"Over-Educated"?!

[filkertom]

So Sam Stein has an article about Obama's polling, which is also at Yahoo News so a good hunk of internet can see it. And the headline is:

Obama Still Loved By The Over-Educated

I guess I'm not over-educated, because I don't have enough Fuck Yous to lay on this twit.

But let's start: Fuck you.

The implication, of course, is that you can Know Too Much (and not in the spy-movie sense), that you can be too smart, that you somehow lose the Common Touch if you're too dang edjamacated, sniffin' lattes up in your ivory tower and lookin' down upon the poor common workin' man.

Fuck you fuck you.

It's all the same old song: the incessant propaganda, the new conventional wisdom, the dumbing down of America and the demonization of the elite. The notion that Them Educated Folks don't really know what to do.

Fuck you fuck you fuck you.

You know somethin'? That's correct, to an extent. Heck, I can point to a number of educated folks in the Obama Administration who can't find their own constituency with both hands and a flashlight. And it's so easy to bring up (in the retching, vomiting sense) most of the SCOTUS, John Woo, and the damn cadre of talking heads on Sunday talk shows.

Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you.

"Over-educated"? I wish to FSM that some of these bozos were "over-compassionate" or "overly-dedicated-to-serving-the-public" or even "over-truthful".

(David Broder had a beaut the other day: In a puff piece about how gosh-darn wonderful John "Box Turtle Love" Cornyn is, the Dean wrote:

Until Tuesday, he was the spokesman for an embattled minority, staring up at a 60-vote behemoth of 58 Democrats and two independents fond of flexing its supermajority muscles and driving the opposition into the ground.

I would like to know what the fuck planet Broder is on, where the Dems and their supermajority didn't fold every time the Repubs (or one of the Blue Dog Dems) said anything. On that planet, we've already got universal health care, the financial institutions have been nationalized and are lending again, the health insurance industry has been gutted and put in its place, DADT and DOMA are swiftly-fading memories, and we're working on infrastructure and creating jobs again.

No, on Broder World the Dems have been striding the earth and swatting down plaintive cries for sanity from the caring, concerned Republican minority.

Fuck. You.)

The phrase "over-educated" shouldn't even exist. The fact that someone writing for an organization devoted to informing people came up with it is embarrassing. And it's all another reason why you should find out as much as you can, educate yourself as much as you can, or they'll try to make bullshit like that the Conventional Wisdom.

Any particular offenses the Corpulent Vichy Media have annoyed you with lately?

Comments

[ladystarblade.livejournal.com]

What? What? You mean it's a bad thing to be intelligent?

There's no such thing as 'over-educated', and it's a indicator of how bad things have gotten that I'd settle for 'able-to-string-more-than-six-words-together-coherently.'

Great googly moogly. This is almost as bad as the commenters on CNN.com...now some of those people have all the brains and heart of a Cheez Doodle.

[talonvaki.livejournal.com]

This. It's basically the "brainy guy or girl acting stupid and failing things to be more popular in school" syndrome on a national scale.

No such thing as being over-educated, sorry. Of course, most of the people who think there is such a thing...aren't.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I agree about those guys on cnn.com. I saw an editorial today about how Dems should COMPROMISE. My first thought was, "What the fuck do you think we were doing this past year?" My second thought was, "Doesn't compromise mean that the other side has to make concessions TOO?" Those are the kind of people who want America to fail just so they can blame the Dems.

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

"The job market is improving" the week I was let go. This week.

And over-educated is a ridiculous construct, which at least half the country will agree with, unfortunately.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Seems to me you just nailed the big one. The whole fiction that the big problem with the Federal Government is "no bipartisanship" because BOTH parties are equally at fault, and that the Dems have been ignoring conservatives...as opposed to the Dems pre-emptively throwing down their overwhelming advantage to negotiate endlessly with people who will never EVER stop denouncing them as the Devil incarnate.

Second, and tied in with the above, is the general media tendency to filter their presentation so that:

1. It's presented as news only if it sells copy, boosts ratings, etc.; not because people need to know it;

2. It's presented as fact if large numbers of people say it. The more people say it, the louder they say it, and the more fervently they believe it, the truer it is. Therefore, e.g, Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11, Terri Schiavo verbally begged to be released from her murderous captors in hospice care; global climate change and the harmfulness of tobacco are controversiedsopen to two-sided debate; the elevation of Caligula's horse Sarah Palin and Glen Beck to "expert spokesperson" status is something other than a gross gesture of contempt for the nation's intelligence and dignity.....

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

And another thing, if everybody with a talk show or a blog or a bar stool or a soapbox is an expert, then nobody is an expert, and the people least likely to believe are the ones who have actually studied the problem at hand and know what they're talking about.

See: Idiot America, by Charles R. Pierce.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

"Over-educated" is a term used by the under-educated to indicate that they know they're not capable or willing to make the effort to equal the achievement of the person they're denigrating.

Too bad so many of them are in places of power and influence.

As to media dreck, Balloon Juice points at this one: The panelists responding to the SOTU for the New York Times included Jeff Shesol (a speechwriter to President Bill Clinton); Lisa Schiffren (a speechwriter to Vice President Dan Quayle); Alan Schroeder (journalism professor); William F. Gavin (a speechwriter to President Richard Nixon[!]); and fscking Jonah Goldberg. Talk about throwing your credibility as a media outlet out the window...

[umbran.livejournal.com]

"Over-educated" is a term used by the under-educated to indicate that they know they're not capable or willing to make the effort to equal the achievement of the person they're denigrating.

The #1 way to perpetuate divisions is to not recognize their root sources. Lack of capability of will? Please, our education system is not in anywhere near good enough shape to claim that lack of education is clearly a lack of motivation or ability on the student's part.

If your parent's are not wealthy, and you don't happen to live in a place with a decent public school system, you may be pretty much hosed - how capable or willing you are doesn't matter much if you cannot afford to go where the capability and will can be put to use.

And, if you are one of those folks who has not gotten the opportunity, resentment is sure to follow. And, darn straight the typical human behavior when you are a "have not" is to assert that having isn't all it is cracked up to be. You're over-educated, right? You know the Fox and the Grapes goes back to Aesop, right? Nothing new here.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

It was a very common belief when I was growing up, and I see no signs that it's gone away around here: that "book-larnin'" is completely useless for day-to-day life, and indeed runs contrary to the practical knowledge required to actually get things done. Put another way: the more education you have, the more stupid you are.

Granted, there are academics who, to frame it as Scott Adams did, "are authorities on economics and capitalism but dress like a flood victim." There are people so obsessed with education that they throw what is called common sense out the window. There is just enough validity to the rural, ignorant belief in "book-smart, work-dumb" to make it difficult to refute.

I even coined a word for the concept once, based on a mis-hearing of a line in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. When Roger has his big moment confronting Judge Doom, he says, "We toons may act idiotic, but we're not stupid." I always, always heard that as, "We toons are bibliotic." Hence, bibliotic, bibliot, bibliocy- referring to stupidity through over-reliance on book-learning over practical knowledge and experience.

One other note: I put down a massive chunk of the problem to an education system that deliberately avoids teaching critical thinking. (This is not accidental; the current Texas state school board, as part of their radical conservative rewrite of the state curriculum, is stripping critical thinking entirely from the public educational system.) Rote learning is the focus, to the exclusion of all else: "It is so, because I say so." This teaches the young to obey authority without question.

So, when you point to X study and say, "We have to change because of this," these people will reply, "Well, Y that I heard on Fox News says the opposite, so what's the difference?" Pointing out that X study was done over several years by scientists specifically trained in researching the subject cuts no ice with them. To them the scientists are no more credible than the talking head on Fox who wrote Y at two in the morning while halfway through a bottle of Chivas Regal- and Fox got to them first, and much more often repeated.

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

Dear gods, do NOT get me started on the Texas Education Standards. I spent the last three years in textbook publishing, and everything for Texas had to be dumbed down and changed form thinking to rote learning through memorization.

I am a strong supporter of removing states' rights to impose education standards. We do not need to teach the pros and cons to the theory of evolution, we need to teach evolution, world history and critical thinking. Oh, and essay writing would be nice as well. I was appalled at how few college students could write a simple three-page thesis paper.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

the current Texas state school board, as part of their radical conservative rewrite of the state curriculum, is stripping critical thinking entirely from the public educational system.

This raises an interesting set of questions.

Does education create bibliots?

Are bibliots creating a system which fosters stupidity?

Is the school board partly made up of people who believe that public education doesn't work trying to destroy it to prove their case? (It's what I call "engineless car" logic. "A car is useless, and to prove it, I'm going to drive this car without an engine!")

Are people who believe that bibliots exist trying to fix that, and breaking things in the process?

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

Pointing out that X study was done over several years by scientists specifically trained in researching the subject cuts no ice with them.

I used to be a journalist, and this just drives me UP A WALL. The idea that "fair, objective" journalism means 'giving both sides the same talk time even if one is batshit, crazy, or just wrong' bothers me--journalists are supposed to find the truth, not the middle ground. When Murrow called out McCarthy, of course it was biased, but it was necessary. Pretending that the crazy person with a megaphone has just as much validity as the person who's actually done research is...well, offensive, on many levels. I was a journalist, now I'm an academic. (Fittingly, I'm staying not far from Speakers Corner in Hyde Park right now--you can always find people spouting off there, but they don't get to go on Fox News.)

[dbcooper.livejournal.com]

You make some excellent points here. (I apologize if you're expecting a "However..." here, as one will not be forthcoming).

I especially like the term "bibliot," even though I also agree that education in and of itself is never a bad thing. As you point out, it's critical thinking that's crucial.

As to FOX News, those who watch it religiously are a bit like smokers. Their bad habit hurts other people.

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

"Over-Educated" is a phrase that should be removed from the English language, along with words like "nigger."

The only place this phrase should be used is in humor. For example, "Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes" is rather amusing. (Roughly translated from Latin, it reads, "If you can read this, you're over educated.")

[erisianagnostic.livejournal.com]

There's a documentary called the "N" Word. Now this is a totally tangential argument, but a case is made that erasing the word N from our vocabulary, pretending it doesn't exist, is tantamount to erasing the word "Nazi" from our vocabulary when discussing the history of Judaism. They also make the case that thanks to hip hop, the word has been rendered virtually impotent, much as Lenny Bruce once predicted.
Over Educated is simply a mutually exclusive term, like Military Intelligence.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I agree about how there's really no such thing as "over-educated" unless you WANT to keep people from asking questions. It's easier to control people who don't ask questions.

But I have to point out that an "academic elite" is equally misleading. According to the dictionary elitism is:

The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources.

And I'm not seeing that from academia. What I am seeing are the people who are actually educated on a subject and know what they are talking about actually acting like it. If you know 2+2=4 and someone else thinks 2+2=3 you're not an elitist for pointing that out. But if the idea that 2+2=3 is popular, suddenly YOU'RE the bad guy.

Where I'm seeing the elitism is on the conservative side who think they're the only patriots in this country. The people who think it's fascist to teach science in science class and not religion. The kind of people who whine about socialism when it's suggested that businesses need regulation to keep them from getting "too big to fail". The people who harass women and abuse drugs but refuse to accept the consequences of their actions. The people who put their political and religious loyalties above their duties.

Those are the biggest threats to freedom and the nation.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

It's that word "belief" that's throwing the equation off. I, personally, would like to have the people in charge know what they're talking about and what they're doing. I realize some folks can't sell their particular agendas, buffalo the public, and scrape as much profit as possible that way, and I feel their pain. No I don't. Fuck 'em.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

Tom, I think the people you cite (SCOTUS etc) are actually "under-educated." While all humans possess the capacity for compassion and empathy and (I guess) a basic idea of what morality should be, I believe it is education, at the formative stages of childhood, that develops these things and teaches us how to use them and (more importantly) not to be able to ignore them. Clearly this important stage of education has been neglected where the judges and the talking heads and others such are concerned. Unfortunately, once that's been missed, it's much harder to do it later on (though not impossible), and all the other stuff education can give them will not make up for that lack.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Makes sense to me.

On Being Over-Educated

[ldyerzsie.livejournal.com]

Recently, on a newsgroup, during a discussion of grammar pet peeves, the comment made to me was, "Oh, you're one of THOSE people." As if having an education so I can know better and apply that knowledge was a bad thing.

Of course, I have also been turned down for jobs just for having a degree when I was first out of college.

Re: On Being Over-Educated

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Overqualified != overeducated, although in some cases people might conflate them. Generally, "overqualified" is applied in terms of job qualifications. It's often used to reject candidates that might command too high a salary (e.g., a senior engineer in a trainee spot), but it's about the completed schooling, not the actual knowledge or bearing of the candidate. (Usually :-)

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

the demonization of the elite.

I want to raise a point here. You're talking about the demonization of the intellectual elite, which I, as one of the over-educated, ivory-tower cloud-cuckoo-landers, oppose. (Excuse me a moment; I appear to have dripped sarcasm all over your LJ. I'll mop it up.)

I reserve my option to speak poorly of the social elite, by which I mean the people who do not need to be qualified, skilled, talented, or smarter than a box of rocks to end up in a position of power. A member of the social elite simply needs to know somebody, or be related to somebody, in order to run something.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Fair point.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

No comment here other than ominous growling...

Seriously, if they think ignorance is such a damn virtue, then they can damn well try living without the benefits of modern life brought to them by educated folks, like engineers, doctors, scientists etc etc etc...

Grrrrr.... Goram thick skulled mundane hicks! We should leave them to it, then see how they manage!

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

One of the things I've been saying the past couple of years: Let the hyper-religious nutbars secede. And then charge 'em 500 times the going rate for tech support.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

That...God, I don't even know. Except that I do, because I'm a PhD student and so many people think that means 'slacker', like I work my ass off for the privelege of taking out student loans because I just can't be bothered to go get a 'real' job.

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

I am -- speechless.

But I don't think that this is necessarily new. I refer you to the expression "Jacksonian democracy", which seems to mean spitting 'baccy juice in the carpets. Sadly, it does seem American.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

And in the Jackson campaign, he was lauded as a raw and rough frontiersman -- and his opponent sneered at as a pasty-faced Collidge Boy.

Their great-great-great-great-great grandchildren were the Republicans who sneered at the fact that Bill Clinton was being defended by "professors."

Unfortunately, anti-intellectualism is a traditional American value.

But after 8 years of being ruled by a Regular Guy, I'm fucking grateful to have a smart Harvard professor running things around here these days.

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

"Over-educated" is hardly a new concept, though it might be a new way of phrasing the old crap idea. The common man has always claimed to be oppressed by those who don't share the common values, live the common life. Now, of course, we're all supposed to value the lowest common denominator as the highest good. It isn't new, it isn't even surprising. It is what it has always been: sad.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

It's just human nature, I'm afraid. People are afraid of getting outsmarted and tricked.

Now if you can find someone smarter than you whom you know you can trust, you've got it made.

Take my friend Edward, he's probably the most intelligent and educated person I've ever met, and I trust him... But that's mostly due to the fact that I know I have nothing worth the effort of him tricking me out of.

[dbcooper.livejournal.com]

My father used to say that there's a big difference between "intelligent" and "smart."

Nixon, for example, was by all accounts highly intelligent. He did many things, however, that were not at all smart.

Education is only as good as its application. However, education by itself is still a very good and necessary thing. We need it--all of us--not to tell us what to think, as Sam Stein seems to believe, but how to think, and think well.

I don't consider myself overeducated. I consider myself overqualified. Instead of doing tech support for a living, I should be counterwriting Sam Steins. And probably Ben Stein too, but he's counterwritten himself.