https://nitter.ca/schwarz/status/1562521561118429187
European countries figured this one out long ago. Just educate them with very specific knowledge and make sure everything has a capitalist bias. And even if that fails the brain worms from elementary school will linger
At the same time, prolonged contact with the "meritocracy" can be a radicalizing education for those of us without the preferred class background that would keep us completely immersed
This is so dumb that I seriously wonder if it's a fake quote or not. Because I live in a country with free higher education, and we have the exact same problems with overfinancialization that the US does, only we don't have healthcare debt and student debt. Our population even has most of the same idiotic brainworms that Americans do, as Facebook allowed for the flawless integration of American Culture War idiocy into the Danish political arena.
The original quote is from a San Fransisco Chronicle article title “Professor Sees Peril in Education” from October 30, 1970. Actually can't find that specifically though it gets sourced by dozens of other works citing it, so I'm guessing it's true.
This is Lewis Powell in the '70s and reading his writing from the timeit doesn't too far fetched. The dude was a freak.
It’s behind a paywall but in archives on that date searching for “educated proletariat”.
War, Revolution and Peace.
He told a press conference
called "to correct misleading
charges" recently made by
Democrats that he thought
there are a lot of students in
college today who don't be-
long there.
"We are in danger of pro-
ducing an educated proletar-
iat." Freeman said. "That's
dynamite! We have to be
selective on who we allow to
go through (higher educa-
tion).
"If not we will have a
large number of highly
trained and unemployed peo-
ple. That's what happened in
Germany. I saw it happen."If not we will have a large number of highly trained and unemployed peo- ple. That's what happened in Germany. I saw it happen
Really cool and normal system that requires to to keep your people uneducated
Yeah. It feels like the author confused the class character of state university students (largely proletariat) with the consequences of educating said students (Marxist professors!!!)
Large numbers of young proles living together naturally produce revolutionary action whether they're on a university campus or behind a Starbucks counter or on the floor of a textile mill. Reagan's guy was responding to the anti-war sentiments of the 60s and believed universities were catalyzing the activism because that's where news media focused coverage. But the real driver of anti-war action was the consequences of the war itself.
last fall there was an episode of Who Makes Cents that i wasn't super thrilled about, based on the title and description. it seemed like it was a topic i already knew everything about, but i listened to it anyway because i was in a stupid long car line for a covid test. i'm glad i did, because it was revelatory. it went way deeper into US post secondary education history. if you haven't listened to Who Makes Cents: A History of Capitalism, it's not like most of the podcast space where there are some clever, amusing personalities who deep dive a topic and condense their learning into a fun format. WMC has fewer episodes and is a product of UC-Berkley. it's completely free. the host(s) read an author's entire book on a topic and then have the author on, asking pointed questions to get to the meat of the book. the author is some published faculty who has dedicated years to a topic and published a book about it. it's one of the most informative shows i listen to.
anyway, in this episode the author talks a bit about how, in the designing of the GI Bill, the Adults In The Room all assumed that discharged enlisted soldiers would stick to their place and only access the benefits package for trade schools. they believed the working class / the children of the working class had no interest in a classical/broad education in the arts, history, social sciences, etc. the explosion of young people pursuing a university education completely caught the power structure off guard and as its impacts reverberated through society in the 60s, 70s, they pulled out all the stops to try and strangle it through policy, propaganda and financialization. one can see the impacts today with complex student loan products, state funding cuts for HE to balloon costs, and the heavy propaganda push to make education seem like a bad "investment" for the individual.
https://whomakescents.libsyn.com/elizabeth-tandy-shermer-on-student-loans-and-higher-education
Funny that it was about that time was when the media started pushing the idea of being smart as uncool.
