Education does not lift the working class, it destroys it!
That is not how it is normally portrayed, normally it is portrayed as education defeating poverty. The poor now being able to do anything they want with their life. It is a very Liberal way of looking and thinking about the world. The Liberal argues that education gives people choices, people are pretty much the same, including in intelligence so it is really about effort and desire. The working class have been given this amazing opportunity.
Before Liberalism, education was elitist and personal. They changed that, they introduced ‘free’ compulsory education. It did improve people’s quality of life and it did expand the ability of workers to work in more economic areas. They also made the people pay for their own education and called it free, they still do. But what they expected was a panacea, a universal answer to the troubles of the working class. That did not arrive, in fact it has never arrived, but that does not stop Liberals from expecting it to arrive. If you listen to teachers, teachers’ unions or teachers’ conferences, you will hear this belief spoken openly as if it is a universal truth. More education is always the answer, even when no one asked a question.
In the past fifty years Western governments have expanded education enormously. They did this to find employment for a rising middle class, they also did it to keep unemployment down. Automation is not a new problem, it is an old problem that is getting worse. As factories automated, as wages grew, as the power of unions increased, companies tried to find ways around these issues. They tried efficiency, they tried outsourcing and they tried to limit recruitment. This lead to a youth unemployment problem. One solution for the government was to keep young people in school longer. That also kept more middle class people employed. The promise was that more education would lead to better jobs. In effect the government was saying that they would eliminate the working class through education. Everyone would become middle class.
However there is a reason that different social classes exist and it’s not just because of how much money people get paid. Liberalism believes that people are equal, interchangeable. The truth is that people are unequal, they have different characters, abilities, intelligence. This fundamental truth is denied at every level by Liberals. They insist that everything is malleable, everything changes, particularly if they want it to change. They are absolutely blind to reality.
What this means is that they keep trying to make the unworkable work. If someone is doing worse than someone else there must be a reason. Not a reason rooted within human nature and ability, but a reason that allows for things to be malleable. Maybe the reason is racism, sexism, homophobia, maybe the reason is funding, maybe the reason is teacher quality, teacher numbers, not enough choice of subjects, too much choice. They always seek to find this elusive panacea.
For the working class this means that they are educated more than they need. I think about my own education and how much of it is useless knowledge. Sure I learnt a lot but I also learnt so much I have never used or even needed to know. But things I should have been taught I never was. Why is it that most people will take out a mortgage or a loan but hardly anyone is taught about it in school?
This over education has a quite negative effect upon the working class. The great strength of the working class has been the fact that it is based in the real world. It is its real world experience that give it character and strength. Education is not the real world, it is an artificial world with artificial values. It encourages people to overvalue themselves. This is a universal problem because education does not make you intelligent, it gives you knowledge. Intelligence, knowledge and wisdom are all different things. Jobs that were once standard when you had 6 years of education seem like a real letdown when you have 12. Everyone expects, not unreasonably, that they should have a better job than they would have had if they were not so educated. Employers cannot understand why no one wants basic jobs and the over educated want to know why they cannot get a decent job. The teachers might be happy, the government might be happy but their search for a panacea causes real world problems.
Which puzzles Liberals, how can it be that the working class isn’t advancing as it should be? What is wrong with these people? They have been given this amazing opportunity and they keep squandering it. Here is one of the big reason why Liberals have come to hate and despise the working class. They were presented with a chance to join the middle class and they blew it. One of the great conceits of the middle class is that it believes that everyone wants to be just like them. And that is not true at all.
How do we fix this problem?
Firstly, we need to stop pretending that education is a panacea.
Secondly, we need to create jobs for young people, teenagers, so that they can either leave school or do part-time school, part-time work.
Thirdly, we need to accept that work is the real world and that everyone needs to end up in the real world. Some need to be there much sooner than others.
Fourthly, we need to get men back into teaching in big numbers. Men want standards, discipline and they don’t want to mother. The feminine influence is now overpowering and we can all see the negative effects that this is having upon education.
Fifthly, schools need to have relationships with local businesses. For too long these two things have been kept apart, but part of the aim of school should be to prepare people for the time when they leave school. Some people start working and they love it, others learn that school is better and it can really improve their commitment. People should be recruited straight from school.
Over education is not a small issue, it distorts everything and it needs to end.
Originally published at Upon Hope. Mark Moncrieff’s Subscribestar can be found here.