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Grex > Agora46 > #17: affirmative action - UM - supreme court (wha-hoppin?!) | |
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russ
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response 43 of 113:
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Jun 29 06:07 UTC 2003 |
Y'know, it's funny.
Society at large is becoming more and more anti-intellectual.
Jerry Springer and The Osbournes have attracted huge audiences.
Innumeracy and scientific illiteracy are high and going higher.
On the other hand, books and newspapers are downright cheap. A
great many good textbooks in ageless subjects like reading are
out of copyright, and could be reprinted for next to nothing.
More recent texts which have fallen from favor could be obtained
and fixed up for the price of some bindery work.
The opportunity for some hitherto-disadvantaged group to leap to the
top of the educational achievement ladder has never been better!
If some poor, downtrodden community (such as Benton Harbor, or
even Detroit) had the will and the cohesion to insist on education
and hold it up as one of their primary values, they could vault right
over the majority culture and put themselves just below the elite.
It probably wouldn't take more than half a generation. Heck, it
could have been done at any time in the last 30-40 years.
This has not happened, and the word I hear is that bookish students
in many minority communities have to conceal their capabilities to
avoid being harassed. Even more so than in the majority culture,
these people devalue education.
Entitlements won't fix this. Change must come from within.
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scott
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response 44 of 113:
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Jun 29 06:47 UTC 2003 |
"Change must come from within."
Er, so we should just fence them in and hope for the best? A lot of
anti-intellectual messages are coming in, from TV and other sources - what's
needed is not pretending that it's their own fault, but instead figuring out
some way to push an "education is cool" message in via the same channels.
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jaklumen
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response 45 of 113:
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Jun 29 08:18 UTC 2003 |
resp:43 there is much more to this, I'm sure, than meets the eye. Is
there any sort of class distinction or snobbery to intellectualism?
I'm assuming the myth that is being perpetrated here
is 'intellectualism is establishment, old money, traditionalist,
stuffy'... etc. The rudeness and cheap thrill that seems to be pushed
today in society seemed to be packaged in the whole 'be a rebel'
albeit 'be a rebel and get with the program' deal.
I don't think it helps too much that disappointing voices about
education come from the press, at least, the mainstream press. You'd
think it would come from the youth, Hollywood, or someone
anointed 'cool.' Ergo, Scott, although there are anti-intellectual
messages from the media, at times, part of it wonders at times about
it, at least as far as schooling is concerned. I
think 'entertainment' should maybe be a little bit more interested.
But strangely enough, it should be noted that the media *does* have
more intellectual offerings in some areas. We have A&E, the Discovery
Channel, the History Channel, et al for a start. Documentaries are
effective at presenting certain types of information, for example.
You'd find intellectualism in the weirdest sorts of places, albeit,
again, in small niches. I'm a gamer by one hobby, and one group of
games I play draws on a wealth of folklore, pop culture, history, and
many real references for material in its game material. Some of the
game books are almost mini-novels in their complexity.
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janc
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response 46 of 113:
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Jun 29 12:07 UTC 2003 |
I had the impression that part of the split on the decision was also based
on the fact that law schools play a bit of a different role than, say,
engineering schools. Law school is one of the key routes into politics.
As such it is important for the survival of democracy in America that
people of all ethnicities feel that the routes to power are open to them.
Something like 25% of all senators are graduates of elite law schools.
The percentage in the judicial branch is even higher. All of the current
supreme court justices are graduates of elite law schools. Admissions to
those law schools are highly competitive. Many more qualified applicants
apply than can be admitted.
So the argument works much the same way as the one Larry gave for medical
school.
(1) There is a compelling social interest in diversity.
(2) There is a glut of applicants.
I think that under such circumstances, affirmative action works very well
and serves an important need.
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jmsaul
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response 47 of 113:
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Jun 29 15:05 UTC 2003 |
However, to get into an elite law school, you need to have gone to a very good
undergraduate school...
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slynne
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response 48 of 113:
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Jun 29 15:44 UTC 2003 |
I can think of one or two people who have gone to elite graduate
schools (even UofM law school) after completing their undergrad at a
second tier state university (such as EMU).
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rcurl
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response 49 of 113:
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Jun 29 18:33 UTC 2003 |
Since public education is a State function, there should be a much greater
effort to ensure that all public schools have the facilities they need and
the well trained (and paid) teachers. Education (and diversity) would be well
served by eliminating the disparity of quality among public schools.
That said...I recognize that it will still be more difficult to maintain the
level of operation of such schools in areas of poverty than in areas of
plenty, which would call for some more resources and effort (and inducements)
in the more difficult to manage school districts. But I think this would go
further to attain the desired equality of education, and hence access to to
later higher education, than just treating higher-education access alone.
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klg
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response 50 of 113:
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Jun 29 19:47 UTC 2003 |
Does Mr. rcurl have in mind the model where the public schools in the D.
of C. ought to consume the highest level of resources in the nation as
compared to the level of resources expended in some of the obscure
western states - the result being the elimination of the disparity in
educational performance among the two areas - or is he once again
displaying his droll sense of humor?
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russ
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response 51 of 113:
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Jun 29 23:51 UTC 2003 |
Re #44: Nice straw-man, but no. We have to insist that any demand
for help to compensate for past discrimination has to come in return
for effort. It's the difference between having a chance to get to
the top of the mountain, and the chance to be a mountain climber;
the person who demands a ride up in a Jeep because they were once
forbidden to climb still won't be a climber.
Re #46: If you were looking for a way that disaster could strike
the USA, groupthink caused by the narrow experience pool of those
few elite schools is a scary possibility. It's also one way that
a self-perpetuating aristocracy could be set up - the basis for it
exists right now.
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jmsaul
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response 52 of 113:
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Jun 30 00:52 UTC 2003 |
Re #48: There are exceptions to every rule, but you have to admit that
going to a really good undergrad school helps a lot.
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slynne
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response 53 of 113:
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Jun 30 01:22 UTC 2003 |
sure, I'll admit that.
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lk
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response 54 of 113:
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Jun 30 03:17 UTC 2003 |
Jan in #46 talked right around society's biggest problem: politicians
are lawyers, not engineers. (:
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polygon
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response 55 of 113:
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Jun 30 16:06 UTC 2003 |
Re 54. We have had a significant number of engineer politicians, and
I'm not sure they're really any better as a group than lawyer politicians.
Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter were engineers, no?
The upcoming new version of PoliticalGraveyard.com will have pages listing
politicians in various occupational categories. Lawyers, physicians,
bankers, dentists, farmers, automobile dealers, florists, veterinarians,
architects, funeral directors, engineers, hardware and implement dealers,
hoteliers, and many others.
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gull
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response 56 of 113:
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Jun 30 16:38 UTC 2003 |
Re #51: Isn't that the idea between things like legacy status, and
eliminating the inheritance tax? Ensuring that rich families stay rich,
and the poor stay poor?
Re #54: I think complaining that politicians are mainly lawyers is a bit
like complaining that the people who write building codes are mainly
engineers. The basic implement politicians work with is law, so it
makes sense that they'd come from a lawyer background. A basic
understanding of law is essential to being an effective politician.
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tpryan
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response 57 of 113:
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Jun 30 17:36 UTC 2003 |
re 54,55 That's why Archie Bunker crooned "Mister, we need
a man like Hebert Hoover again".
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klg
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response 58 of 113:
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Jul 1 00:46 UTC 2003 |
re: "#56 (gull): The basic implement politicians work with is law, so
it makes sense that they'd come from a lawyer background. A basic
understanding of law is essential to being an effective politician."
Which explains why the President is a businessman, the Speaker of the
House is a teacher, and the Majority Leader of the Senate is a
physician.
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janc
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response 59 of 113:
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Jul 1 01:21 UTC 2003 |
In a lawyer's training, the final arbitrator of what is good is a jury.
If you can convince a jury that you are right, then you are right.
This is to a large extent true even for lawyers who never argue cases in
front of juries. A contract is well-written if it would hold up in court.
And so on. For a lawyer, an idea has merit if you can convince other
people that it has merit.
For an engineer, the final arbitator of what is good is the real world.
If have a theory or a design, then you build it, and see if it works.
An idea has merit if and only if you can make it work in the real world.
So we set them each to writing laws and setting social policy.
The engineer thinks up an idea for policy, and then she gets stuck.
She can't just send it off to manufacturing to build a prototype.
She's got to get out and convince a lot of people that her idea is
a good one before she can get it implemented in a democratic society.
To do this she needs to stop thinking like an engineer and start thinking
like a lawyer.
The lawyer hasn't got this problem. He selects a policy that he likes
and that he thinks he can convince to the public to support. He sells,
it and with luck gets his law passed. He is obviously a much more
effective politician than the engineer was. Only problem is that
once the lawyer has got his law passed, he thinks he's won his case.
He throws a victory party and moves on to the next law.
If the engineer had ever managed to get her law passed, she probably
would have remembered to stop and look to see if it actually worked
once implemented. Maybe spent some time fine tuning it. However,
her efforts would have been largely foiled by the fact that it is
almost impossible to meaninfully measure the effectiveness of nearly
any service that the government supplies. Telling if a tax cut is
working is a lot harder than telling if a garage door opener is working.
So I think lawyers make much more effective politicians than engineers.
What they get done may or may not be good for anything, but that's
certainly more likely to get you re-elected than total deadlock.
There is such a thing as a one-man engineering shop, and a one-man
law firm. If there is such a thing as a one-man government, then it
is thankfully a rare item. In real life we don't have to pick between
lawyer mind-sets and engineer mind-sets. There is room in government
for an awful lot of people with an awful lot of minds. Thank Gosh.
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mdw
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response 60 of 113:
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Jul 1 01:52 UTC 2003 |
The main problem with lawyers for politicians is well, they think like
lawyers. I'm not entirely sure a lot of lawyers is any improvement over
just one.
To some extent, I think politicians work like movie producers: they all
want to steal someone else's idea, preferably one that worked somewhere
recently. So tax cuts work something like cowboy movies or SF movies;
somebody once made a killing selling tax cuts to the public, and now
everybody wants to get in on the act.
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russ
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response 61 of 113:
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Jul 1 02:30 UTC 2003 |
Re #56 para 1: Amen, brother.
Re #56 para 2: Except that the politicians are writing laws about
engineering, and medicine, and all kinds of things where the study
of law confers no understanding of the various gotchas which apply.
Given a choice between an expert in the subtleties of law who
approaches, say, pollution control without subtleties, and an
expert in pollution control who approaches law in a direct fashion,
I think I'd rather have the clean air & water acts drafted by the
latter. The points of law can be cleaned up in the courts based
on legislative intent, but if the author misses a way that someone
can shift pollution without cleaning it up (or is overly prescriptive
about how something is to be done rather than what is to be done),
the result can easily be worse than no law at all.
The dearth of broader experience (than law and/or "public service")
among our political class is a big problem for the nation.
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rcurl
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response 62 of 113:
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Jul 1 03:40 UTC 2003 |
Re #58: that is very telling: the businessmen, the teacher, and the physician,
were promoted to positions in which they don't usually write legislation.
They left the lawyers to write legislation.
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gull
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response 63 of 113:
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Jul 1 13:26 UTC 2003 |
Re #61: That's why politicians need advisors who understand things like
engineering, and medicine. That's also why people who have backgrounds
in things like engineering tend to be appointed to regulatory positions.
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janc
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response 64 of 113:
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Jul 1 13:46 UTC 2003 |
I grew up among physicians and observed even as a kid that doctors
make *terrible* engineers. Doctors generally work on human bodies.
The human body, is so complex that you can't really understand many
of it's processes. You have to do things by trial and error and see
what works. But you are working in what is usually an essentially
benign environment. A good surgeon doesn't try to carefully stitch
everything back together exactly right. He gets things close enough and
gets the incision closed quickly (reducing chance of infection) trusting
that the natural healing processes of the body will fix all the details.
A lot of medical processes are like that - attack the patient with knives
and poisons, trusting the body to fix all the collateral damage you do.
Doctors don't heal people - they just try to facilitate the body's
natural healing.
For engineering, proceeding without a thorough understanding of the
underlying principles is undesirable (though very often necessary), but
getting things approximately right and trusting that things will work
out the rest of the way hardly ever works. I've seen brick walls built
by physicians. It's not a pretty sight. The mind set is similarly bad
for flying aircraft - I've heard small private aircraft refered to as
"Doctor Killers". If you are riding in a plane, pick one piloted by an
engineer over one piloted by a doctor any day. Doctors just don't have
a sufficiently firm grasp of Murphy's Law.
I think doctors might make better politicians than engineers.
Like engineers, they are in the habit of judging the value of their
procedures by the real world outcome. They are a bit better a
dealing with poorly understood systems and outcomes that are not
always subjectively measurable (though doctors are much better at
treating broken limbs than they are at treating general feelings of
malease). Social systems do have certain abilities to naturally heal.
People implementing a law often modify it to make it make more sense
(eg, there are lots of laws the police quietly agree not to enforce).
Having faith in this process might be better for a lawmaker than trying
to get all the details exactly perfect in the legislation.
However, like engineers, physicians aren't really used to marketing their
ideas to the general public. They are used to having people come to them
as penitents, pleading for help, and they are used to their opinions being
accepted at face value with little question by most of their customers.
This is not a very good starting point for getting legislation passed.
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janc
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response 65 of 113:
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Jul 1 14:13 UTC 2003 |
For a businessman, the value of an idea is ultimately determined by whether
it makes a profit when implemented. Success is measured in dollars.
(Yes, I know real businessmen think about other things too, just as real
lawyers and physicians and engineers are more complex that the profiles
I mention. I'm trying to describe the distinctive thought processes needed
for success in different fields. Considerations of ethics and social
responsibility have a place in *any* profession, and all professions have
people all over the ethical spectrum.)
Hmm...I'm having a hard time with this one. Part of the problem is that
*everyone* is a businessman. We all need to bring in as much or more money
than we spend. It's a major consideration in all our lives. We all market
our services.
Businessman tend to operate in very hierarchical structures. The larger
supply of businessmen in the Republican party is probably why it is more
hierarchically structured. People used to a hierarchical command structure
might get by OK in the white house (up to a point) but the legislature is
rather a different deal.
On the other hand, many businessmen are salesmen - used to going out and
talking to masses of people and trying to convince them to buy a product.
Being able to convince people to buy a product isn't that different from
being able to convince them to support an idea or a candidate.
I'm just not sure how you actually apply the idea of profit to a government.
It's a dubious fit.
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jazz
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response 66 of 113:
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Jul 1 14:42 UTC 2003 |
There's also what seems to be a great deal more commonality of interest
in the Republican party.
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gull
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response 67 of 113:
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Jul 1 15:01 UTC 2003 |
Re #64: I always figured that the reason physicians tended to have
aircraft accidents is that they had a lot of money. Just because you
can afford a high-performance aircraft doesn't mean you can fly one
well. I've heard the term "Doctor Killer" used specifically to refer to
the Beech Baroness, which is a fast, roomy single-engine plane that
apparently has some unfortunate stall characteristics that can make it
tricky to fly.
Re #66: I don't know if there's more commonality of interest, or if they
just do a better job keeping everyone in line. The Republican party
does not tolerate moderates well.
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