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B y the end of the 20th century, we were
awash in talk of the new "knowledge
economy" where a beckoning cornucopia
of golden opportunities supposedly awaited
those who had the appropriately sophisticated
training to take advantage of them.
Reality turned out to be a bit different,
however, in the sense that some research and
development advances not only eliminated
potential new jobs due to breakthroughs
in automation, but facilitated the "dumb
ing down" of other processes to the point
that often only a close acquaintance with
the workings of a specialized piece of equip
ment was required of the workers themselves.
Hence, while the old theory that the key to
industrial expansion was a vastly improved
program of public education still got its share
of lip service, its actual connection to real
ity became ever more resistant to empirical
verification.
It's true enough that the Department
of Commerce estimated last week that the
higher wage "STEM" (Science, Technology,
Engineering, and Mathematics) jobs that are
supposedly "driving
our nation's innova
tion and competitive
ness" are projected to
grow by 17 percent
between 2008 and
2018. However, the
Bureau of Labor
Statistics reported
some time back that
nearly 60 percent of the jobs likely to be
available over that same period require only
varying amounts of on-the-job-training for
those who will fill them. Beyond that, BLS
projections show that nearly 40 percent of all
these anticipated jobs paid a median wage of
$21,320 in 2008, and nearly 60 percent paid
less than $33,000 per year. This means that
the workers who held them were in the bottom
50 percent of all earners in that year, and 90
percent of them likely did not make enough
even to require them to pay income tax.
If I hear one more born-on-third-base
bastard complain that "half the people" don't
pay any in ome tax at all. I'm going to sug
gest that folks who depend on golf clubs for
their calluses are welcome to sample how the
"slackers" in the bottom half live anytime they
choose. For starters, they might just consult
the New York Times columnist Charles Blow's
impressions of the "working poor" he met on a
recent excursion to our neck of the woods.
They are honest people who do honest
work—crack-the-bones work; lift-it, chop-
it, empty-it, glide-it-in-smooth work;
feel-the-flames-up-close work; crawl-
down-in-there work— things that no one
wants to do but that someone must.
...But they're the ones less talked
about—either not glamorous enough
or rancorous enough. They are the
ones without champions, waiting for
Democrats to gather the gumption to
defend the working poor with the same
ferocity with which Republicans protect
the filthy rich, waiting for a tomorrow
that never comes.
You tell 'em, Charlie! I'm so mad I can't.
At least the Republicans try to serve their
true constituency. For the Democrats, "work
ing people" seems to apply solely to union
members who already hold the best blue-collar
jobs out there, while the folks who are slaving
away everyday and still can't make ends meet
simply don't merit their attention.
Before I go careening wildly down that
well-worn path again, let's return to another
consideration raised by these employment pro
jections, i.e., the real importance of education
in contemporary America. Even we'uns stuck
up here in the ivory tower have been under
fire for some time now from folks who see
little need for superfluous little trappings like
literature and history when the real point of
getting a college degree should be preparing
young people for lucrative careers in infor
mation systems or risk management or some
similarly enticing field. First of all, this argu
ment overlooks the fact that although most
higher salary positions do require a minimum
of a bachelor's degree, a good number of them
now seem specialized enough that companies
may be less concerned than they once were
about applicants' undergraduate majors per
se because they, too, will effectively "O.J.T."
many of their new entry-leve t hires. In this
scenario, the ability to master large amounts
of information quickly
and to communicate
that mastery effec
tively seems much
more important now
than it once did.
Among humanities
graduates who have
found their place in
the corporate world,
I point with special pride to a certain history
major whose interpretive and communication
skills have been a major asset to his career in
information security. (Good going, Son, your
Mama and I are real proud, and besides, we
already had plans for the spare bedroom.)
It's one thing to posit the basic functional
ity of education (broadly defined) even in a
more specialized vocational setting, however,
and another to take a stand for its intrinsic
importance regardless of one's job description.
Let me explain that I do not rise here to advo
cate a universal end game in which absolutely
everyone winds up with at least a baccalaure
ate degree. While an educated person should
be able (not to mention willing and eager) to
absorb and interpret information effectively,
it is that capacity and inclination, more so
than the acquisition of the information itself,
that strikes me as the real mark of being
"educated."
With due respect to all the long-suffering
souls who saw me through my undergraduate
and graduate schooling, I was probably almost
as educated in terms of that ability and desire
to learn when I graduated from high school in
1965 as I was when the fools gave me a PhD
10 years later.
I'll grant you that I was exceedingly fortu
nate in my high school experience, especially
given my ultimate choice of career, but I
would have been no less fortunate in other
respects had I simply stepped directly onto
the assembly line at a local plant. Indeed, in
the latter case, I might've had even greater
reason to thank my high school teachers,
for while an appreciation for Shakespeare or
Coleridge or Wolfe or just for the importance
of ideas in general doesn't necessarily help
with running a machine, it can prevent what
ever we do for a living from completely defin
ing who we are.
James C. Cobb
For the Democrats, “working
people” seems to apply solely
to union members who already
hold the best blue-collar jobs
out there...
6 FLAGPOLE.COM-JULY 27. 2011
