But what about the people who dig ditches?

[LAS14]

Last edited Fri Nov 8, 2024, 07:38 PM - Edit history (1)

I can hear myself, over the last 20 (30?) years saying, repeatedly, "But what about the people who dig ditches????" This was always in response to some value or policy proposal that highlighted education. Things like pushing college education, "So we can train our children for the jobs of the future." (Maybe not a direct quote, but close enough.)

Too often I was left thinking that the people I identified with were not respecting the fact that human beings come with a wide variety of brains. Some brains aren't cut out for college. Society should ensure good paying jobs for all people.

There's got to be a way to prepare for the future for all people, prepare in a way that doesn't assume everyone is going to get a degree or learn to code.

I suspect that one dynamic at work here is a misguided notion of egalitarianism. We feel uncomfortable labeling whole segments of society as "not cut out for college." But it is not respectful to ignore people's reality.

I know, I know. There will be replies here pointing out all the initiatives promoting vocational education, etc. But something in our outlook caused me, over and over, to say, "But what about the people who dig ditches?" Let's do something so I never have to ask that question again.

[Elessar Zappa]

1. We don't need everyone in college.

But we do need a solid primary and secondary education system. One thing that should be taught again is civics. Also, an internet class should be added to teach kids to discern bullshit from the truth on the internet and social media.

[LAS14]

4. I couldn't agree more with everything you said.

I'm convinced that one of the reasons so many voted for Trump, or stayed home, is that they weren't informed enough about civics and sorting out truth to treat Trump as anything but an amusement.

But I do worry about the fate of teachers in the lower grades who try to teach these things and have parents show up accusing them of brainwashing their kids.

[wcmagumba]

2. I have a pretty good IQ and a college degree but I did manual labor for a couple of summers...

Shovel work and built concrete forms and other...kind of enjoyed it if truth be known....

[Ex Lurker]

24. I have a college degree and a professional job

I'm pretty sure I would have been more fulfilled learning a trade.

[dhol82]

29. Tell us how you would feel about the work after 30 years of it

It is valuable, necessary work. Sadly, the workers are not usually protected after they are old and used up. We need to protect these workers.

[k55f5r]

32. I worked construction from 1974 2017.

Surveyor, welder, inspector.
It was all hard physical labor except for the last 10 years as an inspector.
I retired at 62, and couldn't have worked another year if I had to.
In fact, I'd been retired for a year when I got a call from a former boss offering me $150 an hour for 2 years worth of work. I turned him down without a second thought.

[Jit423]

3. One thing, putting the artificial qualification of needing a college education was designed to put certain positions of

power and prosperity out of reach of blacks and other minorities who were deemed as unworthy or undeserving of such privilege. Now that a lot are more educated and more qualified for those positions that were held in sanctity, all of a sudden, education is something to be scorned and mocked. Even if you are going to push skilled labor jobs, people need to know how to read and think.

And as for liberal arts, we are ll much better off when we have something unifying to lift us spiritually, culturally and socially to give us grounding and purpose for leading a productive life. It is the glue that hold our society together for each other. We all seem to get along at sports events, concerts, reunions, festivals etc.

Without these things, life is somewhat empty.

[LAS14]

6. This is a prime example.

And as for liberal arts, we are ll much better off when we have something unifying to lift us spiritually, culturally and socially to give us grounding and purpose for leading a productive life. It is the glue that hold our society together for each other. We all seem to get along at sports events, concerts, reunions, festivals etc.

I'm afraid it's this kind of thinking that has turned huge portions of the American electorate toward Trump. It sounds like the quintessence of the "intellectual elite." How does what you say not sound like scorn of people who don't have, don't want, and never did want a liberal arts education?

[meadowlander]

8. Isn't it equally condescending to say we should molly-coddle people who are deliberately close-minded?

Why would anyone "not want an education"? That's like saying you don't want respect, security or love. Some things are just universally good to have.

Not wanting those things is a clear sign that something actually has gone really wrong for you somewhere down the road. And I don't think there is a solution other than to point that out.

[LAS14]

11. People's brains are different. We should respect that. nt

[meadowlander]

15. Of course, but that's separate to the issue of values.

I'm not great at math but I would never denigrate the value of learning it.

Have whatever kind of brain you want. Learn whatever interests you. But the problem we're facing in America is anti-intellectualism, lack of curiosity, holding up ignorance proudly as a virtue and handwaving away the truth.

And undermining the value of other peoples' education underlines that when we should be clearly making the case for the opposite.

Education is an inherent good. Tolerance and empathy are inherent goods. Curiosity is an inherent good. Lets have more of that for everyone, not less.

[LAS14]

16. With values like this, we'll never win over those people who feel scorned by the "intellectual elite."

But the problem we're facing in America is anti-intellectualism, lack of curiosity, holding up ignorance proudly as a virtue and handwaving away the truth.

[meadowlander]

20. We'll have to agree to disagree then.

Without those values, America is already dead and not worth saving.

[soandso]

19. Not only that

A society needs qualified trades people. Who you gonna call when you need plumbing work done when those jobs have denigrated and, as a result, there aren't any? Building and fixing shit takes skill and should be respected but those skills have been dissed and the people who do them, looked down upon.

[orange jar]

17. There are many reasons why someone may not want to get a higher education.

Some is out of sheer prioritization. Do I enroll in university or college and spend thousands of dollars in tuition money to get a degree so I can get an entry-level job, or do I just keep my current job, don't pursue higher education, and see how it goes?

Some people may struggle with mental health issues that prevent them from feeling ready to attend college. ADHD, anxiety, depression, and a variety of other disorders can seriously disrupt their ability to learn in a rigid environment.

Others may just feel like it's not worth their time when they have other things they have to take care of.

I'm digressing a bit, but one thing that I think is absolutely ridiculous is how many jobs out there require a bachelor's degree. Should pharmacists, doctors, lawyers, and educators have degrees? Yes. Should beginner receptionists be required to have a communications degree to get an entry level job? Absolutely not.

[meadowlander]

26. To be clear, I'm not talking about formal education

as much as I'm talking about valuing learning as an inherent good.

I don't think someone who dropped out of school at 14 to support their parents raising their younger siblings is an inherently less valuable member of society than someone with three PhDs.

But there's no reason the high school drop-out or neurodivergent person who struggled with formal education or person who just loves a career path that doesn't require a degree (acting or hairdressing or being an electrician or whatever) should denigrate learning for its own sake.

Or that we need to agree to pander to that person to get their vote. That kind of inauthenticity reeks from a mile away.

My immigrant forebearers busted their asses so that my parents could get good educations so they could break into the middle class. What a gigantic fuck you it would be to all that hard work and sacrifice if I then turned around and said "actually I'm autistic, school is hard, and therefore anyone else who does get more education that me is an elitist snob I don't have to show any respect to."

It just reeks of sour grapes. And it's silly anyway because college isn't even remotely the only place to learn things. The point is that you want to learn things and you see the value of doing so, even when you don't always have the opportunity to do it yourself. And you want your kids to learn things, to be curious and to keep growing and trying to see things from new perspectives. If we can't agree on that as a core value, then what is our society based on?

[misanthrope]

30. I concur

Lack of formal education is no excuse for a generally incurious approach to the world. Autodidacts like Abe Lincoln and Michael Faraday have had huge impacts on civilization.

[LAS14]

36. But what should our party's attitude be toward people are just not curious about the world? nt

[Lifeafter70]

34. I was a waitress, bartender and hostess

when kids were young. Worked a lot of nights and weekends. When they started their teen years I looked for a nine to five job.
I found one as a receptionist. My organization skills waiting tables enabled me to handle answering a phone that had sixteen lines, take accurate messages and make appointments with ease. My boss was sad when I moved and had to quit after five years.
My point is many skills are transferable but sometimes overlooked.

[misanthrope]

27. Unfortunately, most Americans view the arts as a frivolity

And the more conservative the local or regional culture, then the more that is the case. In classic Southern culture, it was seen as a distraction for females. The manly pursuits were hunting and fishing.

Look at newspapers from the early 20th century. News came first, then sports, then the women's sections where arts coverage was alongside garden club announcements, fashion articles and debutante profiles.

[meadowlander]

37. Bread and roses, bread and roses

[pat_k]

5. The notion that we must "do for" this or that group irks me...

... We are caught up in what one guy living in Appalachia who was active in opposing mountaintop removal mining calledthe "non-profit industrial complex" mindset. That is, non-profits would use the local activists who were actually reaching people, but never hired them or paid them the sort of salaries the "professional" organizers that popped in now again from elsewhere received.

It is not for us to be figuring out what someone needs. Somehow, the job of citizen action needs to shift from "give me money so I can fix it" to "what does this community need to make their own efforts on their own behalf more effective?"

People feel powerless and hopeless because they just don't have examples of their own efforts on their own behalfs getting even a tiny fraction of the material support that gets poured into elections. And their own efforts starve from lack of support, adding to the sense of powerlessness.

It's time to end the mindset that grassroots action must be done on a shoestring by people who end up so burnt out they can't do it. What kind of infrastructure can we put in place that says "your action as a citizen lobbyist (or whatever) is critical to our existence as a unified nation and deserves material support that demonstrates how valued it is."

[meadowlander]

7. For me it's a problem of values.

I think we need to move on from the idea that the sole purpose of an education is to get a better job.

The purpose of an education is to live a more enriching life. One part of that may be access to better paying jobs but a big part of it is also understanding your own experience and being able to articulate it, being able to think critically, being able to appreciate beautiful things, knowing how to be a good citizen, valuing curiosity and loving learning for its own sake.

My grandfather "only" had a high school education and clipped train tickets for a living but was one of the best read people I have ever met and memorised poetry in his free time because he valued learning.

And I feel like that's what's missing from the national conversation these days. It doesn't matter how far you go in school, it matters what your attitude is to truth and the effort that you make to pursue it. We don't need to push college education for everyone but we need to make sure everyone is across the basics and that we stop talking about being educated as if it is inherently a bad thing.

Same thing with experience. I get really frustrated with the pervasive attitude that there's something wrong with being a "career politician" as if being a "dilettante politician" is somehow better. I want a career brain surgeon, a career civil engineer designing the bridges I drive over, a career scientist inspecting the food I eat and monitoring the air I breathe. Why wouldn't I want a career legislator writing the laws that impact my life?

[LAS14]

12. How does this sound to someone who has no interest in education as a value in itself?

Is there no place for that person in our society? Maybe they have no interest because their brain doesn't work that way. People are different.

[meadowlander]

18. Without education, there is no society.

The fundamental building block of a society is shared values. Without them, we're just random people who live in some proximity to each other. And without education, we can't share those values.

So yeah. If you can't get on board with "truth is a good thing", "kindness is a good thing", "curiosity is a good thing", "other people have intrinsic value and deserve my respect", "the law should apply equally to everyone", "I want my kids' life to be better than mine", "what impacts my neighbours, impacts me", "we need more beautiful things in the world, not less" then go homestead in Idaho and see how far you get. You may live in America, but you are not part of American society by your own choice.

You don't need higher education to take those values on board. If you haven't picked them up by third grade, then someone has failed you. But it's never too late to reexamine things and make a change. And that change will never happen if we validate deliberate ignorance, bigotry, poor sportsmanship and selfishness because we're walking on eggshells around the false accusation that we are elitist snobs if we promote the opposite values.

[misanthrope]

39. As far as the "career politician"

What makes that different than the other careers you mentioned is that surgeons, engineers and scientists have very specific types of training and skill sets that are testable in various ways. Unfortunately, becoming a politician is a lot like being a preacher, all you have to do is start referring to yourself as one and then suddenly that is what you are. There is no shortage of politicos out there who jump into it because they have a scurrilous side. Not all of them, but the arena is particularly susceptible to its abuse.

And too often, retaining those political positions is a result of pandering. Look at Tommy Tuberville, Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene. What other kind of job do you think they could get and retain solely on their smarts, work ethic or track record?

I agree about the widespread perspective of college as simply a sort of vocational school. I am a believer in the classic liberal arts curriculum, for the reasons you state. That said, I regretfully realize that America has a different value system than I do.

“As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?”
-Alexis de Tocqueville, Letter to Ernest de Chabrol, June 9, 1831

Look at the date on that. Our nation was less than 50 years old but the materialism and avarice was already so entrenched that a visiting French nobleman saw it.

[Ysabel]

9. There are lots of students who are average...

They aren't super smart they are average. That's what we're guaranteed an average education in grade school and high school. Some few kids excel and others (the majority) are average and do not excel and then some fail. Most get by with average grades and that's how it's designed to work...

Some aren't cut out for college. Yeah, and some dig ditches and others flip burgers and wait on other people. They should get paid good living wages and they deserve to have health care too...

One of my sons works as a manager at a college residence hall. He has to plan menus and hours for other workers and his job is mostly a sit down job though he has to go check on things and make sure things are running smoothly every so often. He gets paid somewhat well but not enough. He started working there just shortly before the pandemic and moved up to management fairly quickly and he has good health coverage...

My other son has two kids he's supporting. He works in a factory graveyard shift. There is a housemate home with the kids. They're getting older too so they don't need a lot of taking care of now. They are almost old enough now to move out on their own and will probably in the next year or so...

One already did but things didn't go so well (he was cold and starving) and ended back at home (he broke his back so working labor is harder for him now and I hope he goes to college soon). The other one probably will go next year...

Anyway, their dad works hard. The temperature in the factory is about 110 degrees F. and he only gets a short break. He gets paid so so. Not great pay but he gets by. He has no health coverage at all and he needs a lot of dental work. He also has other medical problems...

Thank goodness that both of my grandchildren excel. They are usually straight A students with an occasional B here and there...

I expect they will go to college. Both say that they will and they will definitely be better off out there in the world if they do...

I am happy that they won't probably have to dig ditches but if they end up having to of course I'd want them to be paid well and get health care. If they had to do that then I'd probably advise them to work for the city or county or state because then they'd be paid better and get health care too...

As well education should be improved. A place where all kids are encouraged and are shown / introduced to lots of various opportunities and given lots of choices...

[LAS14]

13. Thanks! This deserves repeating.

Some aren't cut out for college. Yeah, and some dig ditches and others flip burgers and wait on other people. They should get paid good living wages and they deserve to have health care too...

[hunter]

10. The first time I made $100 in a day was moving furniture.

The first time I made $1000 in a day was writing code.

I have a very respectable university degree.

I ran away from all of that.

My parents were artists with day jobs. That's always been my aspiration too.

Anyone ought to be able to do that. All work should provide a comfortable living wage, allowing everyone enough leisure time and mental energy to pursue their own innate talents, whatever those talents might be.

[LAS14]

14. Yes!! I think paying more for our hamburgers is an excellent way...

... to spread the wealth around more equitably.

Anyone ought to be able to do that. All work should provide a comfortable living wage, allowing everyone enough leisure time and mental energy to pursue their own innate talents, whatever those talents might be.

[H2O Man]

21. Back in 1959,

a reporter asked heavyweight contender Charles "Sonny" Liston why he boxed? He said, "I used to dig ditches. But now they got machines to do that."

[LAS14]

22. Yeah, that's a problem we should address in some way other than "learn to code." nt

[harumph]

23. I find this somewhat condescending.

The assumption here seems to be that tradesmen aren't as smart as white collar professionals. I practiced law for 16 years and
my client base dried up. I'm making more money now doing home remodeling and don't have to deal with needy clients.

Some master electricians make well into the 6 figures. Regarding college, if you have the money, average grades and discipline you can get many college degrees. With the exception of a few professional paths - it's not that difficult. Hence, it is not a signifier of intellect.

My experience with HR and communications majors is that many of them ... (no insult intended for DUers that have such a degree)...are dumb as rocks. Moreover, some people have excellent memories, almost eidetic - making them good college students - but still find it very difficult to think logically.

You mention writing code - that's quaint. Many of those jobs have gone to India and those that remain will soon be
replaced by AI. "Some brains aren't cut out for college." ROFL.

[LAS14]

25. The assumption is NOT that "tradesmen" aren't as smart.

It is that "some people" aren't as smart. College is not for them. They deserve respect and a living wage and to not be pushed into an education that they don't want and would not do well at.

People are different. They should all be respected.

I'm happy to agree that tons of trademen are really, really smart. No problem with that.

[harumph]

28. Well, some are "smart" enough to know that they

can go further and faster in the trades than getting any number of useless degrees flogged by colleges and universities and spending years to pay off the loans unless they came from money.

If prospective students were confident that $ awaited them post graduation, I'm sure you would see more of an influx of "smart" people into colleges. I'm excepting truly difficult courses of study. But how many are going to be scientists, doctors, mathematicians, etc.?

BTW, my wife and I were at IKEA the other day and a salesperson was overheard talking about differences between Platonic vs Aristotelian approaches to aesthetics.

[LAS14]

31. My OP wasn't intended to be about the value (or lack of it) of college. It was about...

... how we on the left can be resented for elitism when we place a high profile value on a college education.

[haele]

38. I'm a retired Navy Chief/self taught Systems Engineer.

I was told the job I had been doing, the processes I had been improving and innovating at for 7 years suddenly required a degree.
I got a bachelor's of Science in Business (emerging technology) over 5 years while working just to keep my job.
But it did set me up for a management position.

Haele

[Clouds Passing]

33. The biggest problem is some people truly believe that they have dominance over others and the earth.

Last edited Fri Nov 15, 2024, 11:07 AM - Edit history (1)

The rich who are now taking over this country believe that we are expendable. We are here to be used for their work and pleasure. We are here to be owned by them. We are things to them, not living breathing living beings with thoughts and emotions. They treat nature the same way as if it is theirs to use. They have zero respect for life on this earth. It is all here for their taking and exploitation. Lost to them is the greatest truth, that we are all born onto this earth equally and we all deserve to live in equal respect for each other and for our home, the earth and all of her inhabitants.

These dominist people have a magnanimous mental illness that the majority of us cannot even fathom.

The people who dig ditches are equally deserving of the resources of this earth as those who believe it is theirs alone. We must regain this basic understanding of life. The old adages “life isn’t fair”, “ the boys with the most toys win”, “freedom isn’t free” were invented by people who believe they own everything. Life is fair, the very nature of life itself is fair. It is the uber rich who are not fair. The ditch digger is just as valuable in life as the ultra rich person, only the rich person does not know that truth.

We are all valuable and necessary in the fabric of life.

[Lulu KC]

35. Welding!

I went to a meeting once that had a Brookings person there and the punchline was: We need more people who do welding.

That part I remember clearly. Why I was in the meeting? No idea. It's all a blur from a past life--but that has stuck with me forever!

[hunter]

40. My mom's parents were welders.

They built and repaired Liberty and Victory Ships during World War II.

My grandma was one of the few women who continued working after the war. She retired with a good pension but her cigarettes and whiskey took her prematurely.

I think one of her resentments was that when the war ended and the men came home she was assigned to jobs more suitable for "a lady." She preferred the heavy work.

In The Man in the High Castle universe I think she rode with a motorcycle gang and killed Nazis.

If I got to do it all over again and was picking a trade I'd probably be an electrician.

I was pressured by both my grandfathers to be an engineer, but I changed my major to Biology after two years of that, evolutionary biology to be specific, which does not lead to any lucrative trade. It will get you work as a science teacher, which is how I met my wife. She was a science teacher too.

[Arthur_Frain]

41. No

This is a wonderful post, and you’ve hit the nail on the head squarely. Now. How do we fix it?