Please help out a fellow Kossack!
This is a piece I wrote for the Johns Hopkins newsletter. I plan on submitting it later this week. I'm looking for feedback concerning the facts [not opinions] contained within, as well as any grammatical errors.
My main concerns/questions are:
Am I equating 'intellectualism' and 'education' too much, and is this hurting my point?
Should I give more examples? I feel most of my pieces are example-heavy, and this is the exact opposite.
Am I taking two different paths and not connecting them enough (lack of education in America and anti-intellectualism)?
Thanks for any feedback!!!
Update: I've made several changes since the first draft to reflect many of the criticisms in the comments section. Thank you all so much for extremely constructive and useful notes and criticisms. This is always the first place I come with my articles, and I feel like they're as well received as they are because of the help I get here.
My father once told me that his grandparents came to this country so that their children could have a better life than they did. Part of this dream - the 'American Dream' - was that their children would receive a higher quality of education. His parents expected it of him, my parents expected it of me, and I will expect it from my children (and I'll help them get it by not sending them to a school that gives them gray hair at 21).
The American Dream has fundamentally changed since then. Being successful is no longer contingent on your quality of education or the knowledge you possess. And in many ways, this is good. Many professions do not require higher education for a person to excel; for some, success isn't defined by your ability to hit the books, but your ability to achieve what makes you happy.
But something has changed beyond this. Education isn't just viewed as unnecessary anymore - it's the enemy. Scientists and intellectuals have become antagonists in the political debate, where an increasing divide between 'us' and 'them' is often being defined by one's curriculum vitae. As David Brooks wrote, "The nation is divided between the wholesome Joe Sixpacks in the heartland and the oversophisticated, overeducated, oversecularized denizens of the coasts."
Voters don't want a Harvard elitist representing them, they want a political figure who is just like them.
Just like them? First let's define exactly who we are as a country. In 2009, we reported a 69% high school graduation rate with a 16% dropout rate. We consistently rank with slipping and embarrassing numbers as far as math, science, and problem solving abilities. We have become mediocre, and many of us expect it not just from ourselves, but from our politicians.
Anti-intellectualism is not new in this country. William F. Buckley, once considered the voice of American conservatism, said in 1963, "I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University." Both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush employed tactics of anti-intellectualism to distance themselves from the elitism associated with intellectualism. Even during the founding of our nation, intellectuals were accused of being unfit for public office because they "valued deliberation more highly than action."
Never before, however, has this 'ideal' been pursued so vociferously as it is currently being pursued by conservative politicians.
The Tea Party movement exists because of the exploitation of the meme that Washington politics is increasingly 'out of touch' with the rest of the country. The movement's princess, Christine O'Donnell, is the personification of their anti-intellectual attitude toward this November's election. Although largely a non-issue herself (her opponent, Chris Coons, holds a 16 point lead), her most recent campaign ad verbalizes what her conservative colleagues have been trying to convey since the 2008 election.
She states that she'll "go to Washington and do what you'd do", with the slogan of the ad clearly being, "I'm you".
She's me? I certainly hope not.
I know nothing about foreign policy. Hell, you could group me with those Americans who couldn't point out Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan on a map (though I could make an educated guess). I hardly know a thing about climate change or stem cell research. And when my friends talk economics, I just chew louder.
I may not rank among the 31% of Americans who don't possess a high school diploma, but I am in no way qualified to be a senator. Even I wouldn't vote for me.
But this is the trend in conservative American politics. We don't want an educated intellectual in office; we want a schmuck off the street. A plumber named Joe. A person out of the telephone book. It's not about what you know, it's about what you don't know.
Science, once viewed as virtually an American trademark, led to the industrial revolution and gave us modern medicine and much of our powerful defense industry. Yet now even climatologists and evolutionary biologists have become suspect, with most conservative candidates denying the existence of man-made climate change and many of them denying the existence of evolution.
Now, I admitted to not knowing much about global climate change myself, but isn't there a certain level of hypocrisy afoot here? We trust our doctors with our health because of their education. We trust engineers with the airplanes in which we fly because of their education. We trust chemists with the medicine we take because of their education. What is the cause of this distrust toward climate scientists and evolutionary biologists, and if we're going to attack them for trying to tell us how to live, can I call my doctor an intellectual elitist for telling me to rest my knee for 6-8 weeks?
We now live in a country where 'educated' is synonymous with 'elitist' (or 'aletist', as an anti-intellectual friend of mine once wrote), and the two are demonized as if the latte-drinking Mac-loving religion-hating atheist educated elitists (read: liberals) of this country exist only to tell the rest of us how to live, what to think, what to eat, and what to believe.
Misinformation is rampant in our discourse, but we are encouraged not to seek the knowledge to mitigate it. A friend of mine recently sent me a chain email he received from his father about a questionable provision in the health care law. A simple Google search demonstrated that the entire issue was outright false. But why should we find out the truth for ourselves when we can be content with sound bites and logically-devoid demagoguery? Why expect the best for ourselves when mediocrity works just fine?
Because it doesn't. Financial success is linked to education, with individuals possessing a Bachelor's degree earning over 75% more than high school graduates. College graduates are also 20% more likely to have access to a pension plan than high school graduates, ensuring them a better chance of well being after retirement. Regions with high proportions of college graduates report lower crime rates and higher rates of informed civic participation. Higher levels of education are also shown to have positive correlation with socially valued behaviors such as volunteering and voting.
There is no doubt that possessing a higher level of education is beneficial to both the individual and society as a whole. Conservatives need to stop equating intellectualism and education with elitism and recognize that these are not qualities to demonize but to encourage. And conservative politicians need to accept that we expect the best citizens of our country to be making our policies. That includes the most well-informed, the best educated, and the greatest problem solvers.
I wouldn't want me on the Senate floor. So I'm not going to vote for someone who's "just like me".