Re: Dry Under the Waterfall

[Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>]

At 08:57 AM 7/30/96 -0700, David Kline wrote:
>
>A question though: What about the 3 million hard-working, reading, 
>middle-class folks who have been downsized into oblivion the last three 
>years alone? What about the tens of millions of readers who had the skills
>needed for the industrial age, but not for the information age?

I forgot to include a little anecdote about education in my original post.
There seems to be a belief extant that education is something that you are
completely dependent on others for.  The masses will just sit there and melt
away unless they are given a "program."

"I need a program.  Who's got a program?  We need a program.  All God's
chillun's got programs."

This is provably false.  People can learn whatever they have to.  (Within
very broad intellectual limits.)  If they *choose* not to learn (and you are
not their parent or employer), it is a violation of their autonomy to
browbeat them.  You should leave them alone in their ignorance and, of
course, not waste any money helping them since they have demonstrated that
they aren't interested.  An economist might say that those who reject
education are making a choice.  They are deciding that, for them, the value
of today's leisure (L) plus today's income (I) is greater than the
recreational value of education (R) plus the present value (PV) of future
financial and psychic gains from education.

L + I > R + PV

In other words, all those people who were drinking beer or working
construction while TM was going to college, graduate school, studying
physics, and working for Intel were making the decision that *for them* the
value of all that time off, plus current income, plus lack of skull sweat
was greater than the chance of becoming a millionaire and retiring at
30-something.  And they may well be right.  In any case, we should honor
their choices as we expect them to honor ours.  To intervene in a big way in
their lives (or in TMs) to challenge their choices is deeply wrong.  We
can't tell from the outside what the value of the education/work/leisure
tradeoff is for an individual.  All we can do is observe their actions. 

If you doubt that people can learn if they really have to...

Greta spent her teens fleeing with he mother from Poland into the USSR on
foot in advance of the Wermacht (religious differences).  As the Wermacht
receeded, so did Greta and her mother who preferred the West.  In the course
of events, they ended up in a Displaced Persons (DP) camp in Austria.  There
was an understandable reluctance on the part of the DP to be repatriated to
areas in the Soviet Zone of Occupation.  (Operation Keelhaul would later
hand many thousands of DPs over to the commies.)  England or America were
*by far* the first choice.  A rumor went around the camp that England was
desperately short of glove makers.  Some people in the camp knew how to make
gloves.  Within a few weeks, everyone in the camp knew how to make gloves.
English lessons were also very popular.  There were no "programs" to teach
either of these skills.

The happy ending to the story is that Greta and her mother secured a trip to
New York City.  In the 45 years since she's been here, Greta has neither
returned to Europe or ever felt the desire to do so in spite of the superior
European social welfare systems.  When asked why, she says that Europe had
its shot at her and she doesn't believe in tempting fate.     

The point is that people can learn if they have to and if they don't have to
they don't have to.  Life in America today is as easy as it's ever been in
human history (at least since the invention of agriculture), so if people
want to relax we should let them -- and not subsidize them.

DCF