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The Uneducated Unwashed Masses

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Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton University, said the following to the New York City School Teachers Association in 1909: "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forgo the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks."

Read more at the following link
Against School, by John Taylor Gatto

If you have the time and interest, you can read Gatto's book online here:
Read The Book - John Taylor Gatto

I got my copy for 4 bucks from some guy in NJ through Amazon. It is easier to read in actual book form.

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But you can get the gist of the idea from Wilson's quote. The interesting thing is not that we would "expect" a smaller class of "smarter" people and a larger class of "dumber" people, it's that we wanted (and still want, I would argue) to educate a select few, and leave the rest to make everything run.

It seems the way it's always been done in large societies. Last I checked, some countries still have a strict class system where the disparity between the liberally educated and the dumb poor is rigid.

Here (in the United States), it's complicated. One of the most fascinating things, to me, about my home country of the Good Ol' US of A is that it seems to do everything other countries do, sometimes even more than most, and yet its very foundation is a rejection of those principles.

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But that's not really why I made this thread. I'm interested in what people think of this system of a select educated class and a larger somehow purposefully undereducated class.

Is it a good thing? Is it necessary?

Another question: If it is necessary now or was necessary in 1909, is it conceivable that technology would advance to the point where, if not everyone could be liberally educated, then the ratio could be reversed- i.e. a small class of uneducated menial workers (we'll call them "illegal immigrants") and a much larger class of liberally educated people. Has this already begun to happen with the advent of the Internet and increased access to information and collaboration?

I don't think it has already happened, but I do think we as a society are handicapping ourselves by limiting the number of "liberally educated" people for no good reason.:eek:

@hamletswords,

If you have no political equality you can hang up economic equality or equality of education. If you are denied political power because you are uneducated then you will be denied education to justify your want of political power. It is a catch twenty-two. Behind it is the fear that is inspired in each of us of our neighbors, and to fear his potential power over us. The fact is that democracy only gives a person control of their own affairs, and a veto over others overstepping their power. Only democracy as we concieve of it, as majority rule is a danger to individual rights because people can be destroyed by halves. What say should the majority have over the minority in their excercise of the right of privacy, or the right to bear arms? These rights are dangerous to privilege and property, and they will have to go. If the majority or even a concerted minority can be convinced to deprive the rest of the population of their rights it is considered legal. It is not. All rights are inalienable. But inalienable rights have become private property in the past under private rule, and they will again.

Do we have the right to equality of education? Yes. Will we have it? No. That is the point where class rule becomes hereditary; where one man can afford his education and another must drive himself into a nearly perpetual debt for his. People are made slaves as the price of their education, and that is the point. We do not understand to what extent we export education, and then we export jobs to those educated people or import them to compete with the very people who have indebted themselves for a even chance. If you graduate a phd, with a hundred thousand dollar debt without earning your first pay check only to find some guy from India is here driving down your wages; what is the point? Slavery is the point. But what if we need all our brains to beat some other nation in the game of war? Is there going to be any glue besides money holding our brains together in the same effort? Do you wonder where is the ethics in business. Where is the slave with ethics. Ethics is a standard for free people.

You might look at your society and say an educated man is a blessing. Should we not want all people to be well educated? We are sold on another fact, that every uneducated man is a victim for the educated, so we fear the educated. I think, if we are to have social mobility, and cross class communication it should begin at the point of education. It does not. We send the educated a message they hear loud and clear: You are on your own. Don't look to us for help. Help yourself. We didn't help you. Don't worry about exploiting us. The only difference between you and a man with money is the money; so care little how you make it, or who you hurt in the process. It is all about the money. All the education you get that is not about the money is a waste of time.

@hamletswords,

hamletswords wrote:

But that's not really why I made this thread. I'm interested in what people think of this system of a select educated class and a larger somehow purposefully undereducated class.

Is it a good thing? Is it necessary?

Another question: If it is necessary now or was necessary in 1909, is it conceivable that technology would advance to the point where, if not everyone could be liberally educated, then the ratio could be reversed- i.e. a small class of uneducated menial workers (we'll call them "illegal immigrants") and a much larger class of liberally educated people. Has this already begun to happen with the advent of the Internet and increased access to information and collaboration?

I don't think it has already happened, but I do think we as a society are handicapping ourselves by limiting the number of "liberally educated" people for no good reason.:eek:

How educated and how uneducated are we talking about? I think it's in no one's interest to have people who are illiterate and who cannot do simple arithmetic. I also think it's in everyone's interest to have a political system in which the voters all are able to understand isses at a level more deeply than a sound bite in a political ad.

Beyond that, the problems in our educational system have complex roots, and probably have nothing to do with a deliberate limitation of "educated" people. We just have a lot of crappy schools in crappy socioeconomic environments, we have a lot of kids who are never in a nurturing home environment in which their educatioins are valued or fostered, and we have a lot of people whose families cannot open doors for them by giving them enriching activities.

@Aedes,

Well, there will always be a class of people who do manual work and a class that engage themselves with intellectual work.

Also, from your post, you take up the topic from an egalitarian point of view, meaning that you talk about the issue like everyone had the same intellectual and physical capacities.

I think this is where the argument for socialism, communism, anarchism, and other egalitarian world view social and economic theories fail.

Most people already recognize the fact that people vary in their physical capacities, i.e., some people are naturally more muscular, have denser bones, etc., and are naturally able to participate in manual work (whether it be in the gym or in a factory) easier than others. On the other hand, studies have consistently shown that intelligence also has a large genetic factor: .8 on a scale of -1 to 1. If you're interested in the literature on this subject, you might want to pick up some information on the Texas Adoption Project, the Minnesota twin study, and other studies done by psychologists like Robert Plomin, Arthur Jensen, and Thomas Bouchard.

So, in a nutshell: people are naturally unequal and there will always be an uneducated underclass and an intelligent upperclass in societies which allow social stratification based on ability.

@krazy kaju,

You do a fine job arguing that those things which "allow social stratification based on ability" are also things over which the individual has no control.

If they have no control over these differences, why should these differences cause some to suffer and others to have more than they need?

Quote:

you take up the topic from an egalitarian point of view, meaning that you talk about the issue like everyone had the same intellectual and physical capacities

That's not what egalitarian means. Further, the assumption was never made.

But think about it, even though people may have unequal abilities, are they not all equally benefited by a good education?

@krazy kaju,

krazy kaju wrote:

Well, there will always be a class of people who do manual work and a class that engage themselves with intellectual work.

Also, from your post, you take up the topic from an egalitarian point of view, meaning that you talk about the issue like everyone had the same intellectual and physical capacities.

I think this is where the argument for socialism, communism, anarchism, and other egalitarian world view social and economic theories fail.

Most people already recognize the fact that people vary in their physical capacities, i.e., some people are naturally more muscular, have denser bones, etc., and are naturally able to participate in manual work (whether it be in the gym or in a factory) easier than others. On the other hand, studies have consistently shown that intelligence also has a large genetic factor: .8 on a scale of -1 to 1. If you're interested in the literature on this subject, you might want to pick up some information on the Texas Adoption Project, the Minnesota twin study, and other studies done by psychologists like Robert Plomin, Arthur Jensen, and Thomas Bouchard.

So, in a nutshell: people are naturally unequal and there will always be an uneducated underclass and an intelligent upperclass in societies which allow social stratification based on ability.

What people think of as natural they tend to justify, and what they justify they make fact.

There is a genetic factor in intelligence, and also an enviromental set of factors. I am not able to define any of these completely, and yet I am aware of them. Here is the point I would make. No one is intelligent enough. All people rely upon others and upon their intelligence, even their perspective, and ultimately upon their genetic health for their own. Now, I have book, called Why smart people do Dumb things. As if I need to read what I could have written. I am multi talented. I am a good mechanic, physically able, above average at many things and expert in none. I have had a full and interesting life, I have one child who is certainly as intelligent if not more, and two that have good heads in their own way. But, just as we rely upon the brains of our forefathers, we actually need everyone comming to a agreement, and a common solution that even the slower find benefit in. When law is imposed upon any people injustice follows. Because many situations result in some genius, and creativity, we cannot say it is entirely or mostly hereditary. All people have the ability, and all people have had their geniuses, and any rule which seeks in advance to consign people to a class to which they are not willing and happy to be in is foolish. Not everybody is stupid in the same way. Not everybody is intelligent in the same way. Minds are not formed with a cookie cutter, and life takes every single one of us to be complete. What we need is for each to have the opportunity to achieve to the best of their ability, warm and stimulating environments, and eventually, occupations that support the person and contribute to society. As Plato suggested: each one does best what they enjoy most and to this will give the chief of all their days.

@Fido,

Quote:

On the other hand, studies have consistently shown that intelligence also has a large genetic factor: .8 on a scale of -1 to 1. If you're interested in the literature on this subject, you might want to pick up some information on the Texas Adoption Project, the Minnesota twin study, and other studies done by psychologists like Robert Plomin, Arthur Jensen, and Thomas Bouchard.

IQ tests and twin studies are archaic. They both date back to like 1900, and people still think they have some value.

@hamletswords,

hamletswords wrote:

IQ tests and twin studies are archaic. They both date back to like 1900, and people still think they have some value.

Life is an intelligence test, and the score is always death. Get around that smart folks. You've got the same life as some drooler, and he's got the same life as you. Make the best of it. Try to leave it better than you found it.

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

Life is an intelligence test, and the score is always death.

Then 100% of people fail.

Quote:

You've got the same life as some drooler, and he's got the same life as you.

Nope. You have your own life, which is different in all the ways that your body, your environment, your time and place, and your decisions make it different.

Quote:

Try to leave it better than you found it.

That's a great approach for those of us with the luxury of thinking about our life and our impact. But for those born 1 of 8 kids to a fisherman outside of N'Djamena or to a nomadic Turkana herdsman in Northern Kenya, maybe just taking care of yourself and those around you from moment to moment is good enough.

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

Then 100% of people fail.

True enough, but not all at once, and since knowledge is held and passed culturally; we breed and add to the knowledge of the past.

Quote:

Nope. You have your own life, which is different in all the ways that your body, your environment, your time and place, and your decisions make it different.

Perhaps, now that you mention it, I should say Existence. We have the same existence, and different parts of that existence called life. Yet, life is nothing separate. It is passed by the dying to the living, and while people die, their life continues in others, and in another sense we all experience life together. This is true if one person's joy is another's sadness, or one person's happiness brings happiness to all. No one does it alone, and there is no reason for anyone to feel alone unless they are feeling that no one cares.

Quote:

That's a great approach for those of us with the luxury of thinking about our life and our impact. But for those born 1 of 8 kids to a fisherman outside of N'Djamena or to a nomadic Turkana herdsman in Northern Kenya, maybe just taking care of yourself and those around you from moment to moment is good enough.

Not one of us is different from any other because we each pay for our lives with our lives. Where is the life that does not fear death? Where is the life that does not want more, or will ever say enough? Jesus was right in what he said in the sermon on the mount, and else where. We are all blessed. -In what sense is poor man and rich both blessed? Each has life, and the only curse is in ourselves that we take from another what we cannot use more of ourselves: his time, his labor, his hope, his life. We can make life terribly worse for each, or give to each their portion unmolested. What else have we to give to be worthy of all good in life but this single thing?

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