We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Eloquent. Extraordinary. Timeless. Paradigm-shifting. Classic. Six decades after it first appeared, Leonard Read’s “I, Pencil” evokes such adjectives of praise. Rightfully so, for this little essay opens eyes and minds among people of all ages. Many first-time readers never see the world quite the same again.
One of the most glaring perversities of the modern labor market is credential inflation. While the education workers need to do a job is quite stable, the education they need to get a job has skyrocketed since the 1940s. Sure, the average job is more intellectually demanding than it once was, but researchers find that only explains 20% of the workforce's rising education. What explains the remaining 80%? Employers' expectations have risen across the board. Waiter, bartender, cashier, security guard: These are now common jobs for those with bachelor's degrees...
What is higher ed for? It's used for all sorts of things, including credentialing, career training, adulthood-avoidance, beer-drinking, mating, social and networking opportunities, life-enrichment, a foundation for lifetime learning, etc. etc. From a purely career standpoint, there is no doubt that the first job somebody gets after higher ed can be the most important in career trajectory regardless of the school, major, or grades. Changing trajectory can be done, but it is more difficult if the first rung of the ladder is low.
If, at a given time, three-quarters of the consumers prefer to buy the Acme brand of widgets to any other brand, then Acme Inc. will be said to ‘control’ three-quarters of the market, even though consumers control 100 percent of the market, since they can switch to another brand of widgets tomorrow if someone else comes up with a better widget, or stop buying widgets altogether if a new product comes along that makes widgets obsolete.
Should this apply to Google? Is Google a "utility"?
Our best and brightest, with the most impressive resumes and degrees, not the “decadent, lazy, spoiled, whatever” of Middle America ran up $20 trillion in national debt. Our best failed over a decade to achieve 3 percent economic growth. The supposedly smartest warped the health care system. The brightest could not translate overseas interventions into a strategic or cost-to-benefit advantage. The anointed eroded the border. The most knowledgeable gave us state nullification of federal law. The purportedly most ethical weaponized the IRS, the FISA courts, the DOJ, and the FBI, undermined the idea of free-speech in the university, and politicized everything from the eroding NFL to the increasingly irrelevant Oscars...
Instapundit (Harvard Law grad) has often claimed that it is not the college education which is of value to employers. Rather, it signifes that the person is probably reasonably smart and reasonably diligent, so that filters out lots of people.
Of course, this does not apply so much to STEM students.
However, as higher ed reaches lower into the IQ and diligence levels, the significance of the degree is diluted. WHY COLLEGE FOR ALL IS A BIG MISTAKE
I enjoy them greatly. It's like being back in college, except that his thinking is so far-ranging that it doesn't really fit in a syllabus. OK, he gets minor things wrong sometimes but so does everybody. One heck of a talker, and it's a delight to listen to a genius talker.
One of my favorite Petersonisms is "The university should be the most intellectually unsafe and dangerous place in the world." Right, same as church. Another: "You can't fix your own car and you've never held a job but you think you can fix something as complex as society?" I have found a few things which have been useful refreshments to my own thinking in Peterson's rigorously systematic approach to topics, so here they are:
1. His focus on "levels of analysis." He often says "It depends on which level of analysis you subject this to."
2. His insistence on multivariate analysis of data. Yes, that is scientific but civilians often don't think that way. We civilians find it easier to think "One cause, one effect."
3. His confidence and comfort in the ideas of the transcendent and of the ineffable.
4. His repeatedly asserting the role of "framing" and "narrative" in perception and thought. Presenting people with new frames is threatening and disturbing. It is something that Psychologists and philosophers do for a living.
5. His talking about Logos, the Word, at the beginning, which creates order out of chaos. The world is made of meaning, not matter. Meaning illuminates the world. "Let there be light."
6. "Abstraction is sometimes more useful and real than material reality. Look at the power of numbers."
7. His "tragic" view of humanity: We are weak, flawed, ugly, short-lived, malevolent, foolish, and live in or with suffering - but we aspire for the stars, in our own ways, nonetheless. Or we do not.
Do you find his talks illuminating and, if so, how? Put in the Comments, please.
Here'a a ten year-old Peterson talk on art, dance, chess, and music. For a master of words ("The divine gift"), the guy has huge admiration for things that can not be put into words, meaning beyond reason:
It depends on what college is for, and it seems to have many purposes these days including that of a long adolescent vacation. With coeducation, a heck of a lot of undergrad higher ed seems social and recreational. I have nothing against climbing walls or sex, however. Within reason, but is anything with adolescents within reason?
A somewhat disparaging article says Peterson’s been described as “the stupid man’s smart person,” which is a good enough euphemism for saying “effective public intellectual.” It's because he preaches "Count your blessings and get yourself together" rather than social change.
However, he is a polymath and speaks on all sorts of subjects including what seems to be his favorite theme: myth and religion. He is not a political conservative, as far as I can tell. He does believe in accepting facts and truth, though, which can sound conservative these days, and he questions everything. Also, he detests victimology as a psychological cancer.
Not to worry. It's an adolescent fashion, a fad. It will pass. These kids will graduate, find jobs in cubicles, enter the real world, and grow up. Not to mention that the "tenured radicals" will retire on the comfortable pensions provided by people with tough jobs without pensions.
Truth? Scalps? I have no idea. Since he has a prosecutorial role, one thing I suspect is that he has given up on the Russia-Russia thing and is looking for process misdeeds or, perhaps, looking to provoke process misdeeds. That's what they managed to do to Flynn, who did nothing wrong except to speak to the FBI without a lawyer. Never ever do that, even if they say they just want an informal chat and you know you're clean. The Feds set traps. It is a very ugly business.
Thus, even if there is no Russia story to pursue, he can try to pursue Trump and his people on their efforts and wishes to make this entire annoyance go away. Obstruction, and the like, even if there was no wrong-doing at the heart of it. Trump, as a blustery shoot-from-the-hip businessman who likes to fire disloyal people and has no legal background and minimal legal thinking, is raw meat for this sort of thing.
My guess is that Trump is talking to his lawyers like any ordinary citizen: "WTF? I did nothing wrong, and these a-holes are tangling me up in this BS and getting in my way. Just fire these jerks."
I just hope that there are some honorable citizens in DC. Count me skeptical.
That is a deep psychological truth. The deep psyche has no sense of time. Memories, for example, can affect us as if they were happening today. ("effect" and "affect" always challenge my grammatical memory.)
My topic however, is the internet. This thing has become a gigantic repository of everything, and it is all basically accessible to anybody. Even the FBI can't really "lose" old emails. There is no need to get paranoid about it because nobody gives a damn about most of us, but it is a strange development that much of our lives have become searchable.
It's like living in a small town, where everybody knows everything that goes on and especially the secrets. How easy was it to find out about Trump's goumada?
A friend and I were discussing this over drinks the other night, and we agreed that we were glad that the shameful things and misdemeanors we had done in reckless youth were pre-internet. We both grew into straight-arrow adults after our careless phases, so that worked.
If anybody can find it, there was a Calvin and Hobbes toon in which Calvin as a 6 year-old (?) was documenting a false childhood for himself in case he ever decided to run for president or something. Genius. Hobbes took a photo of Calvin pretending to read a book.
A fake past is a cool idea, but how does anybody turn over a new leaf when the past is always dragged behind them? It makes it difficult to do or say stupid things, which means it makes it difficult to be normal.
