The Graduate: Why Should Everyone Else Pay for Other People’s Dumb (and Hedonistic) Career Choices
I’ve recently made the acquaintance of a young man who has a problem. He is 28 years old; smart, of good moral character, and willing to work hard at part-time jobs. He does not expect anyone else, including the government, to support him. Yet he is puzzled and increasingly bitter that he cannot make a good living.
What’s his difficulty? It’s not the economy (in this specific case) but the fact that he has a degree in linguistics and is now studying Oriental philosophy at a fine university. His case is not altogether typical, but is immensely revealing.
Here’s the secret: He cannot make a living because the market for people with degrees in linguistics and in Oriental philosophy is limited. He should have known that. Someone should have told him that. The calculation of practicality should have been made. It wasn’t.
As I said, this individual does not want handouts and he has not taken student loans. Many others have. A large proportion of the Occupy Wall Street-and-other-places movement seems to consist of those who have made similar “career” (or non-career) decisions but want others to pay for their pastimes and mistakes.
There are at least three important lessons here of the greatest importance.
First, young people should be taught, as the old saying goes, that the world doesn’t owe them a living. Nothing could seem more obvious, yet this has largely been forgotten. This is especially true in the United States, a country whose prosperity was built on understanding this point. Of course, telling them that the world does owe them a living can be rather popular and lead to one’s election to public office.
Despite the rhetoric employed, the current dominant idea in the United States seems to be not so much that the “rich” (and, in practice, the middle class) have to pay “their fair share” to those who are starving to death in rat-infested squatter camps (of whom there aren’t many), but that they must subsidize upper middle class people who are non-productive yet living very nice lives, often better lives than those who are hard-working and subsidizing them. Those to be subsidized include those who want to work in cushy, unproductive, useless but prestigious jobs but cannot find them, or those who want to work in cushy, unproductive, useless but prestigious jobs and do find them working directly or indirectly for the government, supposedly doing good things.
Indeed, the siphoning off of potentially useful citizens who might possibly engage in some economically productive activity (insert lawyer jokes if you wish) into all sorts of made-up and useless jobs is bleeding society. The problem is not the economic elite’s greed, but the oversized “intellectual” greed. Why do you think university tuitions have skyrocketed?
Know this for sure: a lot of these latter people (in contrast to the former group) do not work very hard and their work is of low quality, in large part because they don’t have to meet serious oversight and their “products” don’t bear any real value. In other words, their main achievement each day is to have good conversations over lunch.
Since when have Americans fallen for the idea that government bureaucrats are so useful and productive that the answer to their problems is to have more such people?
Terrorist attack? Create a giant Homeland Security office so people can write each other memos. Improve education or the environment? Raise the budget of the Department of Education or the Environmental Protection Agency.
Being unable to find a job is quite understandable in the current economy. Being unable to find a job because you have made decisions resulting in your having no qualification for a job and making no attempt to do so is something else entirely.
Glorifying the kinds of jobs that — at this point in history — make things worse, not better, is suicidal.
Second, the mistaken idea has taken root — and been encouraged by the federal government by making loans even more available — that everyone should go to college and even get money for doing so no matter what they want to study. I received a small scholarship to study Arabic at a time when that was deemed to be a strategic need of the United States (that was a wise decision), but I wouldn’t have received one to study “conflict management” or some other useless made-up subject.
All too often I see too many young people trying to get into my field when they lack not only the personal qualifications but the needed willingness to make an effort. The university education they have received gets in the way of their understanding reality just as the proliferation of jargon makes them incapable of writing clearly, or — indeed — of having anything useful to say. At one point, we took on ten interns after making it clear that hard work could lead to employment. Nine of them did almost nothing despite the opportunity offered.
Masses of people with degrees decide that they should be writers, policy analysts, and academics (especially the kind who indoctrinate rather than teach anything truthful) far more than the numbers ever conceivably needed to fill these professions. And you can imagine what the political worldview of 90 percent of them is. Those who don’t find jobs are bitter that the capitalist economy has “failed.” Those who do find jobs will spend their career telling this to their students.
The governing idea of all this nonsense: Everyone who wants some elite, non-economically productive job should get one. This of course is a worldview that fits their “class interest.” That’s followed by the idea that any society which doesn’t perform this task is “unfair.” Massive deficits follow.
And after that comes the idea that the job of government is to take money from those who do something useful in order to pay not to those who cannot earn a living because of intense poverty, disease or other affliction, but rather to those who don’t want to do so because they have been crippled by miseducation and excessively high education.
After all, where do the new jobs come from for the highly trained experts in all these new fields? A surprising number are supported by George Soros. In some cases there are foundation grants and donations, but those are going to be limited. So the answer is: from the government. Either they could go for a government job or a government-subsidized job, or a job based on a government grant. Hence the political base for Barack Obama and the left-pretending-to-be-liberal among these people.
That’s why politics have been flipped: we aren’t seeing a radical proletariat resenting rich fat-cats, but a conservative mass of working people resenting rich fat-bureaucrats and government-paid people they subsidize at higher living standards than their own.
A recent study of a specific public school system shows that more and more money is spent and people hired, but the proportion of actual teachers has gone down. Businesses are stuffed with people whose jobs are rather undefinable in terms of real productivity. Officials or consulting firms teaching you how to be politically correct or how to comply with government regulations seem to proliferate without end.
Fewer people invent, make, or sell things. More and more make sure that those making or selling things have the right ethnic mix, air and water quality, number of bathrooms per square feet, and so on. A friend of mine who runs a school has to use a huge amount of his limited funds to pay someone’s full-time salary to fill out government forms. In military terms, the tail gets bigger and the teeth get smaller.
Or, to put it another way, the horse gets thinner; the rider gets heavier. The outcome is obvious.
Don’t get me wrong. If you have a profound passion for art, literature, or other such things, go for it. But be aware of what’s likely to happen afterward. There is nothing nobler than for people to engage in hobbies, pastimes, and cultural activities. The explosion in leisure time has made this possible; the Internet is glorious in unleashing talent. My 12-year-old son took me on a tour of YouTube showing the comedy, musical, animation, and other artistry that sometimes attracts hundreds of thousands of viewers.
Internet video is like television in its early period during the 1950s. Some of these people are making a living because they are either good or they are providing what a lot of people want (not necessarily the same thing); others are having fun and expressing their inner needs. And few of these people have any expensive professional training.
Third, and that’s precisely the point. Studying the social sciences and humanities, not to mention all of the phony degree programs that have sprung up, does not make one employable, nor does a degree have written on it “hire this person at a high salary.” Even as they charge more, universities — especially certain departments in them — are creating neither qualified professionals nor serious intellectuals.
Get a useful education, a job, and a hobby in that order. And don’t expect the hardworking people, who have had to make compromises in their own lives, to pay for you to do whatever you want.
Don’t universities still offer minors and double major programs? I did a double major, one in science the other in a humanity related program. It can be a great boost to a resume for competative professional or graduate programs to have a certificate or second degree in something like history, music, or some other non related field while maybe spending one more year or attending summer sessions.
It is very tough for young people trying to start out today. An interesting minor can make an applicant stand out in a positive way. There are also certain critical thinking skills you might not get from a standard degree in computer science or chemistry that will pay off in the real world.
You made a couple of very good points here, Spindok. Employers used to look *very* favorably on the balance you describe in formal education (or experience) in new grads. I imagine that they still do.
This is precisely why carefully tailored Interdisciplinary Studies programs (with emphasis, of course) are becoming ever more popular right now. In today’s world you just can’t put all your eggs in one basket. Personally, I think Oriental Philosophy sounds pretty fascinating, however, to get a decent paying job in that area alone you’d probably have to wait for some professor to die and we all know how long they tend to stay on (another topic).
A good Liberal Arts education is what, I feel, is lacking today. We don’t need a bunch of worker drones trained to perform a task. We need a thinking creative populace who can synthesize information.
I also think we need to be careful about delegitimizing such disciplines as Classical Studies (for example). Someone, something, somewhere, has to be the possessor of this knowledge. Otherwise it will die, and that can’t be allowed to happen because some corn husker thinks that’s just stuff for them liberal elites.
I agree completely! I think you should hire several Classical Studies graduates to do, ummm, whatever they do. Go reinvigorate that economy!!111!
This is precisely why carefully tailored Interdisciplinary Studies programs (with emphasis, of course) are becoming ever more popular right now.
In less reverent terms, such programs are factories for skill-free dilettantes. They’re bullshit artists, and must climb the ladder by sycophancies and connections, rather than by producing goods and services for the general public. All too often they’re aiming for ‘jobs’ in which they gain authority over productive businesses, merely to regulate them by erecting ever-increasing legal hoops to jump through.
“Interdisciplinary Studies programs” are rarely crafted with thought about employability, but always crafted with thought about what might be interesting. I don’t think I’d hire someone whose only resume item was a degree that they created for themselves.
Better good cornhuskers than bad graduates in Classical Studies.
People by corn, and they eat it.
*buy*
Cynical Wonder: So, we should be actualizing their paradigm to maximize diversification of abstract development?
with indubitableness!
“This is precisely why carefully tailored Interdisciplinary Studies programs (with emphasis, of course) are becoming ever more popular right now.”
Well, that, plus they’re a cakewalk and leave you vital time for partying.
“A good Liberal Arts education is what, I feel, is lacking today.”
A liberal arts education, fine. Not graduates who majored in liberal arts.
“We don’t need a bunch of worker drones trained to perform a task. We need a thinking creative populace who can synthesize information.”
I know a guy who was a freelance carpenter for a few decades. He switched to cattle ranching. He’s a pretty old guy now. An old guy with a few million in the bank. No college education. Just a ton of hard work and countless nights and weekends spent out working and away from his family. He’s the kind of person these worthless OWSers feel owe them a college education.
“I also think we need to be careful about delegitimizing such disciplines as Classical Studies (for example). Someone, something, somewhere, has to be the possessor of this knowledge. Otherwise it will die, and that can’t be allowed to happen because some corn husker thinks that’s just stuff for them liberal elites.”
Bull. I can call up enless information about any subject, work or figure in classical studies in printed, audio or video lecture form with a few keystrokes. All thanks to information systems graduates like myself. Not sure if you noticed, but Classical Studies isn’t really a field with a growing body of knowledge. The stuff we know is pretty much the stuff we are ever going to know about it, and it’s all been thoroughly cataloged and indexed on all the search engines. You can probably fit the whole thing on one of the next generation of thumb drives (at least the print/photos version…maybe have to wait a bit for video). The same goes for “women’s studies”, “gender studies”, “black studies”, and, yes, “Chinese Philosophy”. Even the master’s course I’m nearly done with in Education is about 3/4 BS, and most of the other 1/4 is either very simple to pick up or of questionable utility.
On the other hand, huge advances are being made all the time in computers, software, a hundred different flavors of engineering, materials, chemistry, physics, biology and other actual useful areas that require a sharp mind, adaptability, a certain level of innate talent and a whole lot of WORK.
While I agree that a good interdisciplinary studies program should be a degree requirement from ALL colleges and universities, I disagree that employers look for or prefer candidates who majored in something useful and minored in nonsense. I am in HR and ALWAYS prefer a candidate who majored in something directly related to the job requirements, and if they minored in something ELSE the job requires, or would be useful to my company, they will be a preferred candidate. Frankly, I WOULD like to see the BS curricula disappear from our colleges and universities. Things like Oriental Philosophy and Feminist Studies, etc., can be pursued in one’s free time. Heck, if you’re really passionate about it, set up your own website with a reading list and a blog for “intellectual” discussion. Even the Classics can be studied without the assistance of an overpaid, underworked “professor” to guide you.
That knowledge won’t die because the last PhD of Classical Studies dies. We have writing now, and if we really need to know about Greek pottery from the 5th century BCE, we can look it up.
There is no finer source of critical thinking skills than the lab portion of a chemistry course- provided the experiments have a reasonable chance of danger if the instructions are not followed.
I did a double major with biology and philosophy. It ended up being a very useful combination for the practice of medicine. I think the intersection of any two (seemingly) unrelated fields is where the really interesting stuff lies.
Sometimes.
Well, the quickest route to being an expert in the field is to establish a field no one else is in.
Worked for me!
Colleges and universities do still offer majors and minors–my daughter majored in anthropology with an eye to teaching in college and minored in computer science. Teaching required a MA and computer science paid better anyway–so she had her “balanced” education and also an employable skill.
Mr Rubin….
Here’s another one of your terse observations that should be deeply carved into the lintel of every doorway in our Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.:
“Of course, telling them that the world does owe them a living can be rather popular and lead to one’s election to public office.”
Affixed at both ends of that incised temptation-reminder should be a medieval-style horned gargoyle with a great long forked tongue sticking straight out from a flaming mouth. Perhaps some way could be found to waft a faint trace of sulphur in the entryway.
Dante is a useful source of variations on this theme.
Hellfire won’t scare the kids in self-esteem movements, but deprogramming. In today’s elite universities and those who copy them, “puritanism” is scorned. We can thank the Progressive movement and the left in general for this pampering that Barry Rubin rightly deplores. See http://clarespark.com/2011/12/02/the-whiteness-of-the-whale/.
Today every young person is special. The result of that specialness can be observed in the occupy movement. Their expectations were fostered by telling them during their growing up years how great they are, that competition is not useful, nobody loses nobody wins, and everybody receives a trophy for trying. 2+2=5, you get an A for trying.
It is true that youths should be praised for “trying” more than the “results”. A non-genius kid who works very, very hard in school should be celebrated, even if they are only capable of getting C’s. BUT:
A) They should be praised for TRYING. Hard work should be rewarded and praised. What people are doing these days is praising everybody regardless of merit or lack thereof.
B) The kid who works super hard but only gets C’s needs to be calmly told what their realistic prospects are for the future professionally. They just also need to be told that their worth is not defined by their grades or their paychecks.
Self-glorification and self-entitlement attitudes, meanwhile, are poison.
Great article. Work is simply the price all organisms have to pay for being alive. Took me a while to learn the lesson but when I did, my life improved enormously.
I have this phony-baloney half-a-theory about how our culture and economy have trained people to become EITHER professional producers or professional consumers, with nothing left in between. Music, art, science – they’re products, not activities. If you can purchase the best products of music, art, and science at Wal Mart, if your own activities will never give rise to products of the same quality, then why bother to do music, art, or science on your own? Just consume the product. Let the specialists get on with the production.
On the flipside, we have people who DO want to be producers but who are trained to think that the only “legitimate” way to do that is to do it professionally – to dedicate their entire lives to music, art, or science to the exclusion of everything else, to be recognized and accepted in the “music world” or the “art world” or to be published in the scientific journals – and to get paid for it. People who might otherwise be happy sketching trees in the back yard or playing with the local band on weekends think they need to go professional or there’s no point. The culture of music/art criticism doesn’t help, either. Hence the puppeteer who desperately needs a degree in puppetry from a major university and is crushed when he discovers the actual need for full-time, professional puppetters in the job market. And he thinks “Jim Henson did it, why can’t I? It’s not fair!” And he joins OWS.
Obviously, not everyone is brought up short by the producer/consumer divide. There are millions of amateurs out there, happily doing their thing, maybe getting paid and maybe not, but definitely adding to their own personal talents and improving their knowledge and their characters. For them, the activity is the important thing.
Maybe the difference is ego. DIY-ers don’t mind not being the best, not being recognized, not being professional. But the over-educated middle-class OWS types have been told all their lives that a) they’re special, and b) the only way to remain special is to get degrees and be officially recognized “within the field.” Playing banjo in the den isn’t good enough for them. They need to be the best banjo players on the planet AND cut an album AND get written up in scholarly banjo journals. Anything less and they feel incomplete.
Nothing wrong with banjo. I play drums as a hobby. Crushing when I went to the music school and was given the “no, but you should find something else and still enjoy this on your own” nod. Same thing when I went to my advisor about history. I had little talent for languages and writing. He was able to be honest enough to direct me elsewhere and that has been a great gift. He helped me to craft an entry to my career. I would not trade that for anything now. It was the best choice for me.
So you have a high school graduate who does not know and you put out a big sacrifice for college. Certainly you want them to take risks and find something they want to do. At the same time reality is what it is. At some point parents need to let go. They will learn to paddle their own canoe once they get the idea that the river has its own rules.
Government is not the answer. This is a tight market and young people will do just fine if given the chance. The cost of rent, gas, food, and tuition is much higher than basic wage. My 70s generation looked pretty pathetic then. I am writing this on an iPad so maybe we were not as ridiculous as we looked.
If what you say about music includes popular music, then sadly, you’re wrong. The age when highly skilled musicians were on top was mid/late 60s to the mid 70s, though of course, there were also plenty of less skilled musicians. Today there are highly skilled producers, but you certainly don’t have to be a highly skilled musician to be very popular and sell a lot. You might need other talents, like maybe charisma, or the elusive X/”it” factor, or a good sense of fashion, audacity, or whatever, but you don’t have to be a skilled musician. It might even be a disadvantage, so if you just happen to be a graduate from a music academy you’d better keep it to yourself or else you might find yourself relegated to the fringe/underground niches of progressive rock or avant-garde, never getting any airplay on the radio and pop TV, being ignored (in most cases), or if not ignored often scorned, by music critics, and fighting your way against thousands of other bands of highly skilled musicians from all over the world on dedicated Internet websites and festivals, which is the only exposure you’ll ever get. There are a few exception, but this is the rule. So if anyone were really looking for the best banjo players they most likely won’t find them among the best selling popular artists because a) banjo isn’t a popular instrument anymore – there are very few instruments in popular music and the rest have no place in it, and if they do need a banjo as a novelty stunt they’ll use a pre-recorded banjo sample and produce the banjo part on a computer, b) virtuosity, with few exceptions, doesn’t have a place in popular music anymore, so even if a popular band has virtuosic players they will usually only express it in a few solos on live shows. Highly skilled banjo players, or guitar or keyboards or drum players, will usually be found in classical music, jazz, world music, progressive rock and avant-garde, and not among the best selling artists. Only a few of them are successful in terms of large audience and sales, the rest would be lucky to make a living of music at all.
If it were true that you needed to be a skilled musician to succeed it would only be fair. It might be unfair that some people are born with greater talents, but to develop these talents it does indeed require a lot of work. So while it may suck that people who aren’t willing to dedicate many hours a day to learning and practicing would have less chance to succeed, don’t you agree that it would be fair that those who do work very hard to develop their talents will be the first to succeed? Isn’t it more unfair that people who do devote a great part of their lives to study and practice and create music don’t have a chance to get on the radio and are marginalized in favor of mediocre musicians who couldn’t be bothered?
No to all of that. What’s unfair is that so many people think they have to “succeed” instead of just playing their instruments and enjoying themselves. “Success” and art are two different things. The famous OWS puppeteer didn’t need a degree or government grants in order to practice his craft – he wanted to “succeed.”
I actually agree with what Pnina says about popular music. The most “successful” artists today depend on looks, sex, spectacle, and industry propaganda rather than extremes of ability or talent. The industry can take an average singer and turn him/her into a megastar. Meanwhile there are people with ability and creativity who play and sing for the love of it but who aren’t sexy enough for the camera. If they’re lucky, they might get to be session musicians or backup singers for the “stars.” Which situation would most people rather be in?
If you notice kids’ TV programming at all, the industry is selling youngsters musical superstardom as a fantasy career. When I was little, I never thought I’d get my big break and become a Monkee. But I’ll bet there are scores of little howlers out there who think they could be the next Big Time Rush. That’s their goal, not becoming competent musicians and singers, but being Up There acting cool in front of the screaming crowds of fellow teens. It’s kind of sad.
Scholarly banjo journals? A self-contradictory concept if there ever was one.
Maybe it was intended, to illustrate the point – that music, art and sciense have become products rather than activities, and so people don’t do them anymore for the sake of doing them or for the pleasure and benefits derived from the activities, if they don’t excell at them and it doesn’t get them professional success or recognition – by stretching it to an absurdity where even the banjo has scholarly journals. And it’s not all that far-fetched either. Don’t know if there are scholarly banjo journals, but you can study banjo in conservatories or music academies.
And here’s a Bach piece adapted for tenor banjo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2fTQsUVS44
Here’s a much better Bach on banjo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sYgllgF7lc
Half of you totally missed my point – which is probably my fault for writing poorly. Long story short, if you love doing something, just do it. You don’t need the government to furnish you with professional credentials and guaranteed job security.
“Work is simply the price all organisms have to pay for being alive. ”
Oh, but this thought is so . . . so offensive. I don’t like it; therefore, it’s not true.
“Work is simply the price all organisms have to pay for being alive.”
Excellent point! The one exception, of course, is plant life (i.e., animal food) and parasites.
Au contraire, mon frere. If you consider that work is simply expending energy towards a goal, then a plant must expend its precious energy in order to burst forth from the seed and continue to grow and eventually reproduce itself.
As for parasites, all must expend energy in order to latch onto a host. Just ask the Flea Party how hard they must work to beg for donations and supplies.
Er, two examples. Math is hard!
Sheesh! Two exceptions, not examples. Fingers are working faster than the brain, apparently.
Wait a minute! There are scholarly banjo schools? Where do I sign up?
I have one of the multidisciplinary degrees so widely derided on PJ Media. The program required fourth-year proficiency in 5 different disciplines, and emphasized researching, analyzing and thinking across disciplines rather than in silos.
I worked throughout high school and college, and chose a school that was affordable rather than elite. As a result, I graduated poor, but debt-free, into an economy that was then the worst since the Great Depression.
Going into the program, I knew it didn’t lead to a defined profession/career path (teacher, engineer, scientist, etc.) and it was my job to find a way to make this generalist background meaningful to a future employer.
So far (several decades), it seems to be working out fine.
No, you don’t. Your degree:
Compare that to the “education” of a twentysomething Owie who borrowed tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars and squandered it on five years of partying whilst barely doing enough work to “earn” a degree in Angry Studies.
Your efforts are to be commended, emulated, even admired. But it is a liberal fallacy to assume that because one man is worthy, everyone who gives themselves the same label must also be worthy. Don’t fall into it.
I agree with Akatsukami, no one here is deriding a multidisciplinary degree. It should be lauded. What is derided is a degree in a subject that no one has a need for, that will not lead to any type of career, and cost a fortune obtaining. Then, once graduated with this worthless degree, scream bloody murder about life being unfair because you are in debt and can’t get a job. Of course if you also have a degree in something worthwhile to fall back on then by all means have at it. Get a second degree in something that interests you even if it wont pay your way.
I doubt many here would criticize your choices and planning. Your critical reading skills, perhaps.
GDI, good for you, but obviously you got your degree back in the day when employers were more open to hiring candidates who were college grads regardless of the college major. That’s because fewer of us graduated from college, and having a degree meant that you were expected to be proficient in reading, writing and math. Now college has been dumbed down so much that people who are barely literate can get a college degree. If you think I’m exaggerating, you should read the resumes, cover letters and writing samples I get from job applicants these days. 30 years ago (and longer) a college degree meant something. Now that colleges have had to dumb down their requirements in order to admit the maximum number of applicants (especially minority candidates) I actually receive job applications, cover letters, resumes and writing samples with typos, grammatically incorrect sentences, incoherent paragraphs, etc., from people who have GRADUATE degrees from top universities. This is inexcusable! Add a nonsense major like Diversity Studies and that applicant goes right in the trash. Of course, these are the same kids who camp out in urban parks and call themselves the 99% because they refuse to understand that THEY and their life choices are the problem, not the solution.
You’re so right. When I was involved in recruitment and hiring, our first rule was “read with a red pen in hand” to mark all the errors. It was, as you note, an easy way to start narrowing the pool. And yes, advanced degrees are no indicator of basic competence in terms of spelling, grammar, clarity, etc. In fact, some of the worst writers manage to thrive in higher ed as professors, administrators and students.
The simplest lesson for a young person is to tell them that water is wet, fire burns and sand is dry. If their world view doesn’t follow that simple reality, they might not do so well. Yes go ahead and dream and dream large but be careful.
Reality cares nothing for our cultural conceits about being vegans or men marrying men or forcing equality onto situations where it is nowhere in sight. You have the right to an equal start, after that you’re on your own and devil take the hindmost. And he will, and all the Federal programs, wishful thinking and stupid slogans will in the end not make one bit of difference aside from impoverishing financially and culturally those not at fault.
This is why America is in the midst of cultural suicide in favor of rearranging medieval Third World failures and undercutting recent modern success because that success is now judged to have been depraved and racist. Never mind the losers were playing the same game by the same rules; they lost and we’ll never hear the end of it.
It is not the meek that have inherited the Earth but the politically correctly indoctrinated, baby-producing losers who have been lulled by saying “There, there dears, it’s not your fault. You were oppressed and exploited.”
Those who produce babies aren’t losers. In a quote I’ve come across several different places, the future belongs to those who show up for it — and their parents, of course, which should go without saying.
People in crappy countries who have 7 kids they can’t feed are losers.
So are you saying the the USA is a crappy country? There are more losers here who knock out babies for the rest of us to feed, than in most other countries. No fathers in sight, therefore no financial contributions, no emotional support and so forth. Moreover, these babies grow up learning to feed at the public trough like Mama did all her life.
It’s not the production of babies that makes them losers. It’s that if the only thing you do is produce babies (i.e. not having a job, collecting welfare, which increases to provide for each additional child) and don’t even get credited with “raising children” (which is a difficult and laudable task, especially if done well), then you’re a loser.
Thank you for this essay, Mr. Rubin. And for not mincing words. Reading it for me was equivalent to stepping out of a crazy/fun house to terra firma and fresh air.
A wildly unpopular idea that I will go to my death believing is the old saw that “adversity builds character,” and I’m firmly convinced that one of our biggest problems is that we’ve got generations of people who have never had any.
Coupling this background with the “Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow” mentality, in the absence of enough common-sense to indemnify one’s autonomy, self-respect, and financial viability first by nailing a sale-able skill from which to make a living, and the willingness to cheerfully exercise that while pursuing a so-called “higher calling,” and you end up with millions of these infantilized, pathetic “adults” who define the word “soft,” and make a lot of the rest of us want to puke just looking at them, much less pony up any sympathy because they can’t afford to pay for health insurance or perhaps rent an apartment of their own, or make a respectable person out of the long-suffering perpetual “fiancée” (who is also highly likely to be the mother of at least one and frequently multiple offspring). “Education” up the ying yang notwithstanding, a high-priced fool is still a fool.
Generations of people before this crop of self-professed “brightest and best” learned to love whatever they were lucky enough to find to do, and because it had their name all over it, put their heart and soul into it and perform it with mastery. What a novel idea! There is very little work that in and of itself confers dignity. The person doing the work does that by the way he does it. There is no job so menial, so “low-rent,” or blue-collar that does not have the potential to impart the self-respect, dignity, and autonomy that are the true measure of a person, when done in this way.
If our society fails to reclaim an understanding of the true value of work, as well as respect and appreciation for sacrifice, suffering, and adversity, I don’t see any way for us to recover from this downward spiral.
The young linguistics/philosophy student should visit the nearest recruiting office of the US Army. He could serve as an enlisted intelligence analyst and be eligible for programs such as loan repayment (it’s remarkable and impressive that your yong friend got throguh hs undergraduate program w/o taking out any loans), bonuses and the GI Bill. He might even be assigned to study at a year-long intensive foreign language course with native speaker instructors at the Defense Language Institute at Monterey, California. He might also qualify for Officers Candidate School, a program which also offers various benefits.
I graduated from a state university in 1985 with degrees in Geography and General Arts and no idea what to do. A path similar to the above gave me a good start.
I got a degree in linguistics, and that’s not far from what I actually did. The military’s a great career.
I’m glad that worked out for you, and it’s good advice. There are a number of acquaintances who would echo you.
Having stumbled, bewildered, out of college in 1987, into a working world that really, really, really had no time for Soviet Studies majors, no such path was available.
All I can say is, it’s been a fascinating ride, and I’m thrilled with where I’ve ended up. But the key ingredient was a willingness to work, and the hard-won knowledge that the world was not paying for my genius, but my labor. It’s truly amazing how healthy that realization is, and how much better life gets when you accept it, pull up your socks, and get on with it.
Chances are, the person in question wouldn’t want to work for the “military-industrial complex”. Don’t most of these folks want to work for an NGO?
BIG LOL! You are so right.
Unfortunately a high school diploma is a ticket to an unskilled job, a Bachelor’s degree in anything usually lets a person into the white collar market but at a low level, but only a Masters or higher can really get you ahead. And in today’s economy, an advanced degree has lost a lot of it’s value.
Employers are in fact looking for conscientious, responsible, and of course hard workers whatever their employment needs.
The problem is not entirely educational, it is also social. Hard work is frowned upon, too many young people and older ones too want easy, non stressful jobs to hang onto, make a great living, and pretty much take it easy on someone else’s back.
Tough luck there!
And you are just supporting the myth that is causing so many unhappy and unproductive people. A high school diploma or a GED will get you into the trades and once you reach journeyman skill, you make a fine living. My youngest stepson is a Laborers Union apprentice who only got in about 1100 hours this year, yet his annual earnings are considerably more than his college educated older brother working in a much more “respected,” degree-requiring job in education. And Laborers are usually the low men on the constuction totem pole. A journeyman plumber, electrician, pipefitter, equipment operator or the like will make more than all but the luckiest or best connected college graduates who don’t go into a profession and will even make more than most of them.
Granted, a tradesman doesn’t get to wear the Armani suit, the Gucci loafers, and the Rolex to work, although there is an equally intense snobbery in what the trademen wear as well. The tradesman who works construction has trouble putting deep roots in a community because he has to go where the work is. Many do it by taking their camper or motorhome to where the work is and leaving their wife to hold down the homefront. It’s hard on marriages though. That said, white collar jobs aren’t that stable anymore either and even in white collar jobs you have to move or starve sometimes.
Frankly, it is the work that puts you outdoors and gets you dirty that offers the most money the quickest and rarely causes you to incur any debt, but you usually do have to be able to pee in a bottle and often pass a background check. Being able to pee in a bottle and pass a background check is becoming a far more rare skill in American than having an advanced degree.
The worst sinners in the over-credentially of our society are governments and large corporations. Slapping a degree requirement up as a barrier to entry to a career field is a good substitute for an adquate, objective interview system and a good defense against discrimination suits but a more insiduous cause for all the credentialing is that the people doing the hiring make their own credentials more valuable. And the most insiduous use of credentialing is their use to insure that applicants are of the “proper” ideology. Throwing a “Studies” degree requirement on most people working in your environmental quality department absolutely assures that all your hires will be environmental activists. Anyone with a labor studies degree is going to be at best a union activist and most likely an outright communist. Graduation from an elite law school almost guarantees a lefty lawyer.
Republican governors/mayors should set about to remove the artificial credential barriers in the jobs in their governments. For entry level clerical/technical jobs I came to much prefer the applicant who’d dropped out of high school, gotten a job, and got a GED, but some of us had to get together to put the whupass on the personnel weenies to get them to remove the HS Diploma requirement and allow a GED and work experience to qualify people. Actually, for most jobs in government where a degree isn’t a requirement for entry into the profession, experience should be allowed to substitute all the way up the career ladder. The federal government is probably hopeless on this front because they have every job horrendously overcredentialled so the only way to get them without an advanced degree is to be promoted from within or fit the right block on the AA form – or know somebody, sometimes.
As an example of how the fed does it, after I had retired I was feeling bored and useless and applied for a GS-11 job in labor relations. Over an almost thiry year career I had done every job in labor relations for a state government, had supervised a good-sized staff of LR/HR professionals, and ultimately had policy authority over a state government’s labor relations function. They sent me a terse letter about having selected a more qualified applicant. They hired one of my former lady lawyer subordinates who I’d been quite happy to see leave and who had maybe three years total LR experience under direct supervision, but she was more qualified because she had a law degree or they wanted a female to satisfy the AA nazis.
I think you totally missed the point I was making, and you wrote way too much.
Quid quid praecepis, esto brevis!
“Unfortunately a high school diploma is a ticket to an unskilled job, a Bachelor’s degree in anything usually lets a person into the white collar market but at a low level, but only a Masters or higher can really get you ahead.”
No, I didn’t miss your point. You said a HS diploma is a ticket to an unskilled job. You are wrong unless you, too, believe that trades and crafts are unskilled low wage jobs.
Ditto!
“…you wrote way too much.”
That’s a matter of one’s perspective. I found his post to be thought-provoking & informative.
“One man’s trash……”
I second that.
Third here.
Me, too!
Ditto
Republican governors/mayors should set about to remove the artificial credential barriers in the jobs in their governments…
I’ll go you one better Art. Republican Governors/Mayors should get rid of the jobs themselves. We don’t need so many people working for the government. But yes, for the few jobs remaining that we do need, get rid of credentialing requirements.
And both debates, how many government employees and what credentials do they require, are underlying parts of what Rubin has noted in the post. We have a whole bunch of people who’ve been given inflated opinions of themselves and see any environment that challenges them to be productive – especially one that says they didn’t pass – they see that as unfair or “wrong.” Which is why they gravitate to the leftist ghettos of government and academia.
The only road to renewal is to break the back of the government pickpockets. As long as they can force the productive to subsidize the unproductive, we will have this problem. Of course, as Glenn Reynolds says, something that can’t go on forever won’t, and this can’t go on forever. It’ll end one way or another, but some ends are much less destructive and painful.
A widely distributed poster in WWII asked, “Is this trip really necessary?”
Today, every manager in every layer of government should be made to prove the jobs in their department are necessary. Then, for those necessary jobs, which ones can be outsourced and which – such as police work – must remain a fuction of government. Outsourcing allows cities to save a lot of money. First, there’s competitive bidding for the work. Second, the city isn’t on the hook for expensive retirement programs. Those government officials who’re unwilling to be proper stewards of the taxpayers’ money should be fired.
It’s all so simple when you don’t know anything about it. Actually, Republicans/conservatives won the battle and lost the war on most government outsourceing; the Right pushed the government to outsource and the Left fought it and lost. Then, guess who wound up starting up the companies the government outsurces to. The government outsources all sorts of health, education, social services, and labor/training functions and the companies that get that work are mostly money laundries for the Democrats.
Even in other fields, when you pick a government contractor, you’d better pick him well because he’s going to own you. Once he gets that contract, he starts a PAC and starts throwing a little money around your legislature and before long, the leg is calling him over to testify about what they can do for him, and don’t be telling him you’re not satisfied with his work unless you just like doing the carpet dance in some committee chairman’s office.
It’s all so simple when you don’t know anything about it.
Actually, I know quite a bit about outsourcing. I work for a large multi-national corporation. Our overseas units specialize in outsourcing in the UK and dozens of other companies. We like to think of the UK as being so socialist (and they are in areas such as medicine) but they outsource government services much more than the US. My companies runs prisons, railroads, bus systems, sanitation departments and a host of other things that are performed by government employees in most US cities and towns.
Actually, a Bachelor degree in engineering can get you a decent job.
But the indecent ones pay better.
I only have a HS diploma.
I have a white collar job.
Most of the people I work with also don’t have degrees. Merely the initiative to work hard and a satisfactory amount of basic intelligence.
Therefore, your analogy is flawed. Might be true in Israel, but not in America.
What does Israel have to do with this? He’s talking about the good old USA; not Israel, England, France, Germany, Russia, or anywhere else for that matter.
Uh-huh. “A ticket to…”.
Today, most degrees are tickets to a ice hockey game, in Somolia.
It’s quite telling that Mr. Rubin’s only description of contemporary culture is the youtube videos his 12-year-old son showed him. His perspective lacks any reasonable appreciation of the place of culture within society, both for its spiritual and financial benefits. Imagine where our culture would be if the great artists and thinkers of our time took his “practical” advice by devoting themselves to a lackluster job and relegating their talents to the realm of a hobby.
“If you have a profound passion for art, literature, or other such things, go for it. But be aware of what’s likely to happen afterward.”
I think Mr. Rubin’s point is more that if someone chooses to study in a field where the likelihood of succeeding is low, then they should be prepared to deal with that possibility, as opposed to sulking because they don’t get what they think they deserve. If, for example, someone loves art enough that they don’t care if they make a lot of money at it (which they probably won’t) then they should go ahead with it. But if they prefer security, then it’s an obvious poor choice.
And I don’t recall anything being said against great thinkers being great thinkers. Perhaps you should read the article again.
The thing about the arts that’s so frustrating is that you can get damned good at what you do – and I mean DAMNED good! – and some other scriptwriter, illustrator, actor, director, whatever gets the job because he’s snuggled up with the decision-makers.
I suppose it’s that way in just about every field, but it’s very pronounced in the arts.
You can be damned good at the arts, but without the promotional skills to sell your expertise you’ll just find that there are thousands of competitors in the field who are just as good as you, or better. And most of us get into the arts because they please us, and business skills are abhorrent. Leading in most cases to the ritual ‘starving in a garret’.
In the mechanical arts, and even engineering, one can only go so far by getting good with the tools. That’s why the supervisors who bring in new business are paid that extra income that the lefties so despise.
The horizontal career move is still a very effective way of getting head, oops, ahead.
The offense is not the reality that life after gaining an arts degree is difficult and jobs are scare. I am an artist and I understand the truth of that all too well. However, the offense is his suggestion that artists and intellectuals consider their pursuit hobbies. Obviously, he is out of touch with the value of culture if his only description of contemporary culture is what his 12-year-old son shares with him on youtube.
Being an artist often involves sacrifice and dealing with an economy that doesn’t have much of a place for us. Does that make art superfluous? Of course not. Thank God for all the great artists, writers, poets, musicians and dreamers that didn’t loose courage in the face of hardship – that didn’t listen to voices like Mr. Rubin’s, which encouraged them to ‘get a real job,’ turn their passion into a weekend hobby and stop dreaming.
Not at all, as long as the artist doen’t expect the government to fund them.
The overwhelming majority of artists, and “great thinkers” lived and died in abject poverty. Only in the 20th century, thanks to advances by engineers and scientists in creating mass distribution media have (some) artists become wealthy. And the percentage who actually make a living is still abysmally small.
Kids today can do art and “think” after work, but they’d better get a skill or degree to land a decent day job first. My ex convinced my son to “follow his dream”, I told him to become a plumber. Without belaboring the point he’s a grown man with no skills, an unfinished mostly worthless degree and is fighting in Afghanistan to try to pay off his student loans.
Yeah, but it seems like the overal quality of art has declined rather badly in the latter half of the 20th century when the rest of society began to heavily subsidize the artist class. In fact, most of what is publically subsidized is dreadful. The most enjoyable and thought provoking art still comes almost exclusively from people who find their own way.
The number of people who are truly great thinkers and artists is very small, certainly much smaller than the number of people taking related academic courses. I know a couple of people with degrees in philosophy and political science. One of them works as a chess teacher and competition organizer, and the other as a computer programmer. Both are intelligent, but neither of them is a great philosopher or an original thinker.
I wouldn’t want to go back to the days of artists starving in the attic and so on, but people should know that in certain fields there’s little demand, and maybe only those who are very talented, very passionate and also very serious about it should take these routes. Otherwise, if you’re not a genius and you still want to study philosophy because of your thirst for knowledge it’s commendable, but you should also know that realistically you’d probably will have to make a living of something else and be prepared for it.
I just did a quick calculation of my gross monthly salary as opposed to what I spend on “popular culture” items – books, internet connection, music, Netflix, along with a few more dollars for miscellaneous and came up with a grand total of approximately 3-4 percent of my average gross monthly income. I spend more on my passion (fabric – I sew) than I do on “popular culture” items.
Someone who wants a percentage of my income would be much better served providing me housing, natural gas/gasoline/electricity/communications, food and drink, a new car (but only about twice a decade), medical/dental, miscellaneous necessities, or the ability to fix things – like my car, my computer, things around the house.
If you want to survive off of what I spend on any one thing you do in the entertainment or arts, you’d find you would better served by standing on a street corner holding a paper cup, living off the fleeting sympathy of a few souls who threw in some change. There’s only so many people at any given point in time that can make a decent living in the “arts.” Trust me, I met a lot more starving musicians and other artists in LA than successful ones. And the ones that can actually make a living at it for 40 years was a much smaller number still. This is the reality in the city where you probably stand the best chance in the world of making a “creative” living.
Reality bites, but only until you find the career that provides you a living and you spend your free time and money on your passions. You stay passionate about them much longer that way. I love the creativity that sewing brings me, but I’ve made a good living (and raised three boys) working in the legal field – far better than I could have ever done following my passions.
What neither students nor university academics seem to realize is that their thinking is 50 years out of date.
When I was in university at the end of the 1950s, 50% of the students were women. Most of us majored in the humanities and we had no expectation whatsoever of turning that major, for example, in English Lit, into a job. There were plenty of jobs for men, no matter what they majored in, because the economy was good and because relatively few women entered the full-time workplace. Most women expected to marry and stay home with children or work part-time to supplement their husband’s income. Indeed, even after I received a Ph.D in linguistics, about 8 years after my B.A., I worked only part-time, in part because I wanted to have some time at home with my babies. (I didn’t look for a full-time job until I was divorced and couldn’t support my family on a half-time salary.)
The late 50s and early 60s were the golden age of being able to major in something not connected to the workplace because of the good economy and because relatively few women were entering that economy full-time. Once the 50% of the population that was mostly happy with part-time jobs decided to enter the workforce full-time, things began to change. Men then had to compete with women and, of course, that means there are fewer jobs for men.
The men who are majoring in non-job oriented fields are unknowingly modelling themselves on the generation of women I belong to (I’m now 72). We could major in anything we wished because we had no expectations of getting “real” jobs. The men I dated as an undergraduate were in the sciences or pre-law or pre-med. They understood their role was to get a job and we women could major in the “cultural stuff” so that we could raise our middle-class children properly. It is too bad somebody doesn’t tell this to today’s young men majoring in non-job oriented fields.
Most of us majored in the humanities and we had no expectation whatsoever of turning that major, for example, in English Lit, into a job.
When the cellphone networks were being built in the 80s, we worked for Cellular One as consultants for site development. And one of their superintendents was noticeably better at getting sites built and towers erected than the others. He had a BA in English.
Think on that. English lit when studied comprehensively gives a picture of the whole human condition, and of the experiences of centuries of competition, strife, conflict, inventions, commerce, arts and warfare. It’s not just about who wrote the most exquisite constructions of the language – the content addressed, with its diverse problems, was as important as the form.
That super did own an ambition to excel in his work, and didn’t have to re-invent the wheel in in the course of his employment when encountering competitors, backstabbers, employers or malicious bureaucrats. He got his feet on the ground, learned the work and left the rest of the field in the dust.
Everybody wants to be the girl, nobody wants to be the guy……
The sad fact is that productive jobs, such as engineering, are needed. There are not many Americans studying in engineering school these days.
In a scientific conference I’ve attended not long ago, most lectures were by Asians, Indians or Europeans.
Seems to me that youg Americans want to go to Law Schools, and make a lot of money and real quick. Forget about hard work. That’s for old people (like myself).
Obviously you never went to law school or practiced law. A law school education is very grueling, years of hard work after you are done with college. Many of the top earning lawyers even have post graduate school degrees as well.Going out into the law labor field is also quite difficult.No one is waiting to hand some child a huge salary for just existing.
Lawyers who make the “big bucks” work on average 80-100 hours a week…that is why the large law firms have showers and cot rooms, they do not go home. Your life revolves around the office. No client pays you for playing golf, going out to dinner, or even making sure that you can attend your own children’s births.
Public service lawyers, like DAs get paid next to nothing and work practically the same hours as the corporate lawyers. I will put the hours spent at work of all my lawyer friends and acquaintances against anything anyone else has done save medical interns and fellows.Been there, done that for the last thirty years.
BTW, most lawyers also do not earn “big bucks.” Less than 1% of all lawyers make those immense salaries people seem to think noone is entitled to except “artistes”, sports stars, third-world socialist tyrants and oligarchs. Go on, function in an economy without those who can run the economy…see what kind of salaries you can make.
Also next time you have an issue involving contracts, estates, criminal activity,or civil liberties, don’t bother going to those of us who went to law school…afterall we were only in it for the quick buck,and we don’t know how to work hard. You are on your own. Try legal zoom and see how far that gets you.
I never went to law school or practiced law, but for the better part of 30 years I had lawyers across the table from me in labor negotiations, arbitrations, and labor board hearings. I worked with, and often did the work for, government lawyers. I worked on a professional staff with lawyers and in the last ten years or so of my career supervised, hired, and, yes, fired lawyers. I respect the profession but I’m not in awe of the law or lawyers, and especially not of young lawyers. There may have been academic rigor in law school when you were there thirty years ago, but there isn’t now, I assure you. I interviewed a lot of young lawyers from good state schools who could barely write a coherent memo. I did prefer to hire young lawyers at my full-performance level because I’d found that lawyers gave you some assurance of being able to get a coherent paragraph, something you can’t often get from BA/BS graduates. Unfortunately, rather than get a good liberal arts undergraduate degree that gives them some insight into history, politics, culture, art, music, etc., most of them take the GERs and then go into a pre-law curriculum that basically mirrors the law school curriculum. Consequently, most of them are culturally barely literate and often have an outright scary ignorance of the political system and history of this Country. Like most young college grads, they do know a lot about sports and popular culture.
They must only teach advocacy skills to some elite group in law school these days, because few of the young lawyers I dealt with had ANY advocacy skills. They could write you a memo on hearsay evidence but rarely knew when and how to actually make the objection. How many times I’ve seen an attorney yell “Objection” and then start frantically searching through his objections handbood or the Rules of Court to try to explain to the arbitrator or ALJ what s/he was objecting to and why. And since most evidentiary objections are intended to protect a lay jury from impermissible or unreliable testimony, most objections are pointless to make to an arbitrator or ALJ, who listens to the impassioned plea and says, “I’ll hear it for what it’s worth.” The one thing I could count on was when there was a lawyer on the other side, the hearing was going to take two or three times as long and cost many multiples of what it should cost. Fortunately, we had loser pays in arbitration, so usually their client rather my government got the bill. Unfortunately, I made a couple of union lawyers very wealthy by indulging in all their motion churning and crazy discovery; my staff and our AAGs got paid the same every two weeks whether they did anything or not, whoever was paying the lawyer was paying for billable hours and I just loved to help bankrupt unions.
One of my oldest and dearest friends and one of the smartest people I’ve ever known, and I’ve known a lot of smart people, was summa cum laude Havard Law in ’48, with a career that spanned government, corporate general counsel for a major defense contractor, law professor, and when I first met him labor arbitrator. He is a true renaisance man with “good Latin” and a tremendous breadth of knowlege. In the early days of my career there were several like him around. I knew I’d made a passage the first time I appeared before an arbitrator that had less gray hair than I did. Over time I lost almost all respect for the attorney turned labor arbitrator; most of them just didn’t want to hustle the hours, so they took up arbitration or took a government job as an ALJ and they had the same mentality adn limited perspective as any other trade school graduate.
Would you be the Art Chance who was in solar energy in Anchorage in the early 1980s, then in ER for the State? I knew an Art Chance back then….
That would be me. If you’re who I’m thinking of you did LR at the federal level and I built an attached greenhouse for you.
That’s true, but that doesn’t change the fact that many kids are under the delusion that becoming a lawyer is an easy way to make big bucks.
Whether law school is easy or hard, the far more important question is how much does it drag our economy down to have so many lawyers.
As Rubin noted “…the siphoning off of potentially useful citizens who might possibly engage in some economically productive activity (insert lawyer jokes if you wish) into all sorts of made-up and useless jobs is bleeding society.”
Lawyering is one of the makework activities siphoning off potentially useful citizens. Sure, we need some lawyers, just like we need some firefighers. But if every citizen in the entire country is sitting around the firehouse petting their dalmation waiting for a fire, we’re going to starve. We can have the best fire protection in history, but fat lot of good it’ll do us if there’s nothing to eat because we’ve got no farmers. Everybody can’t be a firefighter.
Likewise with lawyers. Everybody who is a lawyer could have been something else, something far more productive. Face it, lawyers are administrative overhead – they exist off the productive activity of others. Sure, sure, a handful here and there help make those other people more productive and so pull their weight, but at our current lawyer-to-citizen ratio, every law school graduate is surplus. Unneeded. A burden on society.
Like Art said, things take 3x longer (or worse) when lawyers get involved. Very rarely is the result 3x better. Often, it’s not quite as good. Agreements reached by the productive folks (e.g the engineers and operations people) were almost never improved upon by the lawyers. The language in the final contracts was less clear than the intial agreement, more open to dispute (natch, who is it that gets paid to do the disputin?). The lawyers I worked with filing patents were glorified technical writers. The lawyers I’ve consulted with on various risk management issues (usually at the insistence of the guy singing my paycheck) have most often just pointed out the obvious risks that I already knew about (most likely told them about) and said “it’s a risk. You have to decide if it’s worth it.”
Of all the interactions with lawyers in the business and civil world, I’d say 80-90 percent of their work was useless or worse. Most of the remaining 10-20 percent I would classify as above-average secretarial work. A very small fraction of the work done by lawyers in this country is even the least bit productive.
This isn’t a rant against laywers. It’s a rant against too many lawyers. Fewer lawyers would mean better lawyers and a better chance of the ones that are left to pull their own weight and contribute.
The nut of what you’re saying is that to all too many agency heads, CEOs, and elected or appointed officials, it just ain’t safe to do or true unless some effin’ lawyer who doesn’t know jack about the subject matter throws the holy water on it. They’ve taken the place of corrupt priests in medieval society; anything is at least “arguably” OK if the lawyer says it is. I tried to be nice and seemingly objective in the post above, but I just plain HATE most lawyers. About the only thing good I can say is back in my single days I learned that a lot of them had very pretty and very dissatisfied wives who were fun to play with.
It’s widely reported that there are over a million lawyers in the US. Think about that for a moment – one out of every 300 men, women and children in the country is a lawyer. Not only is that a serious waste of brainpower, it represents a major drain on our economy.
They say that “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” Rubbish. Just at the start of this year, 40,000 new laws went into effect. No one, not judges nor lawyers can truthfully claim to know every law. We’re supposed to consult with a lawyer before doing anything (the “lawyer’s full employment principle”) and even then, you have to be careful that some predatory parasite isn’t going to sue you in the hopes of achieving “jackpot justice.”
Not all lawyers are useless or parasites but far too many are. It’s reported there are more lawyers in Washington DC than in all of Japan. Given that we’re becoming a nation of, by and for the lawyers, that doesn’t surprise me.
Homer: “Forget about hard work. That’s for old people (like myself).”
I think this sums up the majority of the problem with many of our youth. I’m 56, and drive a truck. But my job is much more than sitting behind the steering wheel on cruise control. I work for a small company that makes and sells grease and lubricants for mining and agriculture. It is shipped in 55 gallon drums and 275 gallon totes. Because I have to drop this stuff off at little warehouses on my route, it is a physical job requiring me to move it in the trailer and then unload it with a forklift. Most of the young drivers I have met just look for the “100% no-touch freight” jobs, so I feel quite secure in my profession. I’ve told drivers what I do and how much I’m paid (considerably more that most drivers) and they don’t want to do it, because of the physical labor. Most people don’t want to work hard; but those that do are usually well rewarded for their efforts.
Mike, I think you are on to something here… People like you make America great.
Well, why would they when the big money doesn’t go to the engineers?
My kid is busting his fanny getting a physics engineering degree so he can make half what the MBAs in charge of his future employment will make. I keep telling him that he needs to turn his mad math skillz toward finance but he has this weird idea that he should enjoy his work.
His little brother just finished a poster for his sixth grade class outlining his three possible career choices- nuclear engineering, astrophysics and general physics. He was more than a little appalled at the salaries he’d earn given the degree of education he would need.
My daughter (a HS senior) does seem to have more a clue and is interested in preserving the lifestyle she has become accustomed to. We’ve discouraged her from being primary-care doctor, which has an extremely low ROI, but she may well aim for being a specialist. But damn, that’s a really long haul.
The problem all three of my kids face is that being a scientist/engineer does not reliably reap financial rewards commensurate with the work involved- unless you are somehow able to control the means of production. In medicine, we used to be able to do that but no longer as the day of private practice is quickly passing. Unless you have the foresight & luck of a Steve Jobs, it’s unlikely anyone in engineering can do the same unless they give up the productive (and fun) stuff and move into management.
The thing about engineering is: the jobs are there. If you stay away from the high-cost areas (Boston, Silicon Valley) and look for jobs in less-expensive engineering areas (Ft Wayne, Dayton, Albuquerque, Huntsville), an engineer can do very well. We’re raising eight kids on one engineer’s salary and doing okay.
Once upon a time (At least according to ‘The Restaurant at the End Of The Universe’) on a planet named Golgafrincham, Telephone Sanitizers, Account Executives, and the rest of the useless class were tricked into believing that the planet was doomed and sent them off on a spaceship.
Now all we need is a rather large spaceship.
I think of the telephone sanitizers etc. every time I see a story about a protester with a doctorate in puppetry or some such discipline.
Have you heard the public service announcements on the radio for prospective college students telling them to go to knowhowtogo.org ?
Maybe they should have a site named knowwhattotake.org as well.
Once upon a time (at least according to ‘The Restaurant at the End Of The Universe’), after the spaceships left, the remaining population of Golgafrincham was eradicated by a telephone-borne illness. Do try to read the whole section next time.
I caught that too, good one.
“…the useless class were tricked into believing that the planet was doomed …”
Well, that explains Global Warming…
One of the simplest ways to address the current production of useless degrees and useless education would be to re-introduce “shop” courses in high school—and make them mandatory for all students.
When I was in high school, “shop” was considered the province of the troglodyte students; we of the advanced-placement English and math classes, collegiate track, etc., avoided the “shop” wing like Eloi dodging Morlocks. Over the years, however, I have been astounded to find how many people who went through such a shop-free pedagogy do not know how to wield a hammer or a screwdriver; have no idea what makes things go, how to fix them, what makes a “good” job, etc.
This near-complete divorce from any concept of working with one’s hands has terrible and far-reaching implications. Nowadays, people who run companies do not come (for the most part) from the shop floor; they come from the stratum that studied law and management and finance. They don’t know how things work—and worse, they don’t even know they don’t know. These are people who get taken by the folks remodeling their kitchen because they don’t know what a good installation job or good design is—because they’ve never actually worked with their hands. The people who run the country do not know how it runs, and do not respect the skill and knowledge of the people who make it run, nor do they understand the joy of building and crafting and working.
This was not such a big deal forty or sixty or eighty years ago; whether or not it was much more common for there to be fluidity between the shop floor and the office suite, most people grew up only a generation or so removed from a father or a grandfather or an uncle or cousin who did do physical work, or built things, or was exceptionally handy, or a tinkerer. It was common for boys to build crystal sets and dissect and reassemble watches. While surely there are some youngsters who still are fascinated by tinkering, the general push towards tinkering as a natural and desirable thing has largely dwindled.
If more ostensibly-college-bound youths learned early about what it really takes to work with one’s hands, we’d have both a bigger and better skilled labor pool and a smarter and more respectful bunch of college grads.
In casual talk with my brother-in-law, the vice-president of some significant consulting firm, I mentioned that I was surprised that I had to replace my hot water heater so soon after the last one (it had lasted only 6 years).
He was surprised that I could do such things. I’m not sure he knows which end of a screwdriver to pick up. I know many executive types. Some aren’t afraid of getting dirty with every-day stuff. And some are downright scared of it.
I know which ones I have the most respect for.
The scary thing is that I’ve know hot-shot engineering consultants like that. If the guy doesn’t know what a sprag is, you probably don’t want his firm designing your city’s sewage treatment plant.
I mentioned that I was surprised that I had to replace my hot water heater so soon after the last one (it had lasted only 6 years).
My mother, in her 90s, is getting extremely annoyed because the sump pump in her house (installed when the house was built, not quite 60 years ago) needs some slight repair. She can’t find anyone willing to consider working on it, or trying to find the parts (which were, I’m sure, standard for some decades after the thing was installed. The “plumbers” don’t know how to repair; all they know is how to install or reinstall, and—maybe—order parts if something is no more than five years old. They have, in fact, told her not to expect anything they put in to last any longer than five years. Were my father still alive, he’d probably fix the thing without needing parts, or make a part if one were needed.
I mention this merely to show how much lower our skills and expectations are all around, and how little actual service we seem to be able to get in what we are constantly told is a “service economy.”
Buzz, 60 years ago, radio and TV sets used to have tubes in them that you could remove and test at your local drug store. The ones that tested badly could be replaced with a brand new tube and the set could be returned to service by the owner. Today, the radio or TV just works –until it doesn’t. Repair or rehabilitation of such things just isn’t worth the money.
Likewise, we operate on stuff today where the pump and the motors are simply junked because they aren’t expensive enough to warrant repair any longer. Good luck finding brushes to replace in a 1/4 HP motor that is more than 50 years old. Good luck finding replacement impellers for your sump pump.
The public today operates in a throw-away mode because people who can actually fix these things have priced themselves right out of the market. It is actually cheaper to get some low life who can’t get any other work to replace stuff wholesale than it is to get someone who has just the right piece to fix the problem. Thus, people who choose this sort of repair work are looked down upon.
And then one morning, people wake up and realize that their auto mechanic charges real money to work on their car. Plumbers can charge real money because nobody knows how the old fixtures used to be repaired. Children who had never seen their parents replace a washer on a faucet are dumbfounded.
In fact, they have no idea how anything around them works, how it got that way, or how to make it better. All those jobs got outsourced overseas.
Everyone is taught how to be a leader. Nobody is taught how to be helpful. We have more leaders today, versed in all sorts of humanities and self help literature, but few could use a ladder without reading all sorts of legalistic nonsense.
Our parents and grandparents were brought up to be useful, capable people. Some grew up to be great leaders. However a leader needs to know how the useful and capable people think and work. To do that he or she must at least have been exposed to those things.
Good luck finding any school graduate today who actually understands this stuff because it was taught in a classroom. I got my understanding from my own experience. It came at a dear price. I charge for it.
“The public today operates in a throw-away mode because people who can actually fix these things have priced themselves right out of the market.”
That isn’t strictly true. The “market” has become so expensive that in order to live, a repairman has to charge more than people want to pay. You have to make a living or it isn’t worth it to do something, so a skilled repairman must charge enough to enable himself to live in some reasonable standard. That costs a Helluva lot of money these days. The same dynamic applies to the small town stores that used to dot the country. It takes a certain amount to live and if you can’t make enough to live, you don’t do the business. In the modern economy, if you’re spreading your costs across a few thousand or tens of thousands of consumers you have to charge much more than the merchant spreading it over millions.
The public today operates in a throw-away mode because people who can actually fix these things have priced themselves right out of the market. It is actually cheaper to get some low life who can’t get any other work to replace stuff wholesale than it is to get someone who has just the right piece to fix the problem. Thus, people who choose this sort of repair work are looked down upon.
I used to be an electronics technician. Back in the 1960s when vacuum tubes ruled, it was simple and inexpensive to make most repairs. There was also the fact that electronics were pretty expensive, making them worth repairing. By the end of the 1970s, transistors and integrated circuits ruled. It took longer to find the problem and we didn’t work for free. Combine that with the rapid drop in purchase costs for consumer electronics (due in large part to the use of ICs) and it simply wasn’t worth repairing most things. Back in the late 1960s, a 25″ color TV easily cost $600 or more. Factor in inflation and that’s well over $2000 today. Compare that with today’s electronics and you’ll see that most people will only consider repairing the most expensive things.
Every kid should learn tool skills. In the past, such skills were passed on by fathers, mostly, in weekend chores, but such unseemly labor is disparaged.
In speaking of the teaching of the useful arts, a writer from long ago said:
I was raised a farm kid in the days of “October Skys,” so I know how to make stuff and fix stuff. I can build a structure, fix most machinery, troubleshoot most anything – unless it has much in the way of solid state electronics; that stuff simply can’t be fixed by mortal man. You can replace a component if you can diagnose which component to replace, but that’s it. Those two old-fashioned small block Chevy engines in my last boat were like old, familiar friends. The high-tech V-6 in the Chrysler 300M I had for the last several years was a foreign object; the only thing I even recognized was the distinctive Mopar alternator, and my current Mercedes ML has a V-8 that other than looking like something out of a Me-109 from WWII is even more foreign than the Chrysler was. I can’t work on them, nobody can; you plug a computer into them, it talks to the computer in them, and tells you what to replace. My Amazon wish list Christmas present was a “code reader” to plug into the MB so it could tell me how it was feeling.
And to the stuff I can do, unless you do it all the time, you’re slow and wasteful. Yeah, I can do mitered corners on crown mold, but I can also waste a lot of expensive millwork doing it. I do it because I like doing it, but I make no pretense that it is really better for me to do it than to hire somebody other than the vagaries of hiring somebody; I can do a half-assed job for free, and all too often a half-assed job is all you can buy. That said, for some things, I’m more than happy for my wife to have somebody’s number besides mine when she’s not happy with something.
Damn, I really can spell skies, really I can.
I worked a parts counter back when cars were just starting to go electronic. Our ignition supplier was good about offering workshops and we scheduled one on electronic ignitions. It was a two day class and each customer that signed up was given a book that listed all the codes and how to read them. After the first days class, one of our customers, an older man, came up and handed the instructor the book, and thanked him for helping him make up his mind. The next day he announced his retirement. The man had worked his whole life as a mechanic but just decided it was too much to learn anymore.
“I have been astounded to find how many people who went through such a shop-free pedagogy do not know how to wield a hammer or a screwdriver; have no idea what makes things go, how to fix them, what makes a “good” job, etc.”
I think Darwin had a theory about what happens when a species becomes too specialized, and then the environment changes. We’re seeing that now. (But it’s not their fault, it’s _____________.)
I was just thinking the same thing the other day! My 24 year old stepson barely knows what a screwdriver is for. Of course, his Dad is not particularly handy either. I am the one who fixes things around our house! Of course, my Dad, the engineer, could fix ANYTHING. And from a young age, as the first child, I was always the one to “hold the flashlight” for his various projects…. So I can’t help (secretly of course) but think that a real man knows how to fix things.
For those that have advanced degrees in 17th Century Icelandic Poetry (or similar), you made a bad choice. Get over it! Learn from your mistakes and get on with your life. You might have to work hard and get into something where you can actually make a living.
…Such as, er, telephone sanitizing…I forgot about that….
Oh, you mean climate scientists?
The degreed masses that want to be writers and policy analysts can do so. They can read, think and start their own blog. Perhaps they will win a following.
It is no mystery why Obamacare has included confiscation of the Student loan program from the banks to be run buy government nor is it a mystery why this administration is actively encouraging young people to get these useless degrees and then commit to Govt. service in exchange for not having to pay back their loans, but the Govt is going to be in a position to decide who gets the loans and who gets to go to which school. This will help create another generation of kidergarten to doctorate indoctrination for future Democrat voters and further divide us by class; the Social/education class from which our future civil servants, bureaucrats, politicians and government red tape types will parley that useless ethnic studies degree into a career with a vegence. I’ve met only a few young people who graduated and got high paying jobs in the private sector but all were from engineering and hard science. I’ve met many many more who expect not just a job but a desk job with high pay and perks right off the bat despite a bad degree choice. I’ve even met a few who disdain any notion of a private sector career and would only consider a job with government, a non-profit or in academia. This administration is creating a closed loop system to anointed the chosen into the ruling class.
I went back to college in my mid-thirties stating at a community college. My freshman English teacher assigned all to do a term paper on the career they wanted to pursue. The paper had to include research and discussion as what training was required, what obstacles there were to completing the educational goal, and very importantly, what were the job prospects, job conditions, and what pay could be expected. Doing the paper was a real eye opener for me and others. I still chose to seek the same career but others did not based on their research.
Perhaps, doing this type of paper should be required of all fist year college students.
You’ve just pinpointed why community colleges are far more valuable and meaningful for 80% of all students who choose to pursue college-level education.
Many community colleges have developed a First-Year Experience program designed to include such assignments, and to (sadly) teach all the basics students no longer know: how to study, the importance of showing up, how to behave in an adult classroom environment, etc.
My sixth-grader just did a rudimentary form of this. He chose three employment pathways for physicists (it’s what he’s wanted to be- as a five year-old he insisted he was drawing radiation waves, NOT mountain ranges!!!), and you’re right, it was a real eye-opener.
He had no idea how little he’d get paid for that level of education.
Although I agree that in the end we should not be forgiving anyone’s student loans, and those students made very poor decisions, I do wish we lived in modern societies that could support so many liberal arts types grads who major in subjects like “Conflict Resolution.” The reason such grads cannot find jobs is that most people in society value entertainment services like gambling and sports over services like conflict resolution, historical education, and philosophy. It isn’t right that people like that can’t find jobs, but the solution isn’t for the “enlightened elite” to force change through taxation. The only real solution is the hard, slow work of cultural change through individuals making choices to do different things with their lives. To my mind, one of the most valuable services provided by religions is provoking that positive change.
Society values entertainment over “conflict resolution” because entertainment provides value.
Philosophy and history in academics have, sadly, been taken over by clowns with axes to grind. When every class, every topic, is distilled to vulgar Marxism and hatred of white males, why would anyone truly interested in history stick with it?
What school Did you go to rob? I personally don’t know anyone who experienced what you did. The philosophy classes were the most open minded classes i took.
I agree with you that it would be nice if we had a different culture. I’m an atheist myself, but I think the secular culture we’ve ended up creating is going in the wrong direction. For instance, there’s too much focus on sex and sexual liberation and not enough focus on acquiring knowledge which was a major part of the Enlightenment philosophy. I’m not a social conservative and don’t want to go back to the old prohibitions (I know many on this site will disagree with me on that), but I just don’t think sex should be a prime cultural focus, and many of our cultural products borderline pornography. When it comes to knowledge, on the other hand, kids who are thirsty for it are ridiculed as nerds and geeks, not only by their peers, but also often on TV and in the movies. It’s not cool to be interested in science, technology, literature or history, or to take piano lessons. Our cultural heroes aren’t the great scientists, astronauts, doctors and nurses who save people’s lives, people who discover cures for deadly diseases, inventors, great writers and so on – which should have been the natural heroes in a society inspired by the values of the Enlightenment. A child who grows up in our contemporary culture usually wouldn’t be inspired by such figures since they’re not portrayed as cool heroes in the mass culture (it was a bit different in the past with figures such as Florence Nightingale being cultural heroes, or the excited coverage of the landing on the moon which inspired many children), and therefore wouldn’t aspire to become one of them, because this is really geek stuff. The cool people are pop stars, movie stars, sports stars, and just celebs. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be an athlet or a movie star, but I just think that being an astronaut, a scientist, an inventor, or someone who saves life can also be on the list of cool things to do.
yeah, thanks for bringing that up. The real measure of cultural change is when a researcher who develops a new vaccine gets more popular attention than a sports star, Kim Kardashian, Donald Trump, et al. It’s when academic journals rival People in popularity. And while I am religious, I think that any desired social norms should not be enforced by governments, and I definitely think that significant positive cultural influence does not emanate solely from religions.
By the way, it is not hedonism to study liberal arts and to learn how to think. Hedonism would be those that live off others so they can follow through on their life of debauchery. Most, if not all, liberal arts students want jobs. They just chose a degree that allowed them to follow their “passion” but left them unemployable. Simply put it was a poor choice of degree. But it was not an assent into a Caligula-like life simply because they chose a degree in Shakespeare or the Holocaust, over being a computer tech or plumber.
My painter, plumber, contractor, and cabinet craftsman have the following degrees:
English, English, Agriculture and Education, respectively. And none of them considered the degree a waste of time, though I daresay they didn’t attend $50,000 dollar a year institutions.
Personally, I think this put them in a much better position to work with the college-educated homeowners who employ them. There’s a huge difference between them and some of the other guys I’ve hired, not the least of which is their attitude toward women.
I think you’ll find that they decided that working with their hands and not in an office, being their own boss and actually feeling productive was the prime reason they became craftsmen. The arts are fine, but most of those jobs are in teaching. As every writer knows, the best way to get rich writing is to publish a book on how to get rich writing.
This is how its done. America’s greatest Composer, Charles Ives. Professional insurance executive. Composer in his spare time. Still the greatest.
This is an interesting essay with some good comments but I believe we’re, in part, missing the mark. First, let me disclose that I’m an Engineer and have worked steady since I was 17 and am now 64. Let’s take Steve Jobs. He was a first year college drop out, yet he became one of the most successful men of our era. A quick internet check shows that at least 19 of the fortune 500 CEOs had no college education. So clearly one can make it if there is drive and passion without a college degree of any sort. The current push on Engineering as providing good jobs is bunk. If you eventually want to become financially independent, you go into business not engineering. In fact the majority of work out there is producing, marketing, distributing, and selling products and services, not engineering. What products and services? Well that’s the problem. In the 1950s we were told the future was Chemical Engineering. It wasn’t. In fact, every decade since has made predictions about the next hot thing. They were all wrong. Before the 1980s no one predicted the explosion of personal computer use much less the internet or the explosion in cell phone technology. And that’s just technology. What about retail? As we watch the slow demise of Sears and Kmart due in part to the rise in Walmart or the death of most retail bookstores due to Amazon and internet sales, or the transfer of heavy manufacturing overseas, it should be evident that a successful business model lasts only so long. In fact some have suggested that the need to change business models is occurring at an increasingly rapid rate. Basically, I contend the world is rapidly changing and we have to figure out how to keep up and be constantly looking for new ways to look at and interconnect things. Again, back to Jobs, he, and others, did not just meet new consumer demands, they identified a demand where none existed before. As to most college graduates, including us hard core technology majors, the majority do not work in their college major discipline. Take for example Herman Cain, a math/EE major, who became CEO of a nationwide Pizza chain. Yes, he started in engineering but moved into an entirely different line of work. What I’m getting at is no one has a lock on what the world needs or wants in the future so for all anyone knows an obscure degree might be valuable and the sure lock degree might become worthless overnight. For instance while finance majors are still being hired, it’s certainly not the hot degree it once was. So what does a college degree represent in reality for most? I contend it shows a level of grit and determination (remember 50% of college students drop out). It should also provide some level of certification that the graduate can do research by themselves, communicate effectively, and can solve problems. All worthwhile skills that most employers should desire, and remember that we have no idea what the problems of the future will be. And we’re going to need them to stay up with a rapidly changing, increasingly globalized world. I agree that colleges and faculty that only indoctrinate and inculcate a sense of entitlement vice teach students how to think, communicate, research and solve problems are doing us a disservice, but I wouldn’t get too hung up on what is studied in college, including those ethnic studies most of us on this site, including me, abhor. Thanks for letting me comment.
I second the motion. Engineering is not a stable lucrative profession. My father earned three engineering degrees from MIT, my brothers went to engineering schools: Georgia Tech, Bell Labs, and the black sheep of our clan earned two degrees in computer science. I am a Professional Engineer. None of my children, or theirs, became engineers. I have swayed several bright teens away from the career, and one BSCE. The work can be fascinating, but it is an employee – management alignment, whereby the talent pool, and salaries are controlled by visa limits, and the major employers are oligopolies. With big pipes, the work will increasing move over seas to cheaper work centers.
I recommend to parents that their babies learn Mandarin, and guide them into international Asian business studies. Latent innate language abilities are lost within months of speaking. Fluency in the tongue of emerging nations, plus business acumen, will put food on the table, over the next life time.
On point with the article, I note that Columbian Univeristy, Dr. Hannah Appel, now offers graduate level credits for participating in Occupy America. A fierce critic of capitalism, her students will almost certainly be, or become, Marxist revolutionaries. Except for rare tenured positions, it is likely they will live in tents when they are fifty. It is highly unlikely that they will any marketable skills when they graduate.
Moreover, I also note that another Columbia alumni sits in the White House and is redefining our energy policies, with almost no input from engineers. He has, and will continue to destroy careers in energy engineering.
This sounds like (mostly) a straw man. I know probably two or three dozen young people in age group of 20 to 30 and none of them fall into this description. They run the gamut from blue collar to upper middle class. Most fall in the middle middle class. They mostly all went to college (not a couple of the blue collar ones). They mostly all have jobs ranging from working in a gas station to being an MD or architect. Several of them are nurses. None of them are living on daddy’s money or whining that they can’t get a job as the CEO on the first day.
There are always going to be people that can’t find work because of decisions they made that turned out to be bad. I have relatives in the construction business who haven’t been doing well the past three years. I lived in Pittsburgh in the mid-80′s when all the steel mills shut down and read about all the men out of work every day in the paper. Some decisions turn out to be bad only after a while.
I’m not saying that there’s no one who get’s a degree in art history that can’t find a job, but I don’t think this is major trend that needs to be nipped in the bud or else our society will come crumbling down.
BTW, check out this list of the 100 most iconic internet videos if you want to be among the cognoscenti. It’s always peanut butter jelly time!
http://www.urlesque.com/2009/04/07/the-100-most-iconic-internet-videos/
“GDI I have one of the multidisciplinary degrees so widely derided on PJ Media. ?—thinking across disciplines rather than in silos. ” Wait! – what Silos?, Titans, Minuteman? be specific man. Or is there a “Silo” in the New York Public Library? There has to be one at Harvard, cause thats where they threw all the common sense that used to be there.
The egg heads out there in university land don’t get it?! We Americans have taken “Mediocrity to new Heights” we won the world not with Curt Lemay’s mailed fist, but with Coke, Burgers, Blue jeans, Rock & Roll, & those aid programs that are eternal & despite which ever “DOOFUS” we let occupy 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The jury is in, its over, — “O” can have his next 4 if he gets enough jug heads to not pay attention, but no matter DEMS are moving back home (count the number of retirements-don’t think they smell something burning?
So OWS can occupy anything they want, its still over for them until they get up off their collective asses and join the passing parade
Oh and by the way, an union riots will only increase our margin of victory on a state by state basis. So attention union thugs — Riot away and smile for the alphabet soup media-ABC CBS NBC -its ok to scowl at Fox News
Check “6″
Fostering a love of learning is what we are missing. I’m more worried about the deaths of young people’s souls than their college choices. I discern a conservative elitist undertone in articles like these. The “poor sap” who majored in Chinese philosophy or jazz guitar who is working at Starbuck’s is somehow “less than”other more “productive” members of society – the writers never mean to sound like that but they always do. And the radicals of the Occupy movement should not be included. In my city most have parents who are well-off and in 5 years will have snagged a job due to their parents’ connections.
Right now with young people, it’s the lack of stable family life, it’s amorality and the loss of a spiritual connection to a higher power.Of course, no one wants to talk about that, it’s too difficult.
Baloney.
If anything we have too much “sprituality” and not enough reality. For the time you spend on this Earth, your soul needs a body, and that body needs food. Productivity is what feeds the body. Not enough productivity and the body dies. What happens to the soul then is a mystery to all of us, but only the most depraved and abominable religions celebrate intentional death.
Love of learning? How about pride in work? Of contributing to your community (and not in some made-up bs way but in a tangible way appreciated by your neighbors)?
We have way too much nourish-my-soul narcicism as it is. Too many people want to make a living off their spirituality, want to be paid for their spiritual grandstanding. I’m in no mood to have someone lecture me on a connection to a higher power when I’m footing the bill for their lifestyle.
Besides, anyone who thinks you have to choose between productivity and spirutality is a fool. Productivity isn’t an option – you have to have that or you die. No society can survive long without being productive. So if you want spirituality, you have to find a way to have it coexist with productivity. The false choice of one or the other is something foisted on us by lazy slackers with no desire to work for their daily bread, so they try to convice the rest of us that they’re being spiritual on our behalf so we should feed them.
I’m sick of it. Maybe you don’t mean to sound that way, but there’s a liberal undercurrent, overcurrent, crosscurrent and general hurricane that belittles a plumber as somehow automatically less enlightened than the professional student sitting in a lecture hall for four years listening to the self-anoited spout untested theories.
I think you’re both talking past each other. The thing is, if you go to school for the “love of learning” and not with employment in mind, you’ll find “personal fulfillment” but not necessarily a job. If you’re happy being a personally fulfilled barista then all is good. But if you complain that there isn’t a well-paying job waiting at the other end of your personally fulfilling degree, then it turns out you weren’t looking for “personal fulfillment” after all, and you should have made different choices.
I’m with you, JMH!
Long ago, Kahlil Gibran wrote, “Work is love made visible.”
I was pretty much raised on that, and all in all, it’s turned out better than OK. And then there’s Freud’s famous, “Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.” And when love fails, or the loved one dies, it’s been my experience that one can survive, and eventually thrive again, with the lifeline provided by work. The mystery to me is why more people don’t see it as one of life’s true blessings.
I knew from the time I was 9 years old that I wanted to be a teacher. (Yeah, it’s not unique or kewl, but that was my dream.) Jimmah Carter was president when I was in high school, so you can imagine just how lovely the economy was. Though I was in a college-prep track, my mom insisted that I take a typing class so I could get a non-teaching job. I thought she was nuts, but she saw that schools were laying off teachers and figured it would be difficult to get a teaching job right out of college. She was dead right. It took me 4 years after I graduated to find a teaching job. In the meantime, I used my typing, and later computer, skills to obtain work, pay my student loans, and learn a few things. I don’t have regrets, and I’m grateful that my mom has a very big practical streak.
My daughter is toying with the idea of becoming a writer. I told her she can do whatever she wants, but she has to understand that not all career choices are equally lucrative. So now she’s thinking about becoming a scientist. (Yay!)
My wife and I (a CPA and an Elect. Engineer) have 2 daughters. When it was time for our oldest to go to college we insisted that she major in something “employable”. She majored in business and earned a degree in marketing, all the while crying that all she wants to do is go to Italy and study art. We insisted that she continue with the business degree and then go to Italy and study art. My wife and I were chided that we were “heartless”. Our daughter is happily employed and is still interested in art, but she’s capable of supporting herself.
Our younger daughter has also most recently graduated from college. This one with a degree in Civil Engineering. She complains about being bored pushing virtual dirt around, but she’s also capable of supporting herself.
Both of us are very proud of our daughters accomplishments. Our friends who chided us about pushing employment first and fulfillment second are still supporting their kids who earned degrees in fashion design ($100K in student loans) and art history ($75K in student loans). Did I mention that neither of my kids needed student loans for either the business degree or the engineering degree as summer jobs and part time work were readily available.
I have been through this, but had a career in the furniture business. Got an MA in counseling following my interests. Then went back and got an RN to get a paycheck. Retired after twenty years in psychiatric nursing. The extra education only earned me my GI Bill money. I think the government should only finance educations that lead to jobs in areas that need more people desperately.
Follow your dream if you want, but do it before you get married or produce children.
“Unfortunately a high school diploma is a ticket to an unskilled job…”
Thank God, I dropped out!
I could’ve wound up dishing out burgers at McDonalds.
Any degree with “studies” attached to the end is worthless unless you want to work in some parasitic Federal agency.
The old liberal arts degree is not relevant to todays society which is increasingly grounded in technology and science.
We need a new educational goal, one that prepares students for the new society and economy, but at the same time introduces them to the liberal arts, which are or should be a life-long vocation or pursuit. For example, a major in biochemistry or computer engineering with a minor in music history makes a lot of sense. Some worthless majors are “cultural studies” ” diversity management,” “Gay, Lesbian, bi-focal and Bigamist Studies,” and “science education.”
It’s all about the lack of discipline. Dad used to say “Three generations off the farm and the ability to get things done vanishes.” Dad was right.
Being a year away from 70 and a high school drop out as well as an employer all my business life I guess all I can add is this, work for yourself and a fancy degree means very little, if anything. As an employer I was always more concerned about how much they owed in student loans and what they did during their summers. It always told me more about them than their marks ever would. Avoided the high graders as they were more that often bright but lazy, never learned how to work. I also liked drop outs as they were intelligent enough to get in but usually bored with the uni BS, they quite often made the best and most ambitious employee.
What a fascinating topic! I’m middle-aged, and finally returned to college to finish my BA/getting MA at the same time. My major was “Human Communications”; minor in psych (after the tradition estab. by S.I. Hayakawa). I’ve always been interested in, “I realize you think you understand what you thought I said, but what I said was not what I think.” So many prob. come from not understanding one another, thru faulty expression/hearing.
Long story short: less than 2 yrs. in, I’d had enough of the AHum b.s. and switched my major/minor. Now I’m 1 class from B.A., and 1/2 way thru M.A. in cognitive neuroscience (yes, still psych but MUCH more hard science discipline). I will be qualified to work w/children – seniors, in everything from hearing (my specialty) to “how is your brain working today?” (mostly seniors suffering from strokes/dementia). I will ALWAYS be employable, and yet doing something I’m passionate about. Yay!
Aren’t the feds pushing for new restrictions for private, for-profit colleges and technical and trade schools? The schools must track and report graduates’ employment data and demonstrate how the programs/degrees/certificates they offer lead to real jobs.
These rules will not, of course, apply to private or public non-profit schools, meaning the traditional university system will remain intact, unaffected and dysfunctional.
Tell your friend with the degree in linguistics, studying oriental philosophy, to post his resume on a government international affairs site. Businesses wishing to do business in the Orient are desperate to find people who have cross cultural expertise.
Anyone notice how high the costs of education have gone, and not in proportion to the rest of society.
Seems that once again with government intervention in the cost of this business, the prices rise with no relation to what is happening.
In the 1970′s I was able to go to school, work part time and cover bills and leave college with a doctorate and no debt. Would never happen today.
Also have seen what the rents by college campus have risen to. In 30 years the unit I rented is now at 10 times the rent I paid, tuition is close to 20 times what I paid, and there are no increases in income to justify these costs and the ability to pay for them, pay back the loan and have money left over.
Sad, very sad
After my plumber’s last visit, which required me to write a check for $90 for less than one hour of his time, I realized what a waste my BA in English literature turned out to be.
My plumber HAS a degree in English literature, and doesn’t consider it a waste. Perhaps you have benefitted from it more than you realize.
I’m in a highly regulated, “certified” field, so it’s easy for me to say my degrees have been worth it, as I literally couldn’t do what I do without them. I suspect there’s a lot of insecurity if you’re not in such a trade-restricted field, since knowledge is otherwise so very difficult to quantify. Therefore, the tendency is to quantify it in dollars, which may not reflect its true value.
As Sir Winston Churchill so wisely wrote:- ” “Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.” that this is true is so obvious when you look at the OWS morons and compare them to the Tea Party realists.
Ever here of David Segal…the tea guy?
Great article!
Sent both my kids to Lutheran colleges because these schools have a sense of vocation. I remember Dr. Frame, Augsburg college president, speaking on this in a welcome to college speech to parents of incoming students. His contention was that Lutheran schools had a sense of vocation because of their original mission of training Pastors and teachers for their schools and churches. When he added that they encourage students to choose majors and classes with the expectation that it will help them get a job, I knew we were in the right place. 180 degree different than the council I received 25 years earlier at a large public university where I was literally told “study for the sake of studying, career means nothing!”
Short story.
The black sheep, I dropped out of high school in 9th grade. Went in the military, worked hard, became a firefighter, retired at age 50 (not a young mans job). HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT!! Frequently worked part time + to make ends meet.
The white sheep (A student)My brother went to college for 20 years, terminal degree in the arts, now complains because has no retirement or health insurance, and is trying to make a living with art and music. He can’t afford a pot to piss in let alone a window to throw it out of.
It’s all about choices. Stay in school, get an education that will pay.
No one will give job if you don’t go find one.
I would like to point out that the Army generally won’t take you today if you don’t have a High School Diploma or GED, and the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corp DEFINITELY won’t take you if you’re a dropout with no GED.
I’m a scientist and I obviously value the ‘hard’ disciplines. But I also see the value of humanities studies and would never counsel a young student to go into science just so they can get a job.
I find it slightly ironic that this discussion is happening on the website of Pajamasmedia, one of the more successful, new media sites. I would guess that most of the contributors have some kind of liberal arts background. My point is that at the time they were pursuing their education, the very idea that (almost) anyone could, in their pajamas, write and self-publish influential commentary for almost no cost, would have been considered preposterous. The reality is that media and humanities are in the midst of a huge revolution. The old barriers are crumbling and good thoughtful writers can get their stuff out. There are, and will continue to be, great opportunities for talented individuals to make real, influential contributions. The real barrier will be what it should be – talent, and having something to say. Talent doesn’t come cheap. It takes hard work to nurture – 10,000 hours according to Gladwell, and discipline to stick with it. Even those ‘Anger Studies’ graduates (great phrase by the way), have opportunities to contribute (if they work at it and have something to say).
Finally, the discussion seems to have been focussed on a very narrow view of employment. There are great opportunities for individuals with initiative to create their own jobs – as business owners, consultants etc. Recessions often create great opportunities for people with good ideas to get started.
Some one, it seems to me, once said: “if you do what you love, it will never be laborious.” And, I’d bet you hard cold cash that “IS” the philosophy of many “students” at university, and why they ‘study’ their hobbies.
I’ve worked with every manor of “college educated” person. From medical doctors to (several disciplines in) engineering to chemistry to electronics to physics to geology to materials science. Some with Bachelors degrees and some with PhD’s. Some with as many as 5 degrees.
And I can tell you that one thing plagues the largest majority of them. And that “IS” most aren’t working in the field of their choice.
Or even in that field at all.
College is way over rated. And jobs for graduates in their fields of study are not nearly as prevalent as the popular belief. If you are among the top 10% in your class, maybe.
That all being said and considered, I am a HS drop out. I have no advanced degree. I have done the exact same work as the above, I have worked in collaborative efforts and individually in a community of these people. I made a similar wage and completed work as good or better, in some cases, as any one of them.
I have attended literally hundreds of hours of training in both formal classroom and hands on environments, CBT’s and just because I was interested in some things I studied them.
With the right attitude and the right motivation you can do what needs to be done without being indoctrinated by some socialist professor or jumping thru hoops like a trained dog. And paying for it.
To (sort of) quote a popular clown: “Are you an AmeriCAN? or an AmeriCAN’T?”
many university degrees have been rendered useless since it seems they give them out like prizes in cereal boxes.
personally I find it disappointing that through my taxes I pay for a significant part of other peoples degrees (whether useless or not). I assert that it would be a university student who will be the first to throw a brick through someones window.
when I was in high school people who went into trades were considered to stupid to go to university …now stupid university grads wonder why they cann’t get there cars fixed.
just parasites and produces out there. which are you?
I think humanities majors are also victims in all of this. The disciplines have been so dumbed down that even those who ARE truly gifted in their fields end up with a worthless degree. I have a daughter who is a brilliant writer, but I hesitate to advise her to focus on that. I think she’ll end up with a double major, English and something more practical. And, ultimately, she will leave that practical field.
I don’t think any knowledge is useless, however. I just hope it doesn’t cost too much in time, money and effort before she figures out what path to take.
yes …knowledge is not useless but many degrees are
regards
Where this topic’s concerned, I’m a fence-sitter.
I think a man ought to find something that can pay his way and his family’s. I’ve got zero use for most of the pseudo-”humanities” that infest modern academia, and don’t think much more of the traditional humanities’ current custodians, or their focus. That said, the Western world’s various crises are as much civilizational as economic and political. Conservatives (rightly) deplore our widespread subliteracy, historical amnesia, and intellectual haziness. But whatever the virtues of a purely technical education, those are exactly the problems it can’t address.
For a civilization to remain worthy of the name and to perpetuate itself, it has to educate its citizens in–among other things–a traditional kind of “humanities” that is far removed from anything you’re likely to find at an average modern university. It’s half-witted and ultimately self-destructive to lump the former and latter type of humanities together, and dismiss them both in the name of maximizing employability.
A man ought to be useful, literate, and civilized; God save us from lefties and righties alike who consider any of the three optional or frivolous.
Both of my daughters got sucked into the governments teats of ‘college loans’ the in thing was ‘beauty college’ Daddy I have to do 200 shampoos to graduate. All I could say is beauty college dosent create wealth. Shaking my head-well I did mine every day, to no avail both quickly lost intrest but not loan forgivness, a tough lesson to learn. Since this horrendous recession I see beauty colleges popping up all over. Sucking off government teats still. *sigh*
I was thinking about this issue just the other day. I graduated in the 70s in the depths of the recession (as bad as this one) with a liberal arts degree. Over the next four years, my two younger siblings did the same. A few years later I got an MBA and my youngest sibling got a law degree. I paid for the MBA from my own job earnings. The lawyer borrowed money from our parents to go to law school. The middle sibling was going to take the Graduate Record Exam and go to graduate school, but on that day the car broke down so it didn’t happen. Today the middle sibling is still paying off a mortgage (ouch, that refi!). The youngest and I own our homes outright and are otherwise debt-free with reasonable provisions for retirement. One time, the middle sibling came to visit me. Walking around the neighborhood, and observing the spacious and attractive homes, the sibling commented “Wow, what kind of jobs to people have to HAVE to own houses like that?” I was too polite to comment “The kind of job I have.” The so-called 99% may not realize how much hard work, planning and persistence is required to be even in the 25%, to say nothing of the 1%…
As the wealth of a society declines, it’s ability to support those not doing something “economic” declines. Art history majors have fewer openings to be employed because those who have the motivation and luxury to care about art history are fewer on the ground, and taxation can’t make up the difference, especially when retiree benefits start eating most of the budget. Even if there still is money, the average person is closer to the edge and starting to think more about survival than amenities, or other amenities that mean more.
Poor societies cannot support so many of those disconnected from making things people need. It’s just math, don’t get upset, Mr. Graduate.
My work ethic has been part of my personality since childhood. When I grew up, you did a good job and got recognized for it, whether by good grades or getting first chair in the orchestra, or having an article in the newspaper about your success. You performed well, whether at school or work, to have pride in yourself and to never let down your family.
My degree is in history, which I enjoyed studying. My goal in life has always been to be a published writer, which I am good at but knew wouldn’t be what I used to support myself or my family (although I published 2 ebooks this year!).
I have never gone without a job. When I wasn’t old enough for employment, I ran my own lawn mowing business and baby sat. The day I became old enough for a work card, I got a job. Throughout my education I worked 40-80 hours week, kept a 3.8, and graduated with little debt.
Because of my work ethic, my main college employer promoted me after graduation into a salaried position. I wasn’t making a lot of money, but it was great experience and I stayed on for four more years, climbing the ladder over my own supervisors in the process. When I went looking for a job in another city, the fact that I had started as a dishwasher and wound up as the #2 manager on site said more about my work ethic and determination than any reference or college degree ever could.
I currently manage a business than at times employs up to 75 people, most in entry level positions. My most difficult problem is finding individuals to employ who have any sort of work ethic or customer service skills at all. Growing up in a disposable society created by Walmart and McDonalds, even college students have no idea what it means to work with integrity or to be customer focused. They have grown up with their “service” being handed a bag out of a window, with their Walmart goods lasting through three uses before falling apart, and this has been acceptable to them. They see jobs as the same thing, work three weeks here and two months there, and they wonder why they can only hold jobs that are minimum wage and often cannot even last at those.
I tell all of my new hires that although you are coming in as a cashier or to help load purchases into people’s cars, this job is what you make it; promotion is possible, and many of the company’s corporate executives worked from the bottom up, it all depends on you. Most of them, sadly, don’t care.
Keep on keeping on!!! Virtue really is its own reward…and anyone who is an exemplar to youth has a special place in heaven.
Two words: Government subsidies.
Get rid of them and most of this nonsense will evaporate very quickly.
Lol. That obviously wrong and here’s why. Subsidies to education were much higher in the 1960s and tuition was lower. Also, look at the countries like china and s. Korea who highly subsidize their education. The education is cheaper. They just value different things. They also subsidize healthcare. But of course we call all of that communism.
We call it that because it IS that.
My tuition at Ohio Wesleyan in the ’60s was about $1400/year. I did not know any student who ever had a gubbmint subsidized loan….they didn’t exist. THAT is the subsidy that caused the tuition bubble.
In 1964-67, I had National Defense loans for at least what your tuition total was for four years. As a teacher, I had to pay back only half.
Well, in classical music, the West is getting its you know what kicked by China, S Korea, and other oriental cultures. If anyone notices the major international competitions that go on, so many of the winners are not Western. They mostly seem to think it is the road to riches, to become a classical musician. Of course, they work extremely hard at their instruments, a drive sometimes not coming from the heart, but fear of failure. They have been convinced that they will have a better life in music than the life they had in the old country. of course they will. Most piano students I have had in over forty years of teaching, lack the drive and devotion for hard work. It has to be easy for them, unfortunately, I do not have a magic wand.
In order to make a living, offer something that people need; to get rich, sell or produce what people need every day.
Im a majorette in drama!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06-LschF82o
What is even worse is those with overinflated senses of entitlement, who are dumb as rocks…which are being cranked out by the millions in America.
I know my rights!”
Not hard to figure out what the Left and Identity Politics Racists have filled this girls head with as regards to what she thinks is “her rights.”
An intimate, yet conservative, study of the incubation and birth processes of the creature known as ‘Blogger’. Where a Masters Degree in Entertainment Anthropology is actually preferred.
I think any college or university that awards a degree to someone who can’t get a job in the field within a year should be responsible for a percentage of the student loans.
College and universities should be held accountable for awarding worthless degrees. After all, they sold something claiming it had more value than they delivered on.
Playing the victim is total rubbish. Shame on you. Out of those who are now reading this sentence, some of you are certain to become rich or successful, and some of you may die in poverty and misery….but it depends on YOU, which of these you are going to do.
America can afford everything for all our citizens even in the bad economy years…if we shut down theunsustainable United Nations…they continue to fail their charter of world peace after 65 years of trying. Also, after 65 years of giving, giving, giving, them billions of American dollars. They have never repaid a cent and they never account for how it is spent…How sweet is that for those thugs and bullies in the obsolete UN.
I was one of those “crazy” people who started out with a fine arts degree and then switched to electrical engineering. It was the quality of summer jobs, however, that really spoke to me. During my arts years, my summers included jobs such as stevedoring, house painting, and driving a truck. During my engineering studies, I had challenging summer jobs at TWA, GE and RCA at the cutting edge of technology. I subsequently went on to a rewarding technical career in broadcasting and have been comfortably retired for three years. There was a joke going around campus back in the early 60′s…..”with a Fine Arts degree and $5, you can buy a terrific steak dinner”. While the cost of the steak has changed, the concept certainly hasn’t aged much.
Reminds me of the 3 most famous questions asked by major; business major’s ask “How much does it cost?”, engineering major’s ask “How is it made?”, liberal arts major’s ask “Do you want fries with that?”
Go apply with the FBI, US Marshals or Postal Inspection Service. All they require is a 4 year degree. They dont care what your major is. The catch is that you may actually have to do some work.
Well, to start off, I took the wrong educational pathway at the beginning. But, the vocation, taught almost every aspect of mechanics. Fluids, electrical, electronics, structures, internal and external combustion engines, etc. With my experience of growing up on a dairy farm and my further education in business and mathematics, I could do most anything.
What I think people are not understanding though is this, the world and the US no matter how hard they attempt to crush free markets, they cannot and will never be able to crush the free market of individuals. Cronyism, nepotism and other forms of advancement will only work so far.
I harken back to the analogy of a story I heard about once. The rule of attaining the position of your own incompetence. I still have not found it and the likes of Obama has proven the analogy that for some, they will be advanced to stellar levels of incompetence. LOL.
Barry, what are you talking about? What careers are you paying for, specifically? Tell me exactly. And the amount you pay.
Right on Barry! But don’t forget about business and econ degrees. Those seem pretty worthless to me. We have an issue, not with rich people on the whole, but with UNPRODUCTIVE rich people. These people that study business and econ and go into finance or banking, more specifically. Those types of people don’t produce anything of real value, but rather they manipulate money and play with spreadsheets. Their pay isn’t commensurate with the social/productive value of their work. Think about where all that money invest banks get comes from. Why are people who aren’t directly involved in creating products for investment getting paid so much?
The greatest curse in American business and government is the MBA put in charge of a production function; they’re worse than lawyers. The only thing I’ve ever seen an MBA able to do is spend endless hours picking flyshit out of the pepper. They don’t know enough about the function to prioritize activities, so everything assumes equal importance second only to the bottom line in business, or the most power and budget in government.
Lawyers will at least try to have a program and pursue it; its usually wrong, but it is doing something.
When you go to school, the tuition covers the cost of sitting in class. That is all they are selling. I have 2 great undergrad degrees. I knew neither one was a profession. One could have been if i moved to NYC.
My interviews were for jobs like entry level insurance sales.
No problem. I had no college debt. I did go on and graduate with two different graduate majors, publish a thesis and get the highest job offer in a field different from my 2 undergrad degrees. Out of over 2,000 grads, I got the highest job offer of any grad. My job skill set was worth a lot to my employer.
This article is appalling, probably one of the worst ever by this author. How can someone seriously think it acceptable that an intelligent and hard-working 28-year-old can’t make a decent living, regardless of where he happens to have majored? The sort of stupid credentialism that would condemn this educated young man for his “unproductive” studies would be deplored by any real conservative.
What’s more appalling is idiots like him went college in the 60s and 70s for the cheap cheap and decry socialism and express outrage about how they are “paying” for everyone else.
A classical education is to make you an educated, cultured person, nothing more. If you seek an occupation, go into a profession or become a union apprentice electrician. )’(
Interesting, deriding those interested in degrees and not the ridiculous inflation of the cost of the degree, caused not by any sort of rising salaries for professors (I am one, the pay is pitiful), but the increases instead in luxury living accommodations, fitness complexes (when one could join a local gym for less than the tuition increase), various student services far above and beyond any common sense, and bloated administrative structures good for little other than justifying why the bloat exists and trying to fundraise to maintain the new university’s unwieldy (and un-maintainable) structure. Instead of railing against students deciding to study what they are interested in, how about railing against the unnecessary bloat of rising costs for no value added?
In any case, a college degree is not an apprenticeship. While it may certify you for a certain field, it is rarely a guarantee of any particular skill (AAs aside). And as someone who initially went to college to be a diplomat (with BAs in Economics and International Relations and Spanish), changed course to become an information science professional, and then got an MFA in Writing simply for the love of the subject (since I already had a career that pays the bills), I would say a college degree is supposed to certify that you have a certain level of critical thinking, research, and written communication skills. it doesnt lock you into a particular field (though those that choose wisely choose degrees that they can take advantage of in terms of job qualifications later on).
And what, precisely, is it that you “invent, make or sell”?? As near as I can tell, you invent evil motives for people that don’t look like you, make up stories about how they are out to get us and we must feed the military industrial complex to stay Safe, and sell the entire load of bullshit to governments who want to pretend they have an ‘intellectual’ basis for screwing over the poor to fight wars we don’t need.
I’d rather have the “useless” Oriental philosophy major- at least he isn’t actively destroying our civilization.
In your article you are mainly making the claim that college graduates with these degrees expect private sector jobs that you deem nonproductive and useless. Yet the only solution you reference is the creation of government subsidies for government jobs. Is this article really an attack on the private job market, because many of the examples of needless policy making jobs could also be applied to the public sector. You only cover your solution in one tiny paragraph. I would like to know why you believe govt jobs are more productive, and why do you believe that workers in govt agencies are not simply creating the same useless policies of the private sector.
“a degree in linguistics and is now studying Oriental philosophy at a fine university.”
Oh Well, there will always be a need for Taxi Drivers and Bartenders. Granted, college degrees were never designed for the job market. They were a nice place for the idle rich to hang out waiting for their father to retire and take over the business, or find an equally idle and rich spouse. But at what point does the college need to be held responsible for offering frivilous degrees and wasting state and federal tax dollars?
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