[lbo-talk] posh as fuck

Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net
Mon Dec 5 16:58:06 PST 2011


On Mon, 5 Dec 2011 23:47:41 +0000 (UTC) 123hop at comcast.net wrote:


> Michael Smith wrote the function of higher ed is:
>
> Gatekeeping, basically; the legitimation of
> inequality under the factitious rubric of
> meritocracy.
>
> ---------------
> This is not entirely true. You can learn a language, math, science...

Function is one thing; adventitious effects another. I concentrated on the adventitious effects myself -- cream-skimming, you might call it -- and I recommend that any young person who can and who feels the inclination should do likewise, as long as s/he can do it without going into debt.

But it's not getting any easier, and that's because the core function is increasingly working *against* the adventitious effects. Unis are increasingly less likely to teach the very kind of things that I for one went to Uni to study.

To some slight extent the Unis do transfer the costs of training workers from the employer (who ought to bear them) to the worker himself (who ought not). I say 'slight extent' because the credentialling gauntlet includes all kinds of stuff utterly irrelevant, in nearly every case, to the actual requirements of the job; making people pay for this stuff is in effect just a rent that the credentialling sector is enabled to collect by its social position as gatekeeper. It's a great thing, if people want to read Donne, to help them do it with better understanding. But it's sheer sadism to *make* people read Donne.

-- --

Michael J. Smith mjs at smithbowen.net

http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://www.cars-suck.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com

Any proposition that seems self-evident is almost certainly false.



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