I would doubt if they were counted as their salaries aren’t figured that way.  In the end, those folks may make what $16K per year teaching a full load and have the double commute time too.

I think I read it in an earlier post here (Can’t remember and my Google Fu is failing me) that the Powers That Be rail against the “Elites” in acadamia because the academics actually know what their talking about through study and hard work while The Powers That Be feel they should be “correct” just because they were born into the power structure.

Which is why NYTimes hires Brooks or some other Hack-a-doodle to write about the “Interesting commons-folksie andetote” that some cabbie related them that perfectly fits into their editor’s world view rather than actually going out and paying a cabbie $5000 to write a 900 word opinion piece.

Yale, despite it’s pretensions, was never a citadel of intellectualism, when I scored high enough on my SATs to get lots of offers from different colleges and Universities to apply to, Yale was absent, Harvard wasn’t.

Interestingly enough, he’s probably one of only two or so older relatives in my parents’ generation who fits the profile of a serious liberal arts devotee….even after he dropped out of a PhD program in linguistics at a UC school in the early ‘70s due to getting fed up with departmental factionalism BS and by the time you were at Washington U….was finishing up his law degree at UChicago. 

He along with his family certainly fit the profile of an cultured liberal elite considering he still loves learning new languages, goes to watch various operatic and other NYC cultural events because he actually loves it, and reads literary and poetic magazines like the New Yorker religiously.  Too bad he has yet to be open-minded enough in his cultural explorations to embrace music past classical and jazz…..but hopefully I’ll be able to change his mind.  >)

Also, I was under the impression that with a few exceptions, intellectualism in the Ivies tended to be mainly centered on their graduate schools….not their undergraduate colleges.  A critical reason why several college classmates turned down admission to such schools to attend small private liberal arts colleges like my alma mater. 

Oh, we had some of the ‘gentlemen’s C’ types(as a professor who didn’t give me a C in her class said about my attitude in it!) but they took what where considered the ‘easy’ majors like Art History, and you also had students who used the mandatory required classes outside their major to their advantage, like a friend of mine who took a Philosophy class even though he found it useful because his major was math and the class was Set Theory.

Funny….the only people I knew who majored in Art History were either upper/upper-middle class like two cousins and several college classmates or declared that as one of two or three majors….with the other majors being more “practical” such as economics, physics, poli-sci, East Asian studies, etc. 

Then again, I knew plenty of upper/upper-middle class undergrads who majored in English lit, classics, or US/Western European history/poli-sci as well.

I think the comments here about “elite” meaning something different are interesting but irrelevant.  What you folks are describing is NOT what this is about.  Paladino didn’t just bellow against the “elite,” he’s talking about the “ruling elite” in Amanda’s quote. 

The key word here is “ruling.”

Here’s another quote from his speech: “Tonight the ruling class knows. They have seen it now. There is a people’s revolution.” 

He’s quite clearly NOT talking about people with good taste in food and art and literature.  He’s sounding like Castro riding into Havana at the head of a column of pissed-off campesinos. 

He’s talking about taking down a powerful upper class, the ruling class, like he’s not a part of it, and promoting policies that include putting the unemployed in prison.  It’s head-spinningly insane, iow.

exholt, we move in very different levels of academe it sounds like.  My state is sooo backwards, there were only a handful of students doing dual enrollment.  ANd those views of students as immature is part of the PROBLEM. How the F can an 18 y o decide what they’re going to be or even what field of the academy, when they haven’t even encountered some of the subjects taught there?

Sorry, but ts a really bad thing to push those kids to declare.

I think a large part of the different attitudes may have to do with the different types of institutions we’ve had experienced. 

At the Ohio-based small private liberal arts college I attended, the vast majority of the student body tended to skew upper/upper-middle class, White, private/wealthy suburban public school educated, and having had taken at least a few APs or actual college classes during their high school years.  I was one of the few students there who didn’t fit any of those demographics though I did attend a rigorous urban public magnet high school which prepared me well enough. 

One factor for the unspoken pressure to declare before one’s junior year was the fact my college does not have a great 5-6 year graduation rate because so many undergrads end up taking long leaves of absences to pursue artistic, musical, and/or political activism activities while leaving their studies by the wayside.  There’s also a surprisingly large number who end up on academic suspensions, academically expelled, or floundering on a 6-7 year course to graduation because they didn’t take their studies very seriously, were overwhelmed by the workload/expectations*, and in both cases…had parents wealthy enough to pay for the extra years of tuition. 

Heard this pressure has picked up somewhat now that the new administration is actually caring about our USNWR ranking among first-tier national liberal arts colleges.  Kinda ironic as that goes against the progressive spirit our college was founded on…:lol:

Out of curiosity, what is the profile of the university where you teach?

* Including many private school graduates…...some of whom had managed to gain admission to Ivy schools.

RobW, that may be true of what Paladino said, but it’s been a meme in teabagger rhetoric Remember, for a lot longer.  GWB’s “C” and folksiness, and absence of culture and serious thought - one always had the impression that if he read anything, it was because Laura read it to him as a bedtime story. And wasn’t there something Obama didn’t say or do for fear of being charged with “elitism” during the campaign?

I think a large part of the different attitudes may have to do with the different types of institutions we’ve had experienced.

You do realize you have an irritating habit of restating what the other person in the conversation has just said as if it is YOUR entirely new idea? IOW, I think “move in different levels of academe” about covers that.  My experience has been of Tier 2 and below schools.  What, for many, is the “default” choice of university.

At the Ohio-based small private liberal arts college I attended, the vast majority of the student body tended to skew upper/upper-middle class, White, private/wealthy suburban public school educated, and having had taken at least a few APs or actual college classes during their high school years.  I was one of the few students there who didn’t fit any of those demographics though I did attend a rigorous urban public magnet high school which prepared me well enough.

One factor for the unspoken pressure to declare before one’s junior year was the fact my college does not have a great 5-6 year graduation rate because so many undergrads end up taking long leaves of absences to pursue artistic, musical, and/or political activism activities while leaving their studies by the wayside.  There’s also a surprisingly large number who end up on academic suspensions, academically expelled, or floundering on a 6-7 year course to graduation because they didn’t take their studies very seriously, were overwhelmed by the workload/expectations*, and in both cases…had parents wealthy enough to pay for the extra years of tuition.

Yeah, VERY different.  At my university, it’s cash, pregnancy, family illness, job (gain or loss or schedule change) divorce, death, eviction, jail time, military tours.  Student lives for the most part, are a house of cards and paperclips.

Heard this pressure has picked up somewhat now that the new administration is actually caring about our USNWR ranking among first-tier national liberal arts colleges.  Kinda ironic as that goes against the progressive spirit our college was founded on…LOL

Out of curiosity, what is the profile of the university where you teach?

Yes, that grad rate is something they’re pushing and which I also don’t agree with.  There are many good p/t students who will never be able to take a full courseload, but are dedicated and will finish in 6-8 years - 1-2 courses a semester.  Pushing them to overload and fall asleep in class or create a dangerous situation at work is not doing anyone any favors.  I don’t understand why we can’t have a student centered plan and as long as they are on track with it, well OK then.

@phylosopher

I want to apologize for being short. And mean. As an artist and science enthusiast I find myself beleaguered by people who don’t get why a urinal or a single color painting is art and attack it, and then by others who sneer at the humanities, and bash those who study the subject, blissfully unaware that their inability to rip apart and analyze the messages they are inundated with in society leaves them so very vulnerable to a mind fucking.

In the social landscape that I view I perceive many who are resistant to the idea that the higher abstract moralities that humans have invented, not the ones we evolved with as a social animal, are arbitrary and non-universal. Mostly from the right in their derision of the concept of relative morality generally appeal to tradition if not religion. But there are those on the left too who are so enthralled by their “perfect” social theories that demand we all act the same way (insert libertarians in here too, though I think they’re more on the right) that they will not take a moment to realize that not everyone is just like them.

I also perceive many who are open to people being different from them by varying degrees.

But I’m not perceiving the dangerous postmodernist you’re proposing. I might be ignorant about the existence of them though.

I do see amoral sociopaths and the sane who do not value human lives beyond themselves but we’ve always had these monsters and I fail to see how postmodernism could make them more dangerous then they are. One can hide all sorts of evil behind maybe every philosophy.

We were having a discussion - no apology needed , but the civility appreciated.  Where to start?

We’re still pretty much in disagreement, especially when you get to ethics.  You’re doing what many have done - making a dichotomy of either everything is relative or all we’ve got is tradition and religion, ignoring reasoned argument based on fact and logic, which can be turned used to critique one’s own culture/society/behavior as well as others.  I’m not sure where you get the we all act the same way - that doesn’t follow either, there are certainly many of those who project in every facet of society. 

THe “dangerous postmodernist” one more time, is created by the taking of what was originally a good (certainly in the case of the original anthropologists who pointed out the cultural bias in condemning other societies) intellectually interesting idea and teaching it to the teachers of teachers who then disseminated it as indoctrination to their students, substituting uncritical acceptance of anything and everything and its uninvited bu associated apathy for critical thinking about diverse morals and customs. 

Some people have taken that and run with it.  It’s what gives us the ridiculous “Caribou Barbie” is a feminist.  If feminist can have multiple meanings, then, to them, feminist can be re-defined as anything they want it to mean - definition be damned because “we’ve” said those are arbitrary.  See how it works for them?

If you wanted to implment a de facto plutocracy over a de jure democratic republic, the best way to do it would be to institute an “us vs them” two party state - and co-opt “them”. Any opposition could be channelled into “them” - who would be part of yoyur ruling structure.
Comment #7: Phoenician in a time of Romans on 09/16 at 04:15 PM

It’s been that way here since Andrew Jackson was President, nigh on two hundred years now. Or more precisely since the Whigs demonstrated, defeating Van Buren for re-election in favor of Harrison, whom they positioned as a “log cabin” candidate, that the party of wealth could indeed pretend to be the party of the humble-origined. Thus completing the dyad; the party of the rich can pretend to be the party of the people, and the party of the people can be relied upon to service primarily the interests of the rich, even as they are spat upon from above.

The Jacksonian paradigm of US politics.

You do realize you have an irritating habit of restating what the other person in the conversation has just said as if it is YOUR entirely new idea?

I didn’t notice that I did in that instance until you pointed it out.  My apologies. 

Yeah, VERY different.  At my university, it’s cash, pregnancy, family illness, job (gain or loss or schedule change) divorce, death, eviction, jail time, military tours.  Student lives for the most part, are a house of cards and paperclips.

Closest thing at my undergrad was what happened to most of the South Korean international students in the wake of the 1997 Asian economic crisis which hit their country hard.  The ones who didn’t transfer back home ended up going from living an upper/upper-middle class lifestyle to suddenly having to take various on-campus jobs. 

Of course, this pales in comparison to what you described. 

Yes, that grad rate is something they’re pushing and which I also don’t agree with.  There are many good p/t students who will never be able to take a full courseload, but are dedicated and will finish in 6-8 years - 1-2 courses a semester.  Pushing them to overload and fall asleep in class or create a dangerous situation at work is not doing anyone any favors.  I don’t understand why we can’t have a student centered plan and as long as they are on track with it, well OK then.

Though my undergrad does allow students to finish their degrees part-time if they are one semester short of finishing, they strongly discourage it both due to the pressure to improve their 5-6 year graduation rate and because they see themselves as a residential 4-year college mostly serving a “traditional” 17-22 year old full-time full-load student demographic.

We’re a regional.  Until very recently, our state had no community college system, so we were the de facto community college, too.  At the time and up to a few years ago, the mission was to meet the population where they were at.  Geographically and academically.  That’s changed, unfortunately for some students, it was midstream.  Lot’s of non-traditionals and first generation college and rust belt re-trainees.

Now, we’re movin’ on up, I guess.  Doing away with associates degrees, but also, no grad degrees, which is pretty detrimental to those with MA’s would like to earn PhD’s but with a 2 hour commute - eeks. . Add the main campus also frowns on too much research focus.

With the non-traditionals many have a 10-12 hour work and commute to the nearby metro area. They’re also raising families.  Everything from student loans and grants to this new initiative to improve grad rates is really against them.  They can do one class a semester really well, but get no $ help.  Two classes considered part time is pushing it.  The 3-4 it takes for full time 12 hours - laughable.  It’s a way to doom them to fail.

The thing with ethics is that it is all relative. I’m well familiar with being charged with thinking in black and white terms, but without a objective universal truth, we get to decide what ethics are. There’s an appearance of a dichotomy when trying to contrast postmodernist thinking with universal truth thinking, but there really is no dichotomy. There’s just us and what we choose. (Socially)

That’s where one arrives when deconstructing everything all the way down. And here is where we can lay the foundation of logic and reasoned arguing because at this point we are free to be the irrational creature that we are, pluck what values and morals we want out of the aether and then construct our logical structures and rationality on that.

We can therefore choose to be as critical and judgmental as hell. Be my-ideas-are-better-than-your-ideas. Be I’m-going-to-rampantly-assault-every-facet-of-your-ideals-that-I-find-displeasing-until-you-I-find-you-prostrate-at-my-feet.

The people you’re describing are utter fools for teaching that postmodernism means being uncritical and even handed and yes now I perceive your point better. People seem to forget that deconstruction leads to reconstruction.

But I think the apathy of the uncritical is fixable. Largely due to their lack of deep thought. Find their loosely founded foundations and pull it out from under them.  Lay into them. Give them a crisis, preferably an existential one, then give them a framework to actually work with, one of your choosing, or leave them as an example for others to think about.

I was under the impression that with a few exceptions, intellectualism in the Ivies tended to be mainly centered on their graduate schools….not their undergraduate colleges.  A critical reason why several college classmates turned down admission to such schools to attend small private liberal arts colleges like my alma mater. 

Yeah, that’s what lots of people who go to your alma mater says. But if that’s true, ypu kind of have to wonder why they’re not at Swarthmore. I was pretty impressed with the intellectual environment at Yale, moreso than harvard. That said, there are douchebags everywhere, even at caltech, I’ve heard.

phylosopher, if you hate the way you’re treated in academia, hate the students, and obviously have no hope of a tenure track position, which in any case even if you lucked out and got one would entitle you being a 40 year old making at most 50-60k/yr, why do you bother? Are you hoping that if you complain enough that the world of humanities academia will turn itself on your head for your benefit? In fact, it’s probably good that the school is not able to offer PhDs, because it will ensure that students don’t waste their time.

With the non-traditionals many have a 10-12 hour work and commute to the nearby metro area. They’re also raising families.  Everything from student loans and grants to this new initiative to improve grad rates is really against them.  They can do one class a semester really well, but get no $ help.  Two classes considered part time is pushing it.  The 3-4 it takes for full time 12 hours - laughable.  It’s a way to doom them to fail.

Unfortunately, the last part is a feature, not a bug.  This is especially borne out by discussions with some HR people/employers who looked askance upon college graduates, especially those who were in the 17-22 age bracket when they started out who graduated with a BA/BS with several years after taking 1 or 2 courses.  For some employers and grad school admissions….privileging those who were able to finish a BA/BS in 5 years or less is a great way to filter through candidates and “uphold standards”....even though most of the non-traditional students you have had may have more/better job experience than most undergrads attending “traditional schools” like the one I attended.

Hate the students? Not sure where you’re getting that one - frustrated with them at times like any teacher, sure - hate them, huh? 

Academia is a man made system - as such, it can be changed.  Adjunct unions have done quite a bit to improve the situation.  For my benefit?-change at the academy moves slowly - probably I won’t see it.  The school does offer M.A’s in humanities fields - probably an even surer route to the academic ghetto.  (And BTW, you sound like a complete I’ve got mine the hell with thine asshole bigot - if one sincerely wants and has the money to pursue the degree - and I have students who are not using it as job seeking - why should they be denied, when you wouldn’t do so to a silverspoon middleclass parent supported kid . SO,  wow, way to let your classism all hang out.  If a system excludes a large part of the population for accidents of birth, you change the unfair system, not formalize the exclusion.) 

I bother because I like what I do and feel the least alienated in the academy among the myriad jobs I’ve experienced.  I do get to see results - probably even moreso than at a more selective and prestigious school. I make a difference- greatest compliment from a student, IMO, is “you made me think.”  If you mean why do I bother to speak out - one gets a bit tired of having people think (falsely) that because one is a professor (the generic term for those who teach at a university) that one is well-paid, or paid in the $50K and up or higher range.  Or that everyone is tenured.  Or that we only work 2-3 days per week, etc.  Or that we get raises and seniority pay like blue collar union workers do.  Or that we can afford to take summers off. Or that all university jobs are good, and universities automatically non-exploitative of their employees.

Yeah, that’s what lots of people who go to your alma mater says. But if that’s true, ypu kind of have to wonder why they’re not at Swarthmore. I was pretty impressed with the intellectual environment at Yale, moreso than harvard. That said, there are douchebags everywhere, even at caltech, I’ve heard.

First, I wasn’t the one who made remarks privileging Harvard’s intellectualism over Yale’s.  All I did was to remark on my impression that the intellectualism in the Ivies tended to be in their respective grad schools and not so much their undergrad. 

I didn’t get that impression only from those who attended my alma mater, but also from accounts from my Yale ‘70 Uncle who is active in the alumni association, college classmates who are now grad students in the Ivies, and dozens of high school classmates and friends…..some of whom attended Ivies for both undergrad and grad as well as my own impressions. 

I don’t know….but having taken undergrad and grad courses at two Ivies and hanging out on those campuses on and off for 15+ years….I’ve found my high school friends’/college classmates rants about the rampant pre-professionalism and lack of genuine interest in learning among the vast majority of the Ivy undergrads to be largely accurate.  Really shocking considering those high school friends were quite pre-professional themselves….but they still felt some desire to learn something beyond the little they felt they needed for their future careers. 

One case was seeing dozens of Ivy econ majors rushing en masse to the summer school dean to complain/whine about how our stats professor was “too demanding”, hearing from a few who were repeating the course that he was much more harder/demanding than the regular stats profs they failed, and that they were worrying about “failing” his course.  Though the Prof in question was challenging and can be annoying in his use of the Socratic method to teach stats….that didn’t warrant their tales of woe to the dean.  In other classes, I’ve lost count of how many Ivy undergrads complained about their “heavy” workloads such as the 300-500 page reading load in one advanced undergrad/introductory grad course…complaints which would cause classmates at my undergrad to dismiss the complaining student as “non-serious” with some barely suppressed ROTFLOL as that load would be considered standard for an intro-intermediate undergrad course.  They also tended to be much more passive and needed to be periodically prodded by the Prof to participate in class discussions. 

Sitting in on a few friends’ classes at that and another Ivy….I’ve also had the dubious experience of observing students coming to class drunk…...something which never happened at my undergrad despite our campus’ deep love of controlled substances and alcohol.  Students at our college took our classes/academics seriously enough that they’d look upon a classmate dumb enough to do that in the same light as a congregation of worshipers reacting to someone setting off a gigantic stinky fart in their place of worship.  Those too stoned, high, and/or drunk on the day and time of a given class tended to have enough common courtesy to absent themselves and later ask for notes when their stoned/high/drunken state has passed. 

I should also mention the dozens of accounts from Ivy undergrads, Profs, and TAs about how many overentitled upper/upper-middle class Ivy undergrads and their parents felt they had a right to threaten Profs and TAs with lawsuits complete with actual lawyers for not getting the “well-deserved” B+ or higher grade they wanted.  And don’t get me started on one idiot Ivy undergrad who screamed at me for a C-level grade on a US history paper he thrusted in my face because he mistook me for a TA in that course…and finding that grade to be excessively generous considering the content…...

I do get to see results - probably even moreso than at a more selective and prestigious school. I make a difference- greatest compliment from a student, IMO, is “you made me think.”

This is the reason why some friends who are currently Ivy grad students have stated that they’d rather pursue a teaching career in a public university/community college setting over an Ivy/Ivy-level one.  At least one is already teaching some classes at a community college in order to get started while completing his PhD.

I do get to see results - probably even moreso than at a more selective and prestigious school. I make a difference- greatest compliment from a student, IMO, is “you made me think.”

Teaching liberal students - “You made me think! Thank you.”

Teaching wingnut students - “You made me think!  I’m going to complain!”

And it sure is better than corporate!  Oh yeah, the world has five more widgets in circulation !!! Yippeee!!!
Oh goodee, one more really rich guy has been made even richer!!! 

Yes, I know there are widgets that are really useful or a major improvement, but those seem to be few and far between.  Most corporate types are doin’ it for the paycheck not the intrinsic reward.

PIATOR - you made me smile. Thanks.

That may be something good about my campus - the wingnut is usually outnumbered by some pretty savvy and sometimes well-spoken or at least not afraid to speak students who’ve lived in the real world. Sort of like the Jasmine Guy takedown of O’Donnel on PI.  SO I often let the class take care of that.

I forget where I read the argument, but someone said the biggest problem with America is that we didn’t have a monarchy.

No, the biggest problem the US has is that it does have a form of monarchy but everyone down there does their damnedest to refuse to admit it.

When you look at the way the US president had gradually come to be treated: all the pomp and ceremony and the like; some real monarchs don’t get things that ridiculous.  And it has nothing to do with being a superpower or security.

Ridiculous amount of courtesy expected by people in the leader’s presence?  Check.
Ceremonial guards in fancy uniform at the palace?  Check.
Having a palace?  Check.
Official seals all over everything, not representing the country but themselves personally?  Check.
Personal theme music?  Check.

Separating the “person symbolizing the state” from “the person actually running the government” (whether that person is a monarch, a monarch-in-absentia with a local rep like we have in the Great White North, or an elected position like a preseident as opposed to the prime minister) allows you to toss all the ceremonial nonsense at the generally politically powerless person while the other one gets on with actually running the country.

But no, you guys had to go and merge the two, resulting in this ridiculous situation where someone who wants to be elected to that overly ceremonial situation has to pretend they’re really just one of the common folks, even though they’ve proven themselves to be rather uncommon with their success, or inherited their exceptionalism.

if one sincerely wants and has the money to pursue the degree

a) no one should be paying for a Ph.D. b) the academy does not need more PhDs and should not be wasting their students’ time and lives by producing them. You seem angry that I think the academy SHOULDN’T be producing more unneeded adjuncts (misery loves company, I guess). I think the same thing about lawyers.

Or that all university jobs are good, and universities automatically non-exploitative of their employees.

Then, you know, don’t work there. You’re not an oppressed class with nowhere else to go, any more than aspiring actors and artists, so stop pretending you are: you gave academia your best shot, but you weren’t one of The Chosen. It happens. Not everyone gets to be an astronaut. It’s not a moral judgment about your personal worth: that’s just what it is. Your problem is that you have internalized a value system where you think that academia is the only place worth being while it is also abusing you. Teach high school or something. Work for an academic press that will offer you health insurance. For the record, I too felt good in the academy, but I turned down a postdoctoral fellowship in favor of a more permanent non-faculty/academic job because I wanted to avoid having myself exploited or selling myself short. And the reason I knew to do that is because I saw a lot of people in postdocs or adjunct positions while they and the tenured faculty acted like this was a perfectly normal acceptable state of affairs. Really, phylosopher, snap out of it: the world is a lot bigger than being one of the university system’s hangers-on, even if this was the propaganda beaten into your head in grad school.

a) no one should be paying for a Ph.D. b) the academy does not need more PhDs and should not be wasting their students’ time and lives by producing them. You seem angry that I think the academy SHOULDN’T be producing more unneeded adjuncts (misery loves company, I guess). I think the same thing about lawyers.

Pardon me, but would you also make the same argument about MBAs….especially considering how much more easier it is to gain admission and earn one from a same given institution from what I’ve heard from colleagues and relatives who earned both MBAs and JDs and how they’re a “dime a dozen” from many corporate HR people?

Also….heard similar arguments that we have “too many” BA/BS degree holders…..mainly from conservative sources even though only around 33% of US high school grads ultimately get a BA/BS according to recent Federal education statistics. 

Would you say there are too many colleges as they have argued and that we should go back to the “golden days” of the early 1960’s and before when only the scions of the wealthy and maybe the top 5-10% of the smartest kids from the middle/working classes on scholarships/attending state/city schools were expected to go on to college with the rest expected to work whatever jobs they can get with a high school diploma?

Pardon me, but would you also make the same argument about MBAs…

Well, I think getting an MBA is pretty pointless, but it might be harmless to get an MBA from a 2nd or 3rd tier school if your employer is paying for it. And an MBA from a top school is probably worthwhile just as a JD from a top school is. I don’t see why it’s so controversial to argue that the academy is fucking over peoples lives by taking in a lot of PhD students just to use them as TAs when there are no jobs for them afterwards or why we have a proliferation of law schools when there aren’t a lot of jobs for lawyers. And the worst thing about the academy is that they are teaching people that there is something wrong with them if they don’t want to dedicate their lives to chasing after a few rare tenure track positions and that working elsewhere is some reflection of great moral and personal failure.

FOr one Tyro, drop the trying to read my emotions.  Ain’t none of your business AND you’re pretty bad at it AND it really isn’t pertinent to the discussion - ad hominems rarely are - but if you insist - game on.

So, because, as I’ve said, I have non-traditional students.  They have a bachelors and would like to study x further.  They are very capable of doing the work, and doing it well.  Most are older and will not “use” the PhD to teach - some are independently wealthy, or retired or disabled.  SO you want to deny them the opportunity to get said degree?  On what grounds? Ageism, ableism or just plain nastiness?

Regarding your second point - so it isn’t good to correct outsiders’ false impressions which have caused mush resentment and damage to academia, even when you are on the inside and know the facts?  Real academics have too much respect for the truth. SO, you’re either not an academic, or a piss poor one.

My career plans are again, not your business.  (But just so you can stop worrying your head and trying to bolster your own regretted decision (still bitter, eh?) there’s a pretty solid plan B on the ground already.  However, trying to improve the system from the inside is still possible. 

Teach high school?  You must be fuckin’ nuts. One, my field is rarely taught in high schools, two fuck some a-hole admin and parents telling me how/what to teach a class, and both a state"curriculum committee” and the doofus Texas school boards choosing a text for me.  If you think academic freedom is threatened at the post sec level - you really need to take a look inside a high school-it has never existed there. 

Obviously Tyro, you’re someone who has sold out and need to make yourself feel good about your “decision” by putting other people down.  Must be interesting to hear how you advise your students: 
“All that counts is your paycheck and a steady job” - you know, why not just go to an assembly line - you sound like you’d be much happier there.

And there you go again, with the education =job training - it isn’t.  Most of the very successful people I know in corporate including those making six figure and up salaries(since the quantitative is your standard), have completely unrelated degrees - grad and undergrad.  Most of them credit their success to seeing their work through the framework of their education. 

Please Tyro, leave the university completely (or is it that you’re still the “hanger-on,” wanting that academic connection for your ego, where you’d rather be the academic sanitary engineer then a job out in the “real” world.

“All that counts is a paycheck and a steady job”

You know that this is how like, 99.9% of the employed people on earth - and 95% of them in America -have to see things, right? The ability to choose a profession based on personal interest and/or a set of high ethical standards is a rare privilege, and even then, there’s way more positions out there for claims adjusters, janitors, cab drivers and shoe salespeople than astronauts, rock musicians, activists, authors and researchers.

That’s why conservatives hate academia - because the ability to sit and think for a living, what was once the sole milieu of the exceedingly wealthy has become somewhat democratized, and while not totally merit-based, more so than it used to be. The idea that some working-class/middle-class people could subvert the “natural order” of things, be able to determine their own destinies in that way through hard work and intelligence and hold positions of authority and prestige in society, often while circumventing the “for-profit” sector entirely annoys the living hell out of them, because historically, education was used as a tool to cement preexisting social inequities and class barriers, not challenge and disassemble them. Furthermore, if you’re going to climb the class ladder, they feel that you should have to get vetted by them, kiss their rings and accept their values.

Most of them credit their success to seeing their work through the framework of their education

If his daddy runs the company, Junior knows he can get a degree in Underwater Basket Weaving and he’s still in the running. If you start your own company, it doesn’t matter what your degree’s in either, because you only have to pass muster with yourself.

Sorry to not get all the way through before commenting again but…
Not declare until Jr year? Um, doing so a new thing?????  Not where I went to UG either time.  One state school in the west (land grant) and one in the northeast (as a satelite of the state’s main campus). 
My husband’s aunt went to the one out west nearly fifty years before we did and had a major by end of freshman year; we both enrolled with majors initially.  I started my second degree with a declared major; my daughter , at a different campus of the same school, was undeclared for 3 semesters, but was unofficially in Letters and Science (biology declared by start of 4th semester).

Selena - can you please keep the quotes SOMEWHAT in context? 

1) no stigma against the presumed status level of a job.  Integrity is more about choosing where you work and wha the effort put towards - being the janitor at a company whose product one deems ethical versus, e.g at a big tobacco company is the same as choosing to be in academia versus choosing to work at a corporation whose product you morally disapprove of.

2) In all the examples I was thinking of,  no one’s daddy or mommy owned the company.  My prime example was actually someone from the “lower” classes who worked his way through school - back when college summer jobs could actually pay for a large part of living expenses and books and even some tuition -  work study and scholarships to cover the rest.

Liberals are constantly asking ourselves, How can so many working-class people vote against their own economic interests? I think it’s become they’re bamboozled, and not just by wily politicians, into identifying with their rich oppressors. In many cases, they’re also conditioned to think that their own economic problems are a result of their personal incompetence, undesirability, etc., and nothing else.

It’s a sort of social Stockholm Syndrome. And Christine O’Donnell seems like a textbook case.

Of course, there is also the possibility that many working and lower-middle to middle-middle class people that vote against their own economic interests are aware that they are doing so but believe that its more important to vote for what they view as their side in the culture wars. You know basic tribalism. Or they might believe that they are doing the right thing. Kind of like how many upper-middle to upper class people do vote Democratic and support economic policies that technically go against their economic interests like my parents. Sometimes people are just like that. For good or bad, economics is not the only thing at stake in politics.

To a certain extent, I wonder if the Civil Rights movement could have been implemented in a way that would avoid the Southern Strategy and other backlashes. Maybe if LBJ also created some type of Truth and Reconciliation Committee to help people overcome racism on psychological level or didn’t get America involved in Vietnam, which he saw as a good cause, than things would have been better. Without the Vietnam War, the people who turned against LBJ on the Left would have probably been some of his biggest supporters because of his domestic policies. He probably would have had two terms or at least ran a second time and the 1968 fiasco at the Democratic Convention would not have happened. Without the Vietnam protesters, the Counter-Culture would have probably been less associated with liberalism. Even though the Vietnam protesters and hippies were separate, many people conflated them. The hippies might have just been perceived as rebellious kids otherwise or might have existed in a less threatening form.

For the record, upper class voters are much more likely to vote “against their interests” by voting Democratic than poorer voters are to vote republican. The whole “whats the matter with KS” meme isn’t backed up by much evidence.

alysia, I live in a county in CA with one of the highest teen pregnancy rates, high unemployment because it’s mainly seasonal and agricultural around here, average per capita income a lot lower than you’ll find on the coast, and they vote solid red here much of the time.

I don’t think “what’s the matter with KS” explains it either, but it’s surely no coincidence that Tulare County is near the buckle of the CA Bible Belt that runs between the Coast Ranges and the Sierra Nevada in the middle of the state:

Politics

          <blockquote>Presidential election results

Year   GOP                     DEM             Others

2008   56.9% 44,729   41.6% 32,670   1.5% 1,226

2004   66.2% 65,399   32.9% 32,494   1.0% 967

2000   60.2% 54,070   36.8% 33,006   3.1% 2,742

1996   53.9% 46,272   38.1% 32,669   8.1% 6,905

1992   45.7% 40,482   35.2% 31,188   19.1% 16,883

1988   59.6% 46,891   39.0% 30,711   1.4% 1,067

1984   63.9% 51,066   35.1% 28,065   1.0% 812

1980   58.3% 41,317   35.5% 25,155   6.2% 4,374

1976   54.5% 31,864   43.7% 25,551   1.8% 1,027

1972   59.9% 36,048   36.2% 21,775   3.9% 2,327

1968   52.2% 29,314   39.5% 22,180   8.4% 4,695

1964   39.8% 22,527   60.1% 33,974   0.1% 51

1960   54.0% 29,456   45.6% 24,887   0.4%  239

Tulare is a strongly Republican county in Presidential and congressional elections. The last Democratic candidate for President to win a majority in the county was Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

Tulare is part of California’s 21st congressional district, which is held by Republican Devin Nunes. In the State Assembly, Tulare is in the 29th, 30th, 31st, and 34th districts. The 31st is held by Independent Juan Arambula, while the 29th, 30th, and 34th are held by Republicans Michael Villines, Danny Gilmore, and Connie Conway, respectively. In the State Senate, Tulare is part of the 16th and 18th districts, which are held by Democrat Dean Florez and Republican Roy Ashburn respectively.

For the record, upper class voters are much more likely to vote “against their interests” by voting Democratic than poorer voters are to vote republican.

I suspect that the regional effect is really large with this. Being poor sucks pretty much everywhere. Making 100k/yr as a real estate agent in Mississippi might make you feel like a “captain of industry” and thus identify with Republicans, but a computer programmer making the same kind of money in silicon valley or the northeast is going to have different economic as well as tribal/cultural interests that are going to put him more in line with the Democrats.

It’s not that Kansans have a lot of rich people, explaining their Republicanism. It’s that without a lot of infrastructure demands and with a relatively low cost of living, middle class Kansans can afford to identify as Republicans or at least to regard the Democratic party as “the party for poor people.”

That is a lot of it Tyro. Home ownership in those areas is also usually a lot higher, so people may make low incomes, but have a relatively high amount of wealth and security. The KS book was so alluring because it FEELS so true. Like western Iowa, if anyone has ever been there, is economically depressed. The meat-packing industry has been deunionized and a lot of the plants higher undocumented workers that they treat like shit which displaces the old workers, creates 2 markets for meth (laid off, hopeless blue collar employees and immigrant wage slaves that need the meth to work hard enough), and rural population flight and brain drain plague the area. yet Western IA is heavily Republican and Rep. King is basically the male version of Michelle Bachman. While the relatively affluent areas in Eastern Iowa are much more liberal. Then there is the fact that many Conservative pundits and politicians sound like they are poor and ignorant. I have read many papers exploring the “whats the matter with KS” question, and the results are really hard to swallow since they seem so true.

But those areas while poor on average, still do have middle class and rich people. Furthermore poor people are less likely to vote, so it is usually how the upper middle class and wealthy voters vote that decide elections. Survey data also shows that opinions on abortion and gay marriage have a much more significant influence on well-off voters than on working-class voters, who focus more on economic issues. So it is usually that the well-off voters in these poor areas are the ones that make them Republican. I also think that part of the problem is, as I mentioned earlier, that people are so used to only seeing the upper-most elites, we think that solidly middle class suburbanites are salt of the earth *cough joe the plumber cough*.

I am not sure about the demographics of that specific county, so it could very well be that in this case the country is not economically diverse enough to have a middle class so it is poor people voting their religion that elects the R officials. Also, there definitely are poor people that vote Republican, so even if they aren’t a significant portion of the Republican base or a good representation of the average poor person, there are still too many poor/working class people voting for Rs and moral issues are the reason why.

Of course, I happen to think that, save for a few super rich people, it is ALWAYS against your self-interest to vote Republican, but I am ja partisan hack like that

“ja” is supposed to be “just a.” not sure what happened there…

I suspect that the regional effect is really large with this. Being poor sucks pretty much everywhere. Making 100k/yr as a real estate agent in Mississippi might make you feel like a “captain of industry” and thus identify with Republicans, but a computer programmer making the same kind of money in silicon valley or the northeast is going to have different economic as well as tribal/cultural interests that are going to put him more in line with the Democrats.

There is some truth to this as Joe “The Plumber” has shown considering he is from Toledo, Ohio, a town not too far from my undergrad.  Even if one makes 40k/year as his tax returns indicated, that would certainly place him comfortably in the middle or even the upper-middle class considering the high chronic unemployment issues in those areas. 

Even a 25-30k/year job would place you well above the median income scales considering the high numbers of long-term unemployed local townies on public housing/assistance and trying to make ends meet with odd jobs. 

Most of those townies tended to vote conservative as they were far more concerned about social and to some extent…religious values rather than their economic interests.  Far more important to not “acquiece” and give the finger to the “commie pinko hippies” like the ones they saw and resented at my undergrad even if it has been screwing them over since Reagan’s first term.

Tyro and Alysia, both of your points make a lot of sense and explain a good chunk of the relationship between class and voting in America.

  Its also true that the Republican Party is not the first conservative party to have working and lower-middle class people vote for it. Every right-leaning party has needed to attract a vote that covers a relatively wide economic range, otherwise they’d never be in power. The LDP of Japan is another conservative party with a lot of experience of getting not rich people to vote for it, much more successful than the Republican Party. Same goes for various European and other American conservative parties. The history Seymour Lipset in his book on American exceptionalism, entitled American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword, noted that during the 1948 elections 80% of working and lower class Americans voted Democratic. Very few leftist parties in Europe ever had this percentage of the working and lower-middle class vote.

Demographics

As of the census[4] of 2000, there were 368,021 people, 110,385 households, and 87,093 families residing in the county. The population density was 76 people per square mile (29/km²). There were 119,639 housing units at an average density of 25 per square mile (10/km²). The racial makeup of the county was 58.08% White, 1.59% Black or African American, 1.56% Native American, 3.27% Asian, 0.11% Pacific Islander, 30.79% from other races, and 4.60% from two or more races. 50.77% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 6.2% were of American, 5.7% German and 5.0% English ancestry according to Census 2000. 56.3% spoke English, 38.9% Spanish and 1.1% Portuguese as their first language.

The LDP of Japan is another conservative party with a lot of experience of getting not rich people to vote for it, much more successful than the Republican Party. Same goes for various European and other American conservative parties.

The LDP’s long political dominance in Japanese politics also has to do with the following factors:

1. LDP’s strong appeal to the rural voters….especially the farmers and agricultural voters by passing highly protectionist policies in favor of them at the expense of the Japanese consumer.  Look at their rice pricing and import policies if you want to see this borne out.  The rural voters in turn, turn out in droves to vote the LDP in as a way to continue these policies.  The election process has also been structured in such a way that rural voters have far more political power than their numbers would warrant. 

2. Legacy of US Occupation policies to “turn back” around 1947 after widespread fears of an internal communist revolution by purging communist and other leftish groups…and then bringing back many formerly purged lower-level militarists into politics and the government bureaucracy.  Heck, one Class-A war criminal suspect even became a prime minister in the late 1950’s.  This factor is also a reason why apologists for the Japanese colonial/wartime legacy have a far greater political influence than their actual numbers would indicate….especially when most of the Imperial Japanese military veterans….especially the imperial army officers tended to be heavily recruited from rural areas or descended from rural elites.  Additionally, this was a pretext for their reconstituting a military force as a “Self-Defense Forces” as a way to get around Article 9 of their constitution which prohibits Japan from maintaining armed forces or using war as a sovereign right.  Even so….up until very recently…their numbers and training have been such that they still had to rely on the US for most of their defense needs….even with access to advanced US, NATO, and domestically produced weapons and technology. 

3, After a disastrous war and fears of a potential communist revolution, most of the voting populace wanted stability and readily agreed with the LDP bargain/promise that if they are allowed into power, they will promise to facilitate rebuilding Japan from wartime ashes into a prosperous economically/technologically advanced nation worthy of international respect again.  Considering Japan’s dramatic economic growth and progress from the early 1950’s into the 1970’s…..they most certainly fulfilled this promise to the satisfaction of most Japanese voters…especially the rural ones.  It did help that as referenced in the prior point…the bulk of their defense expenses are borne by the US as part of the US-Japan Security alliance.

Would you say there are too many colleges as they have argued and that we should go back to the “golden days” of the early 1960’s and before when only the scions of the wealthy and maybe the top 5-10% of the smartest kids from the middle/working classes on scholarships/attending state/city schools were expected to go on to college with the rest expected to work whatever jobs they can get with a high school diploma?

I would say that the current system is unsustainable:

Credit card debt has contracted down from reaching close to $1 trillion because many have filed for bankruptcy and banks have written the debt off.  But with student loan debt, it just inches higher because this debt is permanent.  Like the toxic mortgage debt that pushed home values higher, we now have toxic student loan debt allowing students to pursue degrees even at paper mills for $20,000 a year or more.  Is it any wonder why these predatory institutions prey on students in targeted areas?  And that is only one segment of this shady market.  You also have people going to top ranked universities and getting degrees that provide little viable path to employment:

  “(Yahoo!) Today, however, Ms. Munna, a 26-year-old graduate of New York University, has nearly $100,000 in student loan debt from her four years in college, and affording the full monthly payments would be a struggle. For much of the time since her 2005 graduation, she’s been enrolled in night school, which allows her to defer loan payments.

  This is not a long-term solution, because the interest on the loans continues to pile up. So in an eerie echo of the mortgage crisis, tens of thousands of people like Ms. Munna are facing a reckoning. They and their families made borrowing decisions based more on emotion than reason, much as subprime borrowers assumed the value of their houses would always go up.

  Meanwhile, universities like N.Y.U. enrolled students without asking many questions about whether they could afford a $50,000 annual tuition bill. Then the colleges introduced the students to lenders who underwrote big loans without any idea of what the students might earn someday — just like the mortgage lenders who didn’t ask borrowers to verify their incomes.”

$100,000 in student loan debt from four years of study only!  This is pure madness.  Do we need to do a Real College Degrees of Genius series?  Now I have heard some say, “well when I went to school, I walked through the snow in shoes made of paper bags and worked to pay for my tuition.”  College costs have changed since that time and just like the housing bubble at its peak, even the crappiest home in the worst part of town was selling for a premium because everyone qualified for a toxic loan.  As things stand today in the student loan market, that is still the case with loans covering virtually any college.  And just like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the government subsidizes the bulk of student loans.  We even have nice old Sallie Mae.

  Credit card debt has contracted down from reaching close to $1 trillion because many have filed for bankruptcy and banks have written the debt off.  But with student loan debt, it just inches higher because this debt is permanent.  Like the toxic mortgage debt that pushed home values higher, we now have toxic student loan debt allowing students to pursue degrees even at paper mills for $20,000 a year or more.  Is it any wonder why these predatory institutions prey on students in targeted areas?  And that is only one segment of this shady market.  You also have people going to top ranked universities and getting degrees that provide little viable path to employment:

  “(Yahoo!) Today, however, Ms. Munna, a 26-year-old graduate of New York University, has nearly $100,000 in student loan debt from her four years in college, and affording the full monthly payments would be a struggle. For much of the time since her 2005 graduation, she’s been enrolled in night school, which allows her to defer loan payments.

  This is not a long-term solution, because the interest on the loans continues to pile up. So in an eerie echo of the mortgage crisis, tens of thousands of people like Ms. Munna are facing a reckoning. They and their families made borrowing decisions based more on emotion than reason, much as subprime borrowers assumed the value of their houses would always go up.

  Meanwhile, universities like N.Y.U. enrolled students without asking many questions about whether they could afford a $50,000 annual tuition bill. Then the colleges introduced the students to lenders who underwrote big loans without any idea of what the students might earn someday — just like the mortgage lenders who didn’t ask borrowers to verify their incomes.”

  $100,000 in student loan debt from four years of study only!  This is pure madness.  Do we need to do a Real College Degrees of Genius series?  Now I have heard some say, “well when I went to school, I walked through the snow in shoes made of paper bags and worked to pay for my tuition.” College costs have changed since that time and just like the housing bubble at its peak, even the crappiest home in the worst part of town was selling for a premium because everyone qualified for a toxic loan.  As things stand today in the student loan market, that is still the case with loans covering virtually any college.  And just like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the government subsidizes the bulk of student loans.  We even have nice old Sallie Mae.

A large part of this is the massive cuts in grants, scholarships, and actual financial aid provided by the Federal government and the schools themselves. 

Moreover, in the case of NYU undergrad with which I have some passing familiarity….their financial aid/scholarship policies has been one of the most stingiest my classmates and I have experienced.  If I had accepted NYU’s admissions offer with the paltry scholarships they offered me and other friends back in the mid-1990s, I’d be in the same fix as Ms. Munna even with that scholarship.  I’d still be paying around $23k/year to commute from home….and neither my family nor I had that kind of money laying around back then.  Many of those NYU classmates and friends are still paying back their undergrad loans today despite being out of college for a decade or more. 

I certainly wouldn’t take out massive loans for a school that while respectable, was certainly not considered a “top university” back then….especially when several older high school classmates and subsequent acquaintances and colleagues who graduated from NYU…including some from the 2005 class have complained about atrociously bad advising, large class sizes, and a massive unresponsive bureaucracy which treated you like a number.  In fact, nearly all of them said that if they’d had to do it over again, they would not have gone and said I made the right decision to reject their offer.  A few likened NYU undergrad as providing an education of a respectable state university at an Ivy league pricetag. 

The takeaway from NYU and schools like them is that they are also at fault for charging unjustifiably massive tuition while failing to provide even adequate financial aid and many basic services undergrads need to get through and graduate.