Education

[quote=”Michael D,. McCaffrey”]Charles Murray’s idea of education is that of a giant job placement bureau apparently existing to train workers rather than educate humans.  The confusion he experiences between training and education says everything about the economic engine which purports to drive society. It’s not about credentialing and competence, it’s about understanding.  Let Mr. Murray understand that the purposes of education include job training and getting rich, but the essence of it is self understanding which leads to improved life quality. Some of us want a world of people who read books, appreciate art and music and love mankind. The workplace is vital, but not necessarily central to education.[/quote]

Surely we WSJ readers would love a world like Mr McCaffrey describes. Unfortunately, the natural aptitude of most of those that now follow an accredited college education, supposedly in pursuit of that noble goal, is too low to support that world. Their being in college mostly serves to fill the pockets of those that stick to a utopian worldview (like Mr McCaffrey) that is very far removed from reality on the ground. These people would be much happier, in less debt, and wonderfully prepared by a more practical schooling that teaches discipline, conscientiousness and actual skills instead of postmodern banter, and fills the pockets of the individuals in question rather than those of the church of Professors and their lackeys.

Unfortunately, the cult of the expert that the bourgeois socialist revolution of angry spoiled kids of the 60s and 70s has spawned has destroyed most of that once well-functioning system across the Western world.

Lucky for us, the market doesn’t lie, and as long as higher education has to be paid for by those who pursue it instead of the productive tax-payer the reality of high debts and low pay-off will serve as a safety valve that prevents our descend into a European-like academic cultism that dramatically stifles the flexibility of our society to deal with real change, the creative destruction of the marketplace.