The cult of ignorance, anti-intellectualism and "dumbing down"

Sporky

Ravenous said:

Evilmags said:

Last poll suggests only 7% of teachers vote Tory. Compares to 42% of the electorate quite badly...

Does this suggest a problem with teachers, or a problem with how tories treat teachers?

Depends whether you're left wing or right wing.

Or just a filthy skid-mark across the political compass.

Ravenous

I was asking a serious question actually. But I suppose asking a serious question here is pointless...

Sporky

It was a semi-serious answer.

Look at all the people arguing over whether the media (especially the BBC) is biased - their view of each outlet depends significantly on their own political position.

Clarky

chillidoggy said:

Anti-knowledge. Isn't that just ignorance?

I think it's fear..
fear of failure.. 
we all like to think we are good, smart people.. people of value etc..
failure is embarrassing… and many people have a rather high opinion of themselves..
it's easier to avoid the test and make fun of people than it is to actually do it..

it's not just knowledge either..
it's like being a muso too..
some folks get out there, up on stage.. playing the music they created themselves..
and make mistakes up there too
at the weekend I dropped an absolute bomb of a bumber at a festival in front of thousands - but so what.. shit happens
others that don't get out there or don't play at all can be quick to point and laugh and criticise [write scathing reviews]..

'armchair people' never fail at anything because they never set out to pass

Clarky

Sporky said:

Ravenous said:

Evilmags said:

Last poll suggests only 7% of teachers vote Tory. Compares to 42% of the electorate quite badly...

Does this suggest a problem with teachers, or a problem with how tories treat teachers?

Depends whether you're left wing or right wing.

Or just a filthy skid-mark across the political compass.

If I knew there'd be a skid mark to tick in the election I'd have ticked it..

Ravenous

Evilmags said:

Last poll suggests only 7% of teachers vote Tory. Compares to 42% of the electorate quite badly...

@Evilmags can you let us know exactly where you saw this?

Just nosey about the people who paid for it, whether it includes provate schools, etc...

Evilmags

Ravenous said:

Evilmags said:

Last poll suggests only 7% of teachers vote Tory. Compares to 42% of the electorate quite badly...

@Evilmags can you let us know exactly where you saw this?

Just nosey about the people who paid for it, whether it includes provate schools, etc...

State schools. Telegraph article. 

holnrew

scrumhalf said:

littlegreenman said:

scrumhalf said:

And don't get me started on "rights". The whole debate has becvome perverted - a right is something enjoyed by someone who performs a duty, that seems to have become lost.

What duty does one have to perform to enjoy basic human "rights"? And how would a newborn go about doing this?

A newborn baby is incapable of performing any duties and is under the age of legal responsibility.

What are "basic human rights"?

So it's okay to circumcise them?

littlegreenman

scrumhalf said:

littlegreenman said:

scrumhalf said:

And don't get me started on "rights". The whole debate has becvome perverted - a right is something enjoyed by someone who performs a duty, that seems to have become lost.

What duty does one have to perform to enjoy basic human "rights"? And how would a newborn go about doing this?

A newborn baby is incapable of performing any duties and is under the age of legal responsibility.

What are "basic human rights"?

At what age do you need to start performing duties to be able to acquire rights? The age of criminal responsibility being 10 would that do? No rights until you're 10 years old and performing your duty, but what duty exactly were you referring ?

Basic human rights? Oh, I dunno, not being in fear for your life, shelter, food, that kind of stuff. Which is of course denied to people all over the planet, but shouldn't be.

Drew_TNBD

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/young-people-conservatives-labour-corbyn-scilenced-by-socialists-a7843806.html

Bork

strtdv said:

I suppose one problem of a meritocracy is that merit breeds merit.

Only you don't live in a meritocracy, the UK has become increasingly an oligarchy - this will continue now that the UK is leaving the EU.  

Many socialist systems that helped baby boomers get educated, the NHS, the fantasic pensions, all that public infrastructure that offered benefits to everyone is slowly being dismantled and sold off by the people it benefitted most. 

Baby boomer generation members were able to buy property at a much lower percentage of income, they had much lower costs regarding education (again, as a percentage of income) and as there were fewer graduates the benefits of those reduced costs were easier and faster access to well/better paid jobs.

These self-same people label the current generation as overly entitled snowflakes wanting the moon on a stick - not realising they have two moons on solid gold sticks sitting spare in the basement in case the current moon on a stick breaks. Yes some hard working types managed to go poverty to wealth - the poverty gap is something that has widened since then... 

This. 

I would like to think that as the UK becomes a less pleasant place to live, the demand for property will go down as well.  But I'm not holding my breath if it's tucked away in companies.  Good way to get out of inheritance tax BTW - transfer properties into companies and make your beneficiaries directors ahead of your demise.

darthed1981

Myranda said:

These self-same people label the current generation as overly entitled snowflakes wanting the moon on a stick - not realising they have two moons on solid gold sticks sitting spare in the basement in case the current moon on a stick breaks. 

Yes!! This times 1000

Drew_TNBD

Can someone please explain what gripes about housing and resources actually has to do with the topic of the thread - which is anti-intellectualism?

Evilmags

Drew_TNBD said:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/young-people-conservatives-labour-corbyn-scilenced-by-socialists-a7843806.html

Daughter says uni is full of ridiculous SJWs, especially the NHS morons. Lecturers coming into a politics class with Jeremy Corbyn t shirts ect. None of them have the brains to complain about 9 hours a week face time for 9 grand a year though. She also says that bullying of those who air a non left wing view is commonplace and if you are anti Corbyn shutting up saves a lot of hassle. 

crunchman

Ravenous said:

Evilmags said:

Last poll suggests only 7% of teachers vote Tory. Compares to 42% of the electorate quite badly...

Does this suggest a problem with teachers, or a problem with how tories treat teachers?

Good question.   A lot of it is the latter.

Given that teachers have had either a pay freeze, or a rise limited to 1% since 2010, you can understand why.  They also changed the teachers pension scheme for the worse in 2015.

Having said that, for a lot of teachers it's not just about their personal gain.  They see the lack of funding for buying books, and the state of the facilities etc.  My wife is a teacher, and she regularly spends her own money buying stuff at boot sales and taking it into school.  That's just wrong.  Schools should be funded properly.

Edit:  They also have a lot of special needs kids in the school my wife teaches at, and the problems getting support for them are horrific. It's never been good under any government, but it's got a lot worse recently.  It's seeing this kind of stuff on a day to day basis that means that teachers mostly vote for other parties - more so than their personal financial losses from Tory policies.

digitalscream

crunchman said:

Ravenous said:

Evilmags said:

Last poll suggests only 7% of teachers vote Tory. Compares to 42% of the electorate quite badly...

Does this suggest a problem with teachers, or a problem with how tories treat teachers?

Good question.   A lot of it is the latter.

Given that teachers have had either a pay freeze, or a rise limited to 1% since 2010, you can understand why.  They also changed the teachers pension scheme for the worse in 2015.

Having said that, for a lot of teachers it's not just about their personal gain.  They see the lack of funding for buying books, and the state of the facilities etc.  My wife is a teacher, and she regularly spends her own money buying stuff at boot sales and taking it into school.  That's just wrong.  Schools should be funded properly.

Edit:  They also have a lot of special needs kids in the school my wife teaches at, and the problems getting support for them are horrific. It's never been good under any government, but it's got a lot worse recently.  It's seeing this kind of stuff on a day to day basis that means that teachers mostly vote for other parties - more so than their personal financial losses from Tory policies.

The thing is...I know a few teachers, and not one of them has been able to answer these two questions positively:

"Was it any better under 8 years of Labour, then? How so?"

I don't know whether it was or not - I'm not a teacher - so it was a genuine question. I'd still like to know.

Drew_TNBD

Myranda said:

Baby boomer generation members were able to buy property at a much lower percentage of income, they had much lower costs regarding education (again, as a percentage of income) and as there were fewer graduates the benefits of those reduced costs were easier and faster access to well/better paid jobs.

These self-same people label the current generation as overly entitled snowflakes wanting the moon on a stick - not realising they have two moons on solid gold sticks sitting spare in the basement in case the current moon on a stick breaks. Yes some hard working types managed to go poverty to wealth - the poverty gap is something that has widened since then... 

I was able to parse that from his words and words that have been said before in a variety of places...

It's really not difficult to understand - it was a different world back then. Technology and the internet hadn't completely decimated the opportunities that people had. You speak as if back in the day the boomer generation had it easy and didn't have to work hard - they fucking did!! And at great cost.

What we call hard work today looks absolutely nothing like what hard work was in the 50's and 60's.

You're making a privilege argument which does not account for all shapes and sizes. It's as much of a broad-brush treatment of the boomer generation as you're accusing them. Except I'm not a boomer. I'm 32, and I think lots of my generation have ludicrous expectations and demands married to a lazy work ethic.

And poverty worldwide has massively decreased over time.

https://ourworldindata.org/slides/world-poverty/#/title-slide
https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty/
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-poverty-people.html
http://data.worldbank.org/topic/poverty

If you look at the UK statistics, in *some* niche areas the poverty gap has widened, but as a general trend the trajectory is downwards for at least the past 100 years.

Evilmags

Maybee if they stopped complaining about Micheal Gove (who put the education budget up every year and who's reforms took England d's educational outcomes above Scotland's for the first time in decades) they wouldn't have had a few years of cuts under his successors. (Fact checked against the UK education budget, which is a massive 85 billion pounds). Personally I think we should stop pretending that 50% of the population benefit from a degree, move the lower half of the university table back to being vocational technical colleges  (saving a fortune in funding very mediocre academic output in the process). More engineers and less gender studies graduates might actually help the economy a bit. Their are not many jobs as Guardian writers after all. When 90% of published papers never get referenced in subsequent work you know their is a quality problem. 

Lewy

Evilmags said:

When 90% of published papers never get referenced in subsequent work you know their is a quality problem. 

Citation needed.

That was a joke. For what it's worth, I don't think it's a quality issue, it's a demand issue.

12% of medicine articles are not cited, compared to about 82% for the humanities. It’s 27% for natural sciences and 32% for social sciences. 

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.5250.pdf

The uncited articles aren't necessary shit, they're likely just not of any particular interest or value to anyone other than the author, who had to write them to get their PhD in *insert humanities subject here*

crunchman

@Evilmags I'd agree with you that we have too many people doing useless degrees and there are big savings to be made there, but the school system is really struggling for money.

I suspect some of that is down to the fact that a lot of the "education" budget is swallowed up by the expensive PFI contracts that Labour signed up to in the early 2000s.

Some of it is also demographics.  There has been a bit of a baby boom.  The primary school my daughters are at has gone from one form entry to two form entry.  There is another primary in our local area (within a mile or so) that has expanded as well.  There is also a new "free school" primary that has opened around a mile and a half away, and a new "free school" secondary that that has opened as well.  There is another secondary 2 and half miles away that is expanding.

Free schools probably haven't helped either.  They do cost more.  Justine Greening admitted as much the other day with her education funding announcement.  She's partly paying for that by scrapping 30 new free schools that will now be conventional schools instead.

The demographics issue isn't just a simple numbers thing either.  A lot of the additional pupils are children of immigrants which brings additional costs.  If I remember correctly, about a third (or possibly even half) of the kids at my wife's school do not speak English at home and need extra support - which has been removed.  The LEA in their borough has shut down it's support team for ESL kids as a cost saving.

Given the demographic situation, I'd be very interested to see the figures on a per capita basis, rather than an absolute basis.  Add in the ideologically driven costs on free schools, and the PFI hangovers from Labour, and there is a massive funding problem in schools.