"Affluent people used to be spread around: owning the local bank or factory, sending their kids to the local schools. Now those of us in the top 20 percent of earners are concentrated in talent-rich zones around New York, D.C., the Bay Area, etc. The already advantaged build rich communities and multiply one another’s advantages even more. It takes a village to raise a Stanford grad. You don’t have to drive very far outside these top 20 percent communities to find yourself in a different universe. In February I drove from Manhattan Beach, Calif., to Watts in South Central L.A. and Compton, where I spent a few days interviewing residents."
Writes David Brooks in
"Who Is Driving Inequality? You Are" (NYT). I see that you can join him for a discussion of this (or anything) here:
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157 comments:
It's good to see that David left his neighborhood.
Who gets into Stanford?
Complaints about the elite left = someone else must pay.
"Now those of us in the top 20 percent of earners are concentrated in talent-rich zones around New York, D.C., the Bay Area, etc."
Talent?
Now isn't that rich.
Now those of us in the top 20 percent of earners are concentrated in talent-rich zones around New York, D.C., the Bay Area, etc.
Yes, but they blather on about inequality at every opportunity so it's OK.
It's like an incantation they recite to keep the evil spirits away.
When's David going to give away HIS wealth?? (and job..)
Get back to me when the House next to Brooks' home is section 8.
My Grand Unified Theory of American politics is this: the Democrats want a caste society.
The membership in the upper castes is determined by which university you attend, tempered by your espousal (as opposed to your practice or exemplification) of certain shibboleths.
It explains a lot. This is why the Ivy League has so very many legacy admissions, and excludes so many Asians for example.
I reject his premise as I don't live near any of those areas.
NYT needs to promote Brooks to Five Star General Obvious. Where has he been for the last 30 years? Doctors once married their secretary or nurse. Now they marry another doctor or lawyer and the gene pool gets smarter & smarter at the top. This is not news. It may not be a good trend but whatcha gonna do about it?
The 'caste society' is -- of course --obvious in the current shutdown situation.
Those who got theirs' want bubble-wrap safety, and are more than willing to let over 20 million other people lose their jobs to get it.
And now we watch as the Marie Antoinettes are becoming the Javert Karens.
The East German Judges give us a Nine: the Eloi stuck the landing.
I am Laslo.
Wince said...
Talent?
Now isn't that rich.
Yeah, I wouldn't say "talent-rich" necessarily. Truly talented people don't always actively pursue great wealth. They certainly might, but they might also be happy living more modestly doing what they love. In the modern age, true talent doesn't have to be bound to geography. And this pandemic may well clearly demonstrate this with the massive increase in telecommuting.
This is going to become even more true in the future. We're moving away from needing to live in crowded cities packed on top of one another.
It almost seems God is watching this and sending viruses to these crowded cities to cull the credentialed.
Nah. Couldn't be.
What's driving inequality? The law of unintended consequences, that's what.
Before housing discrimination ended, even the worst ghettos had doctors, lawyers, teachers. Now they have drug dealers.
Before employment discrimination ended, doctors married nurses and executives married their secretaries. Now doctors marry other doctors and executives marry other executives.
With each succeeding generation, the gap becomes bigger and more deeply rooted in culture.
Who gets into Stanford?
My daughter, when graduating from high school, was accepted by Stanford, several other prestigious Private Universities in the State, and UC Cal Campuses Berkeley, Santa Barbara). They all offered good scholarship programs for academics and sports scholarships combined.... and we could have chosen any of them.
So...we took tours of all the campus locations and the town/area surrounding. Leaving it up to my daughter to pick. After all SHE was the one having to go to the University and live in the area.
She outright rejected Stanford. Her reason. The students seem to stuck up, unfriendly, snooty, and the area around the college was pretentious and stuck up. She ended up choosing a very good Private University in Southern California because the students seemed friendly, welcoming, and the townies were nice and friendly to the university students. The town seemed like a place that "real people" with families lived in and not just a stage set for a fake college. (her words) Berkeley was a bunch of hippie retreads. Santa Barbara...that was a bit tough but thought the people there were not really serious about actual school and more into partying (she isn't wrong)
At first I though it might be bad to not have the prestige of Stanford on her resume, but she made the correct decision. Proud Momma :-)
I see Full of Soup already hit that point. So instead I'll just say he's right.
OK, the guy has a penis that's large enough to touch his computer screen, but boy is it funny-shaped.
talent-rich zones
Somebody get this guy a dictionary so he can look up the right definition of "talent."
It's the economic pareto principle, and Brooks is the assclown thinking he's latched onto it first. David, the correct time to discuss this would've been 10 years ago, when it wasn't relevant to you.
Brooks is increasingly clueless. A true Bobo.
Why did Brooks go to Compton & Watts? These areas were poverty stricken fifty years ago, when the social gaps were much narrower than they are now.
Inherited inequality may be bad, but I think inherited equality might be worse.
Narr
But I'm not David Brooks
The top quintile ain't rich. I have it on good authority that only the top 1% of earners are rich. And don't get me started on earners versus asset owners.
David's message will fit very nicely on a brightly painted stone left on a pathway, don't you think? Question is whether said pathway is in his neighborhood or the downtrodden, unequal ones he visited.
Why is it that when Brooks thinks "I want to talk to a poor person in a poor community" he thinks "Hispanics and Blacks"?
Maybe someone should explain to him that there are plenty of broken communities full of poor white people in the Midwest.
There's an easy solution. Busing.
The two most important books to read to understand this phenomenon are both by Charles Murray. The first is The Bell Curve and the other is Coming Apart:
Taken together, they make the follow observations:
1) The skills conferred by high are much more valuable to the economy
2) Beginning in the mid-20th century, colleges and universities began to rely primarily on scores on standardized tests, and to a lesser extent GPA scores, to sort students with very elite institutions often requiring minimum scores significantly above the average.
3) Elite universities act are gateways to other elite institutions (e.g. government, media, law, finance and banking, think-tanks, major non-profits and NGOs, etc.).
4) In general, a person with a high IQ will be able to earn much more money than a person with a lower
5) As a virtue of their access to elite institutions and their financial power, these people will play an outsized role in shaping our society.
6) The members of this class will tend to marry other members of the class, socialize only with members of this class, and live in neighborhoods that mostly consist of other members of this class. Their children will primarily socialize with this class by the virtue of these neighborhoods and private schools.
7) There is good evidence that at least some part of the difference in IQ within the population is a result of genetics. Another part of the effect is from the environment. Environmental effects appear to have the most influence in early childhood and diminish from there, with IQ scores remaining relatively stable from about age 15 on.
8) Given that IQ is caused by factors that are largely not under your control, you can't really take credit for it, as opposed to something you obtain through diligent effort, hard work, and perseverance.
9) Over the course of the second half of the 20th century, the country population has been pulling away from each other. Instead of the 1% or 0.1%, it's more like the 30% and 70%. Members of these two groups have fundamentally different lives. The detrimental has been moving in a way that is beneficial to the one group and detrimental to the other.
10) The systemic effects these changes have had on our system will not (and probably cannot totally) be undone. Neither of the traditional policy preferences of the political parties are adequate to addressing these problems. Without addressing these problems, the nation cannot hold itself together as a cohesive entity.
It's also worth reading Michael Young's 1958 The Rise of the Meritocracy. Young was a British sociologist (and the father of Toby Young) who coined the term "meritocracy" to describe a dystopian society in which people would be stratified according to IQ and merit. He was criticizing Britain's implementation of the tripartite educational system, in which students were filtered into one of three tiers of schooling for secondary education. The results were comparable to the dynamics described above. You could say that Young made the prediction, and Murray gathered the evidenced.
Javert Karen would be a good twitter name......
How different really is Madison? Thanks to UW there's a high concentration of well educated professionals and young people with disposable income. But where are the jobs for high school graduates or for people not affiliated with the UW?
Fuck David Brooks and fuck the NYT.
I didn't read the article, but I'm guessing that the takeaway is NOT: Brooks gives away all his money and moves to a slum.
J. Farmer pointed this out, but let me point it out too: Charles Murray in Coming Apart (2013) described this exactly and in great detail. I suppose David Brooks can't quote him in the NYT.
I don’t take seriously someone who couldn’t keep his pants on around his twentysomething research assistant. So weak and tawdry. A person who cannot control his appetites is not a person worthy of any respect.
Seems like few commenters read the article which is most importantly a comparison between Compton and Watts.
"Now those of us in the top 20 percent of earners are concentrated in talent-rich zones around New York, D.C., the Bay Area, etc."
Anyone who thinks that's a problem can work towards resolving it by moving to where the poorer people live. If you're not willing to do that, I'm of the opinion it's not as big of a problem for you as you're making it out to be.
Ever notice how places and institutions run by the kind of people who bang on about inequality always have massive, stratified inequality?
If I were feeling charitable I’d say they notice it, it bothers them, and so they think and talk a lot about the problem in broader society. It’s just I rarely see them do anything about it in their spheres of influence.
Brooks’ words “talent-rich” encapsulate a big part of the problem - what the credentialed but not actually accomplished see as talent, and seek to reward. It just happens to resemble their own strengths.
Farmer and Mike R:
What would David Brooks do without Charles Murray and Steve Sailer? He depends on them being blacklisted from NYTimes readership so he can recycle their stuff safely for profit. I do like to imagine Brooks asking around Watts for quotable minorities, preferably with nicely creased pants.
Talent?
Now isn't that rich.
@Wince, +1
Nothing like a faulty initial premise. All the talent is concentrated in the left coasts. And since when did “rich” correspond to “talent-rich”?
Watts? South Central LA? Compton? I grew up in SoCal. Drove a delivery truck in Watts. Played basketball against Compton - disastrously. They are black neighborhoods, mired in Great Society poverty, whose people always vote for Democrats who preserve their status quo. It has been so since my childhood 60 years ago. I didn’t do that. Did you? Lefties don’t get history.
I only read the excerpt. I don’t go in for NYT drivel. Does Brooks acknowledge that most citizens fall in between his 20% and black ghettoes. You’d think the “top 20%” bit would provide a hint.
Readering said...Seems like few commenters read the article which is most importantly a comparison between Compton and Watts.
It's pay-walled, so there's that. More importantly, Compton and Watts are incidental to the aspects of the article we are interested in taking issue with. (I have an NYT subscription so it's not paywalled for me, but I long ago filed David Brooks' shallow philosophizing under "life's too short.")
I read The Bell Curven when it came out about 25 years ago. At that point, I was several years into a career as a consulting business psychologist. (My initial field of study was organizational and social psychology). There was nothing new there for me, but I appreciated it being written for a broader audience.
The tedious repetition of cognitive testing studies (expected from a Psychologist like Richard Herrnstein) illustrated the most robust area of psychological research for the past 70-80 years. However, it also illustrated how the research academic communities are deeply infected by the virus of political correctness.
When we consider the "permanent underclass" we need to consider what types of jobs fit their cognitive abilities. The loss of highly structured manufacturing jobs provides few options for these people. You cannot train them to code. You need to create jobs that make the best use of their skills.
In February I drove from Manhattan Beach, Calif., to Watts in South Central L.A. and Compton, where I spent a few days interviewing residents."
Wow, what fierce investigative journalism! Brooks actually drove to South Central and talked to folks. It's almost like an Ernest Shackleton, arctic adventure. Say Brotha, you got any Grey Poupon?
Blogger Readering said...
Seems like few commenters read the article which is most importantly a comparison between Compton and Watts.
Which will get him nowhere except back to where he started: poor people are poor because they do not have the resources of the wealthy.
What Brooks should have done is go to a suburb where most people have college degrees and then to a suburb where most people have only high school diplomas. Fifty years ago, those suburbs wouldn't have been terribly different. These days they are like different countries.
I read The Bell Curven when it came out about 25 years ago. At that point, I was several years into a career as a consulting business psychologist. (My initial field of study was organizational and social psychology). There was nothing new there for me, but I appreciated it being written for a broader audience.
The tedious repetition of cognitive testing studies (expected from a Psychologist like Richard Herrnstein) illustrated the most robust area of psychological research for the past 70-80 years. However, it also illustrated how the research academic communities are deeply infected by the virus of political correctness.
When we consider the "permanent underclass" we need to consider what types of jobs fit their cognitive abilities. The loss of highly structured manufacturing jobs provides few options for these people. You cannot train them to code. You need to create jobs that make the best use of their skills.
Yep, that’s how I’d spend part of my day. Talking with a pretentious asshole.
Now those of us in the top 20 percent of earners are concentrated in talent-rich zones around New York, D.C., the Bay Area, etc.
That's what I tell the gals -- my bedroom, Baby, is a talent-rich zone!
Lewis Wetzel said...
‘Why is it that when Brooks thinks "I want to talk to a poor person in a poor community" he thinks "Hispanics and Blacks"?’
Joe Biden summed it up nicely when he said, “Poor kids are just as smart as white kids. “It’s called “lefty think.” LOL.
J Farmer The two most important books to read to understand this phenomenon are both by Charles Murray. The first is The Bell Curve and the other is Coming Apart:
Absolutely. Both should be read and pondered upon. Murray has been defamed, misquoted and misunderstood. You should read them for yourselves.
Brooks identifies a problem: inequality. He then regurgitates causes and symptoms previously identified by well known scholars on the topic. Adds a trip to an inequality infested locale, recounts some anecdotal evidence he gathered from conversations with the locals. Doesn't bother to offer solutions.
Why should I care about this? How is it affecting or will it affect me?
In other words, assuming it is all true please tell me the answer to this question: so what?
Farmer makes some effort to arrive at an answer, "Without addressing these problems, the nation cannot hold itself together as a cohesive entity."
But I'm still left to wonder why that is inherently bad.
I w3as at Dartmouth when "The Bell Curve" came out. Several people in the office asked if they could borrow it when I finished it. They did not want to be seen buying it in the Dartmouth Bookstore.
Brooks is a fucking idiot.
He should come to Omaha and interview the students at Creighton Prep and Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart. Both schools are packed with talent from top to bottom.
A couple of examples: DASH won the national mock trial competition a few years back and Prep is one of the top swim teams in the nation and it doesn't even have its own swimming pool.
Omaha is a wonderful place. We just don't have lots of capital and a vibrant startup/venture capital community.
Billionaires Warren Buffett, Joe Rickets and Walter Scott (PKS) are all Omaha people.
hombre just answered a lot of questions.
you can tell talent
...from their "perfectly creased pants"
Which will get him nowhere except back to where he started: poor people are poor because they do not have the resources of the wealthy.
Which will get them back to Hemingway's reply to Fitzgerald when F Scott said, "The rich are very different from you and me." Hemingway said, "Yes, they have more money."
I should further add that Creighton Prep has a very extensive financial aid program. DASH does too, but not as much. No qualified boy who wants to go to Creighton Prep is denied admission.
One of my Jesuit high school teachers started the Jesuit Middle School; all minority boys. And, of course, in many cities there are Regis high schools run by the Jesuits. It is a work-study program.
If the Jesuits had the money, they'd start a Regis HS in Madison. I'm sure of it.
The real story here is how failed the public schools are. We need vouchers. If the public schools had to really compete with private schools it would be a different story.
I do think David Brooks should lead the fight against inequality by taking it to the streets. For example, he could spend 6 mos of the year living and working in South Central, and let some homey from Florence and Normandy, fly to NYC, live in Brooksie's posh upper eastside apartment, and then write the NY column in his stead.
It would be a great sociological experiment, or a bad reality tv show.
DBQ:
My youngest applied to Yale but wasn't accepted. Instead she went to the Jesuit school of Silicon Valley: Santa Clara.
After I saw that video of those Yale students screaming and snapping their fingers at that professor/housemaster, I'm glad she wasn't accepted at Yale.
Point of order... This "talent rich" group sent our antibiotics manufacturing, PPE manufacturing, and 5G technology to the most egregious pack of murderers in the world? That Talent Rich group?
The ones who wait for 45 minutes for "Road Service" to come change their flat tire?
Francisco D said...You cannot train them to code. You need to create jobs that make the best use of their skills.
In the future perhaps such people could be employed in virtual jobs in an emergent economies within virtual worlds.
Many years ago I was a pretty serious player of the the MMO Word of Warcraft. I was a member of a high level PVE raiding guild that participated in nightly multi-hour long dungeon encounters (raids) with long, often complicated boss battles that required the coordination of every player involved. For various reasons, it was often difficult and time consuming to earn the money and resources within the game to buy the various potions and materials I would need to go on these "raids". As a result every so often I would buy in-game money (gold) from so called gold farmers with real world money. These gold farmers were usually people in developing countries (mostly China at the time) who would literally play the game for hours on end doing what is called grinding or farming (essentially killing monsters and collecting money and loot they drop), an absolutely tedious activity for someone playing just to have fun.
Of course, many players objected to people using real world money to advance their characters in such a way and as a result the company that ran the game, Blizzard, made it much more difficult and less profitable for gold farmers. There accounts would be banned if caught. They adjusted the loot drop rates of certain monsters and changed certain in game mechanics to disfavor farming.
The whole thing was interesting and made me think about virtual economies.
Someone is confusing 'talent' with 'ambition'.
I deal with a lot of new tech companies running on venture capital. Half of them think they've got the next big thing in terms of digital marketing and getting us to buy more shit. Yeah, fueling consumerism takes all kinds of talent.
Many years ago I was a pretty serious player of the the MMO Word of Warcraft. I was a member of a high level PVE raiding guild that participated in nightly multi-hour long dungeon encounters (raids) with long, often complicated boss battles that required the coordination of every player involved. For various reasons, it was often difficult and time consuming to earn the money and resources within the game to buy the various potions and materials I would need to go on these "raids". As a result every so often I would buy in-game money (gold) from so called gold farmers with real world money.
Take it one step farther. Hire people to raid with you. Need a batter tank? Not enough healers? Rent one.
"It would be a great sociological experiment..."
Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche ran it in the 80's, I think.
He ends the piece with "The top 20 percent is not going to stop spending heavily on their kids. We have to give the bottom 80 percent the resources to do the same."
"We have to give..."
No one is stopping David Brooks from donating his wealth to poor people. The problem is that giving away someone else's money is always the answer for these people. If it ever worked, we wouldn't have these damn problems. The real problem is there is no government program that just says "here's a pile of money." There are always limitations, rules, regulations, qualifications and other strings attached. Since there will be strings attached and dictates from a far away central government, then how is there is local control? There isn't.
Moreover, are there government spending programs that create "better schools, more fathers present in the neighborhoods and more cohesive community organizations" that Brooks identifies as the requirements of success? Nope. There are plenty of big government programs that disrupt those things.
Brooks is supposed to be a smart guy. You'd think that he'd realize that he's advocating for two things that are incompatible with each other. He lives in such a bubble that he can't see it.
I think by "talent rich" he meant NYT readers.
Again, fuck you David Brooks and the entire NYT.
The lotus-eating Eloí notice this phenomenon from time to time, but when they do, they usually interpret it as another opportunity to hector us Morlocks.
"You could say that Young made the prediction, and Murray gathered the evidenced."
You spelled "garnered" wrong.
@Gahrie I mean, people defintely were paying real money for other people to play their characters all the time (so called "power leveling"). It's certainly odd to be paying a monthly fee for the game, then paying other people to play the game for you one top of that. But getting other people to play the parts of the game that you found boring, time consuming, and/or tedious is sort of the ultimate min/maxing I suppose.
Just like in life, you can pay other people to do certain things (like chores) that you could technically do yourself, but you either don't have time to them and/or don't find them interesting to do. It's just weird to find it in the context of what's oestensibly a "game".
"There are plenty of big government programs that disrupt those things.
Brooks is supposed to be a smart guy. You'd think that he'd realize that he's advocating for two things that are incompatible with each other. He lives in such a bubble that he can't see it."
One thing he most definitely isn't is conservative.
Nothing like a fool that is paid for inanity at 300 k tp lecture us on inequality.
Did he just write an article about how the world is unfair? That is so revolutionary.
ALP said...Someone is confusing 'talent' with 'ambition'.
Ambition is very important, but there is no one as dangerous as a highly ambitious person with few discernible talents.
Chuckie Schumer and Nancy Pelosi come to mind.
The still-relevant 1983 movie "Trading Places" with Dan Ackroyd and Eddie Murphy examined this issue of class in greater depth than did David Brooks, and all it took was a $1 bet between Mortimer and Randolph to set up the situation. Brooks had to drive all the way to Compton.
Why do I suspect this article is a cover to explain travel by personal vehicle (deductible and expensible) for an unanticipated lack of blow, and a dealer unwilling to deliver all the way to Brook's home?
Dave Begley My youngest applied to Yale but wasn't accepted. Instead she went to the Jesuit school of Silicon Valley: Santa Clara.
FINE school!! You can't do better than a Jesuit education.
My daughter's first job after graduation from her University was to be Assistant Director of Athletic Services at Santa Clara (Major gifts, fund raising and almuni outreach) Previously she was Associate Director of Major Gifts and Special Gifts (whatever those are) at her university of during her Senior year of attendance. She was at Santa Clara for 6 years and loved that University. She moved on up to become Director Finances, again major gifts (or something not quite sure of the title but it involved getting funding, endowments and gifts) at another major University in Washington for the Medical Department.
Not bad for a hick from deplorable town nowhere just kickin' the dirt clods down the road.
"We have to give the bottom 80 percent the resources to do the same."
"And, of course, in many cities there are Regis high schools run by the Jesuits."
Aha! A problem and a solution within a few inches of each other! But just try to solve the problem by giving the bottom 80% the resources (a voucher) to attend St. Regis, and the wrath of the Democratic party will descend on you like a pack of coronavirus bats.
I think David Brooks is sincere in his wish to help poor/minority kids. What he completely misses is the opposition among "his people" to any actual, real solutions that have a chance of accomplishing anything positive. The correct answer is "Our public schools are starved for funds, we must tax the middle class a whole lot more." Any other answer gets you kicked out of the Party.
They are black neighborhoods, mired in Great Society poverty,
They are poor neighborhoods, mired in New Deal & Great Society poverty.
Fixed it for you
DBQ: I knew I liked you.
Meet the President of SCU at graduation. He had a degree from UW-Madison. Great guy. Your daughter probably worked for him when she was there. New Jesuit President in the last two years.
If I were rich like say, Mark Zuckerberg, I would give $100 millions to the public schools of some urban city, in say New Jersey, to prove more taxes paid into public schools would produce smarter students.
Just spitballing here.
Now they marry another doctor or lawyer and the gene pool gets smarter & smarter at the top
There's mean regression so you end up with a privileged, a little above average kid. If the doctors have multiple children, birth order matters, too. You'll probably end up with at least one addict...
Thankfully the "talent" cities are bringing on their own break up by making them unlivable in their brilliance. Stupid high tax rates, regulations, letting criminals out of jail etc. I see that outmigration from NYC, Bay Area, LA, Chicago only accelerating.
they really *are* for reducing inequality.
Thanks!
There's mean regression so you end up with a privileged, a little above average kid.
True, but privilege may count more than ability.
The subtext of Brooks' piece is that the well-off in places like San Francisco and New York have reconciled themselves entirely to the Dickensian income inequality that stares them in the face every day.
Their own moral code is breathtakingly bourgeois: They get married before having children, they stay married, they have a profound work ethic, and they invest an enormous amount of time and money raising their children.
What they won't do is advocate that their values would be useful for those in social classes beneath them.
"inherited inequality"
Inherited, how? Like, genetically? Pray tell.
Why hasn't this pompous ass resigned and demanded his job be given to a minority? Doesn't he want to spread equality? Surely there's a POC out there who could bloviate pointdexterishly and eggheadedly as well as he can and could use the inflated paycheck.
How much fun would it be to read such claptrap in spanglish or ebonics? Hilarious!
Assuming income inequality is a real problem (I for one wish I had more money, but don't see how someone having more money than me--provided he didn't rob me--is hurting me), what would Brooks recommend? I'm going to go waaayyyy out on a limb and guess it involves more statism and less liberty. Because it almost always does.
They are poor neighborhoods, mired in New Deal & Great Society poverty.
This is exactly the kind of thinking that is not going to help anything. The GOP has been infested with a kind of doctrinaire, pseudo-free market sloganeering. "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help."
I'll grant you they are great soundbites, they are also totally wrong. The government is absolutely essential for making our economy and society function. The two things the government does that are the most popular, receive the highest approval ratings, and enjoy the widest public support are Medicare and Social Security. Try running on a platform of eliminating them and see how far you get in national politics. The AFDC program was reformed a quarter century ago.
Over the course of the second half of the 20th century, we experienced big systemic changes in the way our economy functions. Development in Asia and India has occurred, we began importing a massive amount of people, experienced big disruptions with the end of Bretton-Woods, have had at least two big oil shocks, collapse of labor unions, outsourcing manufacturing, diversification of the economy in sectors that require a high amount of cognitive skill in order to be competitive, financial crises, etc.
The upper classes have either benefited from these programs or been insulated from their disruptions. The working class has taken a huge hit. To look at all of this and say the problem is the New Deal and Great Society is myopic in the extreme.
Anyone here from a small town? It's my understanding that small towns still have their aristocrats or anyway upper tier. These aristocrats are not so wealthy as rich people in NYC or Silicon Valley, but they have their perks and privileges. There are some societies that pretended to be egalitarian, but I just don't think civilization has had much luck in producing egalitarian societies.
True, but privilege may count more than ability.
True. It's one way you end up with pedigreed people in over their head.
@Bilwick:
Assuming income inequality is a real problem (I for one wish I had more money, but don't see how someone having more money than me--provided he didn't rob me--is hurting me), what would Brooks recommend?
Can't speak for Brooks, and this is a bit esoteric, but we could stop with the false notion that income inequality is purely a matter of some people being earning more than others. And I don't mean earn as in receiving money but rather gain something deservedly as a result of achievement or effort. Not to say that's not part of the equation, but there are also structural reasons in how our society is organized that contributes.
@William:
Anyone here from a small town? It's my understanding that small towns still have their aristocrats or anyway upper tier. These aristocrats are not so wealthy as rich people in NYC or Silicon Valley, but they have their perks and privileges. There are some societies that pretended to be egalitarian, but I just don't think civilization has had much luck in producing egalitarian societies.
That's a good point, but recall that the goal does not have to be egalitarianism or equality of wealth among all residents. There is nothing wrong with having a race, where those who run faster finish sooner than those who don't. But what we have in our current society is a race where some people get a 50-yard head start, some a 10-yard, some -10-yards, some get weights tired around their legs, and some get propulsion packs on their back. In that scenario, how much does the outcome of the race can be attributed to ones effort?
I think the English really knew how to fine tune inequality. I read a biography of the Duke of Wellington. Arthur Wellesley was the younger son of minor Anglo-Irish aristocracy. The poor kid was developing an Irish accent which would prohibit his entry into the upper class. His mother begged some favors from a rich relative and got him into Eton. Wellington was thus able to have a proper accent and gain acceptance among the U people...I think it might have faded but the upper class in England used to have their own accent I don't think Americans have ever been as class bound as the English or Europeans.
Dust Bunny Queen, I'd bet that your daughter probably went to one of the Claremont Colleges-- a half dozen or so small private colleges clustered together in a pretty little town--that's also part of the vas Los Angeles Metroplex. The standards are high.
As for the assortative mating that's gone and is going on, I blame the G.I. Bill. College most definitely was not for everyone pre WW II. Author Paul Fusell went to Pomona College (one of the Claremont colleges) in 1939. Fussell was the son of a senior partner in what would become the Mega Law firm of O'Melveny & Myers. Fussell and the rest of his classmates had maid service in their college dormitory. Well he didn't have maid service as a lieutenant in the Army in WW II--but he did later write the essay "Thank God For The Atomic Bomb"--which is still worth reading.
But post WW II the colleges opened their doors to a much wider swath of society, and to much greater numbers of students. Boys and girls in those colleges will meet and mate--and they did. Their sons and daughters went on to graduate schools of medicine, law and business--and met and mated there. IQ scores do have at least some genetic component, and the effect of a couple of generations of this is apparent. Not they are necessarily smarter--it's just that they cluster together and reinforce each other.
Earnest Prole
Exactly. They excuse the underclass and root for more of the same.
I really don't know what class I belong to. I grew up in a housing project and had any number of shit jobs. Towards the end anyway, I made six figures, but I never had an enviable job. I finished college and went to a Jesuit high school so I can fake middle class mannerisms effortlessly, but I've got many lumpenprole responses to the world as it unfolds before me. I suppose you could say that I belong to the very upper elite of the lumpenproleteriat.
:Can't speak for Brooks, and this is a bit esoteric, but we could stop with the false notion that income inequality is purely a matter of some people being earning more than others. And I don't mean earn as in receiving money but rather gain something deservedly as a result of achievement or effort. Not to say that's not part of the equation, but there are also structural reasons in how our society is organized that contributes."
So you're talking about people who got their money by force or fraud?
“Eton. Wellington was thus able to have a proper accent and gain acceptance among the U people...I think it might have faded but the upper class in England used to have their own accent I don't think Americans have ever been as class bound as the English or Europeans.“
Yet kids from Wisconsin who go to Harvard speak like a 19th century Boston Brahmin the rest of their lives.
Thankfully the "talent" cities are bringing on their own break up by making them unlivable in their brilliance. Stupid high tax rates, regulations, letting criminals out of jail etc. I see that outmigration from NYC, Bay Area, LA, Chicago only accelerating.
These are fables people tell themselves to salve the sting of income inequality.
You have no idea the kind of separation money can buy. I’ve lived in the heart of the well-off urban Bay Area for thirty-five years. For the past twenty I’ve left my sliding glass doors unlocked at night so that the kids and their friends could come and go as they pleased. I’ve never witnessed a violent crime. My children attended excellent public schools (98+ US News ranking). You can depend on strangers to look out for the children and the community. In every possible way it’s like living in an idyllic small town from the 1950s, except that a three-bedroom, 2,000 square-foot bungalow house costs $2 million.
For his next piece, Mr. Brooks takes a daring day trip via Uber XL to Harlem to investigate the plight of the poor negroes. Don't worry - the NYT provides reimbursement for any Uber usage for all trips north of 125th St, except on weekends or off-hours -- the appropriate carbon tax levy per mile traveled.
Do you have any Grey Poupon?
Brooks believes that when 330MM people make individual choices to live life the best way they are able, it f’ks up the whole place.
@Earnest Prole:
These are fables people tell themselves to salve the sting of income inequality.
I think you are 100% right. If this were true, we should see property values in those areas falling as people are eager to flee. That isn't happening. If anything, increasing costs are pushing out people that can't afford and making room for people who can. It is no surprise that wealthier cities will have more taxation and more regulation.
J. Farmer said...
The upper classes have either benefited from these programs or been insulated from their disruptions. The working class has taken a huge hit. To look at all of this and say the problem is the New Deal and Great Society is myopic in the extreme.
Well, he wouldn't have his job very long if he took the opposite tack, would he?
@Josephbleau:
Brooks believes that when 330MM people make individual choices to live life the best way they are able, it f’ks up the whole place.
I think it's the "are able" that might be the source of the difference. We've allowed a pernicious myth in our society where that the rich are rich and the poor are poor because they deserve it or have earned it. That leads us to ignore systemic factors that privilege one group over the other.
@NorthOfTheOneOhOne:
Well, he wouldn't have his job very long if he took the opposite tack, would he?
I'm sorry, I don't quite understand the question. Who is the "he" in this question?
Another problem is the top 20% are producing only 10% of the children.
@William:
I think the English really knew how to fine tune inequality.
One benefit to living in a system with hereditary class is you can blame your station in life on the accident of who your parents are. By claiming to live in a meritocratic society (and to a large degree we do), people have to accept that their station in life is a result of the best they can do.
J. Farmer said...
I'm sorry, I don't quite understand the question. Who is the "he" in this question?
My bad, I thought original quote came from David Brooks.
@Ralph L:
Another problem is the top 20% are producing only 10% of the children.
I wanted to put that list, but I preferred 10 items to 11, and it's one that can have disquieting implications (e.g. eugenics). Higher IQ people tend to have less children than lower IQ people. Over long-term, there's a potential for dysgenic effects. This became a pet cause of William Shockley, the famous Bell Labs scientist. His proposal was that people be given a cash incentive to undergo voluntary sterilization. It ended his carer and his existence in polite society, even though he was a perfectly congenial and kind man. He actually seem perplexed why his incredibly logical argument was being rejected in such an hysterical man. Shockley was obviously a bit on the spectrum.
I live in one of those talent rich and rich areas and love it!
Tits
"Anyone here from a small town? It's my understanding that small towns still have their aristocrats or anyway upper tier. These aristocrats are not so wealthy as rich people in NYC or Silicon Valley,"
Yes, but the richest family in town was the Waltons.
It is no surprise that wealthier cities will have more taxation and more regulation.
Exactly.
Wealthy urban liberals have no genuine moral dispute with inequality; they see it as the natural order of a system that puts them on top. More taxation and regulation are merely table stakes when you have a winning hand.
Farmer: "By claiming to live in a meritocratic society (and to a large degree we do), people have to accept that their station in life is a result of the best they can do."
And wasn't that one of Young's points -- not just that meritocracy would create new tiers but that it would tell losers that they deserved to lose?
and enjoy the widest public support are Medicare and Social Security. Try running on a platform of eliminating them and see how far you get in national politics
Public smoothing functions are a viable status quo, and people either don't have the imagination or the motive to consider an alternative, especially when there are a conflation of cause and effect that discourage discernment. So, people go a long to get along, even when the incongruities are a progressive condition.
So Dave tiptoed outside the lefty Green Zone and had an epiphany about class inequality in the US.
I see that I was not the only one to make the Charles Murray connection. Was it the fresh, outside-the-bubble air that woke Dave up or was Coming Apart downloaded into him one night over a direct-to-brain interface?
I hope the shock to his system doesn't make him prone to a COVID-19 cytokine storm.
He may want to drop by one of the shooting ranges here in South Jersey (which is, I am assured, as talent-free an area as can be found east of the Appalachians) and listen to some of the middle- and working class white guys there. Could be educational for him to hear the perspective of people used to working for a living by making themselves useful.
To me, one of the greatest charms of this country (and there are many) is its great variety, not only in landscape and climate but also of local cultures and ways of life. These self-described "elite" types like Dave think they are very nuanced and sophisticated, but they have no idea of the other points of view out there, their resilience, and their deep hatred of class snobbery.
Separately, that was an impressive bricolage of metaphors there at 12:56 by Laslo. We've come to expect nothing less from him.
I could weep at what a good person David Brooks is.
Give a great education to a poor man/woman with integrity and ethics and You get a big blessing from his/her life. Give the same education to a crooked man/woman and you get robbed blind and mass destruction from his/her life. And the crooks like to live in the corrupt coastal cities where their stolen money buys them anything they want.
"Farmer: That leads us to ignore systemic factors that privilege one group over the other."
If you are born in a crack house you have a long way to go, but I am not a big environmentalist, I believe the twin studies. Equality has been an issue since Ogg lived in the cave by the spring and Gork had to walk to the river. We can only tend to the good and realize our limitations. Nether Marxist political theory, Freudian pshyc, nor the Age of Aquarius were better than that. My experience in matters of childhood is that many kids are going to turn out bad no matter what privileges they have or what their parents do, who knows why.
"I don’t take seriously someone who couldn’t keep his pants on around his twentysomething research assistant."
Oh, wow. I hadn't heard about that. That's so sweet! Ditch the aging wifey and the three kids, marry the muffin who works for you! Dave has learned a few things since he became the pet conservative at the NYT. It's surprising how well he fits in there, because he's so conservative! I guess the folks at the NYT are just really open and tolerant towards cultural and ideological diversity. When is she going to have her first abortion? I bet they'll all send cards.
@Sebastian:
And wasn't that one of Young's points -- not just that meritocracy would create new tiers but that it would tell losers that they deserved to lose?
Yes. Young's conclusion was that social forces would eventually lead to populism and then revolution. But there's another element, too. As the new class assumes more power, it makes changes to the system that privilege them over the lower class. Classic examples are immigration and outsourcing. Lowers costs for owners and prices for consumers and lowers wages among the lower skilled (e.g. servants, landscapers, restaurant workers, etc.). Among the lower classes, while they do get to consume cheaper product, their wages are compressed by having their jobs shipped overseas and competition from newly imported low-skilled workers. Members of the upper class can always pay economists and think-tankers to produce policy papers using opaque theories to explain why this is actually good for everyone. Even if it isn't.
I thought Brooks got together with his wife long after his divorce.
@Josephbleau:
My experience in matters of childhood is that many kids are going to turn out bad no matter what privileges they have or what their parents do, who knows why.
That's true. But that misses my point. We've had a system in place for decades now where we systematically sort kids based on academic performance and test scores. This has had fundamental implications for the way that society is arranged, the problems you expect to arise in that society, and the potential answer to mitigating those problems.
I've lived in Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach to the south and El Segundo to the north. I grew up in Hawthorne which borders Manhattan and El Segundo to the east. Growing up there in the 50s/60s was glorious. Manhattan was home to teachers and aerospace engineers. Hermosa was much more bohemian. There was about a 10% difference in housing prices from the beach cities to Hawthorne. Now it's two to five times more. Manhattan is now home to professionals - doctors, lawyers, entertainment exects and athletes.
I now live in Long Beach and closer to the water than ever, and minus all the elitism. However, I still love the beaches of MB and HB over any others.
Ralph L said...
Another problem is the top 20% are producing only 10% of the children.
4/24/20, 4:13 PM
5 percent of them have been produced by Mick Jagger.
Remember that your real wealth can be measured not by what you have, not by dollars and cents, but by how far away you live from places like Watts and Compton.
I'm trying to imagine the scene when Brooks told his wife of thirty years about the new research assistant the Times had hired for him. Did it make her feel just a little bit uneasy? And then a little guilty for doubting her loving husband, after all they'd been to each other? Or maybe she knew, right then and there, just by the way his eyes slid away while he tried to hide how pleased he was. Oh, it's GOOD to be David Brooks!
I'm Full of Soup said...
NYT needs to promote Brooks to Five Star General Obvious. Where has he been for the last 30 years? Doctors once married their secretary or nurse. Now they marry another doctor or lawyer and the gene pool gets smarter & smarter at the top. This is not news. It may not be a good trend but whatcha gonna do about it?
****************
Easy. Just adopt "medicare for all", and watch the salaries of physicians fall, making them less attractive as marriage partners. In the end, we'll wind up with more female doctors, as alpha-males will flee the scene.
Another point: just because two docs marry, their offspring is not necessarily as smart. It's called "regression toward the mean."
That's why we have so many "legacy" enrollments in prestigious universities, so much nepotism and influence-driven hires in the news media (Peter Doocy, Fredo Cuomo, Luke Russert, Anderson Cooper, the Sulzbergers, Megan McCain....) Such folk aren't chosen because they are as bright and accomplished as their parents, but because their parents are famous or influential.
They didn't get their gigs as a result of a nation-wide search.
@ Dust Bunny Queen:
Your description of Stanford and its environs was so spot on it made me laugh. The impression I got upon moving to the Bay Area is that Stanford chafes against the idea that it's considered an also-ran when brought up against schools like Harvard or MIT. It has a lovely quad and the buildings are very classical but then right smack next door is this high-end shopping mall that looks like something out of Orange County. It's neither chalk nor cheese. I snorted The first time I heard someone refer to the football team was the Stanford Cardinal, singular, because it's the color, not the bird. Yeah, right. Maybe that's just my native New England snobbery coming out. LOL
He seems confused about the distinction between weslth and income.
Wealth, in terms of millionairs per 1000 households seem pretty evenly distributed across the us.
From 41/m in Hawaii to 23 in Mississippi
https://netstate.com/states/tables/state_millionaires_household.htm
Lots and lots of wealthy people in the us with low incomes. Jeff bezos being exhibit a.
Lots and lots of people with multimillion incomes and little or no wealth at all. Negative net worth in some cases.
Donald Trump was in that position once. Something like $20 billion in the hole.
Or Sherman Mccoy "going broke on $2mm per year"
John Henry
John Henry
Sounds like Brooks wants some kind of forced housing... to make 'em all 'equal'. You know, kind of like forced busing.
Lots of luck on that.
Nonapod said...
Francisco D said...You cannot train them to code.
These gold farmers were usually people in developing countries (mostly China at the time) who would literally play the game for hours on end doing what is called grinding or farming (essentially killing monsters and collecting money and loot they drop), an absolutely tedious activity for someone playing just to have fun.
Not the friday Booka-Fe yet but did you ever read Neal Stephenson's "Reamde"
Chinese gold farmers are a major plot point. Perhaps the major plot point.
Great book
John Henry
What's this about Brooks a a poppet?
I thought he was gay?
John Henry
An exciting new travelogue: "With Camera and Preconceptions Through Darkest Compton"
J. Farmer, who obviously loves someone telling him what to do (and probably fantasizes about telling other people what to do) inveighs against "pseudo free market" philosophy. Want to tell us, J., the difference between pseudo free market philosophy and real free-market philosophy? Maybe you could start by telling us which of the following were pseudo free-marketeers and which the actual free-marketeers: Bastiat, Hayek, von Mises, Rothbard, Hazlitt?
If you do, and show where they actually advocated coercion, I'd like to denounce these statist wolves-in-sheep's-clothing to the Foundation for Economic Education so FEE can stop promulgating their work.
Brooks thinks that Compton residents outperform Watts residents because of high quality local government. Nobody tell Brooks about Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compton,_California#Controversies
"Brooks thinks that Compton residents outperform Watts residents because of high quality local government. Nobody tell Brooks about Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compton,_California#Controversies"
I know about Watts from watching Sanford and Son, it seemed like a really nice place.
Meritocracy. The talented pool. That's why they have to use political clout, donations and bribery to get their kids into Stanford and even UCLA. Regression to the mean is a biological phenomena they don't like to talk about on the coasts. But what's a caste system for if not to protect the undeserving progeny of the meritorious?
Where has he been for the last 30 years? Doctors once married their secretary or nurse. Now they marry another doctor or lawyer and the gene pool gets smarter & smarter at the top. This is not news. It may not be a good trend but whatcha gonna do about it?
What nobody told them is that back when the doctor married his nurse or next door neighbor, the wives didn't have to work. They got to take care of the kids. Feminism convinced several generations of women that they were better off working. Meanwhile, the cost of living went up and DINKs got convinced their lives were better. When I applied to medical school, admission committees did discriminate against women applicants. There was a perceived doctor shortage and women were assumed to plan marriage and family, which would mean they were never going to practice as many hours a week as men.
Now 60% of medical students are women and women doctors work an average of 27 hours a week. What no one expected is that male doctors also work much less than my generation did. The number of medical graduates has tripled and there is still a shortage.
Some of that is lower compensation which leads to unwillingness to work the hours we did.
“It's like an incantation they recite to keep the evil spirits away.”
Well, essentially, that’s exactly what it is.
Well, if all the super smart, talented people move to the coasts, then what do they care what we do in the unwashed middle?
All they want is our tax dollars and our obedience. Fuck that.
Inherited inequality is bad enough. But it’s the vile slander, rank bigotry and sneering contempt that is really turning America into a caste society.
Earnest Prole,
I live in the Bay Area. I’m looking at the bay right now. There’s SF. There’s the San Mateo bridge.
My comment was a bit tongue in cheek
But the typical truly wealthy person in the Bay Area leaves. To their vineyard, to the ranch in Idaho or the island in Puget Sound. Just like the truly wealthy New Yorker sets up shop in Florida. Although several are taking advantage now of the federal tax breaks to claim to live in Puerto Rico.
You see we’re just proles working to pay off that $2M house but haven’t gotten the lottery tickets yet.
We’ll move out too. Sell the house to the next wanna be 49er and retire to the countryside in 25 years.
Which of course is the California way. You don’t strike gold. You sell the dream to the next guy and cash out.
My favorite meme is that in the day smart girls could only be nurses, teachers, or secretaries .We had the most intelligent people in those categories, my 5th grade teacher was a certifiable genius from my perspective today.
Now all the smart girls have gone to Yale and are Lawyers or Doctors, or Chemical Engineers. Today's teachers are Ed people, the lower quintile. Our Children will suffer. I gained a great deal from these High IQ teachers. I guess I do believe that environment affects outcome.
""Affluent people used to be spread around: owning the local bank or factory, sending their kids to the local schools. Now those of us in the top 20 percent of earners are concentrated in talent-rich zones around New York, D.C., the Bay Area, etc. The already advantaged build rich communities and multiply one another’s advantages even more. It takes a village to raise a Stanford grad. You don’t have to drive very far outside these top 20 percent communities to find yourself in a different universe."
Think about this, all that money, talent and brains and essentially they're mostly non-essential people.
@Bilwick:
Want to tell us, J., the difference between pseudo free market philosophy and real free-market philosophy?
A free market requires an open market in which prices self-regulate through supply and demand. We have neither an open market nor self-regulating prices. And neither does any other country in the world. We have borders, we have regulations on what may pass through those borders, and there are huge regulations that impact both an "open market" and a "self-regulating price."
Maybe you could start by telling us which of the following were pseudo free-marketeers and which the actual free-marketeers: Bastiat, Hayek, von Mises, Rothbard, Hazlitt?
I don't deny that economists, particularly of the Austrian School, advocate "free markets." But they are closer to Marx than you think, since there model, like Marx's, is utopian. It's theoretical. Every market in the world today is a regulated market, with some degree of economic activity occurring between individuals in a voluntary basis and some degree of economic activity being "centrally planned," for lack of a better phrase.
f you do, and show where they actually advocated coercion, I'd like to denounce these statist wolves-in-sheep's-clothing to the Foundation for Economic Education so FEE can stop promulgating their work.
I agree with you that in a free market, the coercive power of a state is not needed. That is why I think it is utopian. Coercive power is part of the human condition. Even in small bands of hunter-gatherers, the group will rely on coercive power to keep members in line if necessary. It's perjaps possible for small groups of people to live together communally without using coercive power, but eventually they will ether succumb to internal pressure or face attack from outside.
Humans do have a tremendous capacity to cooperate in very large numbers, but once you get social organization on the level of what we may call a "civilization," something resembling a state emerges.
@Bob Boyd:
Inherited inequality is bad enough. But it’s the vile slander, rank bigotry and sneering contempt that is really turning America into a caste society.
What makes you think one is not related to the other?
@Josephbleau:
I guess I do believe that environment affects outcome.
See Robert Weissberg's Bad Students, Not Bad Schools
Nobody has mentioned something related to the "smart women used to be teachers" meme, which might be put this way-- male teachers tended not to be very bright to make up for it. In fact, the smartest teachers I had WERE women.
I know we have some teachers here, which fact itself proves that there are exceptions.
"School teachers, taking them by and large, are probably the most ignorant and stupid class of men in the whole group of mental workers," as the great HLM put it.
Narr
Ed-school dodger
Blogger J. Farmer said...
. . .
A free market requires an open market in which prices self-regulate through supply and demand. We have neither an open market nor self-regulating prices. And neither does any other country in the world. We have borders, we have regulations on what may pass through those borders, and there are huge regulations that impact both an "open market" and a "self-regulating price."
I agree with J. Farmer.
Capital-L Libertarians are fraternal twins of Marxists. Both Libertarians and Marxists measure people by their economic value.
@DBQ
Of course Stanford is filled with stuck-up snobs and Cal is full of hippies. Wait, that was descriptive
of my time at Cal back in the late 60's, so, nothing has changed.
Doctors once married their secretary or nurse. Now they marry another doctor or lawyer and the gene pool gets smarter & smarter at the top.
Isn't this also the fruit of the feminist movement? Once a wife is no longer expected to be, or content with being, a homemaker, than a successful male may as well marry a successful female, since the inevitable housekeeping and nanny or day care expenses will be more manageable. The role of the wife changes from being the nurturer of children and supporter of the husband's career to being a fellow income generator to maximize the net worth of the household.
Interesting. I think one of the things that has contributed to this is the change in anti-trust enforcement in the 70s and 80s. If we didn’t have such consolidation of businesses and the corporatization of the US. More competition and stronger enforcement of anti-trust law maybe would spread out the wealth more and give more people real ownership stakes in businesses.
Inflation pushed the upper middle into tax brackets formerly paid only by the rich. A second income wasn't worth the trouble unless it was also upper middle.
“Isn't this also the fruit of the feminist movement? Once a wife is no longer expected to be, or content with being, a homemaker, than a successful male may as well marry a successful female, since the inevitable housekeeping and nanny or day care expenses will be more manageable. The role of the wife changes from being the nurturer of children and supporter of the husband's career to being a fellow income generator to maximize the net worth of the household.“
Yes this is so. We incentivize smart guys and girls to marry. Why would I pick a nice sweet nurturing girl when they are only going to go out and work for my benefit? I’ll marry a smart rapacious one and I’ll be more secure and wealthy. Brooks is pining for an halcyon dream where people don’t act in their interests, but in service to social leveling. The only way government can perform social leveling is to hamstring the upper quartiles. A smart young auto mechanic is going to find a girl who is a nurse or real estate agent too, this is not just an upper middle class issue.
What makes you think one is not related to the other?
What makes you think I think one is not related to the other?
"talent-rich"
What a self-revealing admission of how people in NY, DC, SF see themselves. Such vanity.
"My Grand Unified Theory of American politics is this: the Democrats want a caste society.
The membership in the upper castes is determined by which university you attend, tempered by your espousal (as opposed to your practice or exemplification) of certain shibboleths.
It explains a lot. This is why the Ivy League has so very many legacy admissions, and excludes so many Asians for example."
Well, yea. That's what the Progressives have always advocated; a Ruling Class system with them on top. It's just another European style caste ideology that replaces bloodline with education credentials. They still use family and High Society connections like the old ruling classes of European countries. Globalism is the international version of it.
"Just like in life, you can pay other people to do certain things (like chores) that you could technically do yourself, but you either don't have time to them and/or don't find them interesting to do. It's just weird to find it in the context of what's oestensibly a "game"." -Nonapod
Time is money, friend.
I have no interest in reading David Brooks, nor in discussing anything with him.
We need to make female lawyers marry male plumbers. It will be good for one of them.
The argument could be made that "credentialed" and "meritocratic" are not the same and that credentialism, a degenerate form of the meritocracy, is what is formed in bat clusters on the two coasts.
For example, journalism these days, consists mostly of graduates of schools of journalism, credentialed. But the field is collapsing. Thousands of jobs have been lost at the same time as the field became more professional and credentialed. The IQs aren't able to prevent the collapse and in fact are unable to stop themselves from making it worse by repeatedly insulting half their potential customers. And they aren't able to think how to make print media or TV news interesting. I understand the problems caused by digital media but credentialed journalism isn't making a battle of it.
Credentialism afflicts the universities and there also there is a decline - academics is an increasingly unimportant part of the "experience" and holding your own against the PCs and the Kiss Police and the Diversity Hunters is more and more important which is destroying the universities as we know them. But the academics with their high IQs and the various PC hunting parties are simply not able to stop tearing the universities apart for they are convinced that no other method of education will be found.
Hollywood is boring and repetitious though I'm sure when we hear about the galaxy clusters of talent on the West Coast Hollywood is seen as a bright star.
Government in DC - another hive of credentialism, not meritocracy. Not able to pass budgets. Interfering in education ad making it worse. Too stupid to see through the green dream haze. Thinks it can make socialism work. AOC. Maxine Waters. Hank tip-Over Johnston. Pelosi boasting about her ice cream stash. High IQs, high positions, marrying each other - all of that. But if that crowd is represents the concentrated talent of this country, we are doomed. More likely they are merely concentrated credentialists, yes-men, - and the real country is elsewhere doing other things like homeschooling and working for Trump's ideas.
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