“Education” is a word that covers a lot of very different
things, from vital, life-saving medical skills to frivolous courses
to absolutely counterproductive courses that fill people with a
sense of grievance and entitlement, without giving them either the
skills to earn a living or a realistic understanding of the world
required for a citizen in a free society.
The lack of realism among many highly educated people has been
demonstrated in many ways.
When I saw signs in Yellowstone National Park warning visitors
not to get too close to a buffalo, I realized that this was a
warning that no illiterate farmer of a bygone century would have
needed. No one would have had to tell him not to mess with a huge
animal that literally weighs a ton, and can charge at you at 30
miles an hour.
No one would have had to tell that illiterate farmer’s daughter
not to stand by the side of a highway, trying to hitch a ride with
strangers, as too many college girls have done, sometimes with
results that ranged all the way up to their death.
The dangers that a lack of realism can bring to many educated
people are completely overshadowed by the dangers to a whole
society created by the unrealistic views of the world promoted in
many educational institutions.
It was painful, for example, to see an internationally renowned
scholar say that what low-income young people needed was
“meaningful work.” But this is a notion common among educated
elites, regardless of how counterproductive its consequences may be
for society at large, and for low-income youngsters especially.
What is “meaningful work”?
The underlying notion seems to be that it is work whose
performance is satisfying or enjoyable in itself. But if that is
the only kind of work that people should have to do, how is garbage
to be collected, bed pans emptied in hospitals or jobs with
life-threatening dangers to be performed?
Does anyone imagine that firemen enjoy going into burning homes
and buildings to rescue people trapped by the flames? That soldiers
going into combat think it is fun?
In the real world, many things are done simply because they have
to be done, not because doing them brings immediate pleasure to
those who do them. Some people take justifiable pride in working to
take care of their families, whether or not the work itself is
great.
Some of our more Utopian intellectuals lament that many people
work “just for the money.” They do not like a society where A
produces what B wants, simply in order that B will produce what A
wants, with money being an intermediary device facilitating such
exchanges.
Some would apparently prefer a society where all-wise elites
would decide what each of us “needs” or “deserves.” The actual
history of societies formed on that principle — histories often
stained, or even drenched, in blood — is of little interest to
those who mistake wishful thinking for idealism.
At the very least, many intellectuals do not want the poor or
the young to have to take “menial” jobs. But people who are paying
their own money, as distinguished from the taxpayers’ money, for
someone to do a job are unlikely to part with hard cash unless that
job actually needs doing, whether or not that job is called
“menial” by others.
People who lack the skills to take on more prestigious jobs can
either remain idle and live as parasites on others or take the jobs
for which they are currently qualified, and then move up the ladder
as they acquire more experience. People who are flipping hamburgers
at McDonald’s on New Year’s Day are seldom flipping hamburgers
there when Christmas time comes.
Those relatively few statistics that follow actual
flesh-and-blood individuals over time show them moving massively
from one income bracket to another over time, starting at the
bottom and moving up as they acquire skills and experience.
Telling young people that some jobs are “menial” is a huge
disservice to them and to the whole society. Subsidizing them in
idleness while they wait for “meaningful work” is just asking for
trouble, both for them and for all those around them.
