Today, our high schools are all about studying STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). Every high school boasts about how good their STEM program does compared to other schools. STEM education is the be-all and end-all of high school education. The smartest students take advanced math and science courses. Everyone else takes the regular courses.
And these same students go on to college and take the math and science, and engineering courses, and become well-paid engineers and architects and experts on physics. And in most cases they become classified as nerds, and take the good technical jobs.
Nerds are handy to have around. I am one, just ask my wife, my daughter, or my mother. They know how to fix your computer. They can identify and fix engineering problems. They can fix your house or even your car on occasion. But in the real world? The world of social interactions and behavior? Well, they are a nerd. Just lock them up and bring them out when you need them. They will be happy. In other words, keep them away from social situations. Maybe don’t even let them vote.
We are sending our best and brightest only into those STEM technical jobs. They aren’t going into the thought and idea jobs that really create change in society. They aren’t becoming social scientists, political scientists, or social workers. They are especially not becoming teachers.
The founding fathers studied science and technology of the time. But they also studied Latin, Greek, Philosophy, and history. The studied the Bible and many of the religious theories based on the Bible. And they built a brand-new country on brand-new ideas of freedom. And they were brilliant people, the kind of people we would send into AP math and AP biology, and all those advanced courses today. It is likely that the Thomas Jeffersons and Ben Franklins of today are being pushed into those technical jobs, and never learning about philosophy and only a little history.
So what are the long term consequence of sending our best and brightest only into the technical jobs? The consequences are Joe Biden, Kamela Harris, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry. They all have undergraduate degrees in Political Science. But no brains. No common sense. Intelligent, rational people are being taught to get a well-paying job in the sciences, don’t go into soft studies, and especially don’t go into politics.
And over the long term, with the brightest people going into those technical jobs, those less bright people also end up in Professorships at our educational institutions teaching Joe BIden. Without the analytical skills available to the more intelligent professors in the hard sciences, they teach long disproven and even dangerous philosophies such as socialism and communism as if they are viable systems of government. And like all people who are threatened by those who are brighter than them, they proceed to attack and denigrate any students that question their diktats. By discouraging and failing the brighter students, so that only the mediocre and compliant stay in the class, they keep their jobs and avoid competition from the more competent. And the even less bright people, and the power hungry, who love to control others, go into politics.
Today, It’s almost as if there is a plot, the smartest people are hidden away, and encouraged to work and study. And even allowed to engage in behavior not allowed in larger society. All to ensure they aren’t asking questions about the ill-informed and unthinking people running the country. As long as they do their work and keep the power going, they are left alone. Communist China has this down pat. They put the brightest people in the universities and research companies, pay them well, and ensure they know to stay silent and let the party run the country. Is this where our country is headed? I sometimes think so when I see the latest story about the man who is pregnant, or the woman with prostate cancer. But we can still fix it.
So what is the solution? Well, I went to West Point. My degree was in computer science. But I also had 2 semesters of Philosophy, 4 semesters of history, 2 semesters of economics, and 2 semesters of English. At least that is what I remember, it was over 30 years ago. This is what was termed a broad, liberal education. Liberal in the old-fashioned sense that it covered many different topics. This type of education is still needed. For everyone, especially college students. And we need plenty of bright, studious, thinking students to stick to the soft sciences. We need good people studying philosophy, law, and political science. We need intelligent, competent people studying philosophy, and English, and political science.
Today many of the students graduating from 4-year institutions with technical degrees such as mechanical engineering and have barely an introduction to English composition, no philosophy courses, and maybe one history course. And many colleges charge by the credit hour even for full time students, so there is no incentive at all to take courses that are not required for graduation.
This is very different from colleges as they were originally envisioned. West Point has been described as 200 years of tradition unhampered by progress. Colleges in the Western World were founded to spread Western thought, Western Technology, and Western freedoms. They were not founded to indoctrinate. Western thought is free thought. It is the right to think, and talk, and express ideas, in the great marketplace of ideas without penalty. Colleges and Universities need to go back to the original concepts of Western Education. They must go back to the marketplace of ideas where all thoughts are tolerated and encouraged. We know western style capitalism and Democracy is the best society for individual freedom and encouraging individual potential. That fact needs to be put back into US institutions.
We still need those bright people in the STEM jobs. But they need to study philosophy and history and political science too. Bright people come up with good ideas. But they aren’t going to be good at political thinking if they never leave their computer, study only physics and math, and never get out to talk about politics and the things our country needs to fix. The current pack of Democrats like it this way, because the bright people are hidden away and not pointing out all the problems with Democrat party politics. That is why you never see Democrats wanting to fix the schools. The prefer uneducated masses, and overeducated technicians. That way they can run the country without being questioned.
It takes even the brightest engineer or computer scientist ten or fifteen years of pretty much total immersion in the job to get ahead and become a respected professional. By that time, even if he or she was once interested in politics, they are likely to either be thoroughly disillusioned by the real world, or more likely involved in raising a family and have no real desire to fix the world.
These last few paragraphs were added on Aug 16, 2021, the day after the fall of Kabul. The events in Afghanistan yesterday only highlight the problem. And it is now abundantly clear that the problem isn’t just in our politicians, it is in our generals. Not only are the insufficiently educated to have learned one of the basic lessons of history, that has been clear to many of us since Vietnam: You cant fix a country that doesn’t want to be fixed. But they are also unable to recognize what every former military person and junior officer could have told them. That as soon as the US moves out the Taliban will move in. And if they did know it, but didn’t have the moral courage to tell their superiors, they should resign in disgrace.
Our generals appear to have spent all their time learning about critical race theory and successful socialism, and did not do their one job, studying and understanding military history.
We need the bright people to come out of college having studied the humanities, able to look with clear eyed realism at the world and see the problems, And brave enough to call it out. We need the humanities.
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